Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 96802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Was she here with him? He’d been interested in her. Not that many people would defy Camden, but it was possible.
“Can we dance?” Poppy asked, her voice a whine.
“Let’s get drinks instead,” I offered.
She grinned and flashed me a small, clear baggie in her purse. “Maybe something a little stronger.”
I put my hand out to obscure it from view. “Don’t just show that in public.”
“Why not? No one here is going to care,” she said dismissively.
I hadn’t put in all this fucking work just for a little bit of cocaine to bring down the evening. “You can do it if you want but not near me. Fuck.”
“Stop acting so self-righteous,” she said with an eye roll. “Since when have you turned down a bump?”
It’d been a long time. It had always been easier just to say yes. But English’s voice ran through my mind. Imagine what would happen to all the work we’d put in. What the fuck would be the point of me working for Kensington Corporation if I screwed it all up? I didn’t need a bump that bad.
“Just do it later,” I ground out. “Let’s have a drink instead.”
She shrugged a shoulder and followed me to the bar. I got her a Long Island iced tea and ordered myself a whiskey and Coke. Poppy finished her drink like a fish, as if it didn’t have five shots in it. She immediately asked for another one, which I procured irritably, and then forced her to wander over to where Camden stood tensely with Katherine.
Honestly, I was a bit surprised that either of them had even come. Considering Katherine’s history with my brother and her equally terrible history with Natalie. Not to mention, Camden’s extreme dislike for Penn. Keeping up appearances was the name of their game.
“I’m going to go to the powder room,” Poppy said, inelegantly patting her bag. “Don’t move.”
I just shook my head in frustration as she headed into the restroom.
Katherine sniffed her nose. “Is that the best you can do, Kensington?”
I narrowed my eyes. “As charming as ever, Katherine.”
“Haven’t you heard that she has a problem? She’s been in rehab more times than I can count.”
I had heard that. I’d thought it was exaggerated. Or that she’d be able to keep it together tonight.
“Not everyone can be as perfect as you, now can they?”
Katherine just smiled. “That is a fact.”
Through all of this, Camden hadn’t said a word. He just stared straight ahead blankly. He was my closest friend, and sometimes, he was such a closed book.
“And how awkward is this lovely wedding reception for the pair of you?” I asked with a cheeky smile.
But Katherine frowned and shot a tense look in Camden’s direction.
Finally, Camden looked my way. “You tell me, Court. Should I have brought my wife to the wedding of the man she loves?”
Katherine froze. “I don’t…”
“Is it cruel of me to force her to watch?”
“Probably,” I said with a shrug.
“Camden,” she said through gritted teeth as her cheeks heated.
But he wasn’t looking at her. “You think she’d learn something from the experience.”
Katherine was nearly trembling with barely suppressed rage and something like grief.
Her relationship with Penn had been fifteen years in the making. Even if she didn’t love my brother like she once had, it had to be difficult to watch him marry someone else. Especially someone she detested. And for Camden to rub it in…
Fuck, he was a right bastard sometimes.
“And you think you’d learn,” she finally said and then brushed past me as she strode away.
“Why do you do that, man?” I asked Camden.
His eyes followed his wife. A predator’s gaze. “Katherine thinks that she can play games. That I, like everyone else in her life, will fall into one of her pretty traps. That she can wrap me around her little finger. But she’s wrong. There is only black and white when it comes to Katherine. And one day, she’ll learn which side of the line I fall on.”
Poppy returned right after that, rubbing at her nose and looking a little more out of it by the second. “Can we dance now?”
“Sure,” I muttered halfheartedly.
Camden smirked at me. “Have fun.”
I flipped him off as I followed Poppy to the dance floor. The music had shifted from first and second dances to party music. Penn and Natalie were out there with their friends around them. My mother rubbed elbows with potential donors. Maybe once I got Poppy onto the dance floor, it’d be better. It seemed unlikely. But it was worth a shot.
The one good thing was that she knew how to dance. I didn’t have to work with someone with no rhythm. But it sure as hell wasn’t like dancing with English at Dawson’s party. That had practically been foreplay. This was… just Poppy showing off for a crowd.