~SELLING SCARLETT~
Elizabeth DeVille doesn't belong at a party like this—one where the gowns cost more than her Camry and cigars run higher than her grad school utility bills. Dragged out of seclusion by her best friend Suri, Elizabeth is merely playing dress-up, rubbing elbows with a crowd that banished her troubled family years ago.
Hunter West is tired. Tired of parties, tired of pretending, and tired of trying to right a wrong that haunts him every day. Bourbon heir and professional poker player by day, by night Hunter is gambling with his life in a high-stakes game of crime and blackmail.
When Elizabeth stumbles into Hunter's den of vices, she's a light in the darkness, a flame in the void. And, just like everything he touches, Hunter mars her in a record time. To rectify the damage done, Elizabeth needs money she doesn't have, and she's come up with a foolproof way to get it.
Follow Scarlett to the lush Nevada brothel where she'll auction her virginity and risk the only thing that's not for sale: her heart. The highest bidder is a familiar face, with wicked hands and the devil's mouth. And a secret so dark that it could cost her life.
Copyright © 2013 by Ella James
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Any names, places, characters, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination and are purely fictitious. Any resemblances to any persons, living or dead, are completely coincidental.
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SELLING
SCARLETT
ELLA JAMES
Prologue
~HUNTER~
It's Saturday night, and I'm coming off a two-day tournament. I'm tired and hungry, chugging back a DeVille bottled water as I steer my Aston Martin through the clot of traffic on The Strip, toward the private airport behind the golf club.
I won again, with a full house over queens in the last hand, but it was close. I was tired—am tired. Not enough sleep. I collected my chips just after midnight and we wrapped the show at one-thirty. There was a room at the Bellagio for me, but I'm sick of the Bellagio. The last two times I stayed, I found company in my suite. I didn't ask for any company.
I’m going to the vineyard: my house, my big bed, absolute quiet.
I know I can't sleep on my Gulfstream.
I'm still dressed in my poker black, and the jeans and button-up feel like sandpaper on my skin. I take another gulp. My head is throbbing like I just snorted a gram, but I didn’t. Four months sober. Four months celibate, too. No real reason why. I just got bored.
I'm starting to get that empty, ill feeling in my stomach that comes from lack of sleep when speak of the devil, Marchant starts blowing up my phone. I let it ring as I navigate South Maryland Parkway. I pull off my Stetson and run my left hand through my hair. Kinda makes me want to go to sleep. Maybe I can sleep on the plane.
Marchant just won't quit it with the phone. On the fifth call, I pick up, sounding more pissed than I mean too. "What do you want?"
"I've got a favor, man."
I groan, because I can hear it in his voice that Marchant is all hyped the hell up. “You got a favor you want to do for me?” I drawl. “Cause I could use a favor.”
"Nah, man.” He hesitates, the way he always does before he drops a bomb. “I need you to come out here. I've got something going on. I need you to run backup."
Run backup? I'm not sure what that means, but I can already tell it's going to be a pain in my ass. "You must be out your mind. It's two forty-five." I move the phone away from my face, scowling. "Are you rolling?"
"What? No. Look, just—hold on just a second." I hear shuffling, followed by Marchant's hiss as I roll into the parking lot of the tiny private airport where I rent a spot in the garage.
"Dude,” he says, after a moment of muffled static. “I got Priscilla Heat out here.”
He pauses, I guess expecting me to be impressed. When I’m not, he says, “She wants me and some of the girls for one of her videos.”
I shake my head. "I'm at the airport, March. I’m going to the vineyard for a little R&R."
"You're a bourbon heir, Hunter. You shouldn't even have a fucking vineyard."
I hit a button on my steering wheel, the garage door lifts, and I slide into the fourth slot. It's dark in here, making me ache for sleep. "The word is 'no.' Have Rachelle watch the ranch for you."
"C'mon, man, this is Priscilla Heat."
Marchant is the kind of guy that has a favorite porn star, and Priscilla Heat, the lasered, lipo'd two-time World Boner Award winner, has been Marchant’s ultimate fantasy since college.
"I get it, dude, but use Rachelle." Rachelle is Marchant's right-hand woman. She can watch the cameras just as well as he can, and besides, he's got Richard on the ground. Richard and a team of big-ass bouncers.
"Rachelle is out,” he says sourly.
"What do you mean, she's out?" I know for a fact she lives at Love Incorporated, Marchant's fluffy bunny brothel.
"I mean her sister died. Breast cancer. Rach won't be back till October first."
I rub my eyes. "Then tell Priscilla Heat to wait a week."
"She won't." Marchant's voice is low, almost a growl.
"Why not?" I throw my car door open, wincing as the garage's interior lights blink on.
I hear another puff, a pause where Marchant hesitates. Then he lowers his voice another octave. "She wants you here, man. She wants to spend the night with you and shoot the video here all week. It's more than a video. It's like a doc-u-fuck-ery or something."
