Cruel Money (Cruel 1)

A one-time thing.

That was it.

I realized then that I didn’t have anything to say to him. He’d used and manipulated me into sleeping with him. Then, he’d disappeared without a thought for me. He’d shown me what men were really like. That those fantasies I’d had about romance were fiction. And men who agreed and dreamed about the same passions and who spoke of them so sincerely were probably just using it as an opportunity to get in my pants.

Par for the course.

I heard a cork pop in the other room and moved in that direction. Katherine must have found the champagne.

They giggled and then dashed through the back door, calling out to us as they slipped through, “Hurry up, you two!”

Penn stopped me with a hand on my elbow. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

I finally looked up into those too-blue eyes. “And I don’t think you get to make that decision for me.”

“You should just go to bed.”

“Why?” I sputtered.

“Natalie, please, you don’t belong here.”

I wrenched back out of his grasp. “Excuse me? I don’t belong here? Because I’m not a socialite or a tech genius? Your friends don’t seem to care.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“And we all know that you have trouble saying what you mean,” I spat back.

He breathed out in frustration. “Stop twisting my words.”

I arched an eyebrow. “You do that all on your own.”

“Look, I remember that night. I remember us in Paris. Taking you around the city and showing you the real Paris and being so present with you. But this wasn’t you.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You’re right. It wasn’t.”

I didn’t say anything else. I didn’t tell him about the end of my innocence. The realization that my dream of love had been just that—a dream. Reality was so much more of a slap in the face.

No matter that I’d felt that love-at-first-sight feeling with Penn, it had all been a lie. And it was still a lie. He was a lie wrapped in a pretty package. Like tearing into gorgeous Christmas wrapping paper on the morning of the twenty-fifth, only to find coal on the inside.

I pushed past him, and he turned to watch me go.

I heard him call out, “I’m warning you. This is a bad idea.”

“What’s a bad idea?” I asked, whipping around. “You? Trust me; I already know.”

“Natalie…”

“What upsets you more, Penn? That your friends like me or that I’m not falling all over myself for you?” I gave him my best look of faux sympathy. “Doesn’t seem like you handle either very well.”

His jaw unhinged at my comment. As if he couldn’t believe I’d just said that. To him. He’d probably never been spoken to like that.

And it was a glorious victory.

The most glorious victory that made me feel utterly hollow.

But I still forced myself to savor the last word.

Penn

6

With great effort, I remained where I stood, watching Natalie’s ass disappear through the door. I had no idea how all of that had gone so terribly wrong.

The last time I’d seen her was six years ago. It had all been so easy. Like breathing. Honestly, I’d never thought that I’d see her again. And, now that she was here, in my summer home, it was hard not to remember why I’d wanted her in the first place.

And I hadn’t been bullshitting her when I told her that I remembered our time together. I remembered it vividly. That whole weekend. She was the only highlight of the whole godforsaken thing.

She’d been this bright light. Unobscured by the drama of my world. Completely innocent to the glamour I had thrown over our interactions. The gentle exaggerations I’d fabricated into our encounter. But it hadn’t been a lie. If anything, fuck, I’d been too honest with her.

She’d made it easy to be honest.

And, now…

Now, I had no fucking clue who this girl was.

Woman. Fuck, was she a woman now.

When she’d walked out of that water to me like the water goddess Melusina—a spirit in form, having just lost her tail for the night to find a husband—water had dripped down her form. Her silvery-white hair soaked and glowing in the moonlight. She’d looked…buoyant. Unguarded and radiant, even in the faint light from the embers and moon. Transcendent. It had felt like a dream.

A dream that had quickly run off the tracks.

A lot could happen in six years. That much was obvious. I’d obviously changed since then, not that she wanted to give me the benefit of the doubt. But she’d been so young and vibrant, and now, she was jaded and cynical. Somehow, both suited her.

Fuck! I was so fucked.

The smart thing would be to walk away from this. To let her be pissed at me for leaving that day. To let her have the one night of fun with my friends, the assholes they were, and then disappear again. Her life had moved on. It would do it again.