by Nikki Bella
After we’d been in Lisbon for months, we met each other on the balcony after a long day. He’d had a meeting with a potential director, who was pitching him a movie, and I’d spent the day at a nearby café, writing notes to myself about future novel plans. We grinned sheepishly, with me feeling the same butterflies I’d felt when I’d known I was first falling in love. They never really went away.
With his arms wrapped firmly around me, hugging me close, he said, “You know, we never really had a proper wedding ceremony.”
“What do you mean?” I laughed. “I had to wear that horrendous dress down the aisle. I remember how heavy it was. That all definitely happened.”
“Sure,” he said, kissing my forehead tenderly. “But that wasn’t really ours, was it? It was more for show? You hated your dress, for one. But I’m sure you dreamed about what you actually wanted your wedding to be like. And it doesn’t seem like you fulfilled it.”
I paused. Lifting his hand up to my lips, I kissed it tenderly. I found myself nodding, tears springing to my cheeks. “But not until after she’s born.”
“She?” he asked, his voice soft.
“A baby girl.”
She was born just half a month after that conversation, right on time, in the middle of December—while we remained in Lisbon. A Christmas baby named Charlotte, Lottie for short. When I first held her in my arms, I felt a surge of love that had, at first, seemed impossible. When I watched Jack hold her, then Gigi, that love grew exponentially. Tears drizzled down my cheeks. There was no greater moment of my life.
We held a small wedding ceremony in Paris the following summer, after I’d scrunched my waist back down. I chose a simple dress, with a high neckline (one that wasn’t see through), and invited my parents and Jack’s few relatives and best friends. Marcus stood among us, silent for once. When he kissed my cheek after the ceremony, he said, “You’ve really changed him. For the better, Margot. I never thought I’d see the day this man grew up.”
Just two years before, I’d been a little nobody in Michigan: daydreaming about a time I could make my life what I wanted it to be. Now, I was twenty-five years old, married to the love of my life, with a baby and a ten-year-old dancing about at my feet. I had one book published and another on its way—and wasn’t known as “Jack Garrington’s wife,” but rather as the author of “The Light in the Marais” and other short stories. I’d built a life for myself, one that demanded respect, love, and continued hope.
When things sucker-punched me, made me feel very small, then I always remembered the little girl back in Michigan who’d dared to dream the biggest dreams of all. And I honored her.
The End
Read Dirty (Bonus Book)
NATHANIEL
Knowing what I wanted and always getting it had been the plan from the beginning for me.
After all, what else was I supposed to do?
Fame, money, women and the irresistible charm of a man who never had someone say no to him, I had it all.
So why did it seem like something was missing?
Enter Alexis Strope, with her perfect everything and the office men’s latest fantasy.
To what lengths will she go to say no to the most powerful man in New York?
And to what lengths was I willing to go, to get the woman who has made it impossible for me to look at any other woman?
ALEXIS
New York City, the place where dreams come true.
Or at least that’s what I thought when I stepped into the world of sleazy men and sleepless nights paying of student loans.
After filling in all the right blanks, landing at none other than Dunlow Enterprises, was the ultimate dream goal but is that at all?
Enter Mr. Perfect, the guy who had it all and still wanted more.
Nate Dunlow, from the moment had me caught in his irresistible charm that I had thought I was immune to.
Known as someone who just does not give in to men, I had another thing coming when I come face to face with the bad boy of New York City.
Faking It (Bonus Book)
Tyler
“What this means,” I yelled for the third time, trying to make myself heard over the chattering row “is that you’ll be putting three thousand people out of work! That’s three thousand families on welfare, three thousand homes going into foreclosure and about six thousand kids going hungry!” I stared at Banks and the other board members, unable to keep my fists from clenching and unclenching.
“Please sit down, Mr. Harcourt,” sneered Banks, sat in his chair at the end of the huge, black, boardroom table. Through the glass wall, I could see the more junior office workers trying to pretend they couldn’t hear the shouting coming from within our closed meeting, “You’re exaggerating as usual, and you are missing a major point.”
