Dirty Little Secret (Dirty #1) (2 page)

MELISSA

If I had to pinpoint an exact moment when it all started to go down downhill, I would say it was the second I was born.
 

After all, when you're a surprise baby, dropped into someone else’s already perfect life, you
really have nowhere to go but down.  And when that perfect life is already twenty years in, and your parents are thinking about college funds for their matching set of teenagers (one boy, one girl - it doesn’t get any better, right?) and they’ve been looking at RRSPs instead of bassinets…Well.  You see what’s going to happen.

In
my case, this also included an underwear model of a brother, and sister who was once a pro-cheerleader for a major league football team that I won't bother to name.  Oh, and my mom was a part of a premier, nouveau rich, politically connected family, and my dad was an ad exec, pulling a seven figure salary.  Did I mention that?  No?  Well, there you go. 

My life was basically one big
opportunity to mess stuff up. 

But somehow, I’d always managed to avoid the mess
.  Maybe I had an innately protective exterior.  Like a turtle.  Or maybe I hadn’t yet had the proper motivation.  I mean, who wants to mess up a trust fund and a free ride?

Either way,
the first twenty point nine, nine years of my life, I managed to bypass the expectations of failure.  And that's saying something.

In fact, I groomed myself into the perfect child.  The good girl. The perfect example of
how an afterthought might just – maybe, baby – turn out okay.  A four point oh GPA in high school.  Scholarship to an Ivy League School.  Handsome boyfriend with impressive biceps, who knew and respected my rule about not getting past second base.  Two years of college under my belt, life (and hymen) still intact, and every reason to think it was going to keep going that way.

I was like…Nice wallpaper.  Guests admired me as they came in the door, but f
orgot about me pretty quickly.

But then
came the chai.  A turning point, if you will.

And the incident with the truck, of course.
 The straw that broke the camel’s back.  Because if I'm being honest, until that second I think I could've got back up on that metaphorical horse and kept going. 

Looking back, I might ask myself why the hell I didn't.

Of course, I’m getting ahead of myself here.  I should start with the pre-chai, pre-truck bomb that landed in my lap on that morning of my twenty-first birthday, before the chai-truck day.  Please.  Don’t make a bigger deal of it than it is.  By the time of the chai-truck moment, I’d had a full five days to acclimatize.  In my world, near-to-a-week to come to terms with something was more than enough time.  I was an
expert
at ironing out wrinkles.  It was my thing.

So
when I found out
The News
,
I evaluated whether or not I needed to change the direction my life was headed.  And I made the choice to keep on my straight and narrow path.  Who I am and who I would become weren’t related to my parentage.  Not
really
really.

And I’m ahead of myself again.
  Big sigh.

Let me back it up and
start with Monday morning.

I was sitting in the middle
of my parents’ over-sized great-room, looking at fabric swatches for pillows for their sofas, and waiting for brunch to be served. 

My mom did
brunches.  And fundraisers.  The occasional cocktail party.  But she didn’t do big birthday celebrations, not for as long as I could remember, not even when I was a kid.  There wouldn’t be cake, or gifts, or any acknowledgement that it was my birthday aside from a check.  Which I would invest in a designer purse.

Later, I’d go home to my apartment, and celebrate a little bit in my own way.  My roommate, Shelby would
have a low-fat muffin waiting, topped with a dollop of sugar-free icing and a candle.  My boyfriend, Danny would come by after baseball practice and catch me up on the team gossip.

But
at that moment, it was just the two of us - Mom and me. 

As always, my dad was at work.  My brother Garret, who was eighteen when I was born, lived in the UK, where he
now directed commercials instead of acting in them.  My sister, Julie, who was sixteen years older than I was, lived nearby, but had three kids of her own, and we’d never been close.

Mom handed me a cup of coffee and gave me her usual dry kiss.  I braced myself for an observation on how I was getting too fat, or too thin, or that my shirt washed out my skin, or a comment on whatever it was that she currently didn’t approve of. 

For the record, I would smile and take it, then move on, not just because I was cheerful and it was my birthday and the last week of spring semester, but because that was the nature of our relationship.

Mom opened her mouth, “Those pants
–“

The doorbell rang, cutting her off, and I jumped up to answer it without being asked.  That’s the kind of daughter
I’ve always been.  Dutiful.  Helpful.  Probably some other “fuls”, too, if I thought about it. 

So I opened the door, smiled politely at the courier, confirmed that I was, indeed, Melissa Hanover, and signed on the digital dotted line. 

Receiving mail at my parents’ house wasn’t unusual.  I never bothered to change my address when Shelby and I got our place, so it didn’t seem odd to receive a package there.  And of course, it
was
my birthday.  So I opened it right then. 

Maybe I should’ve assumed
that someone in some mailroom somewhere had mislabelled the envelope.  Numbers and charts and stuff that looked straight out of a TV crime lab jumped up from the page, meaning nothing to me.  But when I frowned and flipped over to page two, my own name caught and held my eye.  I zeroed in on it.

I had to read the words three times before they made any kind of sense.

