Page 15 of Cruel King

My brain was mush when I woke up the next morning, naked in my hotel room, alone. I reached haphazardly for my phone and saw the three missed calls from Lark.

“Fuck,” I croaked.

I clicked the voicemail button. “Are we still on for today? I can meet you at the building in ten.”

Beep.

“I’m here. Where are you? Whitley, are you still drunk and in bed?”

Beep.

“Well, the apartment was lovely. Are you going to be able to come to the next one, or should I reschedule with my real estate agent?”

“Fuck,” I repeated and scrambled into the shower.

Twenty minutes later, I was uptown in a sort of presentable outfit. My hair was still wet, but it was a rainy morning. So, I sort of got away with it. Lark barely held back laughter as I scrambled out of the cab and to her side.

“Sorry, sorry!”

“You look drowned.”

I brushed my hair off my shoulders. It looked much darker when it was wet. The lavender deepening to a gray-purple. But I hadn’t had time to blow-dry it. Not when I had enough hair that even with a fancy blow-dryer, it took a half hour to dry on a good day.

“Yeah. But I’m here, and I haven’t had coffee.”

Lark shook her head. “Come on. Let’s get you some coffee before we meet Cassie. She’s the best real estate agent in the business. She works for my dad in commercial real estate but helps out friends and family for personal residences.”

Larkin St. Vincent was heir to the St. Vincent’s Resorts conglomerate. They had resorts and villas all over the world for their upper echelon clientele. We’d gone to one in Puerto Rico for two weeks over Christmas three years ago. That was where Gavin and I had fallen into bed.

But Lark had no interest in the family fortune. She was Upper East Side through and through, but now, she worked for Leslie Kensington on her mayoral campaign as the head campaign manager. She’d helped get her elected to her second term despite Court acting like the train wreck he’d been before he met English, and she’d been with the mayor ever since.

“Thanks for doing this,” I told Lark after I had coffee securely in my hands and could function as a human being again.

“You know me, I love to help.”

“Well, I appreciate it. I know you’re busy with the election in November.”

“Things are picking up,” she agreed. “But it’ll really get busy in the fall. English’s wedding couldn’t have come at a worse time.”

“And here I thought that was the point.”

Lark rolled her eyes. “I told Leslie to plan it for after or to have it in the summer when she wouldn’t be quite so busy.”

“But she saw English and Court’s wedding as a chip in the campaign game.”

“Don’t tell English.”

“Oh, she knows exactly what family she’s marrying into.”

“She wants to elope,” Lark said. “I’d be for it if Leslie wouldn’t have a fit.”

“Plus, you want to be there.”

Lark grinned. “Well, yes. I love English, but I didn’t get to see Penn and Natalie get married.”

Once upon a time, there had been a group of Upper East Side teenagers who were so obsessed with each other that they had their own name—Crew. Cruel Crew, if the rumors could be believed. Penn Kensington, Katherine Van Pelt, Larkin St. Vincent, Lewis Warren, and Archibald Rowe ruled the Upper East Side. They were inseparable. Then, Natalie had appeared, and the fissures in the group had turned into chasms. They still met every Labor Day weekend at the Kensingtons’ Hamptons home, but it wasn’t the same. And maybe that was for the better.

Natalie and Penn had eloped. Katherine and Camden had gotten married in the city. Everyone went on with their lives.

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