Playing Dirty

by C. L. Parker

  So yeah, the second Landon had dropped us off at Monkey Business, I’d headed in the opposite direction. I’d rather be home alone than surrounded by my friends while being ridiculed by the woman I’d been fucking on a regular basis.

  Climbing three flights of stairs—the elevator in my building was out and had been since the day I’d moved in—I was relieved to finally make it to my door with key in hand.

  “Wow, so this is where you live, huh?”

  I should’ve been startled, but I would’ve known that voice anywhere. Closing my eyes to the annoyance, I struggled to get my blood pressure under control. Cassidy had a really bad habit of turning up where she wasn’t wanted or invited. She must have been a cat in a past life, because I had no clue how she’d made it up all those stairs behind me without making a sound.

  Reluctantly, I turned to face her. “What the hell are you doing here? Did you follow me again? Christ, woman!”

  “I’m a sports agent, which makes me a professional stalker. It’s what I do. And I’m damn good at it.” She leaned against the wall with her shoes in one hand and not a care in the world.

  “Yeah? Well, I’m not one of your clients, so why are you stalking me?”

  “Because you need to explain yourself to me.”

  I cupped my balls in a smart-ass sort of way. “Yep, still there. Which means I’m a man and don’t have to explain myself to anyone.”

  “I just want to know how you can come home to your posh apartment and lay your head down on what I’m sure is the most comfortable pillow money can buy and sleep at night, knowing your mother is all alone in a condemned building in the middle of a gang-infested neighborhood. You tell me the answer to that, and I’ll leave.” Cassidy’s voice got louder with each word she spoke, which I was sure the landlord’s mother, who lived across the way, really appreciated. “And in case you get any grand ideas, you’re not going to be able to fuck your way out of it this time, Shaw Matthews.”

  I felt like banging my head against the wall. “Jesus Christ … Go home, Cassidy. I have neighbors. I’m not going to stand out in the hallway arguing with you all night.”

  She shrugged and crossed her arms. “Well, then I guess you better invite me in, because I’m not going anywhere.”

  Like that was a threat I couldn’t handle. She for damn sure wasn’t stepping a foot into my place. “Not a problem. I’ll just go inside and leave you out here alone.”

  “Suit yourself. I’ll make a quick phone call and beat and bang on your door until Denver shows up to break it down like you did with Quinn’s. Whatever works for you.” She pulled her phone out of her purse.

  Damn it! Denver would probably do it for her, too.

  With a heavy sigh, I conceded. “Fine. Let’s just go somewhere else so you can get this out of your system.”

  Cassidy blocked the door to the stairs. “Why can’t we just go inside your apartment?”

  “I’d think you’d want someplace more public so I can’t fuck my way out of whatever it is you keep going on about.” I gave her the grin I pulled out only when I wanted a woman to be at my mercy. “And if I have you that close to my bed, damn right I’m going to fuck you in it.”

  She leaned in, her intimate proximity drawing me closer to her body’s warmth. “I think I can handle myself,” she said, and then she snatched the key to my apartment out of my hand and bolted for the door, leaving me to catch myself on the wall.

  Before I’d righted my balance, Cassidy had my door unlocked and swung wide open.

  “Fuck.” A life that I’d tried so damn hard to keep private had just extended an open invitation to the last person on earth I’d ever want to let in on the secret.

  Cassidy

  To say I was confused would’ve been an understatement. When I’d thought of Shaw’s decorating tastes in the past, I’d imagined something modern and chic, maybe even a bit futuristic. But the reality proved I’d been way off the mark. His taste was nonexistent. And I didn’t mean nonexistent as in he didn’t have any taste; I meant nonexistent in the literal sense.

  “Where’s all your stuff?”

  Shaw’s apartment didn’t look much different from the penthouse suite we’d left a mere couple of hours before. There was no plush carpet or crimson paint, just plain hardwood floors and whitewashed walls. To Shaw’s credit, there was a recliner and a table in what I assumed was the living room, but no other furniture that I could see. Not even a television.

