Cruel Fortune (Cruel 2)

The elevator dinged then, announcing his sisters, as if summoned from her proclamation.

“Here’s trouble,” Lewis muttered.

Charlotte and Etta appeared around the corner, chatting about something that had happened earlier. Charlotte had her hand laced with her date, a man who made even her almost look short. He was tall and trim with black skin and close-cropped hair. He was dressed down in jeans and a T-shirt that revealed the tattoos spiraling up his left arm.

“Natalie!” Etta said excitedly. She was in black jeans that were torn at the knee, a skintight black tank top, and a cherry-red leather jacket.

She pulled me into a hug, and then Charlotte hugged me, too.

“This is my boyfriend, Brodie,” Charlotte said.

Etta snorted.

“Shut it, Ettie.”

“No offense, but I really can’t keep them all apart. Is this the one at Harvard or the I’m back for break boyfriend?”

Charlotte narrowed her eyes. “I hate you.”

Brodie was either oblivious or didn’t care, and Charlotte carted him off to the bar. Etta came to stand beside me, taking Lewis’s discarded wine glass and draining the rest of it.

“I wasn’t finished with that,” Lewis said.

“Guess you are now.”

“Brat.”

“Jerk.”

“Children,” Nina said with an exaggerated sigh. “All my babies in one place, and a headache is already blooming.”

“I already hear your mother is frustrated. Everyone must be home,” a male voice said from the direction of the stairs.

I’d been so wrapped up in meeting Lewis’s mother that I hadn’t thought that much about his father. I didn’t know much about Edward Warren, except that he had come from a long, long line of wealthy Warrens. I didn’t even know that he was white until he walked into the kitchen with all the presence of a hurricane and wrapped his arms around his wife. He planted a kiss on the space between her neck and shoulder.

“Don’t let them stress you out, dove,” he murmured against her skin.

Nina smiled like a lovesick puppy and turned into her husband. “Edward.” She breathed his name like they were teenagers again. The love quite evident in both of their eyes.

“Ew, Mom. Can we not?” Etta grumbled.

“God, are they making out again?” Charlotte asked, striding back into the kitchen with Brodie following.

Nina laughed and took a half-step from her husband. “Edward, you remember Brodie, right?”

“Ah, yes.” Edward held his hand out, and Brodie shook it.

“Sir,” he said with a head nod.

“And Lewis’s girlfriend, Natalie.”

He turned his stern face toward me. He looked so much like Lewis but twenty years older. Handsome, regal even, and rather serious.

He held his hand out to me then. “Nice to meet you, Natalie.”

“You, too.” I swallowed and shook his hand.

There was nothing off-putting about him. Yet I could feel his judgment on me like a weight. Maybe it was just his intimidating presence, but I felt like he had already made up his mind about me.

“Well, are we all ready here, Nina?”

“Pretty much. Etta, help with drinks. Lewis, start carrying everything to the table. Charlotte, show Natalie and Brodie where to sit.”

Everyone jumped into action. I took my seat in the middle of the table between Nina and Charlotte. Lewis took the chair opposite of me with Brodie and Etta on either side. And Edward took his place at the head of the table. Nina said grace, and then we all partook of her incredible food.

“So, Natalie, how did you and Lewis meet?” Nina asked.

My gaze swept up to his. Oh, jeez, I hadn’t thought about these sorts of questions.

“Um, we met last year when I was in the city.”

“I thought I’d already told you that. We met in the Hamptons. I took her on the yacht.”

Nina nodded. “Right. Right. I remember now.”

“You took her on the yacht, and it took you a year to catch her,” Edward said with a raised eyebrow. “Maybe I need to upgrade.”

The girls laughed, and I tried to force out a laugh, too, but it sounded hollow. No reason to explain why the yacht hadn’t worked and the year had passed. Lewis gave me a sympathetic nod.

“How did you two meet?” I asked Nina to change the subject.

“Oh, that old story,” she said.

“Tell it, Mom,” Etta said. “It’s our favorite.”

“If you insist.”

“We do,” Charlotte agreed.

“Well, I was eighteen and a freshman at Harvard. I came from a banking family in Boston. So, it was home territory for me. I was pre-law, and your father was business, but we had a class together.”

“Where you kicked his ass,” Etta butted in.

“She always did,” Edward said with a loving smile.

“And well, one thing led to another, and I became pregnant with Lewis. Everyone told us we were crazy for keeping him, but it was love at first sight. We eloped. I took a year off of school. But everyone still said that I’d never make it because I’d had a baby in college. That Edward and I weren’t paired.” She rolled her eyes. “A lot of people didn’t want to see two successful people together, period. When you add in the fact that it was an interracial couple, it was even worse. But we proved them wrong. I still finished college and got a law degree. Then once I was a partner at my firm, we decided to have Charlotte and Etta. Proving everyone wrong again.”