Cruel Fortune (Cruel 2)

“Yeah, creepy as fuck. Which is just so weird. I normally pick up on the creep vibe. And he really didn’t have it.”

I closed my eyes against that pain. “No, no, he didn’t.”

“I’m sorry. Let’s go back to cutting up Katherine. She’s easier to deal with than Lewis.”

“Maybe we should move to something stronger,” I suggested, setting my container of icing down.

“I’m down,” Amy said. “Let me see what I have.”

I reached for my phone, which I’d been mostly avoiding since everything had blown up. I’d only been checking to see if there was news from Caroline or Gillian. I’d had to suspend my Crew account because of the surge in activity. And the number of comments calling me a liar, fake, whore, bitch and every other imaginable dirty name.

I had a few texts from Melanie checking in, which I ignored. I’d invite her for a drink if she wasn’t attached at the hip to Michael. I scrolled to the next one from Jane.

Thinking about you! Please, please, please come back. New Year’s won’t be the same without you.

I sighed. Another thing to decide.

I’d clicked off the message, deciding not to answer, when my phone rang. I saw that it was Caroline and sat up straight before answering.

“Hey, Caroline,” I said. I hadn’t expected this.

“Natalie, I’m glad that you answered.”

“I’m surprised to hear from you. I thought you were in San Francisco with your son.”

“I am. But I just heard from Gillian.”

“You did?” I asked with dread at the way she’d said that. “I thought Warren was out until after the New Year.”

“Normally, yes, but she came back early. And I’m sorry, Natalie, it looks like she’s going to pass on the literary novel.”

My stomach sank. “She is?”

“Yeah, I didn’t want you to find out in an email. I know what you’ve been going through and thought it’d be better to hear it from me.”

“That’s…wow. She made it seem like she’d take anything I gave her.”

“I don’t think it had anything to do with what she wanted.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Well, after your pen name was announced, it seems that the company doesn’t think that someone who writes…mainstream tell-alls can produce the kind of literary novels they’re looking for.”

“Wait,” I said, standing abruptly. “You’re saying that…because I wrote Bet on It, which is still selling like crazy, I somehow can’t write any other kind of book?”

“That is how it was presented to me.”

“That’s bullshit,” I spat.

Caroline cleared her throat. “Between you and me, Natalie?”

“Yeah,” I muttered. Fury coursing through me at the ridiculous explanation.

“Gillian hinted that the rejection came from above her.”

“Okay…”

“All the way from the top.”

My heart stopped beating. “Lewis.”

“She didn’t say that outright, but that was my first guess, considering you told me about your unfortunate breakup.”

I blinked. I couldn’t believe this. Lewis had…blocked my book from publication. He had stripped me of the thing he knew that I loved most. The books he’d claimed to love as much as I did.

No.

No, he couldn’t do that.

But, of course, he could.

His family owned the fucking company. He could do whatever he pleased. Just like every other Upper East Sider. They had all the control, all the money, all the power. They were untouchable. And they could destroy my world in the blink of an eye.

Caroline was still rattling on. Telling me that she still planned to submit the book to other publishers. How it might be a good idea to choose another pen name for the literary novel if I still wanted to write it. Or maybe it was better to go back to Olivia and own that brand.

I nodded and said all the right things at the right times, but I wasn’t really listening. When I hung up, I stared blankly forward. Not with shock. No, something darker. Something that crawled out of that deep, dark place that I’d succumbed to six days ago. A place I hadn’t known existed, and I didn’t know who I would become if I unleashed it.

But I did know that I was done playing by my own moral code.

Done playing by the rules.

They were not going to get away with what they had done to me. They were not going to walk free and clean just because they had money and power. I had told Katherine I would make her pay for what she had done, and I had meant it. But it wasn’t until this moment that I knew that I would not stop until I got my revenge.

Until they all burned.

TO BE CONTINUED