Filthy Dirty Fate

by Grace Morgan

  Filthy Dirty Fate

  Book 3 in the Filthy Dirty Alpha Series

  Grace Morgan

  Copyright © 2015 Grace Morgan

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission of the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes only.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Cover Design by Sara Eirew

  About the Book

  BDSM isn't just about sex, it's about laying yourself bare.

  I'm the Dom, and yet with Lola, I've been stripped to the core and my secrets exposed for her to judge. I've pushed her limits, and now it's time for her to make her choice—can she love both the man and the Dom? Only that answer will determine our fate.

  In this third and final installment of the Filthy Dirty Alpha series, Lola and Burke's passionate relationship is put to the ultimate test.

  Praise for Filthy Dirty Alpha

  “My, my, my; what a dirty little gem this turned out to be. Bravo, Grace Morgan, on a debut book well done." - Dirty Girl Romance

  "A fantastic, fast-paced and seriously sexy start to this new erotica series. The writing is great as Ms. Morgan takes us on a whimsical ride of emotion, passion, lust, desire and secrets." - Lisa, GoodReads Reviewer

  “If you’re looking for something sexy, fun and easy to read, look no further.” – Arianna, GoodReads Reviewer

  Chapter One

  Lola

  I can hardly remember how to place one foot in front of the other as Hope leads me into the beach house. Hope, the woman I spent all this time searching for, is right in front of me. Her blond hair is so bright in the sunlight it nearly looks white. She still has the look of the delicate, lost girl I’ve been staring at photographs of, but now her belly is large with pregnancy.

  And Carter knew all along. That much is obvious now. But how much does Burke know?

  Betrayal is hot in my throat. I don’t even look at Carter as we head into the house. I’ve made a fool of myself searching for this woman. I can picture Carter and Burke laughing at the stupid outsider asking questions and checking security footage while knowing all along that Hope is perfectly healthy a short drive away. Fucking assholes.

  Not to mention the baby. I can’t take my eyes off Hope’s pregnant belly as we walk inside the little beach cottage. Burke was Hope’s lover right before she disappeared. The baby might be his. Something twists painfully inside of me.

  My mouth tastes like ash. I’m such a fool. I should’ve just let this investigation go. Everyone knew it but me.

  “It’s a long story,” Hope says. “You’re going to want to sit down.” She pulls out a kitchen chair and gives me an uncomfortable smile.

  I look from her to the chair, trying to sort through the mess of emotions in my head and figure out what’s going on.

  The kitchen fits the whole beach house vibe—light colored woods, rustic white-painted cabinets, and floor-to-ceiling windows. Hope has the windows half open so the gauzy blue curtains move lazily in the breeze coming off the ocean.

  “You have a lovely home,” I say, because I’m on autopilot and that’s what you’re supposed to say. I feel like a robot, but I can’t be bothered to care.

  “It isn’t mine,” Hope says. She sits gingerly in a chair across from me. Carter sits beside her and holds her hand. He cares about her. Apparently a lot. All my investigating, and I completely missed that one very important detail. “Carter set this all up for me. He got me the house. I could never afford a nice place like this.” Hope smoothes the place mat between her fingers.

  “And then he let everyone think you might be dead.” I can’t keep the anger out of my voice anymore. I can’t believe how much time I spent searching when Carter knew the answer all along.

  Hope doesn’t meet my eyes. “It wasn’t like that. He helped me. You don’t understand.”

  I reach forward, placing my elbows on the table. “There’s something I need you to answer honestly, knowing that no matter what is going on, I can get you out of it.” I pitch my voice as softly as I know how. “Do you feel safe here?” What I really want to know is about her past involvement with Burke, but ever the dutiful reporter, first things first.

  Hope looks up. “Yes.” Her expression is so sincere I have no reason to doubt her. “I’m safe, and my baby is safe.” Her smile is radiant. “It’s a girl.”

  I feel sick. There’s an answer to all this that I’ve been fighting, but I have no choice now but to face it head on. If Hope’s baby is Burke’s, then she’s probably here to hide from him. If she needs to hide from him, then that means Burke is a monster.

  My stomach twists viscerally at the possibility, which tells me how badly I’ve fallen for Burke. I’d rather walk through an acre of smashed glass than consider whether or not Burke is the villain in Hope’s story.

  “Do you want some tea?” Hope struggles to her feet.

  “Don’t get up.” I wave her back down and stand up myself. Guilt is beginning to show itself in the emotion cocktail brewing inside of me. Hope is pregnant. I should be leaving her alone, but all I want to do is shake her shoulders until she gives me answers. “I’ll make tea for everyone. Where do you keep it?”

  She points out the drawer to me, and I start the familiar process. Water in kettle, kettle on stove, stove turned on. I fish out three teabags from the drawer and find mugs in another cabinet. By the time I’m done, my hands have finally stopped shaking.

  I lean against the counter and take a deep breath. I need to know. “Your baby. Is it—”

  “Healthy?” Hope smiles at me. She clearly knows that wasn’t what I meant to ask. I’m not sure I can pry answers out of her without pushing harder than I’m willing to do. “Yes, she’s very healthy. There’s a hospital twenty minutes away where I go for check ups. I’m not as isolated as I look out here.” Hope swallows and her gaze falls back to the table.

