Kincaid (Dirty Duet Book 3) Read online

  Copyright © 2022 by Laurelin Paige

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Editing by Erica Edits

  Proofreading by Michele Ficht

  CONTENTS

  Also by Laurelin Paige

  Foreword

  Preface

  A note from the Author

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  Also by Laurelin Paige

  Let’s stay in touch!

  Author’s Note and Acknowledgments

  About Laurelin Paige

  ALSO BY LAURELIN PAIGE

  WONDERING WHAT TO READ NEXT? I CAN HELP!

  Visit my www.laurelinpaige.com for content warnings and a more detailed reading order.

  Brutal Billionaires

  Brutal Billionaire - a standalone (Holt Sebastian)

  Dirty Filthy Billionaire - a novella (Steele Sebastian)

  The Dirty Universe

  Dirty Duet (Donovan Kincaid)

  Dirty Filthy Rich Men | Dirty Filthy Rich Love

  Kincaid

  Dirty Games Duet (Weston King)

  Dirty Sexy Player| Dirty Sexy Games

  Dirty Sweet Duet (Dylan Locke)

  Sweet Liar | Sweet Fate

  (Nate Sinclair) Dirty Filthy Fix (a spinoff novella)

  Dirty Wild Trilogy (Cade Warren)

  Wild Rebel | Wild War | Wild Heart

  Man in Charge Duet

  Man in Charge

  Man in Love

  Man for Me (a spinoff novella)

  The Fixed Universe

  Fixed Series (Hudson & Alayna)

  Fixed on You | Found in You | Forever with You | Hudson | Fixed Forever

  Found Duet (Gwen & JC) Free Me | Find Me

  (Chandler & Genevieve) Chandler (a spinoff novel)

  (Norma & Boyd) Falling Under You (a spinoff novella)

  (Nate & Trish) Dirty Filthy Fix (a spinoff novella)

  Slay Series (Celia & Edward)

  Rivalry | Ruin | Revenge | Rising

  (Gwen & JC) The Open Door (a spinoff novella)

  (Camilla & Hendrix) Slash (a spinoff novella)

  First and Last

  First Touch | Last Kiss

  Hollywood Standalones

  One More Time

  Close

  Sex Symbol

  Star Struck

  Dating Season

  Spring Fling | Summer Rebound | Fall Hard

  Winter Bloom | Spring Fever | Summer Lovin

  Also written with Kayti McGee under the name Laurelin McGee

  Miss Match | Love Struck | MisTaken | Holiday for Hire

  Written with Sierra Simone

  Porn Star | Hot Cop

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  DID YOU KNOW…

  This book is available in both paperback and audiobook editions at all major online retailers! Links are on my website.

  If you’d like to order a signed paperback, my online store is open several times a year here.

  This book may contain subjects that are sensitive

  to some readers.

  Please visit www.laurelinpaige.com/kincaid for content warnings. May include spoilers.

  A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  My dear reader,

  Donovan Kincaid was first introduced into the world in February 2017. Since then, he has become a beloved character, featured in all of the Dirty Universe books. Readers tell me everyday they want more—more of his past, more of his future, and definitely more of his love story with Sabrina.

  Honestly, when I wrote “The End” on Dirty Filthy Rich Love, I thought that would be it for these two. Donovan wasn’t the easiest of heroes to write. He toyed with me and remained elusive. He didn’t want to give me anymore of his story. I had no idea what I’d write for him.

  Then when I was wrapping up Wild Heart, formerly the last book of the Dirty Universe, suddenly Donovan showed up, whispering in my head, “This isn’t over.” And he was right. Donovan and Sabrina have more to tell, and Kincaid is the book where it will all unfold.

  So while Dirty Filthy Rich Love has delivered an ending, it’s not the ending. You’ll find that here in Kincaid.

  xo

  Laurelin

  PROLOGUE

  Twelve years ago

  Seven minutes before my first class of the semester started, and I was stuck on the phone with fucking Raymond Aaron Kincaid.

  Okay, technically not my class. According to the course catalog, it was taught by Martin Velasquez, and to be fair, he did give the lectures. But everyone in the master’s program knew he threw every bit of the homework for his 101 classes to his T.A.s. And even though I was on year two of my master’s and not required to fill any more T.A. positions, that class was mine for the same reason that I was stuck on the phone—because no one said no to Raymond Kincaid. Especially not his son.

  Right now, he was laying out what he expected of me this year. “Listen for any tips you think will pay out. It’s not just the professors that have useful leads. These days it’s the youth. That social media site was created by a Harvard dropout. We could have been in on that, if you’d kept the right company, and that’s a piece of tech that looks like it could go far.”

