One Dirty Scot

by Donna Alam

  I propose to her almost weekly, but she’s yet to accept. I don’t think she takes my sentiments seriously somehow. Yeah, so I usually ask her to marry me just after we’ve had sex. In my defence, that’s when my heart is most open, I’ve told her.

  Want an honest answer from a man? Ask your question just after he’s shot his load. When he’s at his most vulnerable.

  True fucking story, literally.

  Last night at the Den, I’d almost proposed to Bea once again, clamping my lips closed on her neck at the last minute to prevent the words from spilling.

  Nothing screams romance like a sex club, hey? Especially with some random man in a superhero mask curled between you.

  I can’t see that being a story we want to pass down the generations.

  Grandad, where did you propose to Granny?

  Well, my fine wee fella. It was at a sex club. I’d just eaten your granny out and was covered in—

  Yeah, that’s not gonnae work.

  What’s needed is another setting. Another experience. Another day.

  This day, actually.

  I’d secretly flown Bea’s parents out from South Africa and both of her brothers arrived in London today. They’re all staying in our Bawdy House hotel. Christ knows what Bea’s parents think about the place. I suppose I’ll find out soon.

  I’d also arranged for her pals to fly down from Scotland, including June and her nurse. We’ve both become fond of the auld bat—she’s as mad as a bag of cats, but that just increases her worth, as far as I’m concerned.

  Even Dylan and Ivy have flown in from L.A. for tonight. Claish Castle may be their home base but they spend a fair bit of time in the U.S. It’ll mean a lot to Bea that they’re there.

  I flip off the lights and close the door to my office, patting the black box I’ve concealed in my jacket pocket, its contents weighing heavily on my mind. But I’m giving her no chance to laugh off my proposal tonight. Not with the audience waiting for her.

  I mean business. I’m deadly serious. This woman is mine for life and I want everyone to know.

  Dr Honey Bea, I text as I make my way to the elevator, I’m coming for you. I hope you’re ready.

  The End

  One Hot Scot

  Book One in The Trouble by Numbers Series

  Fin Hayes has ninety-nine problems. Quite literally.

  She's lost her husband, her job, recently avoided jail time, and is back living in the place she's always loathed . . . when problem #100 walks in.

  Rory Tremaine is ripped, rich, and handsome, and a blast from the past who seems to have no recollection of Fin. But second time around that's okay because when she's near his firm ass and tattoos, she's using a fake name anyway.

  At least she won't be leaving her virginity behind this time. Instead, she might just risk losing her heart.

  Available in Kindle Unlimited or to buy HERE

  Two Wrongs

  Book Two in The Trouble by Numbers Series

  When Ivy Adams is summoned back to LA by her secret husband, it’s for the purpose of revenge, not a second chance. Estranged as long as they’ve been married, Ivy’s never told anyone she even has a husband, let alone he’s the Scots born movie star, Dylan Duffy.

  Yeah, that Dylan Duffy. The sexy-as-sin bad-boy. The man whose rumbling accent has half the world’s panties damp.

  But Ivy isn’t the only one keeping secrets, and screwing half of Hollywood hasn’t sated Dylan’s need for revenge. He’s hellbent on making Ivy pay for her mistakes in the most despicable way he can.

  Two wrongs don’t make the pair even, but can they ever make their marriage right?

  Available in Kindle Unlimited or to buy HERE

  About The Author

  Donna writes about exotic locations and the men you aren't married to, but might sometimes wish you were. Escapism reads with heart, humor, and plenty of steam.

  Hailing from the North of England, she's a nomad at heart moving houses and continents more times than she cares to recall. She once worked at a school like the one described in her Pretty Series, where the wheels of her imagination began to turn.

  When not bashing away at a keyboard, Donna can usually be found, good book in hand, hiding from her family and responsibilities. She likes her wine and humour dry, and her mojitos sweet, and language salty.

  Catch up with her on Facebook or send the twit a tweet to keep in touch.

