Cruel Fortune (Cruel #2)(16)

Not that I was about to ask him. The last thing I wanted was to get mixed up in the Upper East Side again. Let alone with the crew and the dangers that came with their inner circle. Especially when I was the one who felt guilty about being here with him tonight. For using him to get more writing in.

“So, what did Jane want?” He leaned against the railing and sweetly stared at me.

“Nothing. I guess Gillian invited her for her contacts. She wanted her to get someone to write about the event and my book. But Gillian didn’t know, of course, that I already knew Jane. And that Jane knows me as Natalie, not Olivia.” I winced again at the thought of the encounter. “Just pure bad luck.”

“Ah, how did you explain that one?”

I shrugged. “Poorly, I think.”

My eyes slipped back to my container of icing. Lewis was being so nice to me. Not just in the incredibly arrogant and charming way that I knew he could be. The way he had been in the office of Warren Publishing. He wasn’t putting on a front here. He was just being…nice. Standing here and listening to me vent.

It was refreshing in its own way. Even if I didn’t want it to be. He hadn’t been wrong when he said that we’d gotten along so well before. We had. As friends…I’d thought. Now, here as…I had no idea what.

And the heat and tension between us made me feel worse about the reason I had agreed to be here with him tonight.

“That wonderful mind of yours is thinking hard again.” He leaned in closer. “Care to share with the class?”

“I shouldn’t have come to this party with you tonight,” I told him truthfully, setting the icing down on the balcony railing.

“Oh no, I definitely think it was the right choice.”

“No, I mean, I’m using you.”

He laughed. “Natalie Bishop, using me? Come now.” He brushed my silvery hair off my shoulder. “We both know that you are too sweet for such things.”

“I’m serious, Lewis.”

He tried to rein in his laughing grin but couldn’t quite manage it. “Maybe I want to be used by you if it means more time with you.”

“You don’t want to be used,” I murmured dryly. “Trust me. I know.”

He straightened, taking me in, in a glance. “This isn’t about Penn, is it?”

“What? No,” I spat. I shuddered at the thought.

“Well, if you’re not using me to make him jealous, then I don’t see how you could possibly do something that would offend me.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” I gasped out. “Why would you even think that?”

He shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

I frowned at that. I hadn’t even considered that option. That he would think I would see him just to get back at Penn in any way. I wanted nothing to do with Penn. Thinking about him was still too painful. I hadn’t even wanted to come to New York, knowing I might run into him. Maybe it made me a coward that I didn’t want to face him, but I couldn’t help it.

“Well, it’s not that. It would never be that.”

“Then, tell me.”

“I haven’t written in a year,” I confessed.

He raised his eyebrows. “So, that’s why you didn’t want to talk about it at the meeting yesterday.”

“Yes. Thank you for saving me from that.”

“Anytime. Though that doesn’t explain how you’re using me.”

“Well, after I left lunch yesterday, I finally was able to write for the first time. This bright and vibrant literary novel that I desperately want to publish under my real name and not Olivia. Something that is an all-passion project and—ugh!” I sighed in pleasure. “I’m loving it.”

“And you got all of that out of one lunch?”

I nodded. “So…I asked you to come with me today because I hoped that I’d be able to write more after.”

Lewis met my gaze for a moment and then burst into laughter.

“What?” I gasped, swatting at him. “I’m serious. I’m using you for a positive word count.”

“Use me away.” He pulled me closer against him. “Use me for more writing. I’m desperate to read more. Natalie, Olivia—be whoever you want to be as long as I get more out of your beautiful brain, and if that means more time with you, I suppose I could sacrifice myself for that.”

“You are outrageous,” I told him. “Here I was, all worried that I was using you as a muse, and you don’t even care.”

“How could I care?” He leaned forward into me. Our lips mere inches apart. His voice pitched low and seductive. “I want to be your muse.”

“You do?” I asked huskily.

A tingle ran through my body as he brushed the shell of my ear and dragged his finger down my neck.

“I do.” His hand trailed over my shoulder and down my arm before finding my freezing fingers. His thumb drew circles into my skin.

“What are you doing?” I whispered.

“What I should have done a long time ago.”

My breathing was ragged, as he cradled my neck in his hand, tilting my head up to look at him. I knew what was about to happen. I could see the longing and desire painted on his face. That need that had been there all night but had never been more blatant than that moment, that single, solitary moment before his lips brushed against mine.