Dirty Sexy Bastard
Laurelin Paige
Copyright © 2018 by Laurelin Paige
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover: Laurelin Paige
Proofreading: Michele Ficht
Contents
Foreword
1. Elizabeth
2. Elizabeth
3. Weston
4. Elizabeth
The Dirty Universe Continues…
Also by Laurelin Paige
Let’s stay in touch!
About Laurelin Paige
Foreword
Dear Reader,
Welcome to a preview of my Dirty Sexy Bastard, Weston King. He has a helluva story for you, which you may have already glimpsed if you read Dirty Filthy Rich Men and Dirty Filthy Rich Love. Trust me, though-you haven’t seen the half of it. There are still twists and turns you didn’t see coming.
This free novella is a prequel to the real story told in the Dirty Games Duet, which includes Dirty Sexy Player and Dirty Sexy Games. You don’t need to read this to enjoy the duet, but I’m sure you’ll love this little taste of my sexy couple.
xoxo,
Laurelin
One
Elizabeth
Feeling the weight of a hundred eyes on me, I stared at the pile of dirt in my hand. It felt cold and messy in my palm. Like the entire situation, really. What was I waiting for? Hesitating wasn’t going to change the reality of my life now. It wasn’t going to bring my father back.
I knew that. I accepted it. It was much harder to accept that this moment was supposed to feel more monumental than it did. It was supposed to feel sentimental. It was supposed to be a goodbye.
With a slight shake of my head, I spilled the dirt over the casket below me. This wasn’t anything but a formality. My father’s death had just occurred, but he’d said goodbye to me years before.
I stepped away from the hole in the ground and headed directly to my mother who was waiting for me with open arms. I didn’t really want to hug it out, but it was better her than the countless strangers who felt the need to express their condolences with unwanted touches and sentiments said so often they’d become meaningless.
At least my father had asked for his funeral to be in the States so he could be buried next to his parents in the family plot. It made it much easier to deal with the day without having to struggle with remembering my French. The last week at his side in Paris in the hospital had been bad enough. He’d been unconscious the entire time, and yet I’d felt it was my duty to stay there, to greet visitor after visitor as they came to pay their respects. People who had known and loved him. People he’d probably known and loved too. I’d wondered with each expression of sympathy, delivered in broken English or thick French accents, if the bearer realized the irony of the delivery. It should have been me extending consolation. I didn’t know my father, not really. He certainly didn’t know me. As for love...well, it was hard to believe he’d felt much of that for me.
I still wasn’t sure how I felt about him. Would that ever change? Probably not now.
My mother offered her own version of comfort, rocking me side to side as she embraced me. “You made it through, honey. And you looked so beautiful as you did, too.”
That’s what equaled strength in her eyes—looking on point. Being put together.
“Thank you, Mom.” I pulled out of her arms and blinked back the moisture sticking to my eyelash. They weren’t tears. I wasn’t crying. A glance at the sky said that the dark clouds had finally burst, and it was now raining. Icy, cold November rain. Fabulous. Rain at a wedding was good luck, they said. Rain at a funeral? Appropriate was the only word I could think of for it.
A hand pressed flat against my back. Resisting the urge to shrug it off, I turned to face the latest consoler.
“You’re Elizabeth, right?” the older woman asked. Old as in my mother’s age, which wasn’t really that old since she’d had me in her early twenties, and I was only going on twenty-five. She was nearly as pretty as my mother as well. And my mother was very pretty.
“I am.” I studied her, sure that I’d seen her before. “Do I know you?”
“Eileen Sanchez. You probably don’t remember me. You were just a little girl in pigtails when I first met you. I was your father’s secretary for about a year before he moved the headquarters to Paris.”
Oh, yes. I remembered her now. Even at the age of nine, I’d found the relationship she’d had with my father seemed awfully friendly. My parents had already been divorced by then, but Eileen—Ms. Sanchez, as I’d known her—had been the first “other woman” I’d encountered. The first of many that had come into my father’s life, each of them seeming to earn more attention than me, and they were already second to his company.
I’d often wondered where I fit on the line-up of people my father found important. Third? Fifth? Twenty-ninth?
It didn’t matter now. No one was important to him anymore. Lucky how he still got to be important, though, to so many people. His employees, the world, this former secretary. He’d left behind a media empire that dominated the European market, and that, it seemed from everyone I’d come in contact with, somehow made it impossible to criticize him posthumously. Even if the criticism came from his neglected, abandoned daughter.
I shuddered at my thoughts, then wrapped my arms around myself, feigning a chill from the rainy mist. “I do remember you, Ms. Sanchez. It’s good to see you again.” Thankfully it wasn’t an occasion that didn’t require me to force a grin.
“You really did grow up quite beautiful. Just as I’d always imagined you would…” The melancholy lilt of her voice suggested that once upon a time she imagined she’d be part of my father’s life long enough to see me to adulthood.
Tough breaks, lady. He disappointed a bunch of us. Get used to it.
