He winced at my insult. “I was calling to check on you. I wanted to make sure you were okay after everything considering you left my bed in the middle of the fucking night and haven’t talked to me since.”
Yeah. right, buddy. Everyone knew the Douglas family didn’t care about anyone but themselves; they were born without souls.
I shook my head at his obvious lie. "It doesn't matter. It happened, now let's move on and forget about it. Okay?"
He nodded in agreement. "You're right, but shouldn't we-"
“Dalton, babe, your dad is ready to see you now,” the secretary who had been watching us called out, cutting off his words and sauntering over to us. A tight, red dress was slathered onto her body; I was certain it was breaking the dress code per the handbook I’d read from front to back to be sure I didn’t screw anything up. I needed to stay out of the way there and rule-breakers never stayed out of the way. She gave him a bright, red-lipped smile before sending a nasty glare my way. Nice to meet you, too, Ms. Bitchy-attitude; enjoy my leftovers.
Dalton ran his hands through his short hair in frustration and blew out a ragged breath before lifting himself up from the chair. He moved around my body silently and followed blondie out of the lobby and down a hallway. As soon as they were out of eyesight, I slumped down into his abandoned chair and let out a deep sigh.
Damn, it sucked being cursed.
“I see you’ve had a change of scenery,” I commented, strolling into my dad’s office and taking in the new décor. The expensive sailboats he’d lied about building had been replaced with taxidermy animals. A giant boar’s head was staring straight at me, plastered onto the wall behind his desk. My eyes went to the corner of the room and noticed a mountain lion chilling at the top of his bookcase. A grizzly bear was against the dark brown wall, his paws up, making it look like he was climbing.
“I needed something manlier, wouldn’t you agree?” he asked, sitting behind his colossal desk and wearing a black, Armani suit. With his light brown hair, bright blue eyes and six-foot-five frame, we were striking images of one another, except my hairline wasn’t beginning to recede, and I didn’t have a permanent scowl on my face.
“Sure,” I muttered, sitting down in one of the two black leather chairs propped directly in front of his desk. I actually found the stuffed shit more creepy than manly but whatever. My dad was always a fan of weird shit.
He clasped his wrinkled hands together and leaned forward in his chair, positioning himself into what I liked to refer to as his ‘power pose.’ I knew anytime he went into that pose, he was sending a message that he was in charge. Have at it, Dad. We hadn’t even started yet, and I was already ready to get this shit over with.
“I’m glad you’re here, Son,” he began, and I already knew the speech that was approaching before it even left his lips. “This is going to be a very important time in your life, and you need to prove you can handle it. I expect this job to be taken very seriously. I won’t allow you to stay up all night partying with your little frat boys, bonging beers or whatever you ignorant twits do these days, then come in the next morning hung over. If you want to be taking over this company in the future, it has to be earned. Those college days are over, and you’re in the big-boy league now. There will be no free rides because you’re my son.” I found it funny he’d even mention my frat considering he was the one who insisted I join the damn thing.
I nodded in understanding. I knew before walking through the door that he was going to be harder on me than anyone else just to prove his point. I fucking loathed dealing with him, and now we were going to be around each other daily, which was something that hadn’t happened in years. He was non-existent when I lived at home in high school, and the only time he visited me in college was graduation, which was only done for his image. He wanted everyone to know he was the father of another kid who graduated from a prestigious college.
Not to mention, I now had Gabby being thrown into the giant clusterfuck of my life. My eyes had widened in interest when I noticed the petite but curvy, auburn-haired girl step out of the elevator and strut across the room. She had a flawless hourglass shape in her tight-as-hell, perfect ass-hugging black skirt that hit just above the knee. She looked sexy but classy at the same time. I felt my dick immediately get excited as my eyes followed the strides of her body as she made her way over to Summer.
I scratched my temple. There was something familiar about her. That ass, I knew that ass from somewhere. And that hair; I knew it. My mind had been constantly thinking about wrapping my fingers around those copper locks that were similar to the curls hanging down the base of her back. I blinked to be sure I wasn’t hallucinating.