Paternity test for Melissa Hanover, confirmed.

My first instinct was utter puzzlement.  And maybe a small bit of disgust.  Had my mom had an aff
air?  Because if she had, then…Eww.

But the final page made things much more…I don’t want to say worse.  Interesting seems like too broad a
descriptor.  Maybe the most accurate thing to say is that the words on
that
page made things much more daytime-talk-show-worthy.

My sister – the long, lean, cheering machine, the super-mom with the hand-sewn Halloween costumes and the easy smile – was
my
mom.  My dad was some guy named Andrew Linozzo.

To say the bomb dropped doesn’t accurately describe my feelings.  My knees gave
way, and I landed with a thump in my mom’s marble foyer. (No, wait.  She was my grandmother, wasn’t she? How was I going to adjust to that?  Ever?)

It took me several long minutes to pull myself together, and when I at last made my way back to the living room on shaking legs, and shoved the paperwork in her face, she just sipped her cappuccino and asked me to pass the sugar.

“What is this?” I choked out.

“Exactly what it looks like.”

“It looks like I just walked into a soap opera.”

For one second, my mom was speechless.  It was probably the most rebellious, sarcastic thing I’d ever said.  But I didn’t take it back or apologize.  I just waited.

My mom sighed. “It’s not as sordid as you think. It was a practical decision intended to protect everyone’s best interests.”

I tried to come up with a fair question.  One that wouldn’t challenge her logic.  Which was irrefutable as always.  I settled on the most obvious
line of inquiry.

“Who is Andrew Linozzo?”

“Who
was
Andrew Linozzo,” she corrected. “He’s dead.”

“
My father is
dead
?”

I do
n’t know why that revelation hit me the way it did.  He was a man I had never met.  He was a man I never even knew existed. 

Still,
I slumped down onto the couch, and my mom finally seemed to notice that I wasn’t quite as blasé about the whole thing as she was.

“He was not a
father
,” she told me. “He was a deadbeat who seduced your sister when she was in her junior year of high school. He went to jail, where he unceremoniously died.”

“That’s…” I trailed off, unable to find an appropriate word. “Sad.”
 

“It’s not sad in the way you’re implying.” Her patience, always in short supply, was growing
even thinner. “It’s sad that I had to order that DNA test to prove something we already knew.”

“You ordered it?”

“Yes. The lawyers wanted some concrete evidence before they handed over the insurance check owed to you on your twenty-first birthday. I gave them a sample, they tested it, it was positive. You’ll see an increase in your bank statement over the next week.”

I opened my mouth.  I don’t know what I was going to ask, or say.  How much of an increaser?  I don’t want it, send it back.  Or maybe just…What that hell?!  But she cut me off with a cool smile.

“Let’s move on, shall we? The eggs are getting cold and you have an exam.”

That was it.  No screaming, no crying, no shaming.  Don’t tell your brother (uncle) or your sister’s (other) kids because it w
ill be upsetting for everyone.

I should’ve flipped out.  I should’ve asked questions, demanded answers, done…Something.  Instead, I passed the sugar and bit into my rubbery eggs.

Because I was the good girl, the one who did as I was told, without question.  And the tiny matter of who was my mom and who wasn’t…It wasn’t going to change that. 
Nothing
was going to change that.

Until the chai.  And of course, the truck.

CUTTER

Time to insert the very skinny piece of meat into the shit sandwich.

Friday.

It was a bonus day.  One that let me have both the day off work, and also off my otherwise housebound life to pursue something I actually cared about.

Which
meant I was nervous as hell.

I should spend more time talking about this.  About the meat.  About walking in to the college I’d once attended, and handing over the work sample, and watching as the Dean of Some-Important-Shit paused, gave me a solid once over
, then stuck out his hand, and said, “Sold.”

After all,
I’d finally accomplished something worthwhile.  In three weeks, they’d be cutting me a check for five grand.  I had the five hundred dollar deposit in my greedy fist, right then.  That was nothing to shake a stick at.  The best news about it?  I’d done it all on my fucking own.  In my own fucking way, too. 

So I should’ve been in a good mood,
and stayed that way, celebrating the fact that I wasn’t a self-fulfilling prophecy after all.  Giving myself a hundred mental high-fives. 

Unfortunately, that
was what I
was
doing as I walked out of the dean’s office. 

Maybe if I’d been my normal, tinged-with-bitterness self, things would’ve been fine.  Nope.  I had to be
a cheery-ass motherfucker.  Grinning and sipping on the spiced tea the dean’s secretary had popped into a to-go cup and insisted I take with me, while struggling to
not
drop my work samples.

Which is why
by the time I spotted the blonde, it was too late.  I crashed into her and her holier-than-thou self.

Yes, I
made that judgment about her before she even spoke, and I’m not even ashamed of it.

Everything in my arms went flying, and so did I,
and I caught a glimpse of her as my legs kicked out in front of me.

This is what she looked like on the outside.  Sunshine and spring
.  Glossy, hair-commercial locks, slicked back into a perfect ponytail.  Wide, blