DOTTY (The Naughty Ones Book 3) (9 page)

I’m caught here and I know it. I have the urge to lie but I swore I would never lie to her and I won’t break that promise, no matter if it kills me now.

“Yes.”

“That’s all I need to know.”

When she starts walking I want to grab on to her and hold her against me till she listens and gives me another chance, but all I can do as she slips her engagement ring onto the hall table and closes the door silently is sit like a statue and feel…empty.

There’s no anger or rage. No intensity of emotion as she walks away from me and leaves me in the cold. I’m just…nothing.

I didn’t feel this pain even when Sarah fucked my own cousin, not when Grandfather trapped me here and denied me my dreams. Not even when I found out years after my broken engagement that Sarah had been pregnant but miscarried after a night of hard partying.

There is nothing to compare to the agony trapped inside me, so instead I just sit and stare at nothing as my every dream turns to ash.

Twilight

Dot

As I sit and stare out at the dreary, rain-splattered window and take in the grey skies and cold colorless scene, I feel a small, tiny kernel of amusement when I think of that vampire movie and how that Bella girl sat for months in one spot and just stared out of the window.

Indie, Percy, and I laughed our asses off at that scene and went so far as to deride her for letting a man get her that messed up that she was just a shell.

I feel the same way now, only worse, I think, because this shit isn’t a movie and I don’t get to have my happy ending with a boyfriend who glitters in the sun.

“Get your smelly ass up off that sofa and get with it, you pathetic lump!”

I ignore Indie and wipe her gob from my face in a daze as the pain and heartache threaten to spill out.

I haven’t cried yet, I can’t because I think a part of me knows that if I cry it will all be over. I’ll have to admit that there’s no Hollywood happy ending for me and I will never have that joy I felt just days ago ever again.

When Alex turned up and asked to talk to me I wanted to flip him the bird at first and tell him to screw off. I felt like I had that right after the hell he and my parents tried to put me through by lying through their stinking teeth about Mother’s illness. Or lack thereof, as it may be.

But I’m still me, you know. I’m still just a kind, stupid idiot who will listen and try to help you in some way. I stupidly thought that I could get Alex to give up and walk away, so I let him come up and spent the next half hour feeling like I was shattering inside.

At first I was just plain mad at him and wanted to clean his clock when he told me about Sarah and how it was all his grandfather’s idea to bring her in to bedazzle Paul and keep him where he belonged.

How dare they deny my Paul his dream life and laugh at him behind his back!

I really did almost lose it and attack Alex when he admitted that he’d been with Sarah right from the start and really enjoyed Paul’s humiliation when he caught them together, though according to him Paul never breathed a word, just broke things off and pretended it never happened.

I hate nasty, vindictive people and that’s just what I saw when I looked at Alex and the smile he couldn’t hide.

It was only when it all started clicking into place that I knew, and as he went on and told me how Paul is just using me…

I kept it together though, even when my chest started squeezing and my nerves started jangling in that all too familiar way.

It’s the rage that gets me, you see. I get so damn angry that it just explodes out of me and I go nuclear.

              “For fuck’s sake! That is it. I am done with this shit, Dorothea Harper. You will get your fat ass up, go bathe, and then we will talk this out before I call the fire department to hose your stinky ass down,” Percy threatens, grabbing and pulling at my dirty hair.

“Ow!”

“She is still alive. Jesus Christ, I thought you were going to go all freaking skinny vampire bitch on us and have a pathetic meltdown. I considered getting you a fill in but you smell so bad that not even a hobo would do you.”

Okay, that is it.

“Why don’t you shut your foul mouth, Percival Reginald!”

Her eyes go wide and mean and I feel her anger lash out at me at the use of her hated name.

“You shut up! And don’t you call me that. You know what it does to me.”

“Oh boo-hoo! So what if you’ve got two boy names and a penis. Cry me a fucking river, you hag,” I sneer, wiping my hand on my pants.

Sheesh my hair really is nasty.

“Did you…” She turns to Indie, who’s laughing around a spoonful of ice cream. “Did she just say I have a dick? Why, Dot, you really can be a meanie, can’t you?” she whispers in such a fake hurt voice that I curl my lips.

“Yeah, so back the hell off and leave me alone. I just need some time to deal and then I’ll be fine. I don’t need you or Dr. Death over there trying to psychoanalyze me to death.”

“Oh please, you know I got the mad skills with this love stuff, lady. You forgetting I was so good at it that Luci named one of her screamers after yours truly?” She crows, crossing her booted ankles over the table beside me.