  “What you see is what you get.” Shaw nudged past me and inside, gesturing for me to do the same with a swing of his arm.

  “I don’t understand,” I said, stepping over the threshold so he could close the door behind me.

  “What’s the matter?” Shaw walked into the middle of the room with his arms spread wide. “Not posh enough for you?”

  Tearing my eyes away from the nothingness, I saw a side of Shaw I wouldn’t have ever dreamed could exist. He looked ashamed, and it punched at my gut, but his underlying air of cockiness refused to go away.

  “You know, I’m really disappointed in you, Ms. Whalen. For someone who’s such an ace in research, you really dropped the ball on this one.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Do you seriously not know why there’s no furniture in my apartment?” He paused, tilting his head with his brows lifted expectantly. “Think about it. I’m sure it’ll come to you.”

  Crossing his arms and leaning against the bar that separated the kitchen from the main living space, he waited. And I was more confused than ever.

  “I’m in no mood to play guessing games with you.”

  “All right, then I’ll give you a hint.” He uncrossed his arms and stood straight. “I can’t afford any furniture right now.”

  I guffawed. “Right. Funny.”

  “It’s no laughing matter, I assure you. And I’m not real happy about it, either.”

  He was serious, which made no sense. Maybe I would’ve believed him if he’d said he’d sent all of his money home, but I’d seen how his mother lived, so that obviously wouldn’t have been true.

  “You make more than enough money to furnish an apartment. Plus, there’s the corporate allowance.”

  “I make enough money to pay for the apartment,” he said. “The rest of it goes to supplement the corporate allowance, which I use to fund things like private jets to Vegas. And Detroit. And the most expensive hotel suites. And limousines with drivers, meals at upscale restaurants, a tailor-made wardrobe, concert tickets, yacht parties, and strippers. Et cetera, et cetera.”

  I felt so dumb. I still didn’t get what he was trying to tell me, and I’d always considered myself to be pretty smart.

  “You’ve gotta spend money to make money,” he clarified.

  “You’re not rich?”

  “I’m guessing we have about the same yearly income. Are you rich?”

  I shook my head. “But you’re always flaunting all that money?”

  “So you assumed I had lots of it.” Shaw put his hands on his hips and started pacing. “See, that’s the problem here, isn’t it? From day one, you made all kinds of assumptions about me, based on rumors, without ever bothering to find out the truth for yourself. You thought you had me all figured out, so you didn’t need to get to know me, right? I never stood a chance, because you fucking hated me before I showed up for my first day.”

  It was true, and I suddenly felt like a gigantic ass about it, but he wasn’t exactly innocent, either. “Well, maybe if you weren’t such a jerk who kept himself so closed off, people wouldn’t have to make assumptions about you. And besides, it’s not like you tried to give anyone a different opinion.”

  “Oh, so the attorney thinks I’m guilty until proven innocent. Is that it? A little backward, if you ask me. Where did you say you went to law school?”

  “Don’t give me that. People saw exactly what you wanted them to see,” I said, stabbing an accusing finger in the air. “But the truth? The truth is that you’re a l
iar.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. You’re a liar. Your whole life is one big, fat lie. It’s sad.”

  “No, the truth about my life is sad. The lie is much more preferable. To me, anyway. And it certainly hasn’t hurt my career.” He walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, pulling out a beer. “Want one?”

  “What I want is to know what you’ve been hiding.” Though part of me wished I hadn’t stumbled upon the lie, I still couldn’t walk away from the truth.

  “Why? Will it really make a difference in the way you think about me? Haven’t you already made up your mind?” He cracked open the bottle and threw the top on the counter.

  “Change my mind, Shaw. Who are you really? What was so bad about your life that you needed to live a lie?”

