Cruel Fortune (Cruel 2)

“I can show her out,” Lewis said with a broad smile to Gillian.

“Oh. Of course. I need to get back to work anyway,” Gillian said. She raised her eyebrows once at me as if to say, Have a good time, and then disappeared through the conference room door.

Once we were finally alone, I whirled on him. “What are you doing here?”

“Last I checked, I’m a Warren,” he said with a grin.

“You don’t work in the publishing arm,” I accused.

“No, I don’t.”

“So, what are you doing here?”

“I thought that was obvious, Olivia.”

“Don’t,” I snapped.

“I came to see you.”

“Well, I don’t want to see you.”

He shrugged as if that fact didn’t matter to him. “Yet here we are.”

“How did you even know I was going to be here? My identity was tightly guarded. Only Gillian knows.”

“Are you sure?” he teased.

“Clearly, I was wrong.”

“Go to lunch with me, Natalie.”

I scoffed in disbelief. “No.”

“Come on. It’ll be like old times.”

I shouldered my purse and headed for the door. “Might have escaped your notice, but I have no interest in old times.” I turned back to look at him with anger in my blue eyes. “And no interest in seeing you.”

I yanked open the conference room door and headed for the elevator. My hands were shaking, and I clasped them together to make them stop. My heart was hammering in my chest. It was a reminder of what I was running away from. That stupid smirk and confident air. The way he seemed to own the room. I’d always found Lewis handsome. He and Penn were two sides of the same coin. They both took up too much space, and worse, they knew it. I would not be caught in that web again.

Fool me once, shame on you. I’d been eighteen and in Paris and fallen instantly for Penn. I’d given him my virginity, and he’d repaid it by ghosting on me. Granted…it was because his father had died. Though I’d only learned it years later.

Fool me twice, shame on me. The bet. Penn, Lewis, Katherine, Rowe, and Lark had bet on me. And I’d fallen in love with Penn and made an utter fool of myself anyway.

Fool me thrice—well, I didn’t even know who I could blame for that. So, I was getting as far away from the Upper East Side and all the many charming men in it.

“Wait!” Lewis slid his hand in the elevator before it could close, and then he walked smoothly inside.

I pressed my body against the opposite wall. “Leave me alone, Lewis.”

“Go to lunch with me.”

“Go to hell,” I quipped.

“I guess I deserve that.”

I glared. “Deserve? That’s the least of what you deserve.”

“That’s probably fair.”

I crossed my arms and remained silent. I didn’t have to talk to him. I didn’t have to listen to him. Their antics had ruined my life as I knew it. And sure, I had bounced back onto my feet. But it didn’t excuse what they’d done or how callous they had been about it all.

The elevator chimed, and I pushed past Lewis onto the main floor of Warren Publishing. Its grandeur was still mesmerizing, but all I saw was him now. I should have taken another offer. Who cared that Warren had fought the hardest and won the auction? I could have taken the deal from Hartfield or Strider or any number of other publishers that had bid on my book.

I could feel Lewis’s presence behind me as I exited the building and said good-bye to Warren Publishing.

“Stop following me,” I hissed.

“I will. Just hear me out.”

“I’m under no obligation to do that,” I snapped.

“You always did have a hot temper.”

I stopped suddenly in the middle of the sidewalk. He continued moving for a pace before he realized that I’d halted.

“Natalie…”

“You and your friends ruined my life. I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to see you. I have no interest in whatever lies you’re going to spin,” I told him with fire in my eyes. “If you thought this would go differently and that I’d fall all over myself at your feet, you are sadly mistaken. I’m not like the simpering idiots you have on the Upper East Side. I don’t care how much money you have. I don’t care what your last name is. So, leave me alone.”

“I’m sorry,” Lewis said. His eyes were wide and revealing. A window to his sincerity, and I hated it.

“Sorry doesn’t cut it.”

I yanked out my phone to check my messages. I was supposed to meet Amy for lunch, but then I saw I had a text from her.

Ran into Enzo while I was shopping. You remember him from Paris, right? His work has gone off the charts. He even has something in the MET. We’re going to get lunch. Don’t wait up. ;)