Beautifully Cruel (Beautifully Cruel #1)(40)

I ride with Ellie and Ty to the restaurant. When we arrive, we find Diego, Carla, and her husband, Dave, waiting for us in the bar. I take one look at Diego and my heart sinks.

He’s wearing a suit. A nice navy blue suit with a white dress shirt, a gray tie, and black loafers polished to such a shine they could blind me.

That isn’t a “we’re just friends” suit.

He jolts from his chair as soon as he spots me, looks me up and down, and whistles. “You look beautiful, chica. That’s some dress.”

The dress in question is a sleeveless, V-neck, fitted red number with small crystal buttons all the way down the front. It reveals more skin than I’d like, but I’m wearing it under duress.

“Thank you. I borrowed it from Ellie. She said she wouldn’t be seen at this place with me in my usual…” I turn to her with a quirked brow. “What did you call it?”

Hanging on Ty’s arm, Ellie laughs. “Walmart chic.”

“That’s an oxymoron,” says Ty, grinning down at Ellie.

I’m surprised he knows the definition of the word.

Ty is blond, permatan, and the kind of superficial you can spot all the way across a room. He looks exactly like what he is: the rich, popular jock from high school who’s got more dick than brains and a trust fund of such a size it guarantees he’ll never have to bother with developing those pesky character traits like honesty or empathy.

It’s one of life’s great mysteries that a woman like Ellie—smart, attractive, self-confident—would have anything to do with him.

Then again, judging by the volume of her screams, the sex is legendary.

“Hey, Tru!” A grinning Carla gives me a hug. She’s wearing a leopard print minidress that looks painted on. Her cleavage is eye-popping. “You remember Dave?”

She gestures to her husband, a slab of beef of a man standing beside her.

He’s a few years past his prime but is handsome in a rugged, outdoorsy way. He looks like someone you’d want with you if your plane crashed on a desert island. He’d be the guy chopping down palm trees to make huts for shelter and catching fish with his bare hands.

“Tru,” he says in a rumbling baritone. “Congrats on graduating.”

“Thank you, Dave. I never thought I’d make it!”

He regards me with a level look. “Carla says you’re gonna be a public defender?”

“That’s the plan.”

“Good for you. This town needs more bright young people who’re civic minded. Seems like all the young folks these days only care about takin’ selfies and bein’ Instagram models.”

Flipping his hair, Ty laughs. “Yeah, that’s ’cause Instagram influencers make bank. Tru’s gonna have to find herself a rich husband if she wants to be able make her rent.”

He winks at me. “Being civic minded doesn’t pay the bills, babe.”

I’m irritated by the wink, the condescension, and especially by being called “babe.” I say coolly, “I’m not interested in a rich husband, but I am interested in helping people who can’t afford decent legal representation.”

He scoffs. “So basically poor criminals?”

My nostrils flare. Heat crawls up my neck. “Many of those ‘poor criminals’ are unjustly accused—”

Ty snorts. “Right.”

“—living on the fringes of society and suffering from poverty or addiction—”

He rolls his eyes. “Totally self-inflicted.”

“—who need someone to advocate for them,” I finish loudly. “I want to be that someone.”

Bored with the topic, Ty looks over my head to scan the crowd. “Have at it, babe. Just don’t expect to ever own a decent car.”

Dave glowers at Ty, Carla nervously puts her hand on Dave’s beefy forearm, and Ellie, sensing the conversation has gone off the rails, says brightly, “Let’s get our table, shall we?”

She steers Ty away toward the hostess stand near the front of the bar.

Watching them go, Diego mutters under his breath, “What an asshole.”

Dave grunts. “With you there, brother.”

When I sigh, Carla looks at me with sympathy. “Let’s get you a drink, honey.”

I smile at her. “And this is why I love you.”



From that inauspicious beginning, things go straight downhill.

Ty gets drunk on overpriced celebrity tequila and flirts outrageously with the simpering teenage waitress. Ellie’s mouth gets more and more pinched, until it resembles a prune. Dave barely speaks, preferring instead to chug one beer after another while glaring daggers at Ty, while Carla chatters to fill the awkward silence.

Worst of all, Diego spends far too much time staring at me.

Outright staring, not even bothering to hide it.

We’re seated in a table in a corner of the room away from the dance floor—had I known the place had a dance floor, I never would have come—so though the music is loud, it’s not unbearable. Pretty much everything else is unbearable, however, from the pretentious food to the pretentious crowd to the pretentious DJ who keeps hollering, “What up, party people?” between songs.

After the dinner plates have been cleared, Ty burps loudly, gazing wistfully at the retreating waitress’s ass. “Anybody wanna dance?”