Dirty Sexy Games Read online

  “Thank you. I didn’t think I’d be so emotional about it.” And now that I was already emotional and thinking about my father, I actually was sad about his absence too. “But, hey,” I continued. “Let’s not think about it anymore. I need to cheer up. Change the subject.”

  “Okay.” He stood back and looked me over. “You’re married! I can’t believe it.”

  I almost wished I could take it back and keep talking about my father.

  “Yep. I’m married.” It would take a while before I got used to that. Probably just about the time my divorce was finalized.

  “You’re a beautiful bride. Stunning. I have to say Weston King is a really lucky guy.”

  Tell that to him, I thought. “Thank you.”

  Clarence sobered. “Are you sure there isn’t anything else going on?”

  I’d forgotten how persistent he had always been. “I’m positive. It’s been a long day. I haven’t eaten. I need to get back out there, though. Maybe we can catch up some other time?”

  “Sure. But if there’s anything you need, Elizabeth, you can tell me. You know that, right?”

  I nodded. “Of course. I appreciate that.”

  “I mean it,” he insisted. “Promise you’ll tell me if you need me.”

  “I promise.” I forced a smile, the seventy billionth of the day, and gestured to the ballroom behind the divider that was hiding us. “I’ve really got to get out there before they miss me.”

  “Right. I’ll go with you.”

  Clarence put his arm out to escort me. I started to put my hand on his bicep but then hesitated when he started to walk. “Does my makeup…?”

  “Look up.” He scrubbed at the corner of my eye with his thumb. “There. You’re perfect.”

  No. I wasn’t perfect. I was a mess.

  I was married.

  And I’d never felt so alone in all my life.

  2

  Weston

  She was the most beautiful woman in the room.

  She was the most beautiful woman in the world.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off of her for more than two minutes all night, which was how I noticed right away when she disappeared.

  And then, ten minutes later, the most beautiful woman in the world—my wife—walked out from behind the partition arm in arm with her fucking ex-boyfriend. He was giving her the eyes of a lover, and suddenly I saw red.

  The day was definitely not going how I’d imagined.

  I’d been a nervous wreck in the beginning, reeling from the revelation that I had a son. But then, while I stood there at the end of the aisle waiting for Elizabeth to appear, it felt like the strings were finally coming together, knotting into a perfect bow instead of falling apart and unraveling like they had been for the past several weeks.

  There she was, walking toward me with the simple strains of a cello accompanying her as she made her way. And it didn’t matter anymore that I had less to offer than she had to give, that I was from a family of fuck-ups, that I could never be as selfless and noble as she was. She brought me up to her level just by allowing me to be in her presence. The name I was given at birth, King—it had always been a joke. Until Elizabeth Dyson stood beside me and finally made me royalty.

  I was in love with her.

  She was a beginning for me, and I never wanted her to end. If she did, if she walked away, if she didn’t feel the same, I was pretty sure that I would end. During the ceremony though, with her hand held in mine, I wasn’t worried about her leaving. And I wasn’t just trying to clutch onto her because I felt like I needed her in order to be a father to Sebastian—this wedding, this fake wedding, had become the most real thing in my life. Elizabeth had become the most real thing in my life, and finding out about Sebastian had just kicked me into gear, made me understand I had to own what I was feeling.

  So right there, in front of all our friends and family, I told her. And I meant it.

  And I knew in my bones that she meant it when she said her vows to me, too.

  When we walked back down that aisle together, as man and wife, I thought our lives were starting together.

  How the fuck had I forgotten to factor in France?

  It was my gut reaction to instantly say that I couldn’t go with her, to say that moving out of the country was out of the question. The last words Callie had given me about our son were still so fresh in my mind—she’d offered me a place in his life, but only if I could be there. How could I possibly be there if I was halfway across the world?

  I couldn’t lose him. Not when I’d just found out about him.

  And I couldn’t lose her. I wouldn’t have a home to give Sebastian without her. I couldn’t be a man who could be a father without her.

  Maybe it was something that could be sorted out without Elizabeth having to lose her dreams, without me having to lose a relationship with my child, but it wasn’t something we could discuss in thirty seconds in a side room at our wedding. It would have to wait, even though it was a fucking tug of war between them inside me, and that perfect bow that my life had been tied up in? I was now desperately holding on to both strings as my arms were being torn in different directions.

  The worst part was the look on Elizabeth’s face, the plea in her voice. I hated not being able to give her an explanation yet, but I couldn’t drop the same bomb on her that Callie had dropped on me. Not today.

  It all had to wait.

  So I compartmentalized as much as I could, put Sebastian in one corner of my heart and Elizabeth in another and focused on getting through. Today the goal was to fool Darrell. We were so close to pulling this off, we couldn’t let him see the tension between us.

  I’d thought I’d done a pretty good job of it too—we posed for pictures together, then mingled separately at the reception. I flirted with the older women. I let my bachelor friends harass me. When Sabrina mistakenly thought she’d seen someone that had scared her, and Donovan wasn’t around to comfort her, I calmed her down by taking her for a spin on the dance floor. She wasn’t who I wanted to be dancing with, but she’d become a good friend, and it was nice to have something else to think about.

