I’d spent good time thinking about making a real go at a relationship with her, too, if I got her to take the job.
I'd even told Donovan about my plans. Had he forgotten?
"But I don't want to get married,” I reminded him now. “I want to bring Sabrina Lund to New York City and find out whether or not we fit together."
“Sabrina Lind,” he corrected, his tone peppered with annoyance.
“Isn’t that what I said?” I was starting to feel the alcohol.
"Still bring her here," Nate suggested, always the reasonable one. "She can take the job, and settle in. By the time she gets the hang of things around here, you'll be through your annulment and then you're free to date her."
"That could work, I suppose." Still wasn’t considering it.
"If she’s interested, that is," Donovan scowled.
"Why would she not be interested?" I asked.
"She’ll be interested," Nate assured me. "But it is hard to move into a new city and get into a new relationship all at once. Better to take it in steps. And meanwhile, you can do this thing for the company."
I could hear the subtext in his words. Subtext that said he thought maybe I owed the company a little more doing.
Possibly I was reading too much into it.
I slammed back my next shot and considered what other reason there might be for Nate Sinclair to take Donovan’s side. He was usually Switzerland.
"You’re just saying all that because you don’t want to be the one to get married, aren’t you?" I eyed Nate accusingly.
He averted his eyes. "I'm old enough to be her father. It's not really appropriate."
I turned my stare to Donovan. There wasn’t a band on his finger.
“It wouldn’t work,” he said flatly, guessing my thoughts. “No one would ever believe I’d get married.”
“I can’t dispute that.” It was hard for me to believe the guy had friends. And I was his best friend.
"You are the ideal candidate," Donovan insisted.
“Damn right I’m the ideal candidate.” I grinned, giving him my full dimpled smile, because hands-down, I was the best looking of all of us. My panty collection proved it. Cade could give me a run for my money with his constant brooding—women seemed to go for that—but he was in Japan. And Dylan Locke’s charming British accent only worked on girls outside the UK, and he was never leaving the London office.
So, I wasn’t just the ideal candidate—I was the only candidate.
But I wasn’t doing it. It was crazy. Stupid crazy.
I ran my hand over my face, wondering how much longer I should allow Donovan to think I could be convinced. There was a fine line between hearing him out and becoming roped in.
"Is this Elizabeth person hot?" I asked, my lips numb from the shots.
"Why?" Donovan asked suspiciously.
"If I'm stuck with her I might as well…you know."
"You just said that you couldn’t marry her because you’ve found the love of your life with Sabrina…" I could practically see steam coming from Donovan's ears.
"I didn't say Sabrina was the love of my life. I said she might be the love of my life. It’s too early to tell."
"Either way," Donovan said, snarling, "it's probably a good idea if you don't sleep with your fiancée.”
I exchanged glances with Nate.
Donovan followed my gaze as he tapped the ash of his cigar into a tray. “That didn’t sound right, but I stand behind my recommendation.”
Again, Nate and I looked to each other. We maybe had less conventional sexual standards than our business partner.
Correction—we definitely had less conventional sexual standards. Especially Nate. Which made him a god in my book. But that was beside the point.
The point was that good ideas were for the office. In the bedroom, I preferred my ideas to be bad.
I was just messing with Donovan, anyway. I didn’t need this set-up to get laid, and I most certainly didn’t need this set-up to feel like I’d contributed to the company. I’d strung him along far enough.
"Well, Donovan, this is maybe the most strategic and outrageous plan you’ve ever come up with, also possibly the most brilliant.” I patted him on the back. He did deserve credit where credit was due. "But I'm going to have to pass, brother. It's a little too crazy for me."
Donovan sat back and slung out an arm, his elbow resting on the back of the bench. He looked relaxed, far too at ease with my decision, which made me uneasy. He was a guy who was used to things happening his way. He didn't like it when his plans were altered. If he wasn’t upset now, it meant he had something else up his sleeve.
Which meant I needed to keep my guard up.
Unfortunately, Donovan also had patience. So despite my suspicions, I’d have to wait until he was prepared to move into the next phase of his plan to find out what he was hiding.
I glanced over at Nate who shrugged again before catching the eye of a gentleman at the bar.
"Excuse me," he said, "I know that guy. I need to say hello."
I gave him a wink because there was no telling how Nate knew him—whether it was from his past crazy illegal dealings or from his current wild sexual dealings. Either way, it probably made a good story, and one I’d like to hear.
A good story that I wasn't going to get to hear because I was stuck at the table with Donovan and whatever bullshit scenario he had worked up for me now.
Before he could start in on another one of these brilliant schemes, I started a conversation of my own. "How long are you staying in town, Donovan?"
"Haven’t decided yet. A few months. Longer, maybe. Cade's handling Japan for now. Meanwhile, you’ve been complaining about needing some help up here. So here I am."
"Well." This was awesome. Donovan and I hadn't lived in the same city for years. Our parents owned King-Kincaid Financial, and we'd spent so much time together growing up, we were practically siblings. My only sister was a decade younger, so Donovan had been the one I’d bonded with most. Only four years older than me, he was the one who had mentored me through all my significant firsts. First time drinking, first time smoking, first time sneaking out to meet a girl, first time starting a company.
