Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
EXCERPT FROM DIRTY RICH ONE NIGHT STAND
EXCERPT FROM FALLING UNDER
ALSO BY LISA RENEE JONES
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER ONE
Reid
“You’re a true-blue prick, Reid Maxwell.”
“Finally, something we agree on,” I say, leaning back in my leather chair, the phone at my ear. A real estate investor who just lost his ass on the line. “And my client likes that I’m a prick. It works for him, not you. The thirty-day notice stands. We’re taking over that complex September first.” I hang up, my gaze lifting to the doorway to find my pain in the ass sister standing in the doorway, holding a garment bag.
“Forget it, Cat,” I say, tossing the pen in my hand onto the desk and leaning forward. “I’m not going to the party.”
“You have to go to the party,” she says, hanging the bag behind my door. “You’re being auctioned off for charity.” She stops in front of my desk, her dress a sparkling mix of pink and purple, while her blonde hair is draped over her shoulders. My sister is a beautiful pain in the ass. “Tonight,” she adds, stopping in front of me. “It happens tonight, and you’ve known about it for two months.”
“I said no about ten times.”
“This is me doing PR for the firm. It’s a big deal with lots of press. And you need good PR since our dear uncle and father got in all that legal trouble, because in case you didn’t know Maxwell, Maxwell, and Maxwell is a law firm.”
“That dear uncle, wasn’t our uncle, but a ‘friend’ of dad’s, he made us call him uncle as kids. And I use the term friend lightly, considering he committed crimes while working for us which is why he’s long gone and so is the scandal he created. And thankfully, since he recovered from his stroke, the only thing our father’s guilty of is being an ass.”
“Like you?”
“Yes,” I agree without hesitation. “I’m an ass, but not like him.”
“Your own very special version of asshole,” she says. “Right. Check.”
I ignore that remark that. Where Cat is concerned, I deserve it and with growing regret. “Cat.”
“Yes?”
“You write true crime novels and your ‘Cat Does Crime’ column. Exactly why are you heading this PR operation for a problem two-years old? You don’t work here. I tried to get you to work here, but you refused.”
“You tried to bully me into doing what you wanted, yes,” she agrees. “And I’m heading your PR efforts because obviously, you cannot. Asshole and PR are not two terms that fit together.”
“Well then, how does having me auctioned off help?”
“Women foolishly love arrogant asses,” she says. “You’ll get big bids and attention for the firm. Bids for charity which means good press. That means, we hope, good press about you and the firm. And since I know what motivates you, good press means more money for the firm and you. The biggest names in New York City will be present. I’ve already said all of this. If Reese wasn’t married, he’d do it for his firm, too. It’s the most eligible bachelor thing, and as you know, at thirty-eight, you’re still a bachelor.”
“I prefer most ineligible bastard, and as for Reese, I couldn’t give a shit what your asshole husband would do.”
“Is that right?”
I glance beyond Cat to find Reese standing in the door in a damn tuxedo that looks like a James Bond costume. Shoot me the fuck now. “If you don’t see asshole as the compliment I do,” I say, “you aren’t half the attorney I thought you were.”
“I’m a criminal law attorney,” Reese says, “not a corporate raider like you.”
“I don’t raid,” I correct. “I help those who do, and in the end, the companies become bigger and better thanks to my efforts.”
“Put your tuxedo on,” Cat says. “We leave in fifteen minutes.”
My brother, Gabe, appears in the doorway next to Reese, and of course, he’s wearing a tux. “Aren’t you pretty?”
“Prettier than you,” he says. “How about a wager to prove it? If I auction off for higher than you, I get that bottle of whiskey you’ve been hoarding. The Dalmore 50 Crystal Decanter.”
“That’s a twenty-thousand-dollar bottle,” I say.
“And?” Gabe presses.
“And bring it on,” I say, standing up and looking at Cat. “This is my last PR event ever.”
“It’s your first PR event.”
“Exactly,” I say. “Now all of you. Leave. I’ll meet you in the lobby in fifteen minutes.”
Everyone leaves but Cat. “The good press has already started.” She sets her phone in front of me, and I read the headline: The blond, thirty-something hunks of Maxwell, Maxwell, and Maxwell give it all for charity. I stop reading and look up at her. “Is this supposed to convince me to go or stay here?”
She laughs. “Oh, you blond hunk you. We both know you’re going.” She sobers abruptly. “Too bad dad won’t come.”
“If the idea is to keep the attention on us and off his misdeeds,” I say dryly, just as damn sober as her now, “then I think that’s smart. He’s not a dumb person. He had to suspect what his best friend, who was like his brother, was up to. I damn sure know what Gabe is into at all times.”
“Right,” she says, swallowing hard, and when I see the way our father affects her, I hate him more than I already do, but then, I’m just like him in her eyes. “You’re right, of course.” She waves a hand in the air as if wiping away her emotions. “
See you in fifteen minutes,” she murmurs, turning on her high heels, gone in a blink, and pulling the door shut behind her.
My phone buzzes on my desk, which means it’s my secretary, who too often and too like my sister, doesn’t understand the word no. “Yes, Connie?”
“Carrie West is back on the line.”
That name grinds down my spine in a way few could. “Get rid of her,” I say, “but tell her she gets an A for effort. What is this now—the tenth call?”
“Eleventh,” she says. “She asked me to tell you that one way or another you will talk to her. Should I give you the rundown on her since she’s clearly not going away?”
“She is going away,” I say. “Make it happen.”
“She said to tell you that if you don’t take this call, she’ll be seeing you sooner than later. And I know. Make her go away.” And then in a tart final statement, she says, “Yes, master,” and disconnects.
Like that woman would let any man be her master, I think, rubbing the back of my neck and stepping to the window, overlooking a city now shrouded in darkness, while city lights mark the inky night. Carrie West is a potential problem, namely because I’ve promised to stay away from her. Not an easy task considering she’s the daughter of a man I’ve ruined, and while my reasons were not of my choosing, they were, in fact, necessary. The bottom line here is that a debt exists, and nothing Ms. West can say to me will change the fact that it has to be paid.
***
The event is in one of the many five-star Manhattan hotels, in a ballroom with diamond-drop chandeliers, ice sculptures, and waiters serving finger foods and booze. I’m in the middle of a good three hundred people, and yes, I’m in the damn tuxedo. For two hours now, I’ve been standing next to, or near, my brother and sister, all of us “mingling” as Cat calls it, while women fawn over me and Gabe, assessing us as bid-worthy. I endure. Gabe soaks in the attention, laughing and joking with every pretty little thing, and everyone in between, that we encounter. He gives off this façade of being one of them. He’s not. He’s just as fucked up as I am for some of the same, but many different reasons. He simply chooses to convince people he’s not. I don’t see the point. Why pretend to be what you are not? I am who I am and no one but me needs to have intimate knowledge of what that means or how it came to be.
I’m two whiskeys into the night, which is one more than I’d allow myself during a negotiation, but I already lost this negotiation or I wouldn’t be here. Cat won. And hell. It’s a children’s cancer foundation. I’m not such as an asshole that I can’t be softened for kids in need. I just prefer to do it in my own private way that involves my checkbook. An announcement sounds over the intercom, and it’s time for the “bachelors” to come to the stage at the front of the room.
I down the last of my drink and hand the glass to a well-timed waiter. A lady that must be about eighty slings her arm through Gabe’s and he lets her guide him toward the necessary direction. Cat steps in front of me and surprises me by kissing my cheek. “Thanks for being a good asshole tonight.”
I chuck her under the chin. “Just tonight.”
“Of that, I have no doubt,” she says, and while she’s smiling it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. We have a lot of damage between us and it’s starting to cut a little too deep.
She steps away from me and Reese wraps his arm around her shoulders. I work my way through the crowd, bodies parting as I close the distance between me and the front of the stage. One of the announcers, a pretty brunette in her thirties spies me, and she points. “There he is. Our second Maxwell, Reid Maxwell himself.” Clapping ensues because all of these people have had a great deal of wine and can’t wait to bid on a date with someone they do not even know.
I walk up the stairs and take my place with another half-dozen men, next to Gabe who leans close and says, “That bottle of whiskey is going to be oh so good.”
My lips quirk. “How many women did you promise an orgasm to drive up your bids?”
“Only the one I want to win,” he assures me with a laugh.
The bidding starts, and fuck me, I’m going to be last, which leaves me on this stage forever. “Opening bids are five thousand dollars,” the announcer explains. “This is for the children. And so, let the bidding begin.”
Bachelor number one goes for ten thousand. Number two for five. Lucky bastard number seven goes to the same eighty-year-old grandma that helped Gabe to the stage, and for a whopping forty-five thousand. “You should have promised her an orgasm,” I murmur to Gabe.
“Obviously,” he chuckles. “But if my woman of choice wins, I’ll let you keep the whiskey, with no complaint.”
“And now,” the announcer says, “the Maxwell brothers. Hunk number one, Gabe Maxwell. Do I have a five-thousand-dollar bid?”
“Twenty thousand,” comes a soft female voice, and my gaze lands on a pretty redhead in the front row.
“And there she is,” Gabe says. “Sold for twenty thousand.”
“Twenty-five!” comes another bid.
The redhead shakes her head. She can’t do it. Gabe looks at her and nods, telling her he’ll pay. She smiles and says, “Twenty-six!”
And that wins. Gabe is sold for twenty-six.
“You got your woman and it only cost you twenty-six thousand dollars,” I say.
“All to help the children,” he says, heading down the stage to claim his woman.
“And finally, our last man of the night,” the announcer says. “Reid Maxwell.” She runs down my stats. “Thirty-eight, six-foot-two, and two hundred pounds of pure hotness.”
I need another whiskey, and to throttle my sister, I think, as the woman adds, “A corporate attorney known as a killer in and out of the courtroom. Do we have a five-thousand-dollar bid?”
“Right here,” a woman proclaims, stepping directly in front of me, and holy hell, she’s stunning. I soak her in, her knee-length emerald green dress hugging every one of her perfect, slender curves, while her ample cleavage offers me one of her many distractions.
“Ten thousand!” someone shouts.
The woman in emerald steps closer and her eyes hold mine. “Twenty,” she says, speaking to me, not the announcer.
“Twenty-five,” someone else says.
“Fifty,” my little temptress retorts, and she is a temptress up to no good. I see it in her eyes. She wants me to see it, dares me to do something about it.
“Do we have a bid for fifty-five?” the announcer calls out.
There is a silent moment or two, or it could be ten. I don’t know. I’m too focused on this woman still standing directly in front of me, contemplating how many ways I can fuck her to figure her out, when I hear, “Sold to the woman in green for fifty thousand dollars, and the highest bid of the night.”
I don’t move, and neither does my new date. I have this sense I know her. She’s familiar and yet, she is not. This isn’t a simple auction and a donation to charity. This is a game of some sorts, and she’s confident enough in her ability to win to bid fifty thousand dollars.
She’s wrong.
I’ll win, but I’ll make sure she enjoys every second.
Chapter Two
Reid
I’m still stuck on the stage, listening to the auctioneer, Evelyn I believe she said was her name, ramble off donation data, among various other topics that no one wants to hear when they are laden with drinks, food, and fun. I watch my new date step to the sidelines and accept a glass of champagne from a waiter, resting her elbow on a standing table. She sips from the beverage, her eyes on me as mine are on her, and even with me up here and her down there, the edge of mystery and sexual tension between us is palpable.
Finally, Evelyn declares it is “time to fill the dance floor” and soft piano music begins to play. Ready to let this little game with my emerald princess take flight, those primal, hunter urges that ignite me both in work and play crank up to full force, and I turn to exit the stage, only to have Evelyn call out, “Mr. Maxwell!”
/> I grit my teeth, forcing myself to stop and face her. “Yes, Evelyn?”
“Stay, please. We’re going to have all the bachelors and their dates in several photos.” She motions to my new date to join us.
My date shakes her head, declining decisively. I like this woman already. Evelyn grimaces and looks at me. “Can you please go convince her to join us?”
“The lady paid fifty thousand dollars,” I say. “Do we really want to make her uncomfortable enough to decline to do so on another occasion?”
Evelyn’s lips clamp shut for all of two seconds. “Point well taken, but please ask her again, Mr. Maxwell. Obviously, you have some sort of influence with her.”
Indeed, I do, I think, and I want to know what and why. “What’s her name?”
“I have no idea. You can ask her while we take photos.”
“I think she’s made her point. No pictures.” I don’t wait for Evelyn’s reply. I head toward the end of the stage and waste no time walking down the stairs.
I approach my emerald princess where she stands, stepping close enough to smell her rose-scented perfume, and confirm she’s stunning up close and personal while her eyes match her emerald dress perfectly. Eyes filled with challenge as she says, “We can either call this date over,” she downs her champagne and sets it on the table, a droplet of the liquid pearling on her pink painted lips, that begs to be licked away, “or,” she says, “we can go to my room. Choose now.”
“Is that really a question?”
“I thought you might be afraid to go to a stranger’s room,” she replies.
“We both know you didn’t think I was afraid to go to your room, but it certainly makes for amusing verbal fodder.”
A flicker of admiration stirs in the depths of her beautiful eyes, which she quickly banks as if she doesn’t want me to know it’s there. Interesting, considering she paid fifty thousand dollars for a date with me. I’m about to tell her to lead the way to her room when she turns and starts walking away. She’s forcing me to follow, a challenge that for most wouldn’t work. I’d turn and leave, and pick another, but she’s stirred my curiosity in a way few do these days. I want to know what she’s about. I want to know what is under that dress. I want a lot of things where she’s concerned, and all before I even know her name.