I lean my hip against my ride, looking out the garage window at my waiting jet as I start to understand.
"You need the money."
"Yeah."
“Damnit, Marchant.” I squeeze the bridge of my nose and swallow a sigh. "When this is over, I'm chaining you to one of your beds. No more going to Tao on Rach's nights, either."
I'm backing out of the garage a minute later, wheeling around and heading out toward I-215.
*
March and I met at Tulane, at the frat house. I had a shitty attitude because I joined under pressure from my father, and March was a party boy, moving through sorority girls like an assembly line. I thought he was full of shit, and he thought I was an uptight prick. But somehow the next semester we got stuck in adjoining rooms, and we’ve been tight since.
March's parents died our junior year—plane crashed into the peaks of the Ecuadorian Andes—and around then my dad won the U.S. Senator gig and left for D.C., so we said fucks to the frat house and moved into West Manor. Marchant rented the entire downstairs, parading women in and out like cattle. The weird thing was, they always stayed friends after, so he had a lot of chick buddies. Sometime in our senior year, I bedazzled some of his inheritance, and he decided to use the money to open a brothel. Of course, Marchant being Marchant, he doesn't name it something normal like Radcliffe Ranch; he names it Love Incorporated.
It's a two-thousand acre, dusty, barren strip of Nevada desert, but the three sprawling, English manor houses and the forty or fifty acres around them—Marchant's got them looking like the Garden of Eden. He sold that image to a lot of people, too. Mostly people with dicks.
I'm not charmed when I give my Aston Martin to the valet and follow Bella, one of my least-favorite escorts,
into the vast Love Den. Bella's got her strawberry-blonde hair thrown back over her shoulders, and it's kind of curly. Her blue eyes twinkle with a genuine smile, something I just don't understand.
Tonight she doesn't stop me in the den, with its many cozy alcoves, to ask me how I'm doing and bat her pretty blue eyes. In fact, I’m staring at the back of her head as she leads me down the nearest of four wide, candle-lit hallways. I watch her black silk dress sashay around her upper thighs, listen to her designer heels tap on the oriental runner. Against the soft brown wallpaper, her pale skin looks ghastly white.
For some reason, her silence makes me feel compelled to speak. "You doing alright tonight, Bella?"
"Just fine, Mr. West. Thank you for asking." She says it without missing a beat. “How are you?”
I rub my forehead, trying not to watch the crease between her thigh and ass. "I could be worse."
It dawns on me that most people would probably be happy with my weekend. I just won five million dollars. But one of the strange things about being rich as shit is five million's just not that exciting.
What most people don't know is that I haven't gotten my pocket of gold coins from great-granddaddy West. Not yet. Not until I'm thirty-five. When I turned eighteen my father gave me one of his stock portfolios to manage. He's fond of trial by fire, and I think he wanted to see if I would sink or swim. Before I graduated college I’d been able to triple what he gave me. Since then, I haven't stopped.
March’s suite is behind a large mahogany door at the end of the hall, but we can’t see it because there’s a film crew camped outside. A few of them must recognize me because they tip their hats or nod as we squeeze through. I nod back, and Bella knocks briskly when we reach the door.
The camera mounted on the wall makes its creepy-ass mouse squeak, and I hear Marchant's voice over the intercom. "Good to see ya, West. Bella, thanks."
I press a Benjamin into her palm, because that's what any other guest would do, and the door swings open as she walks away.
Marchant is grinning. I can see relief and jubilation shining on his face as he pulls me into a bro hug. As always, I try not to wince.
"Thanks for coming, West."
I roll my eyes, checking out his black silk robe and spiky auburn hair. "Thanks for inviting me to the slumber party."
From behind March's wide shoulders, I hear a familiar, feminine laugh, and my skin begins to crawl.
"Hunter West!” I see a slim, tanned arm reaching around Marchant's robe, and then she moves around him, so I can see her body and her face. Priscilla Heat. Tonight she's decked out in a zebra striped teddy with red lace garters, black thigh highs, and six-inch heels. Her breasts are perkier than melons, and I'm looking at them before I realize that I'm breaking my rule. I look into a person's eyes first. Priscilla's are pale blue. Her smile is lasered, her teeth veneered. As she clasps my hand, I smell a whiff of sex.
"Hello, Hunter." She smiles coyly. "I’m so glad to finally meet you. I'm a big, big fan."
I try to smile. I swear to God, I really do, but my mouth muscles aren't working. I'm pretty sure I wince instead. This is confirmed by the small notch between her thin, dark, drawn-on brows.
"I've seen some of your films,” I said. “You run a tight ship.”
She bursts out laughing, then grabs my arm and jerks me to the giant, claw-footed dining room table. Tonight, it's piled with hors d'oeuvres and liquor. I'm eying a meatball, thinking how hungry I am, when she grabs my ass and squeezes. "Christ, you're tight."
"Hands off," I growl.
