Cruel Legacy (Cruel 3)

Except my trio. We all stared at Katherine, waiting.

“She is not welcome,” Harmony muttered under her breath.

“It looks like she has an invitation though,” Jane pointed out.

“Maybe it was a mix-up,” I offered, keeping my face neutral. A perfect blank mask taken straight out of the Upper East Side.

That was the moment that Katherine found me seated in the front row of Elizabeth Cunningham’s New York Fashion Week runway show. Her eyes narrowed. Her perfect cherry-red lips pursed in disapproval. Her entire stance snapped into predator mode. And then she was walking toward me about to take me head-on.

I was ready for her. I, unlike her, had anticipated her presence. I’d prepared for what I would do and how I would act if and when I ran into her again. Because I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t been waiting for this moment since I stepped back onto the scene.

Now, she was here. And I was sitting in her place. The only thing that would hold her back was the crowd. I had to keep from smirking at her as I stayed one step in front of her.

“Natalie,” she hissed when she reached where I was seated with Harmony and Jane.

“Oh my goodness, Katherine,” I said with faux excitement. I rose to my feet and wrapped my arms around her thin shoulders. “You’re back from your honeymoon. Did you and Camden just have the best time? I cannot imagine how wonderful it was to have a whole month alone with him in the Maldives. Nowhere else to go. Nothing else to do.” I secretively lowered my voice and winked. “Except each other, of course.”

Katherine took a step back from me, as if surprised by my enthusiasm. As if I’d thrown her by not digging my claws into her back like she deserved.

Jane stood, too, with a real smile for Katherine. “Tell us everything. How was it? Look at how tan you are.”

“It was…perfect,” she said with the passion of a slug baking in the sun. “I am just so glad to be back now though. Get back to my city. And there seems to have been some error.” She held up her invitation. “It looks like you’re in my seat, Natalie.”

I put a hand to my chest. “I’m sorry you think so. But no, when Elizabeth and I spoke after the children’s art foundation charity event, she assured me that I’d be seated with Jane.”

Katherine tilted her head in confusion. “The…children’s art foundation event?”

“Oh yes, very important work,” I said with a smile.

“You were at the charity function?”

“Of course.” I fluttered my eyelashes at her for good measure.

“Look, you need to go sit somewhere else. I always sit in the front row. Elizabeth has been dressing me for the last two years. She assured me I’d have this seat.”

“Can’t do that,” I said with a smile. “But maybe there’s room in the general seating if you hurry.”

Katherine glared at me. Her brown orbs turning almost black as she looked like she wanted to do anything to cut me down. “That…is not possible.”

“Maybe next year,” I said with cheer. I patted her shoulder twice and then sat next to Harmony.

I turned to Harmony as if we were best friends and ignored Katherine standing there like a fish out of water in the very place she had always considered her own element.

“So, tell me more about this design work you’re planning on,” I said to Harmony.

Katherine reached out and grasped my shoulder. Her voice was low. “Natalie, what the fuck are you thinking?”

I brushed her hand off of my shoulder like she was a fly. “Thinking? I don’t know what you mean, Katherine. I can’t help that you don’t have a reserved seat. Take it up with Elizabeth, I guess.”

Harmony finally looked up at Katherine with complete apathy. “Better luck next year, Katherine.”

Katherine balked at us both, straightening to her considerable height. I could see the emotions roiling through. Everything she wanted to do and say. But there were too many people. Katherine liked to hide her destruction. She didn’t want people to see it in the light of day. She was too perfect to do anything else. Only her friends and the line of people she’d taken down knew her true self. If she wasn’t careful, someone might come along and make her pay for what she’d done.

Finally, Katherine stomped away, not admitting defeat as she railed at the person with the seating chart. But she was gone. And I’d won that round.

As soon as Katherine was out of sight, Harmony burst into laughter. “Oh. My. God. Natalie, that was brilliant. I have never seen anyone handle Katherine like that before.”

Even Jane was giggling. “Seriously, how did you do that?”

I shrugged. “I didn’t do anything,” I lied. “She didn’t have a seat. It wasn’t my fault that she attacked me when she thought I’d taken her place for the show. That’s delusional on her part.”