  I didn’t bother to remind him that I’d been the one who’d told him about Facebook. “I’ll keep my ears open.”

  “I’m expecting that Weston will come out of this year a star. Need that be said?”

  I resented the question, so I didn’t respond. Even if he hadn’t demanded that I live with his business partner’s freshman son instead of getting my own apartment, I would have bent over backward to look out for Weston. He was the closest thing I had to a brother. Despite our age difference and total lack of shared interests, he was also the closest thing I had to a friend these days.

  That was a purposeful choice, one that a more compassionate parent might find concerning.

  If Raymond Kincaid was concerned, it wasn’t about me. “Jamison Stewart and the Sheridan kid both need to be on your radar.”

  “On your radar” was code for “give them an A”. I didn’t consider asking what favor he’d exchanged to make sure his friends’ offspring made it through Harvard with accolades, mainly because the answer was likely boring—a doubling of investments in King-Kincaid or a promise to lobby in favor of fewer regulations in the financial district—but also because I lived by the less you know, the harder to be charged as complicit philosophy where my father was concerned.

  And no, I didn’t miss the irony that the class I was supposed
to be passing these assholes through was Business Ethics. But the definition of ethical was objective, and I’d been raised to live in the gray. Obviously.

  Already knowing what I was looking for wasn’t there, I scanned the rosters on my desk, both the one for the class about to begin as well as the one I taught the next day. “Theo Sheridan isn’t in either of my sections.”

  “Jesus, fuck. Are you kidding me?” As though it were my fault that his illicit bartering had been thwarted.

  I looked up to see the first three students walk in and take seats in the middle front. Early birds. These would be the overachievers. The brownnosers. The ones who would make more work for me because of their zealous efforts. I was already mentally attaching minuses to their A’s just because they were guaranteed to be annoying.

  Yes, there was power in my position. I didn’t pretend that it hadn’t gone to my head. It didn’t seem like that big of an issue compared to the God complex my father had.

  “You’ll have to get him transferred in.”

  No concern as to whether or not I had that ability, or even whether Theodore Sheridan wanted to transfer in. Was the guy even in the school of business?

  Those wouldn’t be acceptable excuses for Raymond. Make it work was his motto, and so I would. A part of my brain was already laying out the best strategies. If Theo was in Markham’s section, I knew that professor could be bought with King-Kincaid shares. If he needed to be transferred, I’d have to do some magic. But I was pretty sure the secretary in admissions was sweet on me, and if that route didn’t prove fruitful, there would be someone else in the department who would accept a bribe.

  “I’ll take care of it,” I assured my father, hoping that would get him off the phone. I’d half checked out of the conversation as it was. More students were filing in, and I was making a mental portfolio for each of them as they did. The one in the Chucks would fall asleep in class. The one with the Bottega briefcase sold coke to the faculty. The one with the bubblegum had ADHD. The one in sunglasses was considering changing majors.

  For the girls, an extra assessment was added. Weston would fuck the girl with the French tips. And the one with the gel pens set out on the front of her desk. And the one with the nose job. And the one on her cell phone, but not the one next to her who was already reading ahead in the textbook.

  Speak of the devil, Weston walked in. The two girls flanking either side of him were most likely the sole reason he’d shown up on time. My desk was tucked away in the corner, and when he didn’t acknowledge my presence, I wondered if he’d been so preoccupied that he’d failed to notice me.

  That theory was shot when, just after he took his seat, and without looking in my direction, he subtly flipped me the bird.

  I’d pay him back later and “accidentally” mention his chlamydia meds within earshot of his new “friends”. It was the little things I lived for these days.

  Meanwhile, my father droned on in my ear. When he took his next breath, I slipped in. “Anything else?”

  “Don’t dismiss me like your time is more important than mine, Donovan.”

  “There’s only one minute until my class starts. Do you want me to keep my T.A. job or do you want me to stay on the phone while you wave your dick around some more?”

  “Cute,” he said, with the same patronizing tone he’d used the entire conversation. “No. I’m done. Oh, but keep an eye out for the MADAR scholarship girl. Don’t go out of your way for her, but the better our awardees look, the better we look.”

  I’d already registered that she was in this next class. Sabrina Lind, a Colorado kid who graduated from high school early. Low-income family upbringing, could write a compelling essay, even if her viewpoint was on the idealistic side. She didn’t need my watching. I wasn’t concerned about her.

