Dirty Sexy Player

by Laurelin Paige

  “Can we go home now? I’m not really in the mood to eat anything,” I said, when I’d come down, desperate for another orgasm with him inside me.

  “The only thing I’m hungry for is you.”

  And for the second Friday in a row, we skipped The Sky Launch and stayed in.

  Seventeen

  “You grew up out here, not in the city.” Elizabeth made it sound more like a statement than a question as I pulled into the driveway at my parent’s house in Larchmont, probably because I’d told her this already.

  “Yep.” It was Thursday, nearly a week after she’d come back from her spa vacation, and we were taking another trip, this time together and just for a day. I’d borrowed one of Donovan’s cars to make the ninety-minute drive out here to the suburbs. It seemed stupid to use Elizabeth’s driver to come to my childhood home, and even more stupid to take a train, especially if we planned to lug a bunch of crap back with us.

  “And your dad did that commute every day of your life?” she asked as I put the Tesla into park in the circle drive.

  “Ten-hour workdays, five days a week. He had a driver so he worked in the car both to and from. He still does it. Mom says his days are shorter now.” I turned off the car and looked over at my fiancée. “Mom wanted the house. It was the price she had to pay. At least that’s what she always said to me.”

  For all her talk of sacrifice, I’d learned it had a limit.

  But we hadn’t come out here to get worked up about the past.

  “Let’s do this,” I said to myself more than to Elizabeth, then opened the door of the car and ran around to her side to open hers. Together, we walked up to the front of the Georgian-style house. I pulled out my spare key—it was strange that I had one, and not strange, too. After all, I’d grown up in this house. And yet now it felt like it belonged to somebody else, like I was an intruder sneaking up on it.

  With sweaty hands, I entered my code into the security pad, praying it still worked, and when the light went green, I put my key in the door, and we slipped inside.

  Once we were both in the house, I took Elizabeth’s coat, then peeled off my own and hung them both in the hall closet. I couldn’t shake how nervous and uncomfortable I felt being here. Being here with her. There were so many ghosts from the past, memories of a lifetime spent in these rooms. Thankfully, we didn’t need to take a tour of the grounds and visit them. It was a straight shot to where I was headed today—through the gallery, past the living room, into the library.

  I grabbed Elizabeth’s hand and started tugging her in the direction I wanted to go, when Linda, our housekeeper and my former nanny, appeared in the archway coming from the dining room.

  “Weston,” she greeted me affectionately, her Swedish accent still lingering after all these years. I let go of Elizabeth’s hand so she could hug me. “What are you doing here? It’s been so long. You nearly gave me a heart attack. I heard someone walking through the house. I thought we had a prowler.”

  I kissed her on the cheek. “Just me. I didn’t tell anyone I was coming. It was last minute. Needed to grab some things from the library.” I turned toward Elizabeth. “Linda, this is my—” I paused. I’d introduced her as my fiancée to everyone in town, including my parents, but in some ways I was closer to Linda than I was to them. It felt weird to tell this lie to the woman who had gotten me through both AP European history and my first wet dream.

  My former caretaker finished the sentence for me. “I’ve heard much about your fiancée, Elizabeth. I’m right to assume that you’re her?”

  “That’s me,” Elizabeth said, smiling nervously. She held her hand out to shake, but Linda drew her in for a hug that Elizabeth did well in tolerating.

  “I’m so glad to meet you. A little heartbroken that it hasn’t happened sooner.” Linda glared at me in the way she always had when I was younger, the glare she used when she wanted me to know she was disappointed in me without actually saying the words.

  “Well, you’ve met her now. You can stop with the guilt trips.” I snagged Elizabeth’s hand again and started toward the library. We were already going to be here all day, and I didn’t want to risk staying any later than we had to. “I don’t mean to cut this short, but we have, you know…”

  “Always busy, that one,” Linda said, sticking her tongue out. “Go on into your library, and I’ll bring you some coffee and cookies.”

