Cruel Fortune (Cruel #2)(91)

“I don’t think it had anything to do with what she wanted.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Well, after your pen name was announced, it seems that the company doesn’t think that someone who writes…mainstream tell-alls can produce the kind of literary novels they’re looking for.”

“Wait,” I said, standing abruptly. “You’re saying that…because I wrote Bet on It, which is still selling like crazy, I somehow can’t write any other kind of book?”

“That is how it was presented to me.”

“That’s bullshit,” I spat.

Caroline cleared her throat. “Between you and me, Natalie?”

“Yeah,” I muttered. Fury coursing through me at the ridiculous explanation.

“Gillian hinted that the rejection came from above her.”

“Okay…”

“All the way from the top.”

My heart stopped beating. “Lewis.”

“She didn’t say that outright, but that was my first guess, considering you told me about your unfortunate breakup.”

I blinked. I couldn’t believe this. Lewis had…blocked my book from publication. He had stripped me of the thing he knew that I loved most. The books he’d claimed to love as much as I did.

No.

No, he couldn’t do that.

But, of course, he could.

His family owned the fucking company. He could do whatever he pleased. Just like every other Upper East Sider. They had all the control, all the money, all the power. They were untouchable. And they could destroy my world in the blink of an eye.

Caroline was still rattling on. Telling me that she still planned to submit the book to other publishers. How it might be a good idea to choose another pen name for the literary novel if I still wanted to write it. Or maybe it was better to go back to Olivia and own that brand.

I nodded and said all the right things at the right times, but I wasn’t really listening. When I hung up, I stared blankly forward. Not with shock. No, something darker. Something that crawled out of that deep, dark place that I’d succumbed to six days ago. A place I hadn’t known existed, and I didn’t know who I would become if I unleashed it.

But I did know that I was done playing by my own moral code.

Done playing by the rules.

They were not going to get away with what they had done to me. They were not going to walk free and clean just because they had money and power. I had told Katherine I would make her pay for what she had done, and I had meant it. But it wasn’t until this moment that I knew that I would not stop until I got my revenge.

Until they all burned.