  “Yep,” I said, placating. “Will do.” Then, “Gotta go.” I clicked END without letting him have the last word. Tucking my phone into my jacket pocket, I became aware of myself like I was split in two, a common state of being. One part of me was very present in the moment, noticing every detail of the students in front of me, fattening up those imaginary profiles, making assumptions I had no right making—assumptions that would, more times than not, be accurate.

  Underneath those were murkier thoughts, ones that slithered around my head on constant replay. Thoughts without distinct shape, taking forms that sometimes resembled a dog on a leash and sometimes a car driving head-on into traffic and sometimes a man lost in the fog and sometimes a boy drowning in a waterless sea.

  And then she walked in.

  With less than thirty seconds before class officially started, her demeanor flustered like she’d gotten lost along the way. Her bottom lip between her teeth made her appear demure, while the set of her jaw revealed her as stubborn. She was equally plain (invisible, almost) and stunning (breathtaking, once she caught your attention). Both out-of-place and right where she belonged, and she seemed as unsure as anyone whether she needed to be boss or be bossed or needed to be a carefully managed combination of the two. While her big brown doe eyes searched for a place to sit, she pulled the end of her messy ponytail, and when she chose the front row for her seat and tucked her no-name Doc Martin rip-offs underneath her, top down, as though self-conscious about their appearance, I knew for sure she was the scholarship girl.

  And I knew she’d be a strong student.

  And I knew Weston would sleep with her—if he noticed her.

  And I knew that I’d go out of my way to be sure he didn’t.

  And I knew, with the kind of conviction talked about in biblical tales, that, if there was anyone who could, she’d be the one to save me.

  ONE

  Present

  I wait until Weston and I are in my office, the door shut behind us before I voice my suspicion. “She knows.”

  “Who knows?” He glances back at the closed door, as if the answer is waiting in the threshold. “Sabrina? Why wouldn’t she know? She doesn’t know?”

  “Since I just said that I think she does know—”

  He cuts me off with a wave of his hand, correcting himself. “I mean, why wouldn’t you have already told her? Elizabeth knows.”

  I’m stunned until it occurs to me we might not be talking about the same thing. “I’m talking about the drive with—”

  “Yeah, yeah. So am I. Otherwise you would have invited Nate to come up with us.”

  Actually, I had invited Nate, but he was afraid of leaving Trish alone with the wolves known as our wives and had passed on the offer. Weston isn’t always as clued into our business partners’ lives as I am.

  No one is, to be fair.

  But since it is just the two of us, I took the opportunity to bring up my suspicions, and now that I know we’re talking about the same thing, I’m stunned again. “Elizabeth knows?”

  “We’re married. We don’t keep secrets from each other.”

  I don’t like his implication. “I only keep secrets that Sabrina doesn’t care I keep.”

  His laugh says he’s dubious. “Like, she doesn’t care because she doesn’t know? ‘Cause that’s the definition of a secret. And if my wife found out I was hiding things from her purposefully—”

  I’m not in the mood for his self-righteous bullshit, so I interrupt to clarify. “I mean I don’t flood my wife with information that doesn’t pertain to her everyday life and/or that she isn’t interested in knowing. Not secrets, exactly.”

  “Well, if you haven’t told her, and you’re worried about her reaction, then it’s a secret.”

  I don’t know why I thought that I could talk about this with the Boy Scout King. His ideals tend to get in the way of reality. Sometimes there are reasons to keep things mum, especially if those things might be dangerous. The only reason I’ve included Weston on this at all is because of the nature of the information. It didn’t seem fair not to.

  I’m beginning to regret that decision.

  Running a frustrated hand over my face, I consi
der dropping the subject. The cigar box offers a suitable distraction. “You pick,” I say, opening it toward him.

  He takes one without examining the options. I match my choice with his—a Prensado with peppery, coffee, and bittersweet chocolate notes—and we spend the next few minutes with the business of lighting up. This was the excuse I’d used to lure him upstairs, after all, while our wives ignored Nate and Trish and mapped out strategies for our companies like it was a Monday morning at the office instead of a Sunday night in the living room with friends.

  That’s what we get for marrying modern women. I dare say neither of us are complaining.

  It’s Weston who, after occupying my favorite armchair and kicking his feet up on the ottoman, returns to the previous topic. “What makes you think she knows, anyway?”

  I sit in the leather chair behind the desk and think about my response. It’s not like she’s said anything. That’s perhaps the problem—how little she’s said the past few months, like she’s working out a puzzle in her head. At first, I thought it was just jet lag. She’s been back and forth to London a few times to help her sister with her newborns. The twins’ odd schedules and trouble latching were enough to mess with Sabrina’s circadian rhythm, add to it the flying and time distance, and what did I expect?