The Dirty Series 2(99)

Another message.

Jess is married to an actual prince—king now, I guess. They’re in town, and there are parties. Come out with us.

I don’t know why the hell Eli Pierce would text me out of the blue, years after we last talked—was it college? I can’t remember—and invite me to a party, but maybe I don’t care.

With the movie paused, the silence of the penthouse is so deafening that it presses against my eardrums. My jaw tightens just thinking of how much more life there would be here if Elisa was with me. If she was still in the world. If the rest of my life wasn’t going to be consumed with vicious lies and speculations about what happened between us in Italy.

Damn it, Ace, you cannot let that take over the rest of your life.

I have to face the outside world someday, or else—or else what’s the alternative? That I rot in this penthouse? That I finally go back to the penthouse on the Upper East Side and rot there instead, a billionaire hermit who reduces all those years of working out in the gym turn to flab?

What the fuck is the point of my life then?

Does it even really matter if Eli Pierce has some kind of agenda? I doubt that he does, although my last impression of him is probably 10 years old at this point. And the Swan—an exclusive place like that, with membership fees so high they’d make a normal man’s eyes bleed, isn’t going to be swarming with paparazzi. Whispers, maybe. Photographers, no. They’ll have security to keep them on the outside.

The elevator door opens, admitting the butler, who’s wheeling in another tray. I stare at him for a second. Right. Dessert.

My life cannot be reduced to room service, even if it’s the best, most lavish room service New York City has to offer.

At the same time, I don’t want to seem like I’m fucking desperate. Even if it’s the truth.

I could probably make it.

Be there at 9.

My escape from this gold-lined prison is set in motion.





Chapter Five





Carolyn



The minute I step into the lobby of the Swan on Friday night—after another week at the boutique, surreptitiously checking in on Rainflower Blue in between choosing some new winter items and chatting with Natalie—Jess comes flying up to me, hooking her arm through mine and chatting a mile a minute as she leads me to the same table we were seated at last week.

“You’re finally here! I’ve been waiting for you to get here—Alec got here before me, so he’s already at the table….”

I nod at all the right times, but my focus is really on the room—on the rumors circulating about.

There’s been a little buzz on the site about Ace Kingsley, but everybody’s being pretty cagey about the reason for all the excitement. It can’t be that he’s rich. Every site member is ultra-wealthy or wealthy by association—I know, because I leak information about it very, very carefully. You have to separate the wheat from the chaff on sites like these.

I checked my ad revenue before I left to come to the Swan, and not for the first time my stomach tightened. Most days, I don’t have any qualms about profiting off of my acquaintances’ gossip. In fact, it’s practically a public service. I do my best to prove or disprove the heaviest and juiciest rumors using my admin account, username Magnolia.

I do it so other women don’t have to suffer, wondering, like I did—and I only touch the rumors that matter.

It’s a fine line, obviously. There’s almost never 100 percent proof of someone’s guilt or innocence when it comes to cheating or other harmful activities, which is the kind of rumor that sets my alarm bells off…and brings in visitors to the site faster than you can say boo.

There’s a strange intensity to the energy in the Swan’s main dining room tonight, even more vocal, more pronounced than last Friday. Heads are turning, trying to be discreet and failing, and I follow their eyes….

Directly to the table we’re heading towards.

He’s sitting next to Eli Pierce.

My stomach drops straight into my toes, and my nerves light up on fire at the sight of him.

Broad shoulders sheathed in a perfectly tailored suit; gray eyes that cut across the space separating us, locking on mine; a chin that could cut diamonds. He leans to the left, eyes never once leaving mine, and my eyes trace the line of the muscled arms hidden beneath the fabric of his dark suit.

The sound of the chatter, of silverware clinking against plates, of the band, fades out like I’m underwater.

My breath catches in my throat.

Holy shit.

Who is this man, and what do I have to do to go home with him?

It’s been too long since I last enjoyed myself with a man, and I want this one. Him. Who is he? Who is he?