Natalia Read online

  Cora’s cornflower blue eyes shone with indignation on behalf of Natalia, and her fingers twisted in the blonde ponytail draped sleekly over her shoulder like she did when she was agitated. “Who else will she ever find to arrange for an elephant to be delivered to the Hamptons or find rope dancers to perform at a Bar Mitzvah?”

  Cora paced the small space. In sharp contrast to Natalia, who could feel the funk growing after nearly two days in the same clothes and not getting up to do anything but use the bathroom, Cora was as always perfectly polished in her skinny jeans and gauzy white blouse. Her makeup was understated and tasteful, with just a hint of mascara and lip gloss to highlight her classic blond blue-eyed beauty. Her only jewelry was a watch she’d received for her eighteenth birthday and the four carat princess cut diamond engagement ring she’d received from her fiancé, Charles David Morehouse the Third, or Trey, as he was known, at the end of last summer.

  “Alexandria could have died,” Olivia, Cora’s older sister by fourteen months, said from her perch next to Natalia on the couch. Like her sister, Olivia was blond and blue eyed with classically sculpted features. But while there was a softness to Cora’s features, Olivia had an aggressive tilt to her chin and eyed the world with an unmistakable wariness. “Tricia will be lucky if the Pierces don’t sue the company.”

  “Thanks Olivia. I’m so glad you guys offered to come over and cheer me up.” But even though Olivia’s comments stung, they weren’t anything Natalia hadn’t thought herself. And as devastated as she was at getting fired, she certainly couldn’t blame Tricia for her decision.

  Her stomach was still churning at the memory of their meeting the previous morning. Any slight bit of hope Natalia had fostered that Tricia would give her a second chance died the moment she saw the other woman’s face. Tricia’s usually serene features were set in grim lines, and her normally warm brown eyes were oddly flat.

  Natalia had so badly wanted to defend herself, to pass the blame onto the server who had failed to follow her instructions to divulge all of the ingredients of every dish served to avoid such a disaster. But ultimately she knew the buck stopped with her and entirely understood why Tricia had to completely disassociate herself with anyone involved in the previous night’s debacle.

  Natalia might have had a chance to redeem herself had some of the guests or the staff - there was no way to know exactly who was responsible - not taken pictures and videos of Alexandria as her husband was administering the EpiPen and later being attended by the paramedics. Said photos and videos had ended up in inboxes of a reporter for Page Six, the New York Post’s infamous gossip page. The story quickly went viral with people leaving savage comments on social media. One picture of Alexandria had already become a popular meme.

  “Here, have a spanakopita. I brought them home from the restaurant last night.”

  Natalia’s lip curled and she drew back against the couch cushions as her friend Emily waved the plate of spinach and cheese stuffed phyllo under her nose. Normally she would have eagerly devoured anything Emily Drake, who was recently recognized as one of the city’s hottest up and coming chefs by Time Out New York, put in front of her. But the reality of the disaster her life had become had Natalia feeling like she’d swallowed a cannonball.

  “You really should eat something,” Emily urged. In high school, her soft black curls, creamy complexion, and big green eyes had earned her the nickname “Snow White.” But her big eyes and cupid’s bow mouth hid the thick skin and spine of steel she’d needed to develop to make her way up in the ranks of New York’s finest restaurants.

  Natalia shook her head again. “I’m afraid if I put anything in my mouth, I’ll barf.”

  “If she doesn’t want them, I’ll take a few,” Olivia leaned over to pluck one of the spanakopita from the plate. She took a bite and closed her eyes briefly in culinary ecstasy. She finished the last bite and fixed her gaze on Natalia. “You should consider getting your own attorney.”

  As an attorney herself, Olivia who worked in the compliance department for a large investment bank on Wall Street thought everyone could benefit from legal counsel.

  “But as my employer, isn’t Elite ultimately liable?”

  “Sure,” Olivia said as she took another pastry from the plate Emily had set on the low coffee table in front of the couch. “But that wouldn’t necessarily keep the Pierces from suing you directly if they wanted to.”