  DonnaAlam.com

  The Pretty Series

  By Donna Alam

  Copyright © 2017 Donna Alam

  Published By: Donna Alam

  Pretty Hot

  Part One of the Pretty Series

  By Donna Alam

  Copyright © 2017 Donna Alam

  Published By: Donna Alam

  Copyright and Disclaimer

  The moral right of this author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the express permission of the author

  This book is a work of fiction. Any reference to historical events, real people or real places are used fictitiously. All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 Donna Alam

  Chapter One

  ‘So when you said you caught him with his trousers down . . .’

  With a sigh, I reach for my fishbowl-sized glass, taking an unladylike slug. The dissection had to begin sometime. I can’t expect play Lady Macbeth forever, not without an explanation at some point, I suppose. Large gulp on the way to loosening my tongue, I finally answer.

  ‘Pants down. Literally.’

  Niamh’s brow furrows as she waits for the punch line. So I deliver it while still examining my glass.

  ‘Bare arsed and panting. Jeans around his ankles, the lot.’

  ‘Wha—he was . . . and you . . .’

  ‘Walked in on them?’ I lean forward placing the much lighter glass down, the glass clattering against the table. ‘Coitus interruptus. Sort of. Anyway, he was doing her on my sofa.’

  I don’t think I’ve ever shocked Niamh into silence. She isn’t the silent type. However, it doesn’t last long, her next sentence delivered in a verbal explosion.

  ‘Ohmyfuckinggod!’

  ‘Funny, that’s what she said. Only more like, Oh, Shane, oh, oh, ohhh my fucking . . . god! Shane, you’re so big! Total lie, by the way.’ I’d know, having laboured under his pimply butt for the last couple of years, affianced-to-be-married in, oh, a month or so.

  ‘The absolute bastarding shite!’

  Australians are pretty sweary. I think it’s a cultural thing. Where else in the world is a stranger referred to as mate, while your best friend forever is greeted with abuse? Niamh’s lot, the Irish, are also pretty profane. But they seem to do it with a bit more style, somehow.

  ‘You’re serious? Of all . . . you walked in on him and he was nuts deep? Ah babes, what did you do?’

  ‘Just stood there.’ I shrug, shoulders hovering around my ears as it transforms into a slow but violent shudder, unwelcome snapshots of that evening filtering through my mind. A perverse Hansel and Gretel trail of slutty undies scattered from the front door to the lounge, the cheesy soundtrack playing softly in the background, punctuated by noises more suited to the gorilla enclosure at Taronga Zoo.

  ‘Like watching bad porn.’ Really bad, upsetting porn. ‘I couldn’t tear my eyes away. It was like having an out of body experience or something.’ The last part of my sentence comes out in a manic laugh, tears teetering on the edge of my lids. ‘Bloody ironic, seeing as it wasn’t my body he was in.’

  Mistaking Niamh’s silence as sympathy, I raise my head. Her blue eyes are levelled on mine, mouth pursed like the ass of a cat.

  ‘Kitty, tell me you hurt him. Please tell me you trashed his car—kicked him in
the bollix, at least?’

  With a vague gesture, I reach for my glass, realising its almost empty status. ‘I thought you were supposed to be getting me drunk?’

  ‘Don’t change the subject,’ she says, despite heading for her tiny kitchen.

  But the thing is, that’s not me. I don’t do confrontation well, or at all, really. So I didn’t make for the nearest candlestick with which to cave in his head, or cry. Not even after, when modesty had been restored, and slutty side bits escorted out the door. It never occurred to me to shove something unsavoury under the seat of his beloved ride. Or to list his number in the gay classifieds. Instead, I did something way crazier. I packed a bag and got on a flight to the other side of the world.

  ‘I wish I’d been there. I’d have brained the bastard,’ Niamh says returning, brandishing the new bottle like a cranium-crushing weapon of head destruction. ‘Why didn’t you tell me earlier?’

  ‘Shame. Disgust. The possibility of herpes.’

  ‘Wha—’

  I wave a hand, silently conveying at least that was okay. ‘One negative I can turn into a positive, hey?’

  ‘Well, it’s something, at least,’ she replies uncertainly. ‘But shame? That doesn’t deserve headspace.’

  ‘Deserve? No one deserves to find their fiancé screwing a stripper on their new sectional sofa. The same sofa they’d waited twelve weeks for delivery!’