Her left hand comes up and grabs me by the jaw, and as she lowers her mouth to my ear, I know that she'll be trouble. "I do what I want."
She grabs my cock—or tries to. “I don’t know much about your business,” I say as I catch her wrist, “but in my line of work we shake hands.”
"Funny!" Her red smile curves, stretching her face. Applause erupts from all directions, and it's nothing like the polite applause from an audience watching a round of Texas Hold 'Em.
"How would you like to be in an adult film," she croons, "opposite me?"
“I'm busy tonight." I strut over to Marchant, ignoring my giant hard-on, and grab his shoulder. "Sarabelle, my room, now."
I keep my head down as I stride into the hall, shouldering past a smug-looking guy with sunken cheekbones and slick black hair; a short, bespectacled girl holding an enormous camera; and a couple of others I don't see because my eyes are on the carpet. In seconds, I'm at the suite that Marchant built for me, back when we were young and I was snorting blow and drinking and fucking like a demon.
I know Sarabelle is free, because Tuesdays are her nights off. Even if she was working, she would have cleared her schedule. I strip, stashing my clothes in the chifferobe, and slide into a cold, silk robe. By the time Sarabelle arrives, wearing nothing but a blue teddy and wicked grin, I'm sprawled out on the bed, stroking my dick.
"Mr. West," she grins. "How can I help you?"
I eat her pussy, then fuck her. When we’re both satisfied I buy her for the rest of the night, as per our old arrangement. I'm ready to split when Donnie, one of the male escorts, knocks on the door. He’s got a bottle of West bourbon and two glasses already poured over ice.
Under the bottle is a note, scrawled on a receipt: For being such a good sport. ~P
I toss back one of the glasses, then shove the note into the pocket of my robe.
I tip Donnie with the bottle and the other glass, and by the time he closes the door, the room is spinning.
I hear a woman's voice as I sink to my knees, but I'm not sure which woman. Sarabelle is asleep. At least I thought she was. The voice is high-pitched, kind of like my stepmother's when she's angry at me. I blink at the swirling ceiling. Maybe it's my mother's—but I can't remember that far back. I can't remember...anything.
The next morning, I can't even remember if Sarabelle was ever in my room. All I know for sure is that she's not here now.
Chapter One
~ELIZABETH~
This is what happens when you don't leave your house for weeks on end, trying to prep for grad school finals. For the first time in my life, I'm looking at a man, imagining him naked.
Then again, he’s not any old man. He is my host for the evening, Hunter West. It's objectively true: With tweed pants hugging muscular legs and jacket carelessly unbuttoned so I can see his undershirt and black vest, he screams sex. The kind of sex that's all slick skin and pheromones, bulging biceps and a six pack that ripples as he leans closer to plant kisses all over my face, and I arch up to bite him on the jaw.
The little fantasy makes me blush, but I don't look away from Hunter. We're in the same room for the first time in at least six months, and I'm entranced. I pretend to tuck my wavy brown hair behind my ear as I steal another glance his way. He's standing by a massive stone fireplace, surrounded by California's most eligible bachelorettes. I recognize a few of them from Hargrove Day School: Honey Neighton, a former cheerleader who missed senior year due to some kind of Ambien addiction; Brina Lulle, a pretty, petite figure skater who once qualified for the Olympic team but broke her ankle and didn't go; and Mary Baldwin Greese, the über shy daughter of one of L.A.'s best talent agents. There are more of them, decked out in designer gowns every color of the fall and winter fabric palette.
Hunter is more than a head taller than most of them. His wide shoulders almost triple the width of teenie, tiny Brina Lulle. He's nodding at something she's saying, the look on his face politely solicitous, but I tell myself that underneath, he's brain-killingly bored. Honey Neighton fans herself with her hand, drawing attention to her breasts, and I smirk down at my gown. It's like a bad regency romance: Everyone gathers at the nobleman's estate for a hunt and the unmarried ladies fawn all over the awkward and ornery—but charming!—duke.
Hunter West isn't a brooding romance novel hero, though. He has too much breeding to be awkward and he's too straightforward to play at anything—although he is hard to get;
he's impossible.
I watch him produce a convincing and completely gorgeous grin for Brina before he turns to Mary Baldwin, ruffling her chin-length hair and laughing with his blond head thrown back. This earns him a small smile, which, coming from Brina, is like a lap dance.
Suddenly, Hunter turns and looks over his shoulder, and I can see his eyebrows arch. Marchant Radcliffe, one of Hunter's hell-raising friends, tosses a glass bottle over the heads of a cluster of middle-aged women, and Hunter catches it with one hand, saying something that makes his admirers smile before turning to the wet bar behind him and opening a cabinet.
He pours liquor, and his ladies wait. Even filling shot glasses, he seems completely in command of himself and what's around him. I've moved in or near his circle for a while, despite our seven year age difference, and I've never seen him not look like that. Like a man at the helm of the universe.