  “Thank you, Linda. You’re the best.” I turned forward, pulling Elizabeth closer to me as we headed to the library.

  “She seems nice. Pretty, too,” she said, looking back to where Linda had just disappeared into the kitchen.

  “Oh, you can’t even imagine how many times I spanked off to her when I was growing up.” Confessions of a former horny teenager.

  And then we were in the library, the reason for our trip to Larchmont and my day off from Reach.

  “This is it,” I announced.

  It wasn’t that the library was so spectacular. It was that all my books from school were still here, including all my textbooks, complete with the notes I’d taken in business school. That wasn’t the kind of thing that you could just buy on Amazon and have shipped to you. I’d tried to keep her out of this piece of my life, but so much of the stuff I wanted to teach Elizabeth was here on these shelves.

  And the more time I spent with her, the weirder she found that separation, so this seemed like a good idea.

  My parents had always believed that sharing was what you did with books. And I did rightfully own a lot of the ones that were here already, so it wasn’t like I was doing something wrong by showing up and grabbing what I wanted. But I had purposefully not announced my intentions, afraid my mother would have skipped her weekly bridge game, or worse—that she would’ve told my father, and he would be here when we arrived.

  No, this was perfect. A quiet house, with no one but me and Elizabeth and Linda.

  “This is really nice,” she said, trailing her fingers along the spines of books that lined the bookshelves as she walked along them. “My father had a library like this in his château in France. He never let me touch those, though.”

  She drew a book out of the section dedicated to Peter Drucker and flipped through the pages. “And you’re serious that I can take whatever I want? Your parents won’t miss them?”

  “My father will only be pissed if you take any of his Steve Berry’s or Dan Brown’s. Other than that, he won’t even notice.” I headed toward the wall that I knew contained my textbooks from college and started pulling the books I wanted to take. Business Ethics: Concepts and Cases, Consumer Behavior, Anatomy of a Ponzi Scheme. I laughed to myself, finding the last one on the shelf.

  My father could’ve written that book.

  I flipped open my old earmarked copy of Business Law and sunk down in the oversized leather armchair while Elizabeth collected books she was interested in. Thirty minutes went by, then forty, and soon I found I was not reading at all, but staring out the window at the bay in the backyard. It was a beautiful house to grow up in, a beautiful life that I had taken for granted.

  It was the kind of place I liked taking girls home to, to impress them, the kind of place that Elizabeth was already accustomed to. The kind of place where she deserved to live. I felt an ache between my ribs because I couldn’t give it to her, which was dumb, because I wasn’t trying to give her any life at all.

  And even if I were, I hated the kind of sacrifices this house had required. Yes, my mother loved her maid and her groundskeepers and her water view—at the cost of only seeing her husband two days a week. At the cost of everything he did during his time away from this house.

  Reach would one day be that successful, as big as King-Kincaid had been for my father and Donovan’s father. I believed it, not just because I believed in myself and our company, but because Donovan had the skill of not letting anything go any way except exactly how he’d planned. And he planned for us to be successful. So it would happen.

  But even when it
did, I didn’t want to only come home to see Elizabeth on the weekend, only see our children from the doorway of the bedroom while they slept in their beds every night.

  Why this fantasy had Elizabeth’s name in it, I had no idea. Except that she was the one currently wearing my ring and playing my bride-to-be.

  Anyway, I guessed I’d rather live in the city. I could raise kids in the city, as tricky as that was. Donovan had grown up that way, and he’d turned out…well, he’d turned out.

  And I was a long way away from having kids, so all of this was ridiculous overthinking, inspired by being in my childhood home with someone who had me talking about weddings all the time.

  There was a bustle in the house all of a sudden, voices coming from the vicinity of the kitchen. Linda had already brought us the coffee and snacks, and a glance at the clock on the wall said it was about time for my mother to be home.

  Elizabeth heard it too, and looked over at me expectantly.