  “Why would they want to sue me? It’s not like I have any money,” Natalia said, feeling like her intestines were twisting around themselves.

  Olivia shrugged. “Alexandria was humiliated by those pictures. They may just want to make your life difficult to make a point. Money has nothing to do with it.”

  “Oh, God,” Natalia buried her face in her hands. “How in the hell am I going to afford an attorney?” Though her former job with Elite Events had her regularly brushing shoulders with billionaires, her own financial situation was very different. Though Tricia paid her a decent salary, living in Manhattan was expensive, especially if she wanted to live by herself. And while she’d worked all through college, she’d still ended up with student loans to pay off. As an added kicker, she and her brothers had been left holding the bag for the medical bills left behind after their father lost his battle with leukemia last year.

  “Olivia, stop scaring her,” Cora scolded. She took a seat next to Natalia and put her arm around her shoulders. “Nobody is going to sue you. And if they do, you know you can count on us to help you.”

  While she would never in a million years ask any of these women for money, just knowing they would be there for her in other ways was enough to ease the tension in her gut. For the past fourteen years, they had been there for each other through every high and every low. When Natalia’s mother had died of a heart attack her junior year of high school, they had picked her up, dusted her off, and made sure she passed her final exams. When her father was dying last year, they had taken turns keeping her company at the hospital.

  There was nothing like knowing your friends had your back, no matter what.

  When Natalia had first met Cora, Olivia, and Emily her first day of freshman year at Greenwich Day School, never in a million years would she have thought that fourteen years later they would still be thick as thieves. A scholarship student, Natalia had shown up on the campus of the all girls’ private school catering to the children of Greenwich’s elite, with a massive chip on her shoulder. The last thing she wanted to do was deal with a bunch of rich, spoiled, country club bitches.

  She would have been perfectly happy to go to the very good public school in town, she protested. She would have even been ok going to St. Mary’s, the Catholic school where several of her friends from church were going. But as soon as her guidance counselor pointed out that Natalia’s grades and test scores meant she had a good chance at earning a coveted scholarship at Greenwich Day School, her parents wouldn’t consider anything else.

  Natalia had considered fudging the placement test and the application but knew her parents would probably figure it out. And while she wasn’t looking forward to spending her high school years at Greenwich Day School, she didn’t want to spend all four of them grounded either.

  Greenwich Day was as bad as she’d feared. She had nothing in common with any of the other girls who had gone through private school together since kindergarten and spent summers traveling to Europe or going to exclusive summer camps. Besides Natalia there were three other scholarship students, but they were too busy ingratiating themselves with their wealthier classmates to give Natalia the time of day.

  Every day for the first month and a half, Natalia ate her lunch alone at a table in the far corner of the cafeteria. Well, almost every day. The first two days she’d hidden out in the library so she wouldn’t stand out as such an obvious loser. But when the librarian had discovered her hidden in the stacks eating a meatball sandwich her mother had packed for her, she had been told gently but firmly that all students were required to b
e in the cafeteria for the duration of the lunch period.

  Natalia pasted a look on her face that said she didn’t give a shit and took up her lonely post. Then one day, Cora McLaughlin had asked if she could have lunch with her. Cora was in several of her classes and seemed nice from what Natalia had observed, but she was still part of the old money country club world so foreign to Natalia that she might as well have lived on another planet.

  Still, Natalia had told her to sit down, albeit somewhat warily. While part of her wanted to believe this was a sincere gesture of friendship, she’d seen some of the other girls messing with the scholarship kids. One minute they would be their BFFs, and the next they would be making fun of them for wearing cheap shoes.

  “That was really funny, what you said to Mr. Hathaway in math today,” Cora said as she pulled a stainless-steel container from a canvas tote. She opened the container to reveal a turkey and avocado sandwich on whole grain bread accompanied by a small side salad. Natalia surreptitiously shoved the remains of her meatball sandwich into the grease and sauce stained paper lunch bag.

