Home > Cruel Legacy (Cruel #3)(24)

Cruel Legacy (Cruel #3)(24)
Author: K.A.Linde

“This is Natalie’s first Fashion Week,” Jane said, pulling me from my phone.

“What?” Harmony gasped. “I can’t believe it. This is my, oh, who even knows how many anymore? Hundreds, I swear. But the first year that I’m not walking in any of them.”

I remembered all of Penn’s lessons about how to act and look and appear to other people. Always confident. Never letting them see my nerves. Careful to keep myself under control. Haughty if everything else failed. This was my first real test of the lessons that we’d had up to this point. I knew the gala would be something else altogether. And this was more like a test run.

I shrugged one shoulder. “Yes. This is a whole new experience for me. Not my typical area of art.”

“Right. You’re an author,” Harmony remembered.

I nodded. “Why aren’t you walking this year?”

Harmony wrinkled her nose. “It was time, I think. I’m going to take up the mantle of Cunningham Couture with mother for the spring/summer 2020 line show in September. We’ll start on it after this event.”

“That’s going to be so good for you,” I said.

“The brand is expanding so rapidly. It’ll be great to have another Cunningham on board.”

“Thanks for your confidence,” Harmony said, brushing back her sheet of blonde hair. “Oh god, what is she doing here?”

I followed her gaze and saw none other than Katherine Van Pelt striding into the now-full room. The poor woman who had told me where my seat was frantically rushed after her. As if Katherine wasn’t supposed to be in here.

“Ma’am, please, all of the VIP seats were assigned weeks ago. Mrs. Cunningham put them in place herself. You are not supposed to be seated here.”

Katherine whipped around and said something low to the woman. I assumed it had to be vicious because the woman blanched and then retreated to where she had been standing. She had made a big enough scene to draw attention, but when the woman walked away, everyone went back to what they had been doing.

Except my trio. We all stared at Katherine, waiting.

“She is not welcome,” Harmony muttered under her breath.

“It looks like she has an invitation though,” Jane pointed out.

“Maybe it was a mix-up,” I offered, keeping my face neutral. A perfect blank mask taken straight out of the Upper East Side.

That was the moment that Katherine found me seated in the front row of Elizabeth Cunningham’s New York Fashion Week runway show. Her eyes narrowed. Her perfect cherry-red lips pursed in disapproval. Her entire stance snapped into predator mode. And then she was walking toward me about to take me head-on.

I was ready for her. I, unlike her, had anticipated her presence. I’d prepared for what I would do and how I would act if and when I ran into her again. Because I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t been waiting for this moment since I stepped back onto the scene.

Now, she was here. And I was sitting in her place. The only thing that would hold her back was the crowd. I had to keep from smirking at her as I stayed one step in front of her.

“Natalie,” she hissed when she reached where I was seated with Harmony and Jane.

“Oh my goodness, Katherine,” I said with faux excitement. I rose to my feet and wrapped my arms around her thin shoulders. “You’re back from your honeymoon. Did you and Camden just have the best time? I cannot imagine how wonderful it was to have a whole month alone with him in the Maldives. Nowhere else to go. Nothing else to do.” I secretively lowered my voice and winked. “Except each other, of course.”

Katherine took a step back from me, as if surprised by my enthusiasm. As if I’d thrown her by not digging my claws into her back like she deserved.

Jane stood, too, with a real smile for Katherine. “Tell us everything. How was it? Look at how tan you are.”

“It was…perfect,” she said with the passion of a slug baking in the sun. “I am just so glad to be back now though. Get back to my city. And there seems to have been some error.” She held up her invitation. “It looks like you’re in my seat, Natalie.”

I put a hand to my chest. “I’m sorry you think so. But no, when Elizabeth and I spoke after the children’s art foundation charity event, she assured me that I’d be seated with Jane.”

Katherine tilted her head in confusion. “The…children’s art foundation event?”

“Oh yes, very important work,” I said with a smile.

“You were at the charity function?”

“Of course.” I fluttered my eyelashes at her for good measure.

“Look, you need to go sit somewhere else. I always sit in the front row. Elizabeth has been dressing me for the last two years. She assured me I’d have this seat.”

“Can’t do that,” I said with a smile. “But maybe there’s room in the general seating if you hurry.”

Katherine glared at me. Her brown orbs turning almost black as she looked like she wanted to do anything to cut me down. “That…is not possible.”

“Maybe next year,” I said with cheer. I patted her shoulder twice and then sat next to Harmony.

I turned to Harmony as if we were best friends and ignored Katherine standing there like a fish out of water in the very place she had always considered her own element.

“So, tell me more about this design work you’re planning on,” I said to Harmony.

Katherine reached out and grasped my shoulder. Her voice was low. “Natalie, what the fuck are you thinking?”

I brushed her hand off of my shoulder like she was a fly. “Thinking? I don’t know what you mean, Katherine. I can’t help that you don’t have a reserved seat. Take it up with Elizabeth, I guess.”

Harmony finally looked up at Katherine with complete apathy. “Better luck next year, Katherine.”

Katherine balked at us both, straightening to her considerable height. I could see the emotions roiling through. Everything she wanted to do and say. But there were too many people. Katherine liked to hide her destruction. She didn’t want people to see it in the light of day. She was too perfect to do anything else. Only her friends and the line of people she’d taken down knew her true self. If she wasn’t careful, someone might come along and make her pay for what she’d done.

Finally, Katherine stomped away, not admitting defeat as she railed at the person with the seating chart. But she was gone. And I’d won that round.

As soon as Katherine was out of sight, Harmony burst into laughter. “Oh. My. God. Natalie, that was brilliant. I have never seen anyone handle Katherine like that before.”

Even Jane was giggling. “Seriously, how did you do that?”

I shrugged. “I didn’t do anything,” I lied. “She didn’t have a seat. It wasn’t my fault that she attacked me when she thought I’d taken her place for the show. That’s delusional on her part.”

“Yes. But I’ve seen a lot of people fold to her demands. And you actually turned your back on her. Genius,” Harmony said. She grasped my hand and squeezed. “Katherine and I have a fraught history. She’s a horrible person, and she did everything she could to make my life miserable for so many years. Anyone who can stand up to her like that is a friend of mine.”

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