She’s wearing a skirt.

“I can see your balls. They’re not attractive.”

That has Indie going silent and I watch as she lets her feet drop and sits forward.

“Not so funny when it’s directed at you, huh?” Percy mutters, falling onto the sofa where she can still watch the show and put in some audience participation.

“Now you listen to me, soft touch, I am sick to my fucking stomach of your silent sulking, and I am even sicker of the dirty vagina reek you got fouling my air, so you got two Goddamn choices here. You bathe or I drown you in the motherfucking tub. Oh wait. You got a third. I will call that dick bag you love so freaking much, get him over here, and let him smell what tragic and sad smells like.”

“Fuck you, Indie,” I mutter, stomping off with a few curses that make even me blush.

“Not till that snatch is clean and won’t poison me,” she crows.

“God! You are such a freak,” I scream, stomping my feet in frustration.

“You know it, lady. This girl knows how to enjoy life to the max. You want to offer again, I’ll give it a go. Although I suspect shaft is more my speed.”

              I have to hold my nose and wash one handed when the steam surrounds me and makes the reek go level twenty. By the time I smell better and feel clean for the first time in forever, I also feel as if I just washed away my shell.

It all comes flooding in when I look at myself in the mirror and it’s then that I have to really fight the need to bawl like a loser on crack.

Paul, my foul-mouthed cowboy, used me to get revenge. Here I am, all alone, broken while those assholes all win. Is this fair? Is it?

Why should I be in pain and wanting to just lie down and give up on life when that little prick Alex and my parents are sitting on their thrones enjoying my misery?

              Thinking about Paul as I stare at my reflection and plan revenge is not easy. It hurts a lot and I want to whimper but I manage to keep shit in check a little longer and consider him for once.

He must have been devastated when he found out the woman he loved was doing his mealy mouthed cousin—talk about trading a Bugatti for a Prius.

As I stand here and let it all in I think about him and how he must have felt, and suddenly I am no longer angry anymore. If anything, I’m furious that those assholes hurt him, and I have the screaming urge to hurt them right back.

But how…

When many look at my innocent sweet face they think I am not capable of downright cruelty. But I’m smart and mad and that makes me dangerous to three people right now.

“Hey! I need to talk to you two. Open some wine.”

I know just what I’m going to do to get what I need from Alex Summers, and God help the two who made me.

Home

Paul

It’s been two weeks since I lost Dotty, and it’s been two weeks since I climbed on a plane that now belongs to Jack and flew home to my cold, empty house.

I no longer walk in here and feel peace and happiness because I know that I will never see it in the same light again without her here.

Jules and the guys knew something was up the moment I stepped out of the truck without her.

They’ve been giving me the eyeball the whole time I’ve been back and trying to bury myself in the ranch and the booze I drink just so I can pass out and get some much needed sleep.

Most nights I lie awake no matter how drunk I get, and on those nights I have to admit that I cry into the pillow that lost her scent days ago.

I can’t seem to stop, though. She’s gone and I feel like my heart is dead without her. How ironic is that shit considering I thought I could marry her and not love her just weeks ago.

Is it only just over a month and a half ago that it all went down? It feels like I’ve been at this misery stuff for years now, and if this is the way time is gonna drag I do not envision life going well for me.

“Hey, asshole, your tires going flat,” Campbell yells as he passes by me on the dirt road at a gallop, leaving me alone to curse and stop the truck to check.

Yup.

And wouldn’t you know it, the spare that was there just yesterday is gone. I curse again and kick at the tire with a vile look that’s pretty wasted on the damn thing.

“Thanks, asshole!” I yell at the retreating cowboy, only to get the finger as a response.

I have explained to these shitheads over and over again that I can’t just go back to San Francisco and demand that she listen to me.

They keep insisting that where there’s love there is a way.

I called them all pussies and flipped them off, but inside I felt a tiny spark of hope start glimmering. Till her girls called and told me exactly how much of a loser I truly am and that they were even now setting Dot up with some fine ass men who would “fuck my face right out of her memory.”

That night I drank so much I only woke up the following night. I now understand what alcohol poisoning is. It’s worse than anything I have ever felt in my life. Besides the pain of losing Dot, of course.

It’s as I’m sitting in my truck, waiting for the midday sun to sink a little before I can trek back to the house that I think…. Why the fuck am I all the way over here, drinking myself to liver failure and feeling sorry for myself, when I need to be in the city wooing my girl?

That’s right, you stupid sonofabitch. Wake up already. Shit, you must be dumber than a bag of hammers for taking this long to come to your senses.

