Cruel Fortune (Cruel #2)(61)

“Gain? Why would I have to gain anything? Can’t someone else lose for once?” She tittered.

I huffed. “I don’t have to deal with this. I’m leaving.”

“Well, that solves my problem,” Katherine said. She twirled a glass of champagne in her hand and cocked an eyebrow at me. “Though I don’t understand why you’re here in the first place.”

“She’s here with me,” Lewis interjected.

“And even if I wasn’t,” I cut in, “I would have come because Jane invited me.”

“Oh, be sure, I noticed you cuddling up with the owner. It seems there is a long line of people who you’ve tricked into feeling pity for you.”

I shook my head in disgust. Only Katherine could turn around the horrible bet she had made and place the blame on me. “Okay. Sure, Katherine. Whatever you have to tell yourself. But I’m not going to just stand here and let you insult me.”

“Good. Leave,” Katherine said viciously. “Get out of my world and don’t come back.”

I was half-turned to go when the words hit me. Her world. No. If I walked away like this right now, then she would feel like she could continue to do this forever. That I couldn’t be in the same space as her. That I couldn’t be near Lewis or at Jane’s parties or even something as simple as walking through Central Park. There would be no end to this.

Katherine had been my friend for a brief period. Or I was a project, was more like it. But I’d seen enough of her to know how she would react to me scampering off to get away from her.

“It’s not your world.” I faced off with her. Ready to go another round in the ring. “And I can do whatever I want, including being here right now or anywhere else you happen to be later.”

“Not if you know what’s good for you.”

I straightened and took a step forward. My eyes were narrowed in anger. “Is that a threat?”

Katherine just smirked. “If you want it to be.”

“Katherine, stop it,” Penn hissed. He moved forward, as if to put himself between me and Katherine in the likely event that I launched myself at her and ripped her shiny brown hair out.

I shoved him away and took another step toward Katherine. “I can go wherever I please. You don’t own New York City.”

Katherine laughed in my face. “Actually, I do.”

“Just let it go,” Lewis whispered, trying to pull me backward.

But Katherine wasn’t finished. “That’s what you don’t get, Natalie. What you never understood. You think you can waltz in here and be one of us. That, with my clothes on your body and a Warren or a Kensington on your arm, you’ll be someone. But you’re nothing. And you’ll always be nothing.”

She was goading me. She wanted me to do something stupid so that she could play the victim. But I saw through her. I shook Lewis off and straightened. My blue eyes weren’t menacing but sad. Because Katherine was a product of this world. She was empty inside. And she didn’t know anything else.

“I might be nothing. I might be no one. That’s fine by me. But you…you can’t even come to terms with who you really are. So trapped in the past that you can’t see the future.” I shook my head once. “You’re a desperate, scared little girl who gets her kicks from hurting other people. You have no real friends, and you’re so insecure that you’re entering an arranged marriage for money. I’d rather have nothing than what you have.”

Katherine drew in a sharp breath. And for a solid minute, it felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. The music seemed to go quiet. The lights focused on us. We all waited on a precipice for her response. But I was done. No matter what she said, it wouldn’t matter to me. I was through with Katherine Van Pelt and her weak threats.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” I said.

I turned and walked away. Left Katherine waiting on a clever response. I might have had second thoughts about whether or not I fit into this world earlier today. But Katherine’s torment proved that I did. She thought that, by belittling me, it was proof that I should run and cower. But it was the opposite. I was a threat. A threat that she had to try to squash under her Manolo Blahnik heel.

I wouldn’t be squashed. I wouldn’t go away just because she wanted me to. I would rise from the ashes over and over again and not look back.

I was halfway across the room before I felt an arm grasp my hand.

“Hey,” Lewis said, stopping me from leaving.

“I’m fine. No, I’m not. I’m royally pissed off actually. And I want to go home.”

He tucked a loose strand of my silver hair behind my ear. “I’ll take you home. You were brilliant back there. No one ever stands up to Katherine like that.”

“I don’t want to have to stand up to her.”

“You’re right. You shouldn’t have to. Next time we’re out, we’ll avoid her.”

“Next time?” I felt defeated, just thinking of having that encounter over and over again.

“If you don’t come back out and do the things you want to do even if she’s there, then you let her win. Katherine and I have been friends a long, long time. If you give her an inch, she’ll take a mile.”

“I don’t want to play these games,” I told him.