  “Everything,” he said with a humorless chuckle. “But if you want specifics, fine, I’ll cut myself open so you can watch all the ugly bleed out onto the floor. My old man is a fucking con artist who couldn’t hold down a job to save his life, but hey, at least some of that artistry got passed down to me. And my mom? My mom is an alcoholic who cared more about where she was going to get her next bottle than feeding her own kid. I was an inconvenience to both of them, a mistake that was never supposed to happen, and most of the time, they acted like it hadn’t.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “And I can tell you exactly why you don’t” was his arrogant response.

  I rolled my eyes, preparing to listen to his nonsense.

  Shaw walked toward me, beer in hand. “I’m willing to bet you were an only child. Am I right?” He circled me as if I were on display for his scrutiny. “Mommy and Daddy gave their little princess everything she’d ever wanted in her whole life. They told you that you could be anything you wanted if you put your mind to it. Because that’s what good parents are supposed to say. And you believed them, because they loved you, and took care of you, and kissed all your boo-boos. So you wanted to make them proud.”

  Shaw came full circle to face me again. I met his gaze, standing strong against the inquisition. “Are they?” he asked. “Are they proud of the way you sit up there on your pedestal, gazing down at the rest of the worker bees, playing the same old record over and over again? I worked so hard to get to where I am,” he mocked me.

  His mask of condescension was replaced with one that was as hard and unforgiving. “Until you’ve walked a mile in my shoes, sister, you don’t know what hard work is.”

  “This isn’t about me. It’s about you.”

  “Oh, you don’t like to be put under a microscope and judged, but it’s okay for you to do it to someone else? I see. Well, by all means, let’s get back to the topic of me, since we both know what an egotistical asshole I am.”

  He put a sarcastic finger to his chin while looking up at the ceiling and resuming pacing before me, like a prosecutor looking to make a plaintiff nervous. But I wasn’t the one on trial, so the intimidation tactic wasn’t going to work.

  “Where were we? Ah, I remember. Unlike you, I didn’t have the privilege of a college education and a postgraduate degree. No one paid for me to study at some highbrow university. You talk about how you started from the bottom and worked your way up the ladder. Well, if you started at the bottom, I guess I should say I started twenty feet underground.

  “Everything I know was self-taught. Nothing was handed to me. Here’s the thing people don’t understand about coming up in Detroit: a man can work a full-time job, backbreaking labor, and it still isn’t enough. That’s why there’s so much crime there. To support a family, you’re pretty much forced to turn to dealing drugs, killing thugs, and posing for mugs.” Stopping again, he plastered on a fake smile that, under different circumstances, would’ve been breathtaking. Oh, he was well practiced.

  “But I wanted to be better than that,” he continued. “I wanted the white-collar dream so bad I could taste it, and I wasn’t afraid to get a few calluses on my hands in the process. You see, I knew that if I wanted any kind of a life, something better than what my folks had, I was going to have to make it for myself. So yeah, I cut some corners, but I only did what I had to do to break the cycle.”

  “And what about your family? You just left them there to fend for themselves?”

  “Ah, my family. It always comes back around to that for you, doesn’t it?”

  I couldn’t quite understand why it didn’t for him. Your blood was where your roots began, and roots were what made a person strong. “Where I come from, your family is the most valuable asset in life. I won’t apologize for that.”

  “Let me tell you something about my family,” he started. “Most every single night of my young life, I slept at the stadiums. Just hid from security, because I knew the guards’ schedules like the back of my hand. And I did that because at least I was safe there. And my parents … never bothered to look for me. Hell, I don’t think they cared—or even knew, for that matter—that I was gone.”

  The sadness I felt for the little boy in Shaw reached deep into my chest and gave my heart a squeeze. Ma and Da always knew every move I made, and if they didn’t, someone else in our little village did, and you better believe they’d find out soon enough. When you came from a place where everyone cared, could you ever really know what it was like for someone who had no one?

  “They didn’t give a shit about me, so why should I give a shit about them?”

  I softened. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. It’s not the way it’s supposed to be.”

