Cruel Fortune (Cruel 2)

“Hey, Amy.”

“Phew, I haven’t done that in so long. Wedding not so great after all?” Amy drawled into the phone.

“It’s been horrible, honestly. I’m so ready to leave.”

“Well, you must be if you’re on the phone with me after you signaled the save me from my date message.”

I laughed. “It was the only way I could think to get away from these two women who were discussing who they thought wrote Bet on It and were the main characters in my book.”

Amy gasped. “So cool!”

“Not exactly. I don’t want them to know!”

Amy laughed as I eased into an empty alcove near the entrance to the party. It felt like I could finally breathe again, away from the limelight.

“What did you decide to do about your boy?”

“Well, I’m here with him,” I said.

“Real convincing, Nat. You’re not naive. Are you going to be able to forgive him for what he did?”

I sighed and tilted my head back. “I’m trying. It’s still soon after what he did. Let me get through this wedding and then Christmas. I’ll be better when I come back for New Year’s.”

“I cannot fucking wait for you to get here for Christmas. We are going to do all the things. All of them.”

I laughed. “Well, thank god.”

Amy continued rambling about all the things she had planned for us for Christmas, but my eyes locked on a figure moving toward me. Penn stopped a foot away, and I cleared my throat to interrupt Amy.

“Hey, Ames. I have to get back.”

“Right. Right. Okay. Text if you need another excuse to get away.”

“Thanks. Love you.”

“You, too. Bye, babe.”

I hung up the phone and met Penn’s penetrating gaze.

“We need to talk,” he said.

I sighed. “Why? Why do we always have to talk? Can’t we get through an evening without talking?”

He just smirked, as if imagining all the evenings we’d done just that. But he was smirking into his cell phone and then handed it to me. I took it in surprise.

“What’s this?”

“Just look.”

My eyes skimmed the page, and suddenly, I pushed off of the wall, straightening in shock. My stomach plummeting. My hands shaking. I was going to be sick. I was staring at the first page of my new manuscript, It’s a Matter of Opinion. The manuscript no one had seen but me, Caroline, and Gillian.

“How the fuck do you have this?” I hissed.

“That’s what we need to talk about,” he said calmly.

“Tell me right the fuck now, Penn. This isn’t a joke.”

“I know it’s not. Let’s go somewhere private. I don’t think we should do this where people can see us. They might…notice.”

My hand clenched on his phone. I needed answers. I needed answers right the fuck now. And if that meant five minutes alone with Penn Kensington, then fuck it.

“I don’t know how we’re supposed to get alone.”

“We could go outside.”

I shook my head. “It’s too cold.”

A devilish grin spread across his face. “I have an idea.”

“What?” I snapped.

“You’re not going to like it.”

“I don’t like that you have that fucking manuscript on your phone either, but here we are. Tell me.”

“You have a hotel room?”

I sighed and then withdrew the small plastic key from the purse at my hip.

He plucked it from my hand. “That’ll do.”

“I don’t even know what room it is,” I objected.

He laughed. “Lewis always gets the same room.”

“This had better not be a fucking trick,” I snapped at him.

He sobered immediately. That laugh disappearing, only to be replaced with regret. “It’s not a trick. Honestly, I wish it were. It’d be easier than this explanation.”

His words washed over me. This wasn’t a joke with him. It wasn’t some deception to get me into a hotel room. Good. Because I didn’t find any of this particularly funny. And going up to the room with Penn was pretty stupid. But the only thing on my mind was that goddamn manuscript.

So, I finally nodded. “Five minutes, Penn.”

Natalie

35

Pure, unfiltered adrenaline pushed me into the elevator. Penn didn’t even hesitate when he strode out onto the fourth floor. He’d clearly been here before. More than once. But I could hardly concentrate on that fact. There was a roaring in my ears that wouldn’t abate. And a sinking pit in my stomach, saying that whatever he was about to tell me would wreck me.

Still, I went.

I followed him down the hallway to a doorway. He pressed the key to the lock, and I waited. Hoped for a minute that he was wrong. That Lewis had never had this room before. But then the lock clicked, and Penn pushed the door open. My heart sank even further.

“How did you know it would work?”

“We used to come here for parties in high school. Get trashed and then stay here instead of at our parents’ respective houses. They used to keep this room on standby for us.”