It made me unbelievably nervous. I’d been to any number of events for the Upper East Side, but I hadn’t been trying to be one of them. I’d just been me and thought that was enough. But, for me to pull all of this off, I had to be more than me. I had to belong.
“I can tell you how to act and think and feel. I can walk you through it. Observe and critique as if I were in a classroom, but it would be for nothing. Think of this as an immersive language experience. Instead of learning French in school, you’re being dropped into Southern France with a family who speaks broken English. You have to find a way to fit, and you have to do it pretty quick.”
“You make it sound terrifying,” I told him.
His eyes flicked to mine. “Now, you’re getting it.”
“Thank you,” I said softly. “For helping me even though you don’t want to be in this world and you hate stuffy dinners and galas.”
“I’m thinking that, if I fuck you at all of these stuffy dinners and galas, I might find them more tolerable,” he deadpanned.
My cheeks flushed, and heat flooded my body. “You’re not serious.”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
No. No, he did not.
“I do have one rule,” he said carefully, sidestepping right over the fact that he intended to have sex with me in public places as part of my training.
A fact that I was…very interested in hearing more about.
“Oh? I’m surprised you only have one.”
“It’s an important one.” He looked tense as he said it. “I reserve the right to add more as we go though.”
I chuckled. “Fine. What’s the main one?”
“This is going to be…uncomfortable for me. This training is unorthodox and goes against the man that I was trying to become. I realize that I was only half as successful as I wanted to be. And only tried about a quarter as hard as I should have to get there. So the Upper East Side is home, and I guess it’s where I’m to stay, but that doesn’t make me okay with that fact.”
I nodded in response. I had known that he was conflicted on helping me. That he was only doing it after he saw my breakdown about Lewis. About this damn seductive world that had pulled me in like Alice falling down the rabbit hole.
“I’m not always going to be the Penn that you know. I will have to be the Penn Kensington who owns Manhattan. The dark beast within that paces through my mind and threatens to unleash himself upon the world. The beast that I’ve leashed ever since my asshole father died of an overdose and left me to realize what the fuck I was doing with my life. You won’t always like what I do, what I say, or who I am. Are you okay with that?”
I swallowed before nodding. I’d seen his mask before. I knew what he was capable of. And I was the one unleashing him on the world.
He blew out a breath before regaining composure. “You say that now. We’ll see later. But the only thing that I ask from you, the only rule I want us both to follow, is, no masks in private.” He stared deep into my eyes as if he could convey the importance of that rule in just one look. “No matter who we are or what we do or how we act in public, you’re still my Natalie in private, and I’m still your Penn in private. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” I told him.
I didn’t want him to be fake with me either. Not if I was going to be able to see past the man who had bet on me and back to the one I’d fallen in love with. Those two people were already blurred in my mind. But I could see when the mask came up. I was sure that he’d be able to see me, too.
“You’re sure? No hiding from me.”
I nodded. “This is who I am.”
“After tonight, this will just be one side of who you are. Are you ready?”
My stomach coiled into a knot. “You’re sure Katherine won’t be here?”
“As far as I know, she is still on her honeymoon. I have no idea how she could stomach a month alone with Camden Percy. But there are so many things I don’t understand about Katherine.”
“Well, that’s good for us at least,” I said as the car rolled to a stop. I took a deep breath and then released it. “I’m ready.”
I knew this part. How to make an appearance. Katherine had inadvertently taught me how to survive this a year earlier when she brought me to my first ever Upper East Side event. I could walk a red carpet with a coy smile on my face. I knew which way to stand that flattered me best. There had been proof of that on Page Six.
That was the easy part.
It was everything that came afterward that I always second-guessed. Even when I’d been brought in with the entire crew, I hadn’t felt entirely with the crowd. It was easier on the arm of a Warren or a Kensington, but I was still small-town Natalie whose father had moved us all around the country with the military. I still had the moral compass that said right and wrong were black-and-white issues. I didn’t see their strategies or straight-out lies. I had been ill-prepared for what I witnessed, but Penn was in his element.
It was crazy to think that someone who hated this world so much could fit in so seamlessly. As if he had never left. As if he had been born for this role. And I supposed that he had, in fact, been born for this. He just rejected it on base principle.
Yet he was here for me.
The charity function was held in a stunning domed banquet hall fit for royalty. It was bedecked in navy-blue and gold with large, circular tables facing a small stage. A row of items was on display along one side of the room for the silent auction. I wondered what outrageous big ticket items the uber wealthy would bid on.
Penn effortlessly guided me away from the tables.
“We won’t look until later. No one wants to look eager,” he told me.
“Oh,” I said softly. “But there are people over there.”
“What do you think that says about them?”
“That they’re bored?”
“No, there’s an array of people at this event. It’s one of the reasons that I decided to choose this one. I thought it would be beneficial for you to observe people. Everyone here has money. But not everyone is Upper East Side. There’s a difference, and it’s very obvious to people who know what to look for. So tell me, the people at the auction before dinner are…” he prodded.
“Not Upper East Side,” I guessed.
“Correct. No one would outbid us, and if there were something we had an eye on, we would have been informed about it ahead of time by the organizers. So, there’s no point in going to browse. We’re here to mingle. The auction is secondary.”
“I see.” Though it sounded ridiculous to me. But that was the point. I never would have noticed that.
“Look around. Tell me who is the wealthiest person in the room.” Penn’s arm was warm on my elbow as he stopped us in our tracks. He snapped his finger at a passing waiter, and the man scurried over, eager to please. He plucked a glass of champagne off of the tray and passed it to me. “I’ll have a bourbon, neat. Make it a double.”
The man nodded quickly and then disappeared into the crowd to get Penn his drink.
I shook my head in surprise. “You’re good at this.”
“Yes,” he said in dismay. “Now, focus. Did you select a person?”