That damn girl, she’d been haunting me since the moment I woke up to realize she’d ditched my ass while I was sleeping. After we had sex. Since then, my mind hadn’t stopped thinking about her. Shit, I was even having dreams about her delicate lips meeting mine and the way she arched her back as I thrusted slowly in and out of her tight pussy. I was pissed at myself for even thinking about her when she’d given me a giant fuck-you by ignoring the numerous phone calls and texts I’d sent her.
My dad grinned arrogantly and his shrill voice brought me back into reality. “Perfect, glad to see we’re on the same page. Now go find Summer, and she’ll show you your new office,” he said, waving me away dismissively, picking up his phone to make a phone call without giving me another look. Pulling myself out of the chair, I walked out of his office in search for his mistress, or secretary, as he liked to refer to her. The jackass thought he hid it well; he didn’t. For someone who was paid millions for hiding other people’s secrets, he sure sucked at covering up his own.
I found Summer sitting behind the front desk, filing her bright red nails and working extremely hard. “New office?” I asked.
She threw down her nail file and jumped up from her chair. “You’re seriously going to love it,” she squealed, her red lips forming a sly grin. Her long fingernails went to the top of her low-cut dress, and she pulled it down swiftly, giving me a not-so-subtle view of her ample cleavage. “I’m so glad you’re working here. I needed a cute new face to look forward to seeing every morning.” She swung her hips suggestively in front of me as I followed her down the narrow hall. Summer was sexy as fuck, and we’d gone to high school together, but she was banging my dad. There was no way in hell I was ever touching her; sexy or not, that shit was too weird. “Here ya go,” she said, her voice chirpy as she stopped in front of a closed door.
I gripped the door handle and walked in. The room was nice but plain. The walls were painted an off-white color, and a few generic paintings hung along the walls. One was a scenic picture of a waterfall; yeah, that had to go. I could tell by looking at the place that my dad had picked out my furniture because it was similar to his. I was definitely going to be hiring a designer to fix it up for me. I didn’t plan on planting animal carcasses, but I needed something not so damn dull.
I walked around the room, looking at everything before telling Summer to leave and shut the door behind her. I flopped down into the leather chair behind the desk and opened up every drawer, finding the basic office supplies when I felt my phone vibrate against my leg.
Fishing it out of my pocket, I looked down at the screen to see Eva’s name flashing. Goddammit, another girl I didn’t feel like dealing with. I tapped the accept button and put the phone to my ear. “What? I’m at work.”
Feminine laughter came from the other end. “That’s certainly no way to greet your future wife.”
“If you were a wife I actually wanted to marry, you would’ve received a better greeting. But you’re not, so that’s what you get, babe.” I kicked a drawer shut with my foot and got comfortable in my chair.
“You’re so charming. I love how you act like you’re the only one getting screwed over here.” She was right. I knew she didn’t want to marry my ass, either.
“Then why don’t you put a stop to it?” She had to be the one to do i
t. Not me. I had too much to lose.
“The same reason you won’t. We both love money more than our own happiness.” And again, she was right. If we didn’t go through with our engagement, our parents would cut our asses off, and we’d have to wave goodbye to our inheritances.
I propped my feet up on my desk. ‘Then to what do I owe the pleasure of this call?” I asked.
“I’m supposed to do my wifey duty and invite my future hubby over for dinner tonight. Vomit.” I laughed. “Both of our parents will be present and accounted for, so it looks like we’ll actually have to act like we like each other.”
I grunted. Our parents were fully aware we weren’t in love, but they still expected us to act like it. I guess they considered it good practice for the show we’d be putting on for the rest of our lives. “Fine, but I better be getting laid.” That was the only good thing I got out of the whole arrangement. Eva was a good fuck, and when we were stuck in those situations, we usually ridded our frustration out in the bedroom.
“At least I know I’ll have a spectacular sex life in our meaningless marriage,” she replied.