  The trick was, I realized, to not be too near Elizabeth. She made me impetuous and passionate, made me say too much. Distracted me from the agenda because I wanted the point of the day to be us. I wanted to take off her garter and cut the cake and have a first dance with her, wanted all the wedding traditions we’d left out of the reception since we weren’t a real couple.

  But now we were a real couple.

  And it was harder to be next to her, worrying things might not work out now that I actually cared.

  But just because it was hard didn’t mean I was going to stand by and let Douchebag Sheridan make his moves on her. She was mine. End of story.

  I made my way over there so fast, Clarence was still with her when I got there.

  “Where have you been?” I asked, my eyes darting between the two of them.

  Her bright blues widened as though surprised that I’d caught her. Did that mean she was guilty of something?

  “I just…I needed…air,” she answered, her cheeks pink.

  “I saw her disappear and went to check on her. I noticed you were busy with other…guests,” Douchebag said. Other guests. As though I should’ve been with Elizabeth instead. As though he knew anything about what was going on between us.

  But maybe he did. I didn’t know if they’d had contact with each other in the recent weeks since they’d reconnected. She had his phone number—I knew that because I’d given it to her myself. She might’ve even told him just now. Had she been gone long enough? How much time would it take to say none of this was real, that she’d thought it was, but Weston King had played her?

  But I hadn’t bailed on her. Not yet. Not ever, if I could help it. And I would help it.

  I just couldn’t fix it right now.

  I put my arm around her waist, pulling her to me possessively. “Let’s talk.” I might not be able to f
ix it right now, but I had to be able to tell her enough to keep her, before she went running off to someone else.

  She looked around, not just at Douchebag but at all of our guests. “We can’t right now.”

  Okay, so there was no way we were getting across the ballroom with all these people. But I had an idea. “Come with me.” I tugged her onto the dance floor, away from her past to a place we could be alone. Into my arms, where I’d wanted her all evening.

  “Weston, I don’t feel like dancing,” she said through her teeth as she smiled at a passing couple.

  “I don’t fucking care if you feel like dancing. I need to hold you right now.” That shut her up for a moment, and as I spun her on the floor to the slow song, she relaxed into my embrace.

  I rested my head right next to her ear, intent on telling her…something. I just didn’t know what would be the right thing to say. There was so much to share. So much to tell her. I still hadn’t actually told her I loved her. And now I had to tell her I had a kid. Would she still want me now that I came with baggage? I didn’t even know how she felt about the prospect of children. We hadn’t even discussed what country we’d live in, much less what could happen down the road.

  “I saw you dancing with Sabrina,” she said before I had a chance to tell her anything.

  I stiffened, because this was another drama of my own making. How long had I let her be jealous of my employee? There was nothing going on with her—hadn’t been since Elizabeth had walked into Reach’s lounge and into my life.

  “I wanted to be dancing with you,” I told her, feeling the weight of its inadequacy even as I said it. But I wasn’t certain Sabrina’s past was my story to tell.

  “There was nothing stopping you,” she hissed. “You could easily have asked me.”

  “You didn’t want to do the first dance ritual.”

  “We said that months ago. Back when we said we were going to do scripted vows.” She pulled her head back so she could look at me. “You have me on a roller coaster. One minute you care, the next you don’t. How am I supposed to know what’s real and what isn’t?”

  Her voice was thick with emotion and it slammed me with the want to make it better.

  “I have you on a roller coaster so you turn to Clarence for consolation?” Well, maybe I wanted to make it better, but I was better at being an asshole. It came more naturally.

  “You were dancing with Sabrina,” she reminded me.

  “In front of everyone. Not alone in a corner where no one could see us. Her cheeks weren’t rosy when we were finished.” The more I thought about this, the angrier I legitimately became. I didn’t truly think Elizabeth would cheat on me, if for no other reason than she didn’t like to break rules. But to run straight to him instead of coming to me was not okay.

  “She was clinging to you the whole time. Is she the reason you won’t leave New York?”

  “I can’t believe you even—” I cut off sharply as I noticed that there were eyes on us. Lots of eyes on us. The entire room was watching us, not necessarily because we looked like we were arguing—I was pretty sure we’d managed to cover that up. Most likely, they were just watching the wedding couple sharing a moment on the dance floor.

  Elizabeth followed my gaze. “Oh, shit.”

  “Just keep dancing.”

  “We’re continuing this discussion later,” she warned quietly. She smiled again. She was so good at it, putting that fake dazzle on, but I was really getting good at telling the difference between the fraudulent and the authentic. Strangely, the real one was never quite as bright.

  I would have given anything to have seen that dimmer smile right then.

  It seemed like decades before LeeAnn was summoning us over to her. “You need to make a big exit,” she said. “That means you need to leave before your guests do. It’s time to say your goodbyes.”

  “Thank God,” Elizabeth said, her relief evident in her sigh.

  LeeAnn raised an eyebrow.

  “My feet hurt,” Elizabeth said, and though I was sure it was true, I was also sure it wasn’t the reason she was glad this was almost over.