  “Are you scared?” I ask softly. In my imagination, whenever I found Hope I’d return with her triumphantly and be hailed as a hero. That won’t be happening now. She’s here for a reason, and I don’t think she has any intention of leaving.

  Hope takes a deep breath. “I am, a little.”

  Carter rubs her shoulders and whispers something in her ear too quietly for me to hear. They share a meaningful glance at each other, but only for a second. Something has been communicated between them – something I’m not privy to.

  Hope nods then smiles again. “I do feel safe here. It’s the rest of the world I’m scared of.”

  “Why did you run away?” I lean toward her. The teakettle whistles, and I turn off the stove.

  “I—I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

  I pour the hot water into the mugs and set in the teabags to steep. Carter brought me all the way here to a woman who doesn’t want to give me answers. But if he’d just told me Hope was alive, would I have believed him? No. My heart sinks as I admit. Paranoia is not a becoming emotion, but it’s what I’ve been feeling since I arrived at Second Circle. I’ve been afraid of trusting anyone. I haven’t even trusted Burke, not really. I was told to let it go, and I wouldn’t because my own issues were driving me on. Did I ever care about what Hope really wanted? I like to think I did, at least some of the time.

  I need to care about Hope now. This isn’t about my investigation. This is about a scared, pregnant woman who needs me to stop badgering her for answers.

  I carry the mugs back to the table and set them down. Hope takes hers and sips it slowly. Carter wrinkles his nose as he smells his. He’s used to drinks stronger than tea. To
ugh luck. He’s driving.

  I spin my mug on the table in front of me and try to think of something inane to ask. “How are you keeping busy out here?”

  Hope looks relieved. “I read, mostly. Carter brings me books and groceries. I try not to leave very often. I don’t want to be recognized.”

  Her face was on the news only briefly. A woman disappearing from a sex club elicited tongue-clicking and feelings of moral superiority, but no surprise. The public lost interest fast enough.

  I was the one pushing to keep the story alive. I couldn’t have known I was hurting Hope by doing so—but I feel bad about it now.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t have kept searching for you. You would’ve been better off if I’d dropped it.”

  “No.” Hope shakes her head. “You cared. Not many people have ever cared about me. As much as I wish the story had fallen off the radar, I’m glad you cared. That meant something to me.”

  Warmth rises in my chest. “You’re worth caring about.” Everyone needs someone searching for them. I told Burke that, but I’m not sure I really understood it until this moment. This broken woman deserved to be cared for. Luckily, she’d found Carter in time for him to save her from whatever it was she was running from. And now she had me. “I’ll do whatever I can for you. Just say the word.”

  “You’re very sweet.” Hope sets down her mug to squeeze my hand. “I can see why Burke likes you so much.”

  “Wh—what?” I stutter, jerking my hand away. How could she know anything about my relationship with Burke?

  Hope flushes. “I said too much. I’m sorry. Carter is always telling me stories about how things at the club are going, and I never have anyone to talk to about it.”

  Carter thinks Burke likes me. He has enough of an opinion about it to tell Hope. My head is reeling.

  “Carter may have over-exaggerated Burke’s feelings,” I say. “ ‘Complicated’ doesn’t begin to describe our relationship.”

  “You should tell me about it.” Hope leans forward eagerly. “You should come back with Carter next week, and we can spend the whole time gossiping about the club. Is that security guard still sleeping with Seth?”

  My jaw drops. I never even suspected there was a relationship there. “I—I don’t know. Jeez. What else do you know?”

  “Maybe we should save this for next week,” Carter says. “I need to separate you two before you start gossiping about me.”

  Hope playfully pressed her hand to her heart. “Never.” She winked at me. “Is Carter still seeing that waitress?”

  I laugh so hard I spit my tea. I really like Hope. I’m already anticipating seeing her next week. Even if the baby she’s carrying is Burke’s? My conscience taunts.

  The thought dampens my mood. I don’t want to be paranoid anymore, but I still want my answers. Is Burke the monster that drove Hope here? Why else wouldn’t Carter tell him about hiding Hope?

  “Hope…” I almost ask her, but when I look into her sad blue eyes I know I can’t. She doesn’t want to tell her secrets. I’ll have to find some way to live with that. “Carter hits on all the waitresses. You’ll have to be more specific.”

  “Okay, that’s enough out of you.” Carter stands up. “Time to go home.”

  Home. To Second Circle. To Burke. My stomach twists into a knot more complicated than the one’s Burke likes to tie.

  I have another home, of course. My tiny apartment in the city. I haven’t been there in nearly a month. I haven’t even thought about it. I don’t know how ‘home’ became Second Circle instead of my own place—but it has.

  “Okay,” I say. “Let’s go home.”

  Chapter Two

  Lola

  I begin cry to as soon as Carter starts the car. I try to turn my face away so he won’t notice, but soon my shoulders start to shake, and then I’m bawling. No way to keep this secret now.

  “Lola,” Carter’s voice is tense. “I need you to tell me you’ll stop searching now.”

