But Katherine wasn’t finished. “That’s what you don’t get, Natalie. What you never understood. You think you can waltz in here and be one of us. That, with my clothes on your body and a Warren or a Kensington on your arm, you’ll be someone. But you’re nothing. And you’ll always be nothing.”
She was goading me. She wanted me to do something stupid so that she could play the victim. But I saw through her. I shook Lewis off and straightened. My blue eyes weren’t menacing but sad. Because Katherine was a product of this world. She was empty inside. And she didn’t know anything else.
“I might be nothing. I might be no one. That’s fine by me. But you…you can’t even come to terms with who you really are. So trapped in the past that you can’t see the future.” I shook my head once. “You’re a desperate, scared little girl who gets her kicks from hurting other people. You have no real friends, and you’re so insecure that you’re entering an arranged marriage for money. I’d rather have nothing than what you have.”
Katherine drew in a sharp breath. And for a solid minute, it felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. The music seemed to go quiet. The lights focused on us. We all waited on a precipice for her response. But I was done. No matter what she said, it wouldn’t matter to me. I was through with Katherine Van Pelt and her weak threats.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” I said.
I turned and walked away. Left Katherine waiting on a clever response. I might have had second thoughts about whether or not I fit into this world earlier today. But Katherine’s torment proved that I did. She thought that, by belittling me, it was proof that I should run and cower. But it was the opposite. I was a threat. A threat that she had to try to squash under her Manolo Blahnik heel.
I wouldn’t be squashed. I wouldn’t go away just because she wanted me to. I would rise from the ashes over and over again and not look back.
I was halfway across the room before I felt an arm grasp my hand.
“Hey,” Lewis said, stopping me from leaving.
“I’m fine. No, I’m not. I’m royally pissed off actually. And I want to go home.”
He tucked a loose strand of my silver hair behind my ear. “I’ll take you home. You were brilliant back there. No one ever stands up to Katherine like that.”
“I don’t want to have to stand up to her.”
“You’re right. You shouldn’t have to. Next time we’re out, we’ll avoid her.”
“Next time?” I felt defeated, just thinking of having that encounter over and over again.
“If you don’t come back out and do the things you want to do even if she’s there, then you let her win. Katherine and I have been friends a long, long time. If you give her an inch, she’ll take a mile.”
“I don’t want to play these games,” I told him.
He kissed my forehead and pulled me against him. “I know. It’ll get easier.”
I sighed against his chest. It mirrored what Charlotte and Etta had said. But…would it get easier? Or would it fester and rot, only getting worse and worse until we all broke?
I wanted to be back at my place after the night I’d had. I had so much to think about and sift through. Conversations that didn’t make sense, that my writer’s brain needed to piece together. But Lewis took me back to his apartment, and I didn’t fight it. I’d been staying at his place more often. I just wasn’t looking forward to the conversation I knew we’d have to have now that we were here.
He undid his bow tie and left the first couple of buttons undone at the top before flipping on the record player and heading to the wet bar. “Wine?”
“Something stronger.” I kicked off the Louboutins Jane had given me and was glad that I’d left a spare change of clothes at his place. This dress was incredible but not exactly for relaxing or to be comfortable in.
Lewis returned to my side with two glasses. He plunked a bottle of scotch onto the table and poured us each a knuckle’s worth.
“I’m going to change. I need out of this dress.”
He pulled me hard against him, kissing me deeply. “I can help.”
“I’ll just be a minute.”
I was still too pissed to even think about being sexy. He must have read it in my eyes because he released me. I headed back to his bedroom and undid the buttons that held up the top of the dress and then the hidden side zipper. I hung the designer dress on a hanger in his closet before shimmying into leggings and a flowy T-shirt. I tipped my head upside down and gathered all my hair into a messy bun on the top of my head. I looked at myself in the vanity mirror, giving myself a second of breathing room before going back out there.