I huffed. “What exactly did you mean when you said you’d help me survive this world if you could?”
Penn didn’t respond immediately. He just walked toward the balcony and looked over the world he’d ruled for so long. The one he claimed he wanted to escape and yet never let their hooks out of him. The city that owned him.
“It was different then. When I thought…you and Lewis…”
“It’s not different. If I leave, they win. Again. Just like everyone else they’ve hurt and discarded.”
His words were pained when he finally answered, “I don’t want to see you on this path.”
I sighed in frustration and disgust. “It was you who put me on it,” I snapped at him. “And you’re still living it. No matter how many times you claim that you’re going to get out.”
“I am trying to get out.”
“And how is that working out?”
A muscle flickered in his jaw as he faced me once more. “Poorly.”
“So, you’re in this life. I’m in this life. Help me. Teach me.”
“I can’t. I can’t do that.”
I shook my head and reached for my phone. Real anger suffused me. I’d thought that, once he saw my point, he’d agree. That he’d see the damage that they’d done and that I needed his help and he’d give in. But he was being adamant.
“Katherine ruined our relationship. She toyed with me. Lewis kept us apart. He stalked me. They’ve both destroyed my career. And they show no remorse. I can’t even imagine what they’ve done to you over the years. Let alone to everyone else in their warpath,” I said with barely contained fury. “And you just want to let them win. Again. I guess that tells me everything that I need to know.”
I stormed to the elevator, jamming my finger down on the button. Penn was hot on my heels, reaching out to stop me.
“Don’t go,” he begged. “Not like this. Not after last night.”
“You want me but only the parts of me that you can control. You don’t want the Natalie who fits into your world. I’m not that doe-eyed young girl anymore. You wrecked her. You slayed her innocence. I won’t be half of anything anymore.”
Then I wrenched my arm out of his grip and stepped into the elevator.
Chapter 6
Penn
The elevator closed in my face.
“Fuck,” I growled into my now-empty apartment.
I fisted my hands into my hair and tugged on the strands in frustration. Goddamn it! That hadn’t been how that conversation was supposed to go. That hadn’t been how this fucking morning was supposed to go. Not after last night. How fucking incredible last night had been.
Just … where had this Natalie come from?
This vengeful angel set out to prove herself.
When she had first messaged me to let me know that she was coming back into the city for New Year’s Eve, I’d been surprised that she wanted to meet at a party of all places. After what Katherine and Lewis had done, I’d thought she’d still be broken. Still beaten down, eating straight out of a tub of icing. Not in the city, looking like an exotic, sensual phoenix rising up out of the ashes.
After finding out the extent of what had gone down this week, I understood where she was coming from. We had fucked with her life and won. We always won. It was the way a world filled with unending wealth and privilege worked.
But she was coming out swinging.
On one hand, she hadn’t deserved to get kicked to the curb. But that didn’t mean that learning to be more like the enemy was the answer to all of this. She was too good. Too kind and honest and…everything. This world would rip that right out of her if she stayed in it.
I knew first-fucking-hand.
It was a dangerous road she was walking on.
And while I wanted her in my life, I wanted a way for us to be together without the Upper East Side bullshit between us. That was what I should have done all along.
I still thought there was a chance for us. I just…had to convince her of that.
Totle trotted out of the back bedroom with his head cocked to the side, as if to say, Where’d she go?
“Excellent question, buddy. I have to get her back.”
I pressed the elevator button and then dashed around my apartment, pulling on shoes, grabbing my jacket, and then realizing in horror that Natalie had left my house in nothing but a T-shirt. I grabbed a second jacket just as the elevator doors opened.
My foot tapped impatiently on the short ride to the bottom floor. She might have taken a cab and then had no need for the jacket. But knowing Natalie, her anger would have fueled her straight into Central Park. Especially since her apartment was nearly directly across the park from mine. And without another book contract, she probably wouldn’t want to spend the money.
I jogged across Fifth Avenue and into the park, taking the direct route. My eyes scanned the park, looking for the only person insane enough to be out in a T-shirt this time of year.
I knew that she wouldn’t have let me say anything else when she was that upset. But that didn’t mean I was comfortable with her going out in the cold like this. Let alone going back to her apartment when there was a chance that Lewis could be watching the surveillance footage. There was no fucking way I was letting him near her ever again. No fucking way.
She might be pissed at me for telling her no, but I’d put her safety first. We could figure out the rest.
A breath of relief escaped me, puffing a cloud of white in front of my face, as I saw Natalie’s shivering form stumbling across the park.
“Natalie!” I called out to her.
She turned around with a look of surprise on her beautiful face. Her lips were already leaning more toward blue than pink, and she ran her hands up and down her arms. But a small smile touched her features as I approached her.
I held the jacket up and swung it around her shoulders.
“Hey,” she muttered.
“You ran out too fast,” I said softly. “I couldn’t let you walk outside in just a T-shirt.”
“Thanks. I can’t feel my fingers now,” she said, stuffing her hands into the oversize pockets of my jacket. “And…I shouldn’t have stormed out.”
I shot her a lopsided grin, flashing my dimples. It was good to hear her admit that. The cold must have knocked some of the oomph out of her fire.
“I’m glad that I caught up to you. At first, I didn’t know if you’d grabbed a cab.”
“Nah. Didn’t even think about it until I started to freeze.” Her eyes dropped to the ground and then came back to mine. “I should have controlled my temper. I took my problems out on you when you aren’t even the crux of them.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” I told her.
She just nodded, as if accepting that we were past her anger. “I’m guessing the dash out here didn’t change your mind?”
I shook my head once. We were going to figure out what the best way was to be in each other’s lives. But I couldn’t see how helping her learn the games us Upper East Siders had been playing since birth would be the right answer.
“No, but I don’t want you to go to your apartment alone. Even if Amy is there, it doesn’t feel safe to me. Especially since you just told me what Lewis did. I wouldn’t put it past him to do something worse.”