I ignored him. I had no words for him. Not a single one.
“Natalie? Are you okay?” he called.
But I was reaching for my purse, slinging it over my shoulder. Then I threw my jacket on and marched toward the door.
Lewis rushed after me, and I heard him say, “I’m going to have to call you back.”
I got in the elevator and watched the doors close in his face. He jerked his hand in between the doors, stopping them from completely closing. Then he jumped into the elevator.
“Are you okay? Why are you leaving?” Lewis asked. His eyes were wide and wild with concern.
“Why don’t you ask your father?” I snapped and pressed the button for the bottom floor.
“My dad? Why? Did he do something?”
I glared at him. I felt like I was going to explode at any second, and I didn’t want it to be here in an elevator. I needed to get outside into the open air. Away from that cautious face. As if he hadn’t done anything wrong at all.
I faced forward again and crossed my arms without an answer.
“Shit. Natalie, talk to me. I don’t know what happened. So, I can’t fix it.”
“No, you can’t fix it,” I snarled.
The elevator opened at last, and I shouldered past him, through the lobby, and finally outside.
Lewis rushed after me. “Natalie, please talk to me. I don’t want you to just run out of here because you’re angry.”
“Too late.”
“Please,” he pleaded.
I ignored him and headed across Fifth Avenue, toward the entrance to Central Park.
“My driver is around the corner. I can take you home. Let me take you home.”
“I don’t want to go anywhere with you.”
Lewis huffed but followed me across the street. “You’re just going to rush out into the night without telling me what happened? This isn’t fair, Natalie.”
“Fair?” I screeched, heedless of who was around. “You want to talk about fair, Lewis? How about you convincing the publisher to pay me seven figures? How about how you were the one who told Warren to buy my book?”
He took a step back, as if I’d slapped him. “I was…helping.”
“Don’t try to spin this,” I told him. “You can’t convince me that this was somehow good for me. I wanted to do this book on my own. I wanted my debut to have success because of my writing. I didn’t need or want a leg up. Someone else would have bought it for less money, and I would have been ecstatic. But no, you had to interfere. You had to make it about you. So, talk to me about fair.”
I whipped around and started into the park. Central Park was drained of color. The winter trees empty of leaves and loomed ominously above us as I stomped through the grounds.
“I did that. I admit it. I found out that it was you, and I wanted to help. Why is helping you a bad thing?” he asked.
“If it was such a good thing, then why did you never tell me?” I snapped.
He shrugged. “It never came up.”
“Yeah, because you never brought it up. Because you knew that I wouldn’t be happy about it.”
He reached out and grabbed the sleeve of my jacket, yanking me to a stop. “Everything that I do is for you, Natalie. Everything. Maybe this was the wrong way to go about it, but I didn’t know that you’d be upset with me for doing this. I didn’t know.”
“You knew,” I accused. “Or else I wouldn’t have heard about it from your dad when he called me a gold digger. He said that you’d already handed over a cool mil and asked how much more it’d take for me to leave you alone.”
Lewis sucked in a breath. “He didn’t?”
I laughed maniacally. “Oh, he did.”
“Fuck, Natalie, I am so sorry. I know that he’s done this in the past, but I didn’t think he’d stoop to that level with you.”
“Well, excellent. Good to know I’m the one worth stooping for,” I growled.
“My last girlfriend took the money. Alicia. The one my sisters hate. I thought that he wouldn’t do that to you because I’m clearly in love with you.”
I took a step back in horror at the words. At the way he’d used them to try to get out of this argument. When I was seething and not blissfully happy. When I wasn’t ready to hear those words. Right now, it was the last thing I wanted to hear. The last thing I could even deal with.
“Well, he did. I told him to go fuck himself and that I didn’t need or want your stupid money. Because I don’t. But I did want the truth,” I told him. My features turned to stone. “And you couldn’t seem to give me that.”
“Natalie…”
“Just don’t. I’ve heard enough for one night. I wanted this on my own,” I said. I hated that my throat was tight with unshed tears. “I was so proud of my accomplishments. But you tarnished it all. So, I’m going to walk home right now. And you are going to let me.”