“That’s so nice of you to say,” I managed.
“It’s not nice! It’s true.” She snuggled up closer, as if we were best buddies. “I’m supposing you’ll be at the reading of the will on Tuesday? Apparently, I’ve been invited as well.”
It was almost impossible to keep my eyes from rolling. My father had remembered his secretary from over fifteen years ago in his will? He usually didn’t even remember my birthday. Either she’d been quite good at her job or quite good in the sack. Both were possible.
“I’ll be there,” I said through gritted teeth. Wasn’t it tacky to talk about these things before the funeral was officially over? Though, I supposed it was over now. Technically.
Still. It wasn’t something I wanted to be reminded of. The worst part of this whole ordeal—my father’s death and all that—was preparing for the monumental task of taking over the Dyson corporation. I’d thought I’d had more time to get some experience under my belt. I’d been planning to get my MBA and start off with a job lower down the totem pole.
Now it was going to be baptism by fire.
“Good! Good. I’ll re-introduce you to my son, Gabriel. You met when you were younger, if you recall. Pudgy little kid? He was six when I was with your father.”
With my father. She’d never have used that term if she thought he’d hear it. Thank death for giving permission for honesty.
“He isn’t pudgy anymore,” she added quickly, touching my shoulder once again. “He’s grown up to be a looker, if you ask me.”
And there was the real motivation behind her approaching me. Since I was now the legal heir to my father’s fortune, that made me a perfect target for money-hungry
hook-ups.
Thank you but no thanks. I wasn’t interested in men for just that reason—it was impossible to tell who was with me for me and who was with me for the potential cash. And, in my experience, men were always sure to disappoint.
And so was this conversation. “If you’ll excuse me now, the rain seems to be getting heavier, and there’s still the reception to get through back at the house.”
It was a lie. There was no reception. My mother and I were treating ourselves to facials and mani-pedis, and after the morning it had been, I thought we’d earned a deep tissue massage as well.
“Of course, of course.” Ms. Sanchez eyed my mother with a scornful look. Like I said, my mother was really pretty. Pretty enough to get a ring from the multi-billionaire. Even though she’d had to take it off after ten years, she’d still come out of the marriage set for life. “I just wanted to offer my condolences, and say hi and all that.”
“And you’ve done that now. Time to move it along, don’t you think?” My mother to the rescue. Thank the Lord.
Ms. Sanchez huffed and blustered, making a bigger ruckus than the storm above us. “Some people!” she finally muttered, stalking away and into the crowd of funeral-goers.
I turned away, hiding my laugh from everyone but my mother. “Mom, you’re my favorite. Let’s get out of here, can we?”
“I’ve already texted our driver.”
I followed her to the car, holding my thin funeral program above my head as if it could prevent the rain, which had picked up in the last few minutes.
Thunder clapped through the sky just as we made it to our ride. My mother got in first, scooting across the backseat to let me have the space beside her. As I was about to get in, something caught my eye, or someone, rather—a tall, rugged faced man with a chiseled jaw, standing by a large oak tree, staring in my direction. I’d never seen him before, and while it was natural that people were curious about me today, the way he looked at me felt different. It felt calculating and perceptive. As though he saw something about me that I didn’t, or as if he were sizing me up.
I stared back at him, cold and detached. He held my gaze, then tipped his hat, and turned away, disappearing in the grey.
A bolt of lightning struck, followed by another boom of thunder. I slipped in the car, and, even though the inside of the vehicle was warm and toasty, I shivered.
I had a feeling that everything in my world was about to change.
Two
Elizabeth
The lawyer’s office wasn’t that small, but it was crowded. There wasn’t a single empty seat around the long conference table, and more than a couple of people had to stand. I recognized only a few of them. My mother, Dad’s first ex-wife and his third, his sister and her son, Darrell. Eileen Sanchez wasn’t the only secretary I noted in the bunch. A few other big-busted, beautiful women I suspected were secretaries I hadn’t met—or just random girlfriends. There were so many fake boobs and noses, I started to feel like I was at a party at the Playboy mansion instead of a will reading. God, my father had been a bigger bastard than I’d given him credit for. At least he could still surprise me.
Fred Gershwin, the attorney in charge, was busy fussing at his assistant about more chairs and offering beverages to everyone when my mother leaned over and whispered to me. “Jesus, get a load of Delilah. What is she trying to prove?”
I glanced down the table at my father’s first wife, even though I’d already noted her appearance when we’d arrived. She hadn’t been married to my father for nearly thirty years—hadn’t spoken to him in more than twenty—and yet she was decked out in black from head to toe, including a hat and veil.
“It’s not like Dell is going to come back from the dead and alter her inheritance because she showed up here in full mourning gear.” My mother paused as though considering if the idea was possible, then shook her head. “No. If I’d thought that would have worked, I would have dressed differently.”
I glowered at her. “You could have at least worn something a little more respectful. You know, like not red.” The stiletto heels and low cleavage were even less appropriate, but, with my mother, I picked my battles.
She shrugged dismissively. “Your father always liked me in red. Maybe I’m wearing this as a tribute to his memory. No one but you knows it’s really celebration attire.”
My mother had been a very good trophy wife. But after my father had announced he wasn’t in love with her anymore, leaving her with an eight year old daughter to raise on her own, she’d made an even better wealthy cougar.
We weren’t alike, she and I. I’d inherited my father’s drive and smarts as well as his fair skin and red hair. Often, I thought I would have been better off if I’d taken more after her. Her days consisted of skin treatments, attending fashion shows, and flirting with attractive men, and maybe her lifestyle could be called a bit shallow, but she sure seemed to find pleasure in her existence.
I, on the other hand, was too serious. Too “thinky”. Too weighed down by the reality of the world. I could have been a poster child for the “Money doesn’t buy happiness” adage. Not that I was necessarily unhappy. But I wasn’t what people called fun.
I also wasn’t ready for what was about to come, even being my father’s daughter. The entire Dyson empire under my control? Just thinking about it made me wish I had a paper bag to breathe into.
“Don’t be nervous,” my mother said quietly, able to read my moods as only a mother can. “You’ll have all the money you need to hire people to help. People who know what they’re doing.”
“Are you saying you don’t think I’ll know what I’m doing?” It was accurate, but she didn’t have to say it to my face.
“Of course not, darling. Hush now. They’re starting the reading.” As if I’d been the one to start the conversation in the first place.
And now I was even more nervous.
Gee, thanks Mom.
I’d been to one will reading in my life—my grandmother on my father’s side. It had been fairly straightforward since she’d left pretty much everything she had to her two children. Each grandchild had gotten a sizable US savings bond, and a memento of some sort. Being the only girl amongst my generation, I’d inherited her jewelry box. I would have preferred the antique globe that went to Darrell, but c’est la vie. Or c’est le décès, in this case.
The whole thing had been quick. We’d been in and out before thirty minutes had passed.
My father’s reading, on the other hand, went on and on and on and on. He’d left tokens to so many people—most of them not in attendance. With each bequeathal, he’d written a personal note explaining the reason for the gift and what the individual meant to him. And even if the person wasn’t there, Fred Gershwin read every word my father had wrote.
It was beautiful, in a way, I supposed. It let me see a side of my father I’d never seen—a caring, generous side. A side capable of connecting with another. A side that, if I’d seen it while he’d been alive, I would have likely found worth loving.
But since I hadn’t known that part of him, the words and the sniffling around the room felt tedious.
The worst part was that the lawyer had started with the smaller items, leaving the substantial items for the end. Which made it seem like forever before he said, “And to my daughter, Elizabeth Leigh Dyson, I leave the remainder of my personal fortune including the apartment in Paris, the house in Neuilly, the vacation properties in Lake Como, Ibiza, and St. Barth’s.”
“He didn’t say anything personal about you?” my mother hissed. “That fucker.”
“Shhh!” I’d already noted that. It was easier to ignore the sting without her calling attention to the fact. I should have taken it as an omen. I should have realized then what was to come, but I remained naive.
“Finally,” the lawyer continued, “The majority shares of Dyson Media are bequeathed to Elizabeth, to be transferred over to her name on the day of her twenty-ninth birthday or on the date she marries, which
ever comes first. Until that time, the shares shall be placed in a trust, and my nephew Darrell Huber shall take my place as CEO.”
There was an audible gasp from the room, most notably from my mother. “Oh, my god!” she exclaimed. “She doesn’t inherit until twenty-nine? That bastard!”
“Those are the terms, Madam,” the lawyer said, pissing my mother off further with the way he’d chosen to address her. “This concludes the last will and testament of Dell Herbert Dyson. Please make sure you collect your envelope with the deeds, titles and instructions for collection. If you need further counsel, including how to plan for estate taxes, you may make an appointment with my secretary. Good day.”
Fred Gershwin stood, gathered his papers, and left the room swiftly.
As soon as the door shut behind him, the room burst into commotion. My mother continued her verbal assault on her ex-husband, Delilah broke into a dramatic display of tears, and Darrell accepted congratulations from those who knew him.
I was the only one who sat quietly. Stunned. Completely blown over.
He hadn’t left me the company.
He hadn’t left me the company!
Okay, sure, he had left it for me on my twenty-ninth birthday, which wasn’t even really that offensive considering the fact that I was the first person to say I wasn’t ready for the task of being in charge. I could have accepted that he acknowledged that as well, if it weren’t for the addendum that stated I could inherit earlier if I was married.
Now that was offensive.
That was a statement, and it was clear and archaic and misogynistic and just plain mean. The only purpose for such a clause would be to suggest that my husband—whomever I married—would either help me run the company or do the job himself. He’d included that in the terms without even knowing what kind of man I might marry! It meant he hadn’t trusted me. It meant he’d trusted a stranger more than his own flesh and blood daughter.
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