I mess up the wheel as I start the truck and speed back home to grab my stuff and the ring that’s been sitting under my pillow for weeks.

Oh, Dot, my precious deluded little Dot, you are in so much trouble if you so much as sat across from another man and let him look at my woman.

“Julius!”

“What? What do you want now, you sorry sonofabitch?” he grumbles as he comes ambling along, grinning at the state of my rims.

              “I need a ride to the airport, and you can tell those other whining ninnies that I’m going to go get our girl so no more dumping cow turds on the freaking porch.”

That has the old ass grinning and I smile back as he all but dives for his old beat-up Ford truck and starts pulling out before I’m even in.

“Took your sweet time coming to your senses, you fool.”

“Shut up and keep your eyes on the road, old man. I don’t need another one of your lectures. I need a plan,” I mutter, pawing the ring the way Frodo must have.

I feel like it’s the only thing keeping me together as we speed towards the airport and I grab my phone to make a call I really do not want to make.

“Levin.”

“I need a favor.”

“Shit. No. Don’t ask me. Callie just got over her morning sickness and she’s hormonal. I’ll be in the dog house watching her suffer if she finds out I’m colluding with you.”

“You want Dot to be happy and loved, Jack? Or are you too scared of the sharp-toothed little woman you married to grow some balls and help a brother?” I growl, grinning when he curses and mutters beneath his breath.

“Fred! Wood! Get your asses over here now.”

I assume I’m now on speakerphone as the other men come on over and continue arguing about God knows what till Jack lets out a shrill wolf whistle and start mumbling again.

“It’s Summers.”

“That prick. I’ll kill you if you hurt her again,” Woody snarls. “My mother used to date a mafioso before she met Dad and I know how to get rid of a body, dickwad.”

“Hey, screw you, Jones. I’m not gonna hurt her. I’m coming to get my woman,” I bark, slapping Jules when he looks at me and veers into oncoming traffic.

“Well thank God for that. You know she stops bathing when she gets depressed? It’s just wrong for a woman that beautiful to smell that bad, bro. Just wrong,” Freddie mumbles and even I shudder.

Dot is my baby and God knows I love the woman, but I’ve caught a whiff after she’s been in the garden under the hot sun and if
that
is multiplied by days on end…

“What do you need, Summers? I’m going out on a limb here for you. Do not fuck this up. Callie really is a biter and she’s slyer now. She lulls me and waits till I’m in a very delicate position to get her revenge.”

Ouch, even my dick whimpers at the thought.

“To start with, I need your new plane and then….”

***

Dot

I’m gritting my teeth against the need to sink my teeth into Alex’s neck and shake him like a dog till he bleeds out as he keeps smiling that obsequious smile and brags about himself.

As if I care that he plays tennis.

I snort inwardly at the thought of my Paul prancing around on a tennis court, and just barely hold back a giggle at the look he’d have on his face.

The man wrestles the elements and meaner-than-hell bulls without breaking a sweat, and this pansy thinks his little exploits are worth a bag of dicks to me?

What a joke.

“So, what made you change your mind about the wedding?” he preens, stroking my hand where it’s lying on the table beside my untouched food.

I couldn’t eat now if it was the last meal before the apocalypse, but I don’t show him that, or in any way let on that the touch of his hand across mine makes my skin crawl.

I’m here for two reasons and two reasons only. One, I’m still mighty curious about this whole wedding to a Summers thing and why Mother went white as a sheet when she started mumbling about me marrying the wrong one.

Two, I would so dearly love to humiliate this man publicly so that he can have a little taste of what it feels like to be taken in.

I’m not usually vindictive, and call me crazy, but it seems that the more I go for it, the better I feel with this whole spite thing. Wooo, Indie was right, sometimes mean does feel mighty fine.

“Look, Alex, let’s not play games here. You broke up my engagement and ruined a perfectly good thing I worked hard to get. I gave up my part in my business to marry Mr. Moneybags and now I have nothing to show for myself but unemployment and no money. I didn’t even get to keep the freaking ring so I could hock it. Marrying you is the only meal ticket I have left and that is fine by me, as long as you leave me alone to live my own life.”

              Mother and Father called the minute they heard that I was alone again and hadn’t returned with Paul, and after my stern bathroom conversation and a talk with my girls we decided it was totally time for me to get my pound of flesh.

That’s the upside of having four bloodthirsty animals for besties. They have my back at every turn, like now. Even as I’m sitting here gripping a fork, wanting to stab the little poophead with it, I catch movement from the corner of my eye and look up to see a very sexy Percy swaying those hips of hers as she shimmies over.