  “Of course,” LeeAnn said, like she should’ve known all along, though her own shoes were two inches taller than Elizabeth’s. I had a feeling LeeAnn wasn’t the type of woman who would complain about her feet hurting. It was the price you had to pay for looking good.

  I preferred Elizabeth’s honesty, as inappropriate as it may have been at the moment. I attempted to share a smile with her, but she missed it, and perhaps that was for the best. I was in a pissy mood from our fight, from Douchebag, from the frustration of being at an utter loss for how to solve these problems, and I wasn’t sure my expression was even worth sharing.

  Elizabeth headed over to her family to make her farewells. Most of my friends had already left—Donovan and Nate had both brought dates for the evening and had ducked out early. The last people on Earth I wanted to see at the moment were my own parents, but it was still a performance, and they were the ones I was most expected to say good night to.

  “She really is a lovely woman,” my mother said as I let her hug me. “I hope we get the chance to know her better.”

  I’d done so well keeping walls up all day, but at my mother’s mention of a future with Elizabeth, my chest felt tight. “I do too,” I said.

  My mother’s expression brightened, and too late I realized she thought that I meant that I would let Elizabeth into their lives, when what I really meant was I hoped that Elizabeth would be in mine. It wasn’t something I could take back after the fact, either. Especially as my mother’s eyes brimmed with tears, happy at the mere suggestion that I’d spend time with her.

  “Oh, Weston. You can’t imagine how much I’ve missed you.” She pulled me into another hug. “One day, you’ll have your own son, and before you know it he’ll be grown up too, and you’ll be saying goodbye to him on his own wedding day, and then you’ll understand.” She was blubbering now.

  My throat got tight and I was afraid if I spoke I would blubber too. Because now I wasn’t just thinking about Elizabeth and a future with her, but also how much I had missed my mother. And also the added knowledge that I now did have a son. Her grandson.

  I hadn’t even met him yet, and I felt like I’d missed so much. Two years of his life, I’d missed. It was going on seven years that things had been strained with my family. How many years was I going to let my mother lose?

  There wasn’t room for this inside of me. Not tonight.

  “I love you, Mom,” I whispered, not even sure she heard it.

  I hugged my dad too, but nothing was amended when they walked away. There was still a massive chasm between us, but for just one moment, we’d both found a bridge and met in the middle.

  My best man, Brett, a friend from college, announced our departure from the reception. There was a round of applause and cheers and it felt like the kind of standing ovation one got at the end of a performance. I took Elizabeth’s hand in mine and waved to everyone as we walked into the hotel lobby toward the bank of elevators that would take us to the honeymoon suite.

  As soon as the doors closed and we were alone in the car, she dropped my hand and folded her arms across her chest.

  So that was how the evening was going to be.

  I rolled my eyes and pushed the button to our floor. We rode up in silence, the tension growing thick and hot around us. I was used to the friction, the way it sparked and flashed between our eyes. I’d grown accustomed to the ticking time bomb. The space surrounding us had always been a warzone. Why should it be any different now?

  I probably shouldn’t have found that realization as comforting as I did. It probably shouldn’t have turned me on so much.

  As soon as we were in our suite, the bomb exploded, the bomb being Elizabeth. “We’re alone now, so just tell me straight. You knew I was always going to France. If you wanted to be with me, you had to know it would involve living there. Is that not something you’ll even consid
er? Is it Sabrina? Is it Reach? Is it Donovan? Because if it’s fucking Donovan who’s keeping you from—”

  I grabbed her hands, which were flying in midair as she yelled, and pulled them behind her back at her waist as I cut her off with a searing kiss, my tongue plunging into her open mouth, robbing her of oxygen.

  When she was thoroughly kissed, her lips pliable, her body sagging in my arms, I let her go.

  “I’m tired, Elizabeth. I’m not discussing fucking anything tonight.” I took off my tuxedo jacket and threw it on the desk. Then I began working on my cufflinks. “What I think we both need now is to release some tension.”

  Her spine straightened, her neck growing longer as she stared at me in shock. “You think we’re going to have sex now?”

  I loved how she made it sound disgusting, like she wasn’t interested, even when I’d just been kissing her and had felt the lean in her body, had tasted the desire in her mouth.

  Two could play the indifference game.

  I shrugged. “I’m fucking someone tonight. If you want it to be you, you better take off your dress.”

  Her mouth slammed shut, and she only seemed to consider it for two seconds before she was fumbling with the zipper at her back. She struggled with it, but I didn’t help her. It made me stiff to watch her frantically trying to strip down, just because I told her to. Just because she thought I might find a better offer if she didn’t.

  Like there was a better offer than her.

  Like there was anyone but her.

  I didn’t take my eyes off her as I unbuttoned my vest and tossed it to the side with my jacket. I’d loosened my tie by the time she got her dress undone. It fell to the floor and she was left wearing a strapless corseted bra, one that had a low back so it couldn’t be seen with her dress on, and matching lace panties—both in a white ivory so virginal and bridal it seemed dirty.