Free The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove by Lauren Kate Page A

voice:
    “Change of plans, Princess.”
    Coughing, I wave my hands through the mist, and when the air inside the carriage clears, my jaw drops. Justin Balmer is sitting next to me where Mike is supposed to be.
    Oh, it had been such a good dream until now. His black tux and emerald-green bowtie feel like they’re filling up the bulk of the carriage, making me choke and making him seem bigger than life.
    When he smiles at me, his green eyes bore into mine.
    “Didn’t I leave you at the church?” I ask, gripping the seat.
    “Oh, you’ll find me there again.” J.B. smiles cryptically. “But I was too tied up to be much fun, and I wanted to give you some advice.”
    I shake my head. “News flash: We won Palmetto, and you lost. Try offering up your words of wisdom to those more pitiful than you—if you can find anyone.”
    “Nope,” he says. “This message is for you.”
    His tone makes me look up at him. His mouth is set in a straight line, but his eyes are lighter, almost laughing. In a strange way, they seem to be the only thing alive about his face. They’re mesmerizing and familiar at the same time.
    “What are you doing? ” I ask.
    “Smiling,” he says, “with my eyes. Remember?”
    Even in the dream, my mind rolls back in time. Something about his face jars an early memory: J.B. lining up all the freshman girls before our first cotillion. He was flirtatious, trying to get everyone’s eyes to “pop” seductively while our mouths were closed politely. As he moved along the row, all the other girls were giggling. I was sweating through my high-necked oxford dress. Justin stopped in front of me, and then he was the one who froze. You look familiar. Have we met?
    “You still need to learn how to do it,” J.B. says, holding my stare. His green eyes are potent, even as his skin goes pale and his lips turn blue.
    “You can’t be here,” I say finally, pulling aside the white drape curtain to look out the carriage window. I am getting claustrophobic in my carriage. “You have to go. Mike’s going to show up any minute.”
    J.B. shakes his head, looking tired all of a sudden. And then I feel another draft of air—this time, it’s freezing cold—when Justin breaks our gaze. I shiver and my skin breaks out in goose bumps.
    “Like I said,” he almost whispers, “there’s been a change of plans.”
    Then he leans back in his seat and slowly closes his eyes.
     
    “Natalie Carolina Hargrove!”
    My own eyes shot open at the sound of my mom hollering up from the kitchen the next morning. I shook my head to loosen—no, to banish—the dream from my mind, but I was alarmed to find my skin still flecked with goose bumps. I pulled the covers up over my head and burrowed back into the pillow, just as my mom yelled:
    “The Dukes are here. Get downstairs and eat breakfast with your future family.”
    Kill me now. My future family? That was a stretch, even for Mom. Maybe she was going to insist on going through with this unfortunate engagement, but there was no way I was ever going to consider Richard Duke or his porcine daughter Darla any kin of mine.
    “Not hungry,” I hollered back at my mom. If I had to be dragged to church with the Dukes and held under Palmetto-wide scrutiny, there was a limit to the additional amount of QT that I could sanely agree to spend with them. I knew breakfast with Mom’s latest capital venture would mentally bankrupt me, and I needed to be on today when we pulled up to the church.
    “Not good enough,” my mom answered. She’d cracked open my bedroom door and poked her curler-set auburn head inside. “Can’t you make the littlest effort?” she asked. “For me? ” Mom turned down her bottom lip, an overdone pout made worse by the mauve matte lipstick she’d slathered on.
    “I thought you said we were going to church,” I said, taking in the rest of my mom’s costume. Her highlighted bangs had been swept up, up, and up a little more in a bouffant that displayed her