  “I’ll stop.” I sniffle and wipe my knuckles across my face, but the tears are replacing themselves too quickly to be wiped away. “She’s running from Burke, isn’t she?”

  “I’m not going to tell you anything else about Hope. If she doesn’t want you to know, then it isn’t my place to tell you. I just wanted you to see that she’s alive and safe so you can relax.”

  “I can’t relax. I’m falling in love with a monster.” I grab a napkin from Carter’s dashboard and mop myself up.

  “Burke isn’t a monster.” Carter takes his eyes off the road for a second to give me a wry glance. I clutch the sides of the seat until he looks back. Carter is so much more laid back than Burke. Carter’s casual ways drive me crazy. Even his hair is disheveled as if he can’t really bother with it.

  I miss Burke. I don’t want to miss him, but I do. His serious nature, the stubborn way he is – all of it feels like I’m wrestling with something meaningful and the reward will be totally worth it.

  “Of course you’d tell me he’s fine. You’re his friend,” I say. I may have disrupted that friendship this morning when I ran from Burke to go to Carter, but I have faith they’ll work it out between them. The friendship between the two is damn near unshakable. They’ve stayed business partners in their successful nightclub for all this time. If they can manage that, then they can get past any mess I’m capable of making.

  “I’m not just saying this because I’m his friend. I’m saying it because he’s crazy about you. I’ve never seen him so worked up about a woman. You’re special, Lola. You need to give him a chance.”

  I kick the floor below the dashboard like a sulking child. “I’ve given him plenty of chances. He lied to me, kept secrets, tried to coerce me into doing things his way. And now I find out Hope is hiding and pregnant with a child that could be his.”

  “Burke is a good guy,” Carter says slowly. “Sure, he’s made mistakes. It’s not like you never kept secrets from him, either.”

  I flush. I have kept secrets from Burke. Hell, I entered the club under false pretenses that first night, but that’s because I’m an undercover reporter. Burke is lying to cover up something that could possibly be criminal. That makes his secrets much worse than mine. “My actions are not the point.”

  “Your feelings are the point. What does your heart tell you about Burke? That he’s a bad guy? That you can’t trust him? Or that you’re so scared of falling for him you’re making up reasons not to?”

  Dammit. “I’m not a coward. I’m perfectly capable of falling in love with normal men.” Then why haven’t I ever done it? If I’m so capable of love, why have I always pulled back at the last second? There’s always a flaw to stop me. I run a background check and find out the guy once got a parking ticket so I dump him. It’s a pattern I’ve always known was there but haven’t wanted to admit to.

  “Burke may not be a normal guy, but he is a good guy. Haven’t you gotten to know him well enough over these past weeks to see that?”

  I comb my fingers through my hair. I have gotten to know Burke. He’s intense and all-consuming, but he also cares about me. I feel safe when I’m with him. I’m just worried that feeling of safety is an illusion.

  The beach turns into swampland as Carter drives. I watch it flick by past the window.

  “I care about Burke, but a month isn’t that long of a time to get to know someone. How many more secrets is he hiding from me? How can I ever trust someone who finds it so easy to lie to me?”

  “So he’s never told you the truth? Not once in your entire relationship?” Carter raises an eyebrow.

  My stomach flipped with nerves. If he didn’t keep his eyes on the road I was going to grab that steering wheel and drive the car myself. “He did tell me about the private investigator he hired to find Hope, and he showed me the files. But that was after I confronted him about having a relationship with her. If he was really a good guy he would have volunteered the information from the start.”

  “You mean
the confidential information that could hurt his club’s reputation? He should have handed that over to a reporter the second he met you?”

  My face heats. “Maybe he shouldn’t have had anything to hide in the first place.” I’m being unreasonable, and I know it. Burke and Carter run a BDSM sex club. Discretion is necessary for their business to survive. I can’t be the first journalist trying to sneak in to get a juicy exclusive. I’d just been the one he slept with and then told everything to as our relationship deepened. “You want to know the truth? I don’t know what to think anymore.” I slump back into my seat. I want the answer of whether or not I should trust Burke to be more clear-cut. I hate how complicated this is. I thought finding Hope would fix everything, but it’s only piled on more questions.

  “You care about him,” Carter says softly. “And he cares about you. You’re making this too complicated.”

  I shake my head. “It is complicated. I’m supposed to write a big story about Second Circle and Hope, and I have no idea how to do that now.”

  Carter slams on the brakes so hard I’m wrenched forward in my seat. The seat belt catches me in time to avoid slamming my head into the dash.

  “You can’t write a story about Hope.” He turns in his seat to glare at me.

  “We’re in the middle of the road!” I crane my neck over the seat to see if there’s a semi truck about to turn us into road kill.

  “Hope is hiding for good reason. I took you to her because I trusted you. I can’t believe you would even consider writing about this.”

  I swallow. “It’s my job.” I have no idea how to explain to my boss that I spent an entire month working on a story that I can’t write. “I won’t give away where Hope is.”

  “You won’t give away anything.” Carter slams his fists against the steering wheel. “Dammit. You can’t do this, Lola. Promise me you won’t say a word about Hope.”