Cruel Legacy (Cruel 3)

My fingers reflexively reached for the envelope. I set down the scotch and tore open the top flap. When I turned it upside down, a metal lock fell into my hand, and a small note fluttered into my lap.

I flipped the gold lock over and looked at it in shock. A small smile playing on my lips. It was the love lock that I’d given Natalie all those years ago. The P & N I’d scrawled elegantly in Sharpie on the front.

I’d been such a con artist at the time. Doing anything to earn her trust and devotion. I enjoyed it as much for the manipulation as her pure joy in it. She didn’t know what I was doing, and looking back, maybe I didn’t either. I saw something different in her then. I didn’t need the full night to walk the city with her to get in her pants. But I had done it anyway because I couldn’t get enough of her. Here was the evidence of the young love that had struck me before I even knew its real purpose.

My fingers curled around the metal, holding it tight in my palm. If this was here, that meant…Natalie was here.

My heart thumped in my chest as I retrieved the forgotten note.

It all started on a park bench in Paris.

Meet me?

—Nat

She’d flown all the way to Paris? And just left a note and the lock?

I downed the rest of my scotch and grabbed my jacket before I gave it more thought. If she was here, then I wasn’t going to make her wait. She’d likely already been there for hours, considering the package had been delivered earlier that morning.

As I strode out of the lobby and into the bright light of day, I had no idea what I was going to say. What she’d done…was every bit as awful as I’d blamed her for. I’d been just as bad. And I’d helped her get there.

But that didn’t mean I was ready to forgive her or move on from it. I needed to see her though. Needed to know what she was thinking by flying out here. Did she think that she could change my mind about it all if she spent the money and surprised me? I’d told her we could talk after Paris. I didn’t yet know if her arriving here early was a good or a bad thing.

I’d have to decide that when I saw her. Decide what to do about it all.

I hopped into the first available cab and gave them directions to the Tuileries Garden in front of the Louvre. This had all started after we ran out of the Palais Garnier and down near the waterfront. I was amazed she still remembered which one it was. But perhaps that night was branded on her memory as much as it was mine.

After paying the taxi, I walked through the garden, which was still alive with tourists exploring the grounds. When we’d come here, it had been one or two in the morning, and we’d had the place to ourselves. I navigated around the crowds and came up the back way to our park bench. I didn’t want her to see me first.

Then she came into view. All orange-patterned wide-leg pants tucked up underneath her as she sat cross-legged on the park bench. Her shirt was a flowy white gauzy material that I’d seen her wear dozens of times when we lived together in the Hamptons. Her silvery-white hair was piled high on the top of her head. An oversize bun flopping off to the right without a care in the world. In her lap was her computer as she typed furiously into an open document.

It was like stepping back in time. And seeing the bohemian vision who had put a spell on me straight out of the Atlantic. The goddess who knew herself and didn’t care an ounce what anyone else thought of who she was.

I’d stalled when I saw her.

But then I took her in…really took her in.

I smiled.

And moved toward the Natalie I’d first fallen in love with.

Chapter 40

Natalie

Maybe he wasn’t coming.

I hadn’t really considered that when I put this plan in place. He could be furious with me and wouldn’t appreciate that I’d flown all the way here and wrecked his plans. I chewed on the end of my pen and stared down at my open document. This was stressing me the fuck out. I’d been so confident when I got on that plane.

I tossed the pen onto my open notebook next to me and went back to typing on my computer, working on the new book. I couldn’t do anything about whether or not Penn would show. I couldn’t make him spring up out of nothing. The only thing I could control was this right here. And I was going to keep writing until he showed. Or didn’t.