She narrowed her eyes at me. We both knew that she didn’t have that kind of leverage with him. Maybe no one else right now knew, but we did. Our little secret. I watched her realize it. Watched her see that she’d lost. And I smiled.
But it was the smile that must have tipped her over.
“I’m really amazed at all you’ve accomplished, Natalie,” Katherine said with no hint of warmth in her voice. “But I’m surprised that you and Jane are still close.”
My eyes flickered to Jane’s. She hadn’t been at my side. In fact, she hadn’t said a thing the whole conversation. But I wouldn’t ask. Katherine wanted me to ask.
“Isn’t that right, Janie?” Katherine asked, crooking her finger at Jane. “You must not have told her that you were the one who outed her pen name to me.”
My body seized. No. Fuck. It couldn’t have been Jane. Why would Jane have told Katherine?
It made no sense. But at the same time, it somehow did. So few people had known about my pen name. And I knew that Lewis and Penn hadn’t told her. But Jane…Jane had known.
“Natalie,” Jane said. Her usual Jane calm evaporating. “I…I didn’t want to.”
I stared at her in disbelief. Could I fucking trust anyone in this community? I would have never trusted Jane from the beginning, but she had found out by total accident that I was Olivia Davies. But she promised she wouldn’t tell. I believed her. I’d been wrong. Again.
This was Katherine’s step ahead. But there was no way I could have anticipated Jane’s deceit. Penn had been right about her all along.
“Oh, you didn’t know?” Katherine crooned softly. “Sorry to break it to you.”
“You know,” I said icily, “I don’t think that you are. Now, you can get out of here and leave us be.”
“What? Not going to go run away and cry about it?”
I laughed at her. “No, I’m not.” Then I dismissively fluttered my fingers and turned my back on her. I wouldn’t give her what she wanted. I wouldn’t break down at this news. I wouldn’t run away. I wouldn’t let her have the booth just because she was evil as fuck.
Instead, I faced Jane, who looked stricken in the corner. “So, it’s true?”
She nodded solemnly. “I’m so sorry. I felt so awful.”
“Why? Why did you tell her?”
She just shook her head.
But I didn’t have time or energy for games. “For no reason then? What was in it for you, Jane?”
Because I knew my friend. Everything came with a price. And I supposed this one was the price of our friendship.
“Percy,” she whispered in despair.
Of course. “You sold me out to get money from the enemy. God, Jane, you disgust me.”
“Natalie, please, look at how much you’ve grown since then. You’re incredible! You’re killing it. No one cares anymore.”
“I care,” I said, low and dangerous. “I care. And you know perfectly well why I care, Jane. As you pretended to be my friend when it happened.”
“I am your friend,” she insisted.
“No, I don’t think you are. You should go,” I told her viciously. “We’re having a girls’ night. It’s not meant for backstabbers.”
I hated the words, even as they left my mouth.
Jane had been there for me when I came back to the city. We had developed a friendship over time. But if she was going to sell my secrets to Katherine, then I didn’t want her as a friend. And it was worse because she knew more of them. She knew the contact I’d gotten from her. What I’d wanted to do that day. But maybe she’d think twice before revealing it.
“Nat…”
“Go, Jane,” I growled. “Just go.”
She grabbed her purse from the couch, looking wide-eyed at the group of girls she’d just been hanging out with. But no one met her gaze. They were all looking at me or at the floor or off in the distance. No one said a word as Jane walked out of the booth, off the dance floor, and out of the club.
I didn’t know when Katherine had left, but she was gone when I turned back around. And I wanted to count it as a win. But in truth, I felt like I’d been hollowed out. I couldn’t show how upset I was. I couldn’t leave this girls’ night that I’d planned. I couldn’t be myself for even a second…or it might all fall apart, just like Katherine wanted.
I managed to be utterly alone in a sea of people. Was this how Katherine had always felt on her throne?
Chapter 29
Natalie
I crawled into Penn’s bed early the next morning. We’d been up until the wee hours of the morning, dancing and drinking. My head felt as heavy as a bowling ball, my throat was scratchy, and I was beyond drained. Who knew that being on could suck the life out of a person?
Penn’s arm tightened around my bare shoulder as I leaned my head against his chest. “Mmm, Nat.”
I kissed his neck. “I just got in,” I rasped.
“I like your voice like that. Sexy.”
I chuckled. “I sound like a smoker.”
“But a sexy smoker,” he said, dragging me tighter against him.
I sighed against him and stared off into the dark. Totle was curled up around his legs, and he nudged me with his wet nose. I reached down and petted him once. My head was still spinning from the alcohol though. Maybe lying down wasn’t such a great idea.
“I think I’m still drunk.”
“You smell like a bar,” Penn confirmed.
“What a compliment. Just what every girl wants to hear.”
He slipped an eye open. “How much did you drink?”
“No idea.”
I’d lost count after Jane left.
“Did you have a good time?”
I swallowed. Felt the first pricks of tears at my eyes. The pain and loss hitting me now that I was sinking into the cushions and allowed to feel again. I pushed them down, down, down. I didn’t want to cry. I couldn’t cry. It was absurd.
And yet…my throat was tight when I responded, “Well…”
He opened both eyes at that. Worry creased his forehead. “What happened?”
I sank back on the pillow. “Katherine. Of course.”
“She was there? But you didn’t invite her.”
“No, I didn’t. She was there to see Camden. They, like, made out on the dance floor.”
Penn wrinkled his nose. “Percy? You’re sure?”
“A hundred percent. Fiona’s been fucking him for years. I think she’d know.”
“Oh yeah,” he muttered.
I met his gaze. “When were you going to tell me that you’d fucked all the lackeys?”
He snorted. “The lackeys? Is that what you’re calling them?”
“Isn’t that what they are?”
“Yes,” he agreed. “And…sorry. I mean, I didn’t know if you wanted to know who it was.”
“Was it all of them? All of the ones that you told me to invite?”
He shook his head. “Not…all of them.”
I groaned. “Just most of them.”