Cruel Legacy (Cruel 3)

She bit her lip and faced the railing, sniffling again. “It’s awful. I know. It’s just horrible. The worst thing I could have done. But something just…happened. I don’t know how to explain it, Penn. I wish I didn’t. It would make everything so much easier.”

She could not have shocked me more. I stood rooted in place, trying to blink away the reality of her words.

“Stop looking like that,” she gasped. “I can barely stand it. I don’t want to see you thinking about it, too.”

“So…that’s why you’re upset about Fiona.”

She nodded.

“And why the arranged-marriage part stings now. Because it started out that way…but it’s not that anymore.”

She dipped her head again. Sniffled again. Scrubbed the tears from her cheeks.

“Wow, Ren,” I whispered. “I mean, you couldn’t have chosen worse, but at least it’s somebody.”

She choked on her laughter and then pushed me. “Shut up, Kensington.”

“It’s not the end of the world.”

“It is. I can’t go back in there. Not after running. Everyone laughing at me. Camden still talking to Fiona. The pictures, the marriage, and all the fucking girls who are here that I hurt.”

I narrowed my eyes. “What girls?”

“Like everyone I have ever hurt is here today. I’m sure that’s a product of your little girlfriend. And you thought I couldn’t choose worse.”

“You think Natalie invited people here to get to you?”

Katherine snorted. “Oh, I know she did. It’s something I would have done in her place.” She narrowed her eyes and muttered, “Bitch,” under her breath.

“You think she…”

“What the hell do you think she’s been doing since January, Penn? Taking the spotlight, stealing my designers, my clothes, my friends. And now this? She’s fucking won. She has it all. Even you. Even Camden,” she spat. “You had to have seen it happening, or are you just blind to her?”

And then it all hit me. What had been happening. I’d seen it. I’d seen it all happening. But I hadn’t seen it. Not really. Not for what it was.

“Katherine,” I said softly, “I didn’t know.”

She sniffled again and then threw herself into my chest. Her sobs racked her chest, and I gently put my hands around her shoulders. She had been holding this in for so long. And she wasn’t a good person. What she’d done to Natalie was atrocious on so many levels. And I knew Natalie didn’t forgive her for it. I hadn’t forgiven her for it. But this…this was something else entirely. A new level of deceit. Right under my nose.

The door to the fire escape opened, and I turned to say something to Lark but was shocked instead to see Camden Percy standing there.

His eyes took in the scene in one sweep. He sighed. “I should have guessed.”

Katherine jerked away from me so hard that I stumbled back a step and had to catch on to the railing.

Her eyes were wide when she looked at Percy. “Camden.”

“And here I thought, we were over this.”

“Over this?” she whispered and then glanced at me. “Oh god, Camden, no. We aren’t…it’s not…I didn’t.”

Camden held up his hand. “Bravo, Katherine. You’ve succeeded in getting back into his arms. You orchestrated this whole thing just to get back to him. It never stops with you, does it?”

“Camden,” she said frantically, reaching forward.

He took a step back in disgust.

“It wasn’t like that, man,” I said at once.

Camden glared at me. “Keep your fucking mouth shut, Kensington.”

“Cam,” Katherine whispered, “I promise…”

“And your promises mean nothing.” He looked her up and down like she was scum on the bottom of his shoe. “Maybe I’ll take Fiona up on that offer after all.”

“No, no, no,” she breathed.

She reached for him again, but he stepped back.

“Find your own way home,” Camden said and then strode away.

Katherine stared after him in shock. Her hand hung out in midair. One arm of my jacket was slipping off of her shoulder, and she didn’t even seem to notice. She was suspended in that moment. Having lost the one thing she had just told me she inexplicably loved.

Chapter 35

Natalie

Camden Percy came out of the back hallway like his clothes were on fire. My eyes widened in shock. I hadn’t even noticed him go down there where Katherine, Penn, and Lark were having their little powwow. Now, he was running to get away from it.

What the fuck? What had happened that made him run away?

My heart jerked in my chest. Whatever it had been…it couldn’t be good.

I excused myself from the conversation I was having. I wasn’t going to wait around and find out what the hell Camden had just seen. I trusted Katherine about as far as I could throw her. And while I didn’t think that Penn would do anything, I could see Katherine trying to get back at Camden. Fuck.

I hastened my steps and nearly ran directly into Penn. Katherine was behind him, speaking urgently to Lark.