  “I don’t think Mr. Hathaway thought so,” she said drily. When she walked into class that morning, she slid into her seat and said to no one in particular, “Time to get off my ath and do some math.” She’d said it in an effort to amuse herself. Evidently it had amused Cora too. Mr. Hathaway? Not so much, if the glower he shot her was anything to go by.

  “Hey, Emily,” Cora was waving so to someone behind Natalia. She turned and saw that it was Emily Drake, who was an ever-present part of the pack of a half dozen or so girls Cora hung out with. “Come sit over here.”

  Emily stood still, holding her lunch tray in front of her. Natalia watched as her gaze flitted from Cora to and Natalia to where the rest of their friends sat at their customary table and back again.

  “It’s ok if you want to go sit with them,” Natalia said, surprised at how disappointed she was at the prospect. She hadn’t allowed herself to admit how crushingly lonely she’d been since she’d started at school.

  “I’d rather sit with you, if you don’t mind,” she continued to beckon to her friend.

  A few seconds later to her shock Emily placed her tray on the table and took a seat on the bench next to Natalia. “We’re in Spanish together, right?” Emily said, as though Natalia wouldn’t recognize her among the fifteen other girls who took advanced Spanish with her.

  Still, she supposed Emily deserved credit for trying to be friendly.

  “Thanks for letting us sit with you,” Cora said as she forked up a bite of her salad. “I was afraid if I had to hear Olivia go on and on about her trip to Paris, I was going to stab myself in the ear.”

  “I know, right,” Emily nodded. “It’s like we’ve all been to Paris, Olivia. It’s not that special.”

  “I’ve never been to Paris,” Natalia pointed out, arching a dark brow at Emily. Even as a little voice in her head warned her not to rock the boat, not when this was the first tentative gesture of friendship she’d received, she couldn’t stop herself from pointing out that not everyone lived in the same exclusive, uber wealthy bubble inhabited by the majority of students at Greenwich Day School.

  Hot color flooded Emily’s peaches and cream complexion. “You must think I’m a total twatwaffle.”

  Natalia couldn’t contain the peal of laughter that erupted from her chest at such profanity being uttered by a girl who looked like a Disney princess. The sound echoed across the cafeteria. Several heads turned their way, including Cora and Emily’s regular crew whose eyes all narrowed in unison.

  “Well I’m glad I can rescue you from your annoying friend, anyway.”

  Cora rolled her eyes. “It’s not just that. You’re funny and you seem interesting. I thought I should get to know you.”

  Natalia studied her for any sign of insincerity but could find none in Cora’s guileless blue eyes and genuine smile. Cora and Emily joined her for lunch again every day that week, then assimilated her into their larger group of friends.

  Most of the girls were perfectly nice, albeit as spoiled and out of touch as most of the students at the school. Olivia, though, was truly insufferable. When Natalia had turned down an invitation to a birthday party one weekend because she had to work at her parent’s restaurant, Olivia’s jaw had dropped like it was the most horrifying thing she’d ever heard.

  “This is Annabelle Reinhardt’s birthday we’re talking about. Last year her parents booked a private performance of Cirque Du Soleil and hired three stretch limos to take us all there. And you’re missing it because you have to work?”

  The way Olivia said “work,” she might as well have said, “kill babies.”

  Despite the fact that both Cora and Emily came from a similar privileged background, Natalia soon realized that growing very up wealthy didn’t mean they weren’t funny, smart, and genuinely kind. Olivia, who was a year ahead of them, was skeptical of Natalia at first.

  When Cora started inviting her to the McLaughlin’s mansion on Long Island Sound, Olivia had watched Natalia like a hawk. After a couple of months, Natalia had finally turned to her one afternoon and said, “You can check my backpack on the way out, but I promise you I’m not going to steal the silver.”

  Olivia had been defensive at first, but obviously appreciated Natalia’s spunk because pretty soon she was trying to boss Natalia around like she bossed around her little sister. Over the years, these women had become like family to her and she knew she could count on them for anything.

