The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove by Lauren Kate Read Free Book Online

my head at the sea of departing Bambies. “I take it you’re opting out of the sophomore-class costume this year?” I asked. “I heard something about . . . brothel-chic?”
    Kate snorted, signing the credit-card slip the waitress had finally brought over. We stood up and pushed in our wicker chairs.
    “Please,” Kate said, “and become another Bambi blend-in?” She shuddered, making her long hair shimmer in the sun. “I’d rather join the church choir.”
    I grinned at the image of Kate on the pulpit with a bunch of youth-group kids and threw down a couple of extra dollars on the table before we left. Though my mother would never willingly admit it these days, she’d been a waitress the first fourteen years of my life, so I was well-versed in the injustices of under-tipping.
    Kate looked around and lowered her voice to a husky whisper. “Tonight is my night to seal the deal with Baxter—who still hasn’t asked me to the Ball.”
    “ That’s why you’re freaking out,” I teased. Baxter Quinn was Palmetto’s most legendary drunk and the dealer for most of our school’s after parties. He was tall and light-haired and sexy in a lanky deadbeat sort of way. Even though he often couldn’t hold himself upright, somehow he was never at a loss for girls.
    “And that’s why you’re so calm,” Kate said, tugging me over a series of puddles on the clapboard promenade—and out of the earshot of the rest of Palmetto. “You have the state’s greatest built-in date. I bet you can’t even remember what it’s like to stress over a guy.”
    For just a second, my feet dragged on the boardwalk. Stressing over one guy in particular was exactly what I’d been trying not to do—ever since that unsettling text from my dad last night. Suffice it to say, Dad being “a free man again” was not exactly the good news he claimed it was.
    Already, I could feel myself overexerting my jaw on the stick of gum I’d just unwrapped. Whenever the Juicy Fruit lost its flavor in less than five minutes, I knew I needed to find another way to chill out.
    Kate stopped in front of a three-story southern-style bright-green row house with a wraparound purple-painted porch. A wooden sign swung on its hinges from the rafters overhead: Weird Sister’s Closet.
    Kate pulled open the stained-glass door and stepped inside. Like most of the mansion-turned-lingerie boutiques on Catfish Row, the Weird Sister’s Closet was brimming with all things cleavage-enhancing. Posters of busty movie stars papered the walls, and strapless bras of all shapes and sizes filled the racks. But since it was on a cobblestone side street of the beaten path of the boardwalk strip, Kate had already assured me that the Weird Sister was the one place in Charleston’s gentrified red-light district that would be Bambie-free today.
    “What’s with the puckered-up puss,” Kate said, looking at me. “Where’s your brink-of-royalty smile?”
    Banishing thoughts of my father, at least for the time being, I conceded with a small, involuntary grin. Kate was right. Being on the brink of royalty was something to smile about, especially after all of our planning. In just a few days, fingers crossed, Mike and I would be happily crowned.
    All the campaigning would be over, and the two of us could just bask in the success of our mutual hard work. We’d stay up late, editing our coronation speeches and practicing our waltz for the Ball. Yes, we had a waltz. And after the Ball, we’d pack a bottle of champagne, head straight for our spot at the secret waterfall near Mount Pleasant, and not come home until sunrise.
    It’d be just the two of us, just like we’d always planned.
    “That’s what I’m talking about,” Kate nodded, taking in the change in my demeanor. “Now, let’s address my main issue, which is feathers on a spandex butt. ” She held up a red-sequined catsuit, flipping over the hanger to show off the tuft of red feathers right over the butt. “Do we love it