Cruel Fortune (Cruel #2)(88)

“Why?” I asked warily.

“Your pen name,” she said. “Someone found out you’re Olivia.”

“What? How?” I gasped frantically.

“I don’t know. But someone leaked it to the press.”

I took the phone she offered me and read the headline of the article she had up, suddenly feeling faint.

New York Times Bestselling Novel Bet on It Author Olivia Davies Reportedly a Pen Name for Former Temp Worker. Not the Insider You Expected!





Natalie





39





“No,” I breathed. “No, no, no, no, no.”

I skimmed through the article with my heart in my throat. This couldn’t be happening. This…this couldn’t be real.

And yet, it was.

The article was a tell-all in its reveal of me. Slamming me for writing a fucking fictional account. As if it didn’t say based on on the fucking cover. It painted me as a jilted ex. Someone who had lost in all of this and was desperate for revenge. As if I’d written it for that and not to expunge the contents of my soul onto the page.

It claimed that I’d painted the picture to appear like I was an Upper East Sider who had fallen into this group. When, in fact, I was just the help. A washed-up temp worker who was watching a home in the Hamptons last fall. That the book wasn’t some insider information that was worth reading; it was just a boring outside perspective of someone who wished they could live in this world.

And since the article was an editorial from someone in the know, it was clear that they didn’t think that my information was important enough to come from ‘the help.’ I effectively had no voice in this. And would be given no response. Just a salacious headline that tore me from my apparent pedestal.

Basically, I was no one important. The book sucked. And I was kind of a whore.

“Holy fuck. I don’t…” My hands were shaking as I all but threw the phone back at Jane.

“How the hell did someone get this information?” Penn demanded. “Does the author list a source?”

I shook my head.

“This is slander. We could go after them.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Jane said. “How many other people knew about this?”

“Hardly anyone. Maybe a half dozen people.”

“None of us would have leaked this,” Penn said.

Jane agreed. “Someone else had to know. Someone out to get you.”

“Shit, I don’t even know what this means for the book. I have to call my agent,” I gasped. “Fuck, it’s Saturday. She’s not going to answer. I’ll have to email her. I hope she doesn’t see the article before she gets my email.”

I fished into my purse and pulled out my phone. My brain was running a million miles a second. There had to be some kind of damage control that Caroline could do. Or Gillian. This was…beyond words.

I’d thought that finding out about Lewis and the subsequent breakup would be the death of me, but…my career was hanging in the balance. The only thing that I’d ever wanted to do with my life. The thing I’d finally secured happily. And now…I didn’t know where I stood.

“Natalie,” Penn murmured softly.

“What?” I asked, glancing up at him.

But he was looking elsewhere. I followed his line of vision and found the dark-haired beauty clothed in white, walking toward us.

“Katherine,” I muttered. I wasn’t ready for this confrontation. Not after Lewis. Not after this debacle with my pen name.

Her smug smirk was relentless. “Hello, Natalie.”

“Look, I’m leaving now anyway, so you can save your speech for someone else.”

“Speech?” Katherine asked. “No, I don’t have anything planned. I’m actually glad that you’re here now that I think about it.”

I narrowed my eyes. Not good. “Why?”

“Because now, I get to see your reaction. See the dread in your eyes instead of imagining what it looked like back in your sad apartment.”

“You did this,” I realized.

“How did you find out?” Penn demanded.

Her eyes flicked to his. Something like pain flashed across her face but was replaced with that blank stare she’d walked down the aisle with.

“Did you honestly think that you could keep secrets in this town?” Katherine asked.

“That’s rich, coming from you,” Penn quipped.

“Who told you?” I demanded.

“I have eyes and ears everywhere.”

I shook my head in disgust. “You are a disturbed woman.”

Katherine laughed. “Sure, Natalie. Whatever you have to tell yourself. You should have listened to me,” Katherine told me. “You thought that you could come to my city and threaten me. I told you that I own this city. And I do. You don’t belong in it. Let this be a lesson for how miserable I can make your life.”

“Make my life miserable?” I asked with a slow blink. “Why would you even care? Oh wait, we know the answer to that, Katherine. Because you are miserable, and you want everyone to join you. You want to bring people down onto your level, which happens to be at the bottom of the ocean where you’re drowning. That’s what you want in life. Misery. That’s why you had this sham of a wedding today.”