  I hold out my glass, my insides twisting as I recall three months of bean bags and kitchen chairs. My delight as the sofa had arrived, the delusion of making our new house a home.

  ‘Calm down, Kitty.’

  ‘I am calm.’ Calm-ish, anyway.

  ‘But a Stripper?’ she repeats, straining not to smile. ‘That’s gonna stain.’ She twists the bottle top from the neck. ‘You’ll need to burn it, all that fake tan and fan—’

  ‘Eww,’ I complain. ‘Is heartsick not enough? You actually want me to vomit all over the floor?’

  Ignoring me, she fills my glass almost to the rim. ‘How long had it been, you know, going on?’

  ‘He said it was just the once, not that it matters.’

  ‘I should hope not. I’d like to give him just the once, right over his pretty feckin’ useless head.’

  I hadn’t expected to feel so hollow, admitting that this is the end. Niamh’s the first person I’ve confided in completely. My humiliation. My abject shame. Isn’t it supposed to be cathartic? I thought I’d feel unburdened—a problem shared and all that?

  Stage Three Alert: The Void. Or so I’m reliably informed by my newly purchased break-up book, Leaving with Healing. Or as Niamh renamed it, Heaving while Reading. She wasn’t impressed, picking it out of my hands with a contemptuous look.

  ‘Chapter 4: It’s Okay to be Sad,’ she’d read aloud. ‘Let me know when you get to the It’s Okay to be Angry chapter and I’ll get the scissors out.’

  ‘What did your mum say?’

  ‘What?’ I raise my head, Niamh’s question breaking through my thoughts. ‘Oh. We haven’t talked about it much. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her everything. She shed a few tears, stoically, of course, like he’d been cheating on her almost. When she realised people would have to be told, I thought she was going to take to her bed. Not so much worried about losing a daughter, but you know.’

  ‘I do,’ she replies with a small shake of her head. She’s seen it all first-hand.

  Introspection fills the room, neither of us possessing the appropriate words to address my mother’s response.

  ‘Well, Kitty-Kat,’ Niamh says eventually. ‘I’ll say this; you don’t do things by halves.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Most women get a new haircut, buys some new underwear.’ She shields a growing smile behind the rim of her glass. ‘Gets drunk, then gets even by shagging the next half-decent man that crosses her path. You, babes, moved to the other side of the planet.’

  ‘I haven’t run away,’ I mutter defensively. ‘I just needed a change, that’s all.’

  ‘A change,’ she repeats sceptically, raising her glass. ‘Memento mori.’

  The toast isn’t one I know.

  ‘What-a-mori?’

  ‘My one bit of Latin. And a bit worth remembering.’ One blue painted fingernail points in my direction. ‘You’re a long time dead.’

  ‘Remind me not to come to you if I’m ever feeling suicidal.’

  ‘Not at all, good on ‘ya, taking life by the balls. There’s plenty in the cemetery would swap places. So long as you’re on this side of the grass, you’re doing all right.’

  ‘Wished he was in the cemetery.’

  ‘That’s my girl!’ Leaning over the sofa arm, she clinks her glass against mine. ‘So you’re really staying?’

  ‘I said I was.’ I lick the spilled wine from my hand with a sigh.

  ‘You did so, but I didn’t think you would. Not really. I got that you’d had a fight. And now I understand why you wanted to get away, but it’s a massive step. You’re absolutely sure? This place is nothing like Australia.’

  ‘They’ve both got sand. And camels. Anyway, I’ve accepted this job now.’ I say this more to myself than to her. ‘I couldn’t pull out, especially as it’s apparently God’s will that the old teacher didn’t come back after her holiday.’

  ‘Serendipitous,’ Niamh agrees, half laughing.

  ‘That’s what Shane said about meeting me.’ I feel my shoulders deflate. When will the past stop sneaking up and kicking me?

  ‘A big word for someone with only half a brain,’ she mutters.

  But my stomach still twists as I stare into my glass. ‘He was going to include it in his wedding speech. I wonder what the opposite of serendipitous is.’

  ‘Unlucky. And just the opposite of what you should consider yourself. Imagine if you’d married the twat.’

