Cruel Fortune (Cruel 2)

“Thank you. It wasn’t an easy journey,” I said pointedly.

“I bet not.” Then, she nodded her head at me. “All the sweeter then.”

She smiled once in acknowledgment of her part in what had happened. I figured it was as close as I’d ever get to an apology. Better than I’d thought it would have gone.

“Next week,” Jane said, “I am bringing you into the club to get your opinion on the New Year’s party.”

“Sounds good. Pencil me in.”

I slipped out of the pew, prepared to return to my seat with Lewis when I glanced up and saw Penn. He was speaking to the couple who had been sitting in the space reserved for Katherine’s family.

Penn’s voice cut through my exit. “Natalie, have you met Katherine’s brother?”

I shifted back toward him, unsure of how to proceed. I knew that Lewis must be watching us. That he wasn’t comfortable with me being around Penn. But it would look rude to just completely ignore him.

“I didn’t know Katherine had a brother.”

“It’s a common misconception.” The brother, tall and handsome with an easy smile, held his hand out, which I shook. “I’m David, and this is my wife, Sutton Wright.”

His petite wife beamed back at me. She had dark hair that fanned out to blonde at the ends. She was stunning in an unassuming way, and when she spoke, I heard a trace of a Southern accent. “Pleasure to meet you.”

“Your accent is adorable,” I said before I could stop myself.

Sutton covered her mouth and looked up at David with a glare when he started laughing. “Is it that noticeable?”

“It reminds me a bit of being back in Charleston.”

“Oh! You’re one of us!” Sutton said. “I’m from Lubbock, Texas. Middle-of-nowhere West Texas, but these Northerners act like it’s another planet.”

I laughed and decided instantly that I liked this Wright girl. “Oh, trust me, I know.”

“How’s Jensen?” Penn asked. “I haven’t seen him in the city much.”

“Trying to knock up his girl,” Sutton said with a laugh.

“So…busy,” Penn offered.

“Who is Jensen?” I asked, wondering how they all knew each other.

“My oldest brother,” Sutton explained.

“We met when he was here, getting a degree in architecture,” Penn explained. “The Wrights run a construction empire.”

I raised my eyebrows at Sutton in surprise. She didn’t seem like the kind of person who fit in around here, running an empire.

But she held her hands up. “I just run a bakery. I leave the business to my siblings and David.”

“Wow. Well, it was great meeting you,” I told Sutton honestly.

I couldn’t even believe that David was related to Katherine. He looked like he’d gotten out of the Upper East Side, too. Completely out. How had he done it?

“You, too! Us Southern girls have to stick together.”

Penn stepped toward me before I could walk away. “Can we talk later?”

I bit my lip. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“It wasn’t a good idea to come talk to me the other night, and you did it anyway. How is this any different?”

“Live and learn,” I muttered and then made the mistake of looking up into his baby blues.

“Natalie, please, five minutes at the reception.”

“What do you have to say to me then that you can’t say to me now?”

“I don’t want an audience,” he said and then nodded toward Lewis, who was staring unflinchingly at us close together.

I took a step back from him. “No,” I whispered. “I can’t.”

“Nat, this is important.” And he sounded like it really was. Though I had no clue what he could possibly need to tell me.

“I’m sorry,” I said with a shake of my head. Then, I turned and walked back to where Lewis was seated.

“Have a good chat?” he asked in a clipped tone.

“He was introducing me to Katherine’s brother.”

He slipped an arm across my shoulders. “I don’t like him that close to you.”

“He’s part of this world too, Lewis. I don’t think he’s going to go away,” I grumbled. Stupid Upper East Side.

“I know. Just old rivalries rear their head.”

“It was literally nothing.”

“Number one rule of the Upper East Side, Natalie: it is never nothing.”

I turned to look at him in surprise. Uncertain of how to respond to that. But then the wedding music began, and I didn’t have to.

Katherine

33

“You can still get out of this,” Lark said anxiously.

I was standing on the raised platform before the enormous trifold mirror my hair and makeup team had brought in for the occasion. I’d kicked everyone out of the room, except Lark, a half hour ago. I knew that the five other bridesmaids—who I’d picked seemingly at random, but primarily because they had the most number of Crew connections—hadn’t been happy by the arrangement.

But they weren’t my friends.

I didn’t have friends.

The crew I’d grown up with my entire life was family. Lark, Penn, Lewis, and Rowe. I would have had them all back here with me. But instead, it was just Lark, trying to talk me over the cliff. Not off it.