“Feeling’s mutual,” I grumbled, grabbing a stack of business cards with my name on them from the top drawer. I examined them and placed them in the empty holder at the front of my desk.
“God, why couldn’t my parents have stuck me with someone who actually had feelings?” she complained.
“I do have feelings,” I corrected. “Just not for you.”
She snorted. “And that feeling’s mutual, handsome. See you tonight, sweetie.” The other line went dead, and I tossed the phone down onto the desk. As much as I hated my parents choosing a woman for me to marry, I could’ve had it much worse. The wife they chose for my brother, Leo, was a fucking terror. All she did was whine about how much he didn’t love her and how lonely she was. Eva knew what the hell we were getting into from the very beginning and wasn’t expecting roses and romance from me.
"You're seriously not going to freaking believe what the hell happened to me today!" I yelled, barging through my best friend Cora’s bedroom door. She’d given me a key a few years back because she was too lazy to come downstairs and answer the door whenever I came over.
“Jesus fuck, Gabby,” Cora’s boyfriend, Lane, hollered from the bed. They were both cuddled together, watching TV on the giant flat-screen mounted on her wall. “There’s this word, not sure if you’ve heard of it or not, but it’s called fucking knocking. People with manners do it before they bolt into other people’s bedrooms. We could’ve been naked and screwing.”
I rolled my eyes. Lane was so damn overdramatic. It wasn’t like it would’ve been the first time I’d walked in on them doing the deed, and it probably was going to happen again. I’d always had a problem with knocking. I’d lived alone with my mom for the first fifteen years of my life. When you lived alone with another girl, you didn’t have to worry about knocking.
“That’s actually two words, Einstein,” I corrected, and Cora giggled, stretching her legs out across the bed. “And shut it. I’m having a crisis. One does not even know that word exists when they’re having a crisis.”
I met Cora during my freshman year when I’d first moved to Atlanta. My mom had just married my step-dad, Kenneth, and we moved out of our small, two-bedroom apartment into his ten-bedroom monster of a house. She was the only girl who didn’t decide to participate in the “shun the new girl game” and gossip about how much of a whore my mother was. Dalton’s precious little sister Piper had started that scheme and has still never let it go. Cora and my mom were the only two people I trusted. She’d been dating Lane since they were practically kids on the playground, so I was close with him. He hung out with us more than he did his own friends. He was like a big brother and a giant pain in the ass.
Lane chuckled, grabbing Cora around the waist and dragging her upright so they were both sitting against her white, cushioned headboard. His arms wrapped around her shoulders, and she leaned into his side. God, they weren’t supposed to be acting all lovey- dovey when I was having a boy crisis.
“That’s nothing new. You have more problems than the damn Calculus book I burned to ashes last week,” he said. Out of celebration of being free from hell, or school, we burned the books of our least favorite classes the night of graduation.
Cora smacked his arm and dismantled herself from him. "What's the crisis?" she asked eagerly. She grabbed the remote from her nightstand and muted the TV. Cora liked to live vicariously through my troubles since drama was pretty much nonexistent in her life. She and Lane lived in their own happy-in-love world.
I shut the door behind me and began to pace in the middle of her bedroom in front of the bed. “Okay, so do you remember how I’m working for Douglas PR this summer?” I asked.
"How could we possibly forget?" Lane muttered. They'd had the pleasure of hearing me complain about it since I’d found out. My mom decided since I was deferring a year before going off to school, I needed to do something more productive with my time. I’d attempted to explain that hanging out with my friends and staying as far away from the Douglas clan as possible was plenty productive, but she wouldn’t budge. I highly doubted I could call her up now and tell her I had to quit because I’d hooked up with Dalton.
I continued to pace. “So I walk in, and guess who’s the first person I see?” Technically, the first person I saw was the bitchy blonde with the constipated look, but that would’ve held my story back.
"Your step-dad?" Cora guessed, raising a brow. My step-dad was part owner of Douglas PR with his brother, Wilson, who was also Dalton's dad. Yeah, I chose the most fucked-up, intermingled situation I could've possibly found to throw myself, and my vagina, into.