"Glad to hear it. You should've told me sooner. Are you moving back into—"
"I’ll wipe the loan," he said, cutting me off.
And there it was. The bit that would make my jaw drop. The offer that would make me sit up and listen.
"The entire loan?" My heart was thumping in my chest now, and I could hear blood gushing in my ears.
"The whole thing. Gone."
Gone. All of it. Whoosh. Just like that.
What a fucking relief that would be.
Donovan was the only one who knew that I hadn't put all my own money into the company when we first started up. After nearly draining my inheritance from my grandmother, I’d borrowed the rest of the seed money from him, a sizable amount that I'd slowly been paying him back with the profits earned over our five years in business.
I still owed him a million.
It was quite an amount to just write off, even for him.
The irony of it was that I had more than twenty times that in my trust fund. I could've wiped the loan out myself years ago. If I'd wanted to.
Again, Donovan was the only one who knew why I chose not to borrow from that sizable fund.
And so, since Reach had begun with Donovan and I—and since we had pledged the most start-up money—when he covered my portion, he also got the advantage.
It was one of the reasons why the company always felt like it was more Donovan's than mine.
And it was a reason I often bent to his will, even when I’d rather not.
"Why is this merger so important to you?" I asked, unsure what to make of this offer. It wasn't like Donovan held the loan over me all the time. It wasn’t like he wasn't generous. He would give me the shirt off his back if it was the last thing he owned.
But he also knew about inte
grity, and he understood that I wanted to be a self-made man. And he respected that.
I respected him for getting me.
So if this was that important to him, then I really needed to be listening. Because I would give Donovan the shirt off my back too.
"Number one in Europe, Weston," he said with a gleam in his eye. "We've only been open five years, and it would take a long time to get that title any other way. It’s been far more difficult than I’d hoped to crack that market the way we have here."
I always knew the guy was competitive, but this really took the cake.
"And it's just a fake marriage then? Just a sham?"
Dammit. I couldn't believe I was actually considering this.
"A complete farce. You’d start right away, fake a whirlwind romance and engagement. Have the whole thing done in four, five months tops. But the benefits to Reach would last a lifetime. Think of it as your legacy, Weston.”
I drummed my fingers on the table top. "This is fucking insane."
"You like insane,” he said, leaning in close, knowing exactly which words would push my buttons.
How did he do this every time? He really was a mastermind. Able to wield the strings of all the puppets, controlling everyone, getting them to do his bidding. Not that I resented him for it. I admired him, truthfully.
And there was that something in my life that was missing.
Not that a fake wedding was going to fix it, but maybe the chance to contribute could make a difference. The chance to leave a legacy.
And to be able to give something back to Donovan after all the things he'd given me—well, that was something I couldn’t take lightly.
Plus the end of that loan. To be my own man. Finally.
"Ah, fuck it. I got nothing better to do with my life. Let's be number one in Europe." Actually, that did have a pretty decent ring to it.
The corner of his lip lifted. "You know how to talk dirty to me.” He reached into his pocket, where he’d deposited the ring back into its velvet box earlier, and handed it over before taking a long, satisfied sip of his drink.
I dropped it inside my jacket. The small square shape felt like a lead weight against my chest.
I wondered how heavy its contents were going to feel when it was on Elizabeth Dyson’s hand.
* * *
Want more? Get Dirty Sexy Player now, available on most vendors!
Also by Laurelin Paige
The Dirty Universe
Dirty Filthy Rich Boys - READ FREE
Dirty Filthy Rich Men (Dirty Duet #1)
Dirty Filthy Rich Love (Dirty Duet #2)
Dirty Filthy Fix (a spinoff novella)
Dirty Sexy Player (Dirty Games Duet #1) (July 23, 2018)
Dirty Sexy Games (Dirty Games Duet #2) (November 12, 2018)
Sweet Liar (Dirty Sweet #1) (for newsletter subscribers now! early 2019 everywhere)
Sweet Promises (Dirty Sweet #2) (early 2019)
* * *
Spark
One More Time (May 2, 2018)
Want (Coming soon!)
Close (Coming soon!)
* * *
The Fixed Universe
Fixed on You (Fixed #1)
Found in You (Fixed #2)
Forever with You (Fixed #3)
Hudson (Fixed #4)
Fixed Forever (Fixed #5) (June 25, 2018)
Free Me (a spinoff novel – Found duet #1)
Find Me (Found duet #2)
Chandler (a spinoff novel)
Falling Under You (a spinoff novella)
Dirty Filthy Fix (a spinoff novella)
Slay 1 (Slay trilogy) (June 10, 2019)
Slay 2 (Slay trilogy) (Fall 2019)
Slay 3 (Slay trilogy) (Winter 2019)
* * *
First and Last
First Touch
Last Kiss
* * *
Hollywood Heat
Sex Symbol
Star Struck
* * *
Written with Sierra Simone
Porn Star
Hot Cop
* * *
Written with Kayti McGee under the name Laurelin McGee
Miss Match
Love Struck
MisTaken
Holiday for Hire
Acknowledgments and Author’s Note
I’m quite familiar with OCD and mental illness.
My first exposure was growing up with a family member who had the disorder. I was about ten or so, and I remember reading The Boy Who Kept Washing His Hands, a book my grandparents owned to help the rest of us understand what my aunt was going through.
It was a fascinating topic.
Later, there were friends I was close to who had it. All of this, I believe, was preparation for me to be mother to three daughters who each have different forms of OCD.
I’d written the first Fixed book before my kids were ever diagnosed with their disorders. I based Alayna’s obsessions on my own tendency to fixate and obsess. I was never Alayna - but I knew that I could be.
I didn’t decide to revisit Hudson and Alayna in order to focus on these issues, but getting the chance to do so, with the added knowledge of what it’s like to live with these disorders (as well as depression and anxiety - my house is full of sensitive, empathetic unicorns!) has been exactly the book I needed to write at this time in my life.
I hope this book is also meaningful for some of you. These experiences might not be what you’ve heard about OCD or what you know to be true about it, but they are pieces of my own truth.
I didn’t write anything that I didn’t understand.
I didn’t add anything I hadn’t seen or lived.
Beyond resonating with the path that I knew these characters had taken, I was reluctant to write another book for Hudson and Alayna. I loved where I’d left them off - happy and safe and in love. I definitely didn’t want to introduce another conflict that would tear them apart - these two have committed to each other. Their struggles are not about staying together or loving each other - they belong to each other and they know that.
But even so, I have a husband I belong to. He’s the forever guy for me, and still we have the times we rub against each other. Not just with the “I forgot to go to the store, there’s no toilet paper” kind of friction, but with deeper confrontations. Those days where I feel, “Gah! Does this man even know who I am?”
And he does. Sometimes better than I know myself. Always different than I know myself.
That was the story I wanted to write for Alayna and Hudson - the story of a marriage. The story of two people who are going to be forever, and in order to be that, they work hard at keeping their magic alive.
I hope that’s the story you find in the pages of this book. I hope they’re helpful or useful or validating or just plain entertaining for the people who read it.
Now onto the gushy part.
This past year has been incredibly tough for me. In just 12 months time I had emergency gall bladder surgery, broke my arm, lost my dog, got a new puppy who broke his arm, lost some very significant friendships, discovered two of my children had OCD that I wasn’t aware of before, had my estranged dad reappear in my life after 25 years, dealt with my 8-year old having a major nervous breakdown and refusal to continue attending school, watched my 15-year old daughter be diagnosed with a chronic syndrome that has no cure and become a depressed shell of the girl she once was, decided to move out of state for better services and resources for my children, wrote more books in 12 months than I’ve ever written in that time period while suffering from chronic pain after my arm break, and am now in the process of both selling a house and buying a house.
With the completion of this book, my grandmother passed away.
And that’s how this year ended.
It’s been hard getting here. And, besides mentioning the usual book supporters, there are definitely people I need to thank for helping me arrive here, because this was not a journey I could have made on my own.
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First of all, to my best friend Kayti McGee, the person whom this book is dedicated to - I’ve already said all my nice words to her this year at this amazing Unicorn summit we attended, and I can’t give her more without ruining my grumpy cat reputation. But if I could say more, I’d thank her for never tiring of my bullshit, for reading my mind, for being willing to always drive to my house, for listening when I ruminate over and over, for the visits to my house to get my ass out of bed and keep me focused, for “getting me”, and, most especially, for letting me feel at every turn that I wasn’t broken. You’re my other half. I love you big. (Move to Texas, m’kay?)
To Candi Kane, Melissa Gaston, Rebecca Friedman, Jana Aston, Christine Reiss, Lauren Blakely, Melanie Harlow, Roxie Madar, Michele Ficht, Amy Libris, and Liz Berry - all of you deserve sainthood. These shit storms wouldn’t have been weathered without your amazing, incredible, compassion. You’ve been patient friends who reached out through messages and phone calls, always reminding me you were there. I am humbled and honored to be worthy of your time and love.
To Anthony Colletti for knowing what I needed and pressing me out of my comfort zone. To Chris Yonkers, the guy waiting outside that zone to teach me flow.
To the people who make the stuff happen behind the scenes - Rebecca Friedman my agent and best friend who is going to live near me soon (I. Can’t. Wait). Flavia Viotti and Meire Dias for being formidable, intelligent women to work with. Nancy Smay who continues to edit my work IN CHUNKS. (God, you’re just too good to me.) Michele Ficht, Dena Marie, and Paula (aka Madame Psuka) Dawn for always keeping my words on check. Andi Arndt and Marni for always being willing to work with me, for remaining professional and KIND at the same time. Also for producing such amazing audio recordings.
To my earliest readers, Roxie, “Vox”, Serena, Candi, and Liz - you all came with me down to the wire on this one. Again, I’m so humbled. So grateful. Thank you, thank you.
To my Snatches (Mel, Sierra, and Kayti; the girls who have been here from the beginning) and The Order and Shop Talkers and Jenn Watson. You’re all incredibly inspiring and real and raw with your interactions with me. I’m lucky to have so many amazing, strong women in my tribe.