  “I’ll go tell my mother we’re here,” I said, getting up before she could offer to join me.

  I left the room, closing the library doors behind me, afraid that whatever conversation I had with my mother might escalate quickly, and I didn’t want to disturb Elizabeth and her studying.

  As I’d suspected, I found my mom in the kitchen, filling up a glass with ice water from the dispenser in the refrigerator. She looked over her shoulder at me, then back to the task at hand.

  “Linda said you were here,” she said crisply, obviously upset. “If you’d told me you were coming I would have had lunch prepared.”

  “Lunch wasn’t necessary, Mom. We didn’t come for food. We came for books.” I stuck my hands in my jean pockets, avoiding the temptation to reach out to her physically.

  She turned around toward me and took a swallow of her water, then put it down on the counter between us. I’d left that barrier on purpose.

  “Books. You came for books?” It seemed like she was sorting through a lot of thoughts in her head, a lot more than she was speaking out loud.

  “I’m helping Elizabeth brush up on her business skills, and there’s a lot of textbooks I left here.”

  She nodded. “Your father’s not going to be happy he missed you. Are you coming home for Thanksgiving at least?”

  I hadn’t spent a holiday in this house for more than three years. It was amazing that she kept asking. Amazing how I still got choked up when I told her, “No.”

  “Your father won’t be happy about that either,” she said sharply.

  I looked out the window and caught a heron flying, tracked its flight with my gaze. It was easier than watching her when I said, “Yep. I’m sure he’ll be disappointed.”

  I knew she wanted me to offer her more, but I didn’t have more to give her. It was hard enough being on her turf. Couldn’t she see that?

  When I turned my head back to her, she was patting the kitchen counter with her hand soundlessly. Our eyes met, and hers were brimming with tears.

  Jesus. Not today, Mom. Please.

  But I didn’t say it. I didn’t say anything. I let her talk instead. Let her say the things pressing against her heart, pushing those tears to the surface.

  “I understand why you’re upset, Weston. I do. I didn’t for a long time, but I do now. I just don’t understand why you’re so upset with me.”

  “I’m almost more upset with you than with him,” I said, exasperated. She didn’t understand. She didn’t understand at all.

  “Why? What did I ever do except—”

  I lurched forward and placed my hands on the counter. “You encouraged him, Mom. You begged him to do the wrong thing. You could have convinced him—”

  “I couldn’t live without him! We would’ve lost everything. Our house. Your trust fund. The company, Weston. Everything. Don’t you get it?”

  The sacrifice was too great to pay. That’s what she was saying.

  Too great for her to pay, anyway. She didn’t care that someone else had to pay it for her.

  Well, I did.

  “I came for the books, Mom,” I said, pushing off the counter, stepping away. “I didn’t come for this conversation.”

  I headed back into the library and shut the doors behind me when I was inside. Then I locked them, afraid my mother would come in after us. I didn’t need any more of her tears and her heartache. Her excuses.

  Elizabeth looked up from her book, but the look I gave her said I wasn’t in the mood to talk, and she went right back to reading.

  My mother did try the door handles, but she didn’t knock when she was unable to open them. Ten minutes later, though, a text came across my phone from my sister, Noelle. Mom says you’re not coming home for Thanksgiving.

  I’m spending it with Elizabeth’s family, I texted back quickly. It was manipulative of my mother to get my little sister involved.

  I was really hoping to meet her!

  You’ll meet her at the wedding.

  I felt bad about not telling Noelle the truth about my arrangement with Elizabeth. I knew I’d tell her eventually, maybe even at the wedding if I got a moment alone with her. If not, sometime later. There was a decade between us, but I liked the kid. And if she told my parents, I guess I’d have to live with that. It didn’t really matter if they knew.

  “You’re texting Sabrina, aren’t you?” Elizabeth said from where she was curled up on the couch.