  ‘At least that was something I didn’t have to see.’ I raise my gaze to hers, wrinkling my nose. ‘The loser had the decency to cover it—her, I mean.’

  ‘What, with a cushion?’ Holding a hand to her mouth, she tries unsuccessfully not to laugh at my nodding head.

  ‘I’d used it a few hours earlier. Balanced a hot bowl of soup on my lap.’

  For a brief minute, I can see the scene through her eyes. Shane’s stricken face as he scrambled to pull up his drooping jeans with one hand, the other ineffectually waving a furry throw pillow, not sure who or what to cover first. I almost laugh myself. Almost.

  ‘Imagine what you could’ve caught from that cushion.’ She shudders theatrically. ‘Still, could’ve been worse. He might’ve been in the middle of eating h—’

  ‘Nee-eve.’ Filling her name with reprimand, I screw my face up in distaste, aiming one of her own fluffy sofa offerings at her head. ‘You’re supposed to be comforting me in my hour of need, not giving me nightmarish flashbacks.’

  ‘I supplied wine!’ she says as it narrowly misses her. ‘Every cloud and all that.’

  I expel one hard sound from my chest. I think it’s a laugh.

  ‘Where’s the silver lining in this? I walked in on my fiancé screwing the stripper from his bucks’ night—a cliché in Perspex heels!’

  ‘Trust you to notice the shoes, Cinderella. So your Prince Charming turned out to be a toad. Better you find out he’s a philandering fuckwit now rather than later, yeah? A cheater never changes his spots, you know. You just have to hope that they turn into full-blown herpes a relationship or two down the road.’

  I sigh loudly, the wind having blown out of my sails as quick as that. She’s right, maybe not the herpes hex, but the rest, yeah. Not that it makes it any easier.

  ‘Grab your silver linings where you can. Look at it this way, you have a do-over, a place to begin again. Be who you want to be, do what, or who, you want to do.’ Her sudden smile would put a cut watermelon to shame. ‘And his loss is absolutely my gain.’

  A shiver ripples down my spine. Excitement or fear, I can’t say for sure. I still can�
�t quite believe I’m here.

  ‘And it’s like a pick-and-mix of blokes out there. The variety of rides will blow your mind.’ Her eyes positively gleam with mischief. I roll my own in response.

  ‘The difference between sour worms and jelly snakes? I’ve seen enough of dangly bits for the foreseeable. Did you miss the bit where I said I was heartbroken?’

  ‘You said heartsick, and I’m not surprised after what you’ve seen.’ She slides me an eloquent glance. ‘Cop on, babes, the best way to get over a bloke is to get under another. Quick, like. It’s always worked for me.’

  Do I detect a touch of asperity in response to my expression? Quick on its heels comes a lewd gesture of the hips. No mean feat considering she’s still sitting.

  ‘A good revenge ride, that’s what you need.’ There’s no mistaking her actions or the way her accent twists ride into roide. It sounds so much filthier. Filthy and unwarranted as far as I’m concerned.

  ‘And here I was thinking you’d at least give me a chance to settle in before trotting me out like a prize heifer.’

  ‘Heifer? I’ve seen more fat on the pencil me mammy’s butcher uses.’

  I pick imaginary fluff from my new, size smaller skirt as though I’ve discovered something new. ‘Ah, look, I think I just found that silver thread. I lost, oh . . . maybe 85 kilos, if you include the dead weight fiancé.’

  ‘Get on with your sexy self! See, you do need a night out to celebrate.’

  ‘Niamh, I don’t. I’m still—’

  ‘Mourning what could’ve been? Grand, we’ll make it a wake—cremate the fucker in flaming Sambuca shots!’

  My palm meets my head with a groan. I’d somehow forgotten what a pain in the butt she can be. Like sciatica, a persistent, nagging pain that you can’t do much about. Though this trait sometimes has its uses. In fact, as I’d muttered down the phone that I’d booked a ticket to visit, she’d pretty much taken over. Told me I could stay with her as long as I liked. She’d even lined me up with some interviews once I’d said I was thinking about staying, totally facilitating my getaway.