  But her current situation wasn’t like dealing with a bad breakup or the deaths of her parents. It couldn’t be solved over time with lots of hugs, tears, and bottles of wine. The career Natalia had worked so hard to build was in ruins, and there was nothing Cora, Olivia, or Emily could do to help fix that.

  “What the hell am I going to do?” Natalia wailed. “Even if the Pierces don’t sue me, I won’t be able to afford this apartment for more than a few more months.”

  “You can stay with me and Trey. We have plenty of room.”

  Cora and her fiancé, Trey, lived in a four bedroom apartment in a co-op on the Upper East Side. “You won’t want me underfoot.” Their wedding was going to be at the McLaughlin’s ranch just outside of Bozeman, Montana the first Saturday of June. It was less than a month away.

  “They’ve got four thousand square feet in the middle of Manhattan,” Emily cracked. “You’ll hardly be underfoot.”

  “They’ll be newlyweds, in the honeymoon phase,” Natalia demurred. “It wouldn’t be a good dynamic.”

  She and Emily exchanged a look. Even if she was dead set against taking what amounted to Cora’s charity - in all the years of their friendship she’d been hypersensitive to ever being perceived to be sponging off her much wealthier friends - she wouldn’t want to live under the same roof as Trey.

  From the moment she’d met him, Natalia had picked up a sort of weaselly vibe from him. But he was good looking in a bland, well-bred, preppy kind of way, and he came from enough wealth that no one would accuse him of marrying Cora for her money. Cora loved him, and her parents and sister seemed to think that he was the perfect Prince Charming for their Princess Cora. So, Natalia had always kept her mouth shut when it came to him.

  “I can talk to the manager and see if we’re hiring any servers at Spruce,” Emily offered, “and put some feelers out to other places as well.”

  Natalia shrugged.

  “I know waiting tables isn’t what you want to be doing,” Emily said, “but the servers make bank with tips. I’m pretty sure some of them make more than I do.”

  “That would be great,” Natalia said without enthusiasm. “Hopefully no one will connect me with the woman who nearly killed the world’s reigning supermodel.

  “Wait,” Cora said, sitting up straight beside her. “I know exactly what you’re going to do.”

  A cocked eyebrow was the most Natalia could muster in response.

  Cora’s mouth pulled into a wide grin and
she clapped her hands like a little kid who found a bike from Santa under the Christmas tree. “You’re coming to Montana with me next week. You’re going to help me pull off this wedding.”

  Chapter 3

  Five days later, Natalia was following Cora as she boarded a private jet that would whisk them from LaGuardia airport to Bozeman, Montana.

  “I don’t see why we couldn’t fly commercial,” Natalie grumbled as she settled in a leather upholstered seat.

  “Because I didn’t want to have to schlepp to the airport at six a.m. to make the direct flight,” Cora said, as though she hadn’t explained that to Natalia when she’d initially balked at the idea of taking a private jet to fly to Montana.

  “It just seems so excessive.”

  “My family has the resources to make travel more convenient, not to mention more pleasant. I see no reason why we shouldn’t take advantage of that.”

  She suppressed an eye roll at the way Cora referred to her family’s vast wealth. It was a funny thing, she noticed once she started going to school with the children of some of wealthiest people in one of the wealthiest towns in the country. The more money people had, the less they wanted to talk about it, referring to it instead as “assets” or, as in Cora’s case, “resources.”

  After over a decade of friendship and spending nearly as much time with the McLaughlins as her own family, she still didn’t know the extent of the Mclaughlin’s “resources.” All she knew it was enough for them to afford a mansion in Greenwich, a seven thousand acre cattle ranch in Montana, and to fly private whenever they wanted to travel. She also knew that both Olivia and Cora had been given significant chunks of their trust funds on their twenty-first and twenty-fifth birthdays, and would receive the rest when they turned thirty-five.

  Cora would never be so vulgar as to tell her how much was in her trust. But since they’d graduated college, it had allowed her to invest in both a high-end clothing boutique near her apartment and a medi-spa in Chelsea and not be overly concerned about money when both businesses unfortunately failed.