  I let my gaze shift over to her, a grin playing on my lips. I hadn’t told her about the shift in my relationship with Sabrina to just friends yet. It was too fun to let her stew with jealousy.

  “It was my sister,” I said.

  “Oh. I was sure it was Sabrina because of the way your face got all broody. She’s usually the one who has you riled up.”

  No, it was usually Elizabeth who had me riled up, and she knew it. She was taunting me. Even after a week of sex every night, it still seemed poking and prodding was our foreplay.

  I didn’t mind at all.

  But we were still in this house and my head was still in the other room with my mother, and I needed to untangle the knots in my psyche before I could play naughty with her.

  “I have a business ethics question to pose to you,” I said, suddenly wanting to tackle this from another angle.

  “Should companies have a no-fraternization rule amongst managers and their employees?”

  She stretched her legs out on the ground in front of her. “I do think that would be a good policy. I’m surprised Reach doesn’t have such a rule in place.”

  I laughed. “Donovan and I are co-CEOs and all three vice presidents are dirty, filthy men. The only one of them who might have suggested a no-fraternization policy just banged my next-in-command.” Maybe I wasn’t too interested in keeping the information to myself after all.

  Elizabeth’s brows rose in shock as she figured out who I must be talking about. “Donovan slept with Sabrina? That’s surprising.” She twisted her lip in that awkward cute way she often did. “Were you jealous?”

  “As far as I know, it was only a one-night thing. Don’t get too excited.” She’d kicked her shoes off earlier, and her toenails, crimson from her trip to the spa the week before, tempted me. I reached down and grabbed one of her feet and set it in my lap, massaging her sole. “Anyway, that wasn’t the ethics question I wanted to pose.”

  “You can ask me anything as long as you’re doing that,” she said, sinking into my massage. She closed the book she’d been reading and tossed it aside. “Hit me.”

  “So let’s say you’re a major shareholder of Dyson Media, and you also participate on the Board of Directors. And then the board votes for you to take a role as an officer. You’re responsible for maintaining the best interest of the corporation. Not only are you actively involved in the day-to-day operations, but you also report to the shareholders.”

  “Once I inherit, I’ll hold seventy-five percent of the ownership. The majority of the shareholders will be me.”

  “Right, but even if y
ou are the majority, you’re still responsible to everyone.”

  “I know, I know,” she said defensively. “Do you think I don’t listen to anything you say in these little lessons of yours the last few months? Sure doesn’t seem like Darrell acts like he’s responsible to one-hundred percent of the owners. But go on.”

  “There’s a company scandal. Something that goes deep on many levels. It’s maybe not illegal, but definitely unethical.” I tried to be vague in the scenario. I didn’t want her to assume I had any reason for being specific.

  She ticked her head to the side. “Do I know about the scandalous behavior as it’s going on? Or only after it’s discovered?”

  “You know from the very beginning,” I said moving on to her other foot.

  “Well, that doesn’t sound like me. I would’ve nipped it in the bud as soon as I knew about this terrible behavior.” She moaned at the end of her sentence as I found a particularly sensitive spot on her foot, and my dick went semi-hard.

  And that was the problem with this proposed situation—Elizabeth never would be involved with a scandal like this to begin with.

  “But just say you were. For whatever reason, you were convinced it was the right way to go, and then it becomes not the right way to go. Someone’s going to have to take the fall for it, because the news gets out and everyone knows Dyson Media is involved with this really terrible scandal.”

  “So is that the question? If I take the fall for it?” She stared up at me with her big beautiful eyes blinking, so brilliant she could see to the end of my scenario.

  “Yeah. That’s the question. Do you take the fall or do you let someone within the company take the fall?” My heart started pounding in my chest, my hands felt sweaty as they rubbed the inside sole of Elizabeth’s foot. It was a stupid, silly example of a question, and I was placing all this weight on it. I was desperate for Elizabeth’s answer to give me some sort of absolution, and I didn’t even need absolution. I felt good in my decision. Felt good in my stance.