Cruel Legacy (Cruel 3)

“Yeah, hopefully,” I whispered. “Nina doesn’t deserve to be blamed for what Lewis and Edward did.”

He drew me closer. “That’s how it happens sometimes. It’s a snowball effect. It picks up speed until it runs down everything in its path.”

It felt like an apt metaphor for my revenge. And fear hit me that I wouldn’t be able to control it once it started downhill.

Chapter 27

Natalie

Harmony borrowed the Percy limo for the night. Since the Percys were now her stepfamily, she’d insisted that she was owed their swank limo. Which was how Jane and I were sipping champagne in the back with her and listening to her explain Camden’s reaction when he’d found out.

“You should have seen his face,” Harmony said with a grin. She tried to imitate Camden’s face with her brows rising ever higher, her mouth open, and clear outrage and disbelief across her features.

We all broke down into hysterical laughter at the imitation.

“Stop. Stop!” I crowed. “My sides hurt.”

Jane waved her hands at us both. “I can’t breathe.”

“It was great. He was so fucking serious, too. It was perfection.”

“I cannot believe you did it,” I told her.

She shrugged. “It was great to hear him say that he was going to murder me for taking it. Anything to upset him is like a job well done.”

I shook my head and then finished my glass of champagne. Harmony cracked me up. I didn’t know how she had lived under Katherine’s oppression all these years. Her personality vibrated out of her.

And to think that I’d been nervous all week about this club outing. But now that I was with my girls, all of that melted away. It was just like all the times Amy and I had done this in college. Except for the part where I’d had a fifty-person guest list to go through and had to hand-select a dozen girls to hang out with me. That had never been part of my life. Surreal to think that I’d been the loner, and I was now constantly surrounded by people who wanted exclusive invites to go to the club with me.

“You ready for this?” Jane asked with a glint in her hazel eyes as we pulled up to Club 360.

“Of course she is,” Harmony said.

I nodded. I was. This was the test run for everything I’d been working toward. The life I was stealing. “Bring it on.”

We stepped out of the limo and walked into the Percy hotel in Midtown. We were escorted into the elevator up to the rooftop bar that had started everything with me and Penn. It had also been the beginning of my career that was still up in flames. And Lewis, who I’d just lit on fire. It was a club for new beginnings. For taking control of the now. And I had every intention of doing so.

Club 360 was slammed with people, as if everyone knew that this was the place to be tonight. Our escort easily drew us through the crowd and showed us to our mostly full booth. There were ten girls already sitting around, drinking, and chatting with each other. With Harmony and Jane, it made a solid dozen that I had invited for the evening. Everyone went silent when we appeared and then almost immediately jumped up to greet us.

“Oh my, Natalie,” Fiona said, appearing in front of the fray. “Look at how amazing you look.”

“Yeah, you’re so hot,” Sloane agreed.

Isabel pushed her way into the bunch. “For real. Why didn’t I buy that dress?”

“Because it would never look as good on you,” Fiona said easily.

“Yeah, Isabel, you’d be washed out in that,” Sloane agreed.

I laughed at the girls, who were basically complimentary lackeys. “Oh, stop.” I brushed down the sides of the rose-gold dress I’d chosen for the occasion. “You are too nice.”

And it went on like that for a while. I officially met the rest of the party. I’d apparently met a few of the girls at other parties, but I didn’t remember them. I wouldn’t have remembered the lackeys if it wasn’t for that one strange conversation at the Fashion Week gala. But they all came from the right families, Penn had picked most of them, and it was good to be seen with them. Though it was still a little strange to think about friendships that way.

Like Danielle and Carrie, who modeled like Harmony had. And Jenniel, whose husband owned a bank. Ellie and Emma—still couldn’t tell them apart—who had a cosmetics line. And Sorcha, who designed for Elle. Imogen’s father was in the fashion business somehow. I knew the list by heart, but putting names with faces was going to be a challenge.

A bartender was serving our party and came over with a bottle of Patrón. “Shots?”

I blinked. “Yeah, that would be great.”

She grinned wide. “I thought so. Don’t you always start with tequila shots?”