I looked over each of the other men that sat around Banks. All of them wore expensive suits and were either overweight from expensive and excessive living, gray or white haired from age, or both. Banks was both, and his face carried a repulsively arrogant look of scorn, a take away from years of almost always being the richest man in the room. He was part of the old guard. One of my father’s longest-standing partners, and we never saw eye to eye.
I turned to the opposite end of the table, where the prey of these white-haired, dark-suited vultures sat. Mr. Hobbs and his son, Paul, of boat builders Hobbs & Son who, after not having their military contracts renewed, were now finding it hard to keep their business solvent in the current economic climate, building only luxury super-yachts. Mr. Hobbs Sr. was well past retirement age and couldn’t hide it, yet he still wore a determined expression on his face and looked prepared to fight for the company he had spent his whole life building. Paul Hobbs, on the other hand, was nearing forty and had the look of someone that could see his comfortable lifestyle disappearing down the tubes with every dollar that Hobbs & Son went into the red. Both were also dressed in dark suits that, while still respectable, were worth nowhere near as much as those of my board members.
I needed a second to collect myself. Shouting at Banks and the rest of the board only ever served to make them dig their heels in and convince them that I was just a jumped up rich kid not fit to lick my father’s shoes, let alone fill them. I straightened my tie, ran my fingers through my hair and, just to piss them off, chose to remain standing. “Exactly what point am I missing, again, Mr. Banks?”
“We are in this deal together,” he replied. “As the 51% shareholder in HHC, and the son of this firm’s founder, you are as much responsible for the job losses at Hobbs & Son as anyone here.”
I opened my mouth to start yelling again when Henry Osborne, sitting beside me, placed a soft, plump hand on my arm and stood as well. He was the polar opposite of me. Short, rotund, balding, and pudgy-faced, hiding his brown eyes behind thick-lensed spectacles. Despite appearances, we were both thirty-eight, having graduated from Yale together. However, I stayed in shape with a vigorous work-out regimen and a love of extreme sports, while Henry didn’t. He was still my closest friend, though, as well as my attorney and business adviser. I nodded in response to his calming touch and sat.
“Remember, Tyler,” he said, expertly managing to be loud enough for the board and I to hear, as well as quiet enough to be mostly unintelligible to the boat builders at the other end of the room, “selling off the assets and real estate that Mr. Hobbs has managed to collect over the years should bring in just over a billion dollars right now. And they will most definitely be sold, whether it’s now, next year when the old man and his company go bankrupt, or the day after he dies and his son liquidates the entire concern. The only difference is that right now it will bring in five times more than next year, or whenever.”
“I know,” I hissed, “but it’s still too many poor bastards out of work.”
One of the less senior, but certainly fatter, members of the board made a predictable remark about making omelets and breaking eggs. I shot him a hateful look and he went silent. I’d like to see hi
m try and actually make an omelet, the lazy asshole.
“This is how it’s done, Tyler,” insisted Banks, trying a more forgiving, paternal tone, “This is how we make our money, this is how your father made money...”
“Don’t mention my father to me!” I yelled, on my feet again and rounding on him. Mr. Hobbs and his son went wide-eyed at my outburst while, outside the office, HHC employees busied themselves faster, trying to not be seen eavesdropping. “I’ll be damned if I ever do business the way he did!” I saw Banks pale slightly and allowed myself a little smile of victory. A moment passed and I returned his voice to its more normal range. “Henry, tell the board about the plan we worked out.”
Henry cleared his throat and spoke to the whole room this time. “If HHC were to invest in Mr. Hobbs’s business, instead of selling off the assets” he began, “it would take around $100 million right now to increase the workforce and update his facilities to the point where they could be back in profit in three years. According to our projections, that’s a return for us of $50 million on top of our original investment in five years’ time.”
“Meaning Mr. Hobbs keeps his company and his workforce keeps their jobs. I’m sorry Hector,” I smiled at Banks, “it’s a lot less than a billion.” Paul Hobbs choked and coughed on the water he was drinking. “But it’s still profit for HHC, and I think both you and I can continue to survive without another billion dollars, don’t you?”
Banks said nothing, his face locked in a pain-filled rictus of forced acquiescence. I walked down the table to Mr. Hobbs, who slowly and carefully stood. We shook hands. “As the majority shareholder of HHC, I have the power to green light any major decisions all by my lonesome,” I smiled, “and I say we are going to be working together, Mr. Hobbs, sir. What say you?”
The old man’s voice was deep and rough, “I’d say you gotta deal, Mr. Harcourt.”
Hobbs Jr. piped up a protest, which his father quickly but kindly silenced, and there was some grumbling from the board. I ignored them. “Outstanding. Now, we’ve been trying to arrange this deal for six months, I think we all need a break,” I smiled over at Henry. “Do you think we ought to learn something about the superyacht business, old buddy?” He nodded back at me, enthusiastically. “I believe I have a 150ft boat moored off the coast of somewhere, don’t I?”
“You do,” replied Henry, “but I’m afraid she’s in dry-dock, being refitted.”
“Well then,” I turned to my latest business partner, “Mr. Hobbs, with your connections, I was hoping you could steer us toward a good charter...”
Mr. Hobbs smiled back, “I know just the captain to take care of you.”
Misty
The alarm beeped annoyingly, right by my pillow. I reached out and hit snooze, praying for just five more minutes of sleep. It was not to be, however, even though it was only five in the morning. This was the life we’d signed up for.
The light in our tiny cabin came on and Tanya instantly slid down from her top bunk. I tried to turn my head in time but it was too late. Tanya insisted on sleeping naked which never bothered me, except first thing every morning when I was presented with a daily, eye-level and in-your-face view of her hairless and exposed vagina, or a pair of smooth, bare buttocks, before she would disappear into our little shower room. It was certainly not my ideal way of waking up, regardless of how firm, tanned and sexy that ass was.
I could hear tooth-brushing and off-key humming noises coming from the small head that served our cabin, so I hauled myself out of my bunk. Blinking the sleep out of my eyes, I stared at myself in the mirror on the bathroom door. Jeez, I looked awful. My shoulder-length blonde hair was all tousled and frizzy, my blue eyes bloodshot and puffy, and the close proximity of the mirror was showing me every single open pore and blemish. I let out a long sigh and groped about on the shelves for my Lycra running shorts.
I found them and pulled them on, then stood and turned away from the cabin door. This was a habit I developed after the second-time Brett burst in uninvited, and we ended up nipple-to-nipple. The cabin really was that small. It always amazed how he always seemed to know exactly when one or both of us was half-naked but, of course, never knocked. Sure enough, as I pulled my nightshirt up over my head, I heard the door open and an excited ‘wow-ee’ come from the doorway. I quickly wrapped my arms around my bare breasts and shot Brett an evil, yet playful, look over my shoulder. It was hard to be mad at him. He didn’t mean any harm, he was just being silly and flirty. Our boat’s third deckhand stood there, shirtless, and gorgeous, a solid slab of muscle, all tanned skin and cheeky smiles, with long, wet, brown hair framing his sharp, stubbly face.
“Get the fuck out, Brett!” I snapped at him, as he stared at my bare back, hoping for a glimpse of side-boob. He opened his mouth to reply, but the words caught in his throat as Tanya stepped serenely out of the head, still totally naked and completely unashamed. She gave me the diversion I needed to grab my sports bra and tug it over my tits.
“Morning, handsome,” sang Tanya, as she squeezed her long, lithe body around me. She smiled as she walked slowly, yet threateningly, toward the open-mouthed Brett. She reached him, placed a hand on his firm chest, and effortlessly shoved him out the door, closing it behind her. She turned to me and giggled as the outside corridor was quickly filled with loud complaints and protests.
I smiled back at her. “Will you put some damn clothes on?” I insisted.
“Only if you give me a big kiss first, beautiful!” she teased, playfully caressing her proud and prominent breasts seductively.
“Oh, you bitch,” I laughed. While it seemed to me that Tanya was a tri-sexual – meaning she’d try pretty much anything – she knew I was only into guys. She’d still mess with me every chance she got, though. “Shut up and let’s go, shall we?”
“Just waiting on you!” she called behind me as I stepped into the head and locked the door. As I brushed my teeth, my mind wondered over the two months I’d spent so far crewing this yacht. Part of me wished I could be as outgoing and confident in my body as Tanya, the second steward to my third. There was, after all, not a lot of room for privacy or modesty among the crew, below-deck of Aphrodite, the 161-foot, $20 million luxury motor yacht we all worked charters on. The cramped, claustrophobic crew quarters meant everyone was bound to see your junk or your tits at some point, so why should I worry?
Plus, every night we weren’t on charter usually involved vast amounts of drinking and dancing, as you’d expected from a crew of mostly early-twenty-something beautiful people, working hard in the Caribbean and earning a ton of money. Of course, there was more than a fair share of making out and hooking up going on too, although the latter was not quite as common as you’d think, though. Especially since the morning after would leave both parties trapped on a boat with no way of escape.
And last night had been one of those nights, involving far too much rum and tequila. As the last clouds of drowsiness finally disappeared from my brain, my head began to bang. I drank down a glass of water and struggled to recall the night’s shenanigans. Brett, I thought I could remember, had made out with Sarah, our normally very professional chief steward, who was still an astonishingly attractive redhead despite being over a decade older than most of the rest of the crew. Sarah was normally a little aloof and austere when she was sober but she could certainly party when the mood took her.
Toward the end of the night, I did recollect, a bunch of the younger guys and girls had skinny-dipped off the side of the yacht, leaping laughing and naked into the black Caribbean waters, but that was pretty par for the course on those off-nights.
As for myself, I remembered flirting a little with a guy in the bar we were at, and gradually began to recall responding when Adam, the very sexy ship’s engineer, began to compliment and flirt with me. Oh, God! That was all I needed. Adam was fit, certainly. A little shorter and not quite the Adonis that most deckhands, like Brett, turned into after a length of time at sea, but he made up for it with a really
smart sense of humor and a quiet vulnerability. I just wasn’t looking for anything serious. Not right now.
Remembering his interest in me, and the enthusiastic look in his eye as we flirted, my self-confidence began to return a little. I put on some makeup, brushed my hair, and, slowly the face in the mirror returned to someone I finally recognized. A little highlighting around my eyes, a little gloss on my lips, and I started to feel attractive again. And, thanks to getting up at five every morning and running around the boat for ninety minutes with Brett and Tanya, no matter what the weather or how much we’d imbibed the night before, all the tacos, nachos, and binge drinking had only a negligible effect on my body. Thanks to the work I put in, I managed to maintain my flat stomach, firm butt, slim legs, and high bust.
Don’t get me wrong, I was no buff gym-goddess, like Tanya. But Adam still called me a knockout last night, which was always nice to hear. God, I hoped things were not going to be weird between us now, though. It’s seldom a bad thing to have a more senior colleague a little sweet on you, so long as he knows it’s never going to get serious, but I needed to keep my focus for the tasks I had ahead, and the secret plans I could never tell my crewmates about.
After we ran, Tanya, Brett, and I went back to our quarters and showered for the crew breakfast-meeting. Around the table in the galley was a long, L-shaped couch built into the walls, and we three most junior crew members, along with Adam, were the first to arrive. First deckhand Mike, who displayed his usual early morning bad mood, and Azure, looking typically frumpy in her second deckhand uniform, were next to appear.
It always amazed me just how Azure, short, pretty, and olive-skinned, could fly silently and almost unnoticed about the boat during a charter but, off-duty, she could quickly throw on some heels, a backless dress, and transform into a sultry, hard-partying princess with enough cleavage to get us behind almost any velvet rope. Maybe it was because she was only about five feet tall with no shoes on at work, which was the rule aboard Aphrodite for both crew and guests alike.