  I suddenly realized how wrong I’d been about Shaw. He hadn’t had everything handed to him on a silver platter. He hadn’t had anything handed to him at all. In fact, he’d had to work a thousand times as hard as I had to get to the same place.

  “Hey, no worries. I came out okay. Look at me now. I eat at fancy restaurants, sleep with any woman I want—including you—rub elbows with the rich and famous, carry a certain amount of influence, and people know my goddamn name.”

  “In an empty apartment,” I tacked on.

  “It won’t be empty once I sign Denver,” he said, taking a swig of his beer. “That partnership is the game changer for me. I’ll finally be able to settle down in one place and feel like I’ve accomplished something. It’s the beginning of a new life, everything I’ve worked so hard for.”

  “You think that’s going to make you happy?”

  Shaw shrugged. “How could it not?”

  “Because it’ll be tainted by all the lies you told to get it. Nothing good can come from a lie.”

  “I didn’t tell any lies.” The wink he gave was full of confidence, like he’d won on a technicality, but I still had him.

  “Pretending to be someone you’re not is still a lie.”

  Shaw started laughing. It was the sort of laugh that came at the expense of another rather than from a genuine tickle of the funny bone.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked, unnerved.

  “You.” The sigh that followed was every bit as fake as his laughter. “You’re actually standing there with a straight face, judging me—again, I might add—when you’re doing the exact same thing.”

  He’d clearly lost his mind, and I was definitely insulted. “I am not pretending to be anyone other than who I am.”

  “No?” Shaw’s penetrating gaze went straight through me, like he could see into my soul. “Are you sure about that, Cassidy?”

  I wasn’t, but until I knew what he was getting at, I wasn’t going to make any profound confessions. “You’re projecting.”

  “Ooh, fancy word, counselor.”

  “Oh, just make the point I know you’re dying to make, Matthews.”

  “Okay.” He straightened and put his beer on the counter. “For someone who’s so by the book, you sure are blurring the lines, aren’t you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Denver, for one,” he said, holding up a finger like he was keeping score. But of course he would; everything was a compet
ition to Shaw. “What is it that you’re doing with him, exactly? Are you fucking him or trying to be his agent? Because if you don’t genuinely want to be with the guy, then you’re leading him on in order to get the contract. And that’s pretty fucking unethical.”

  God, he was right. I’d been chastising myself over the very same thing from the moment I’d known Denver had a thing for me and I’d capitalized on it. My shame had been weighing heavy on my shoulders ever since. But I had every intention of righting my wrong the next time he and I saw each other. “Denver and I never—”

  Shaw cut off my explanation: “Wait. I’m not done.” Another finger went up. “You have a tattoo of some guy named Casey on your ass that you don’t care to talk about. I mean, I could be wrong, but most women wouldn’t tattoo a man’s name on their ass unless he meant something to them.”

  Guilt sat in my stomach like an iron anchor that had crashed to the sea floor. Casey was one subject that was off-limits. “I’m not going to talk about Casey with—”

  “Still not done,” he said. “And then there’s me. The man you claim to hate, yet fuck on a regular basis.” His intention was to cut me with the statement, but the words dripped with seduction. To prove the point, he crossed the space that separated us, backing me against the wall with a slow, methodical advance, until the heat of his body teased my skin. I didn’t dare look up at him; I knew if I did, I’d want to kiss his lips. “No way can a woman hate a man that much and still fuck him the way you fuck me.”

  I could hear both of us breathing as the heaviness of his statement settled in. “Denver … Casey … me … You’re living three different lives. So which is the real you, Cassidy?”

  The mirror Shaw had forced me to take a long, hard look into was more than I’d bargained for when I’d decided to follow him home. This was supposed to be about making him come clean, not exposing the skeletons in my own closet. But damn, what a cluttered closet it had become, and I hadn’t even realized it. Maybe I had some cleaning of my own to do. And the truth of the matter was, I didn’t even know the answer to his question.