“I knew that was you! What are you doing in this dive, baby girl? Oh yuck and don’t suck. Seriously, Dotty, you’re seeing this slimeball again?” she growls, laying her distaste on thick.

The plan has always been for me to lay my cards out on the table and then for one or all of them to get involved. Indie is bound and determined to believe that Alex is one of those pervs who wants women who don’t like him, hence Percy’s attitude.

I almost gag when he looks up at her and grins, the charm oozing off him like puss from a boil.

“Come on now, sweetheart, that’s not very nice considering I saved your friend from making a big mistake.”

“Mistake? Dude, she was in deep with one of the wealthiest guys this side of the equator. How exactly did you save her, hmmm?”

My eyes are practically rolling at Alex’s little boy pout and I kick Percy to let her get on with it, because honestly, I feel dirty sitting here with him at all.

“You think it matters that he’s got all that money? Paul is no dummy, he’d have had a prenup drawn up before he even called the preacher, lady. At least with me, Dot won’t have to suffer that indignity.”

I hear slot machines going off in my head as a sweet little old lady jumps up and yells BINGO!

The look Percy throws me is satisfied because this just proves the suspicions we finally came to early on in our brainstorming session.

I finally realized that the only thing this could be about is money.

I am as broke as a little church mouse. So why?

“Hmm, that could be true, Dotty. Is it true love then, Al baby? You’re gonna marry little poor, doesn’t-have-two-pennies-to-her-name Dotty and share your fortune with her? That is just too sweet! I may have to change my mind about you,” she purrs, running a finger down his arm.

I notice he lets go of my hand, which before he was clinging to like a limpet, and shudder when her takes hold of Percy’s and smooches it sloppily.

Oh gruesome. That is just nasty.

“Look, thanks for everything and you can scuttle along and tell my parents. They can get the wedding arranged for…”

“Friday, this week. Unless you have any objections?” he drawls, looking back at me as I rise.

What! Friday is like two days away and I still have a lot of sleuthing to do before I can have my answer. I can’t do the whole “string you along before dropping you like a hot potato” deal on him if he actually manages to get me into that ugly-ass wedding dress Mother sent me photos of.

“Friday is great! I have the cutest little pink number to wear to the wedding. Stay in touch, Al baby.”

“Stop that,” I hiss when she starts dragging me away and making eyes over her shoulder at Alex, the slimy pustule.

“Oh hush you. We might need someone to get inside information if we can’t figure this out before Friday, and who better to seduce an idiot than yours truly?”

Hmm, that is so true. Percy could make a statue drool when she starts laying on her sexy seductive charm, and it may come in handy, especially with the fact that I seem to have found my flow and it includes a lot of hitting and injury by eating utensils.

“Fine, just don’t give me details because I may puke in my mouth,” I hiss as we leave the restaurant area of the Hyatt and shimmy into the lobby.

I stop dead in my tracks and feel like I’m about to die when I see Paul coming towards me, a determined look stamped across his beautiful face.

“Oh God, do something, Percy! If he gets to me and even touches me this plan is toast!”

Percy is a panicker. That’s why I end up fighting like a rabid dog when she just grabs me and shoves her tongue in my mouth as her hand grabs a butt cheek.

“Hmph. Hey!”

“What? Tell him you’re into girls now,” she pants when I pull away and slap her boob. Hard.

“You ass, he knows I’m not.”

“But with meeee,” she insinuates, waggling her brows.

First off, that kiss was way nicer than it should have been, and I am not sure that I couldn’t change gender loyalties right now. But that is so not what’s got my lips in a twist. Paul is here, he’s already reaching for me, and I know if Alex sees this scene I am so totally screwed.

“Dotty.”

“Step off, asshole. I only came here to meet someone and now I’m done, so I’m leaving.”

“We need to talk, baby.”

I hate the pleading, empty look in his usually twinkling brown eyes and I  really want to just cave and throw myself at him when I see him swallow and flinch when he goes to touch me and I jerk myself away.

              “Baby, please just give me a chance to explain.”

“There’s nothing to explain, Paul. You lied and used me. That’s the terrible truth of it, and you know what? Now that I’m back home and I’m thinking straight instead of with my junk, I’m not at all sure I want to be married to a rancher who trails in dirt every day and smells like horseshit. How’s that for a doozy? I’m back here and I’m choosing to stay in the city and do the things that I should have done right from the start. Mother was right. I don’t know you.”