"Dalton!" I screamed, throwing my hands up in the air, unable to hold back his name on my tongue any longer. The entire day, I'd been on edge, nervous we'd run into each other again. My chances dwindled when I’d been taken to my new office, a tiny cubicle, and got handed a stack of papers to alphabetize and staple. Real productive, Mom; my job was simple enough for a damn third grader to handle. "It was Dalton freaking Douglas, and he's working there, too!" I pointed a hand-formed gun to my head and pulled the imaginary trigger.
"Holy shit!" Cora gasped, her mouth dropping open. Her eyes brightened as she geared up for the juicy story she knew was coming her way.
Lane rubbed his temples. “What’s wrong with Dalton? That dude is cool as shit. He used to score all the hot chicks.”
Shit! I’d forgotten I’d never told Lane about my drunken rendezvous with Dalton. He was going to be pissed.
“Nothing,” Cora answered quickly. She wasn’t only attempting to save my ass but her own, as well. “Will you pretty please go get me something to drink?” She faked a cough and cleared her throat.
"Fuck no, your highness. This shit sounds way too fucking good, and I'm hearing every single damn word. So spill it, Gabs." He stretched his legs out, swiped his dark locks behind his ear and interlaced his hands behind his head, waiting for me to begin my confession.
"No, you don't have to hear this," I grumbled, glaring daggers his way. The less people who knew about what had happened with Dalton, the better. I couldn’t risk our parents finding out, especially his. They’d skin me alive and eat me for dinner.
His face lit up. "Holy fuck! I already know! You two hooked up, didn't you? You hooked up with your cousin." His lips twitched into a huge grin.
I swiped a book from Cora's desk and threw it at him. He dodged it, causing it to fall to the floor. "You know he's my step-cousin, asswipe."
He shrugged, the smug grin still on his face. "I know, but it sounds so much more Jerry Springer-ish when you say it like that. Can I be in the audience when you make your TV debut?"
I turned my attention back to my best friend. Her strawberry-blonde hair was braided to the side of her head, and her pale skin was make-up free. The only people she'd let see her without make-up were Lane and me. It wasn't that she was insecure, she
was just always put together. Cora reminded me of a sweet little Georgia peach until you messed with her friends or family. Then she turned into a spitfire peach. “Your boyfriend is seriously annoying,” I said, rolling my eyes.
She giggled. "Girl, you know he loves juicy gossip just as much as we do." She paused and scrunched up her face. "Probably more than we do."
She leaned over to kiss him on the cheek, but he pulled away, blocking her with his palm. "Nu uh, gorgeous. How long have you been holding out on me? This is Grade-A gossip.”
I groaned, flopping down onto the hideous pink, fuzzy desk chair I'd tried to convince her to throw away millions of times. "It happened New Year's Eve," I answered, rolling my neck around in circles to help ease the built-up tension from the day. Lane was a pain in my ass, but I knew I could trust him. He'd never go around and blast out my business to other people. "It was that stupid party my mom forced me into going to. You know how miserable those things are for me, especially when you guys aren't there."
Everyone had gone to Lane’s cabin for the holiday, but my mom made me cancel. She thought if she had to endure hell, I needed to be by her side. I shook my head. "They had champagne there, and misery loves alcohol, so I just started chugging glasses of that. The only problem was it was my first time drinking that nasty shit, and I wasn't aware how drunk it actually gets you."
Lane chuckled. "If you can't be the most popular girl at the ball, you might as well be the drunkest."
I threw another book at him, and he wasn't quick enough to dodge it. It smacked him in the side of the face before falling next to the other one. He winced, rubbing his jaw and scowling at me while I gave him a large smile. "Anyways, during my little drunken escapade, I found myself roaming the halls of his parents’ mansion and somehow landed in Dalton's bedroom. Then his bed. Then I was naked. Then I let him pop my cherry. And that’s it.” I spun around in the chair and let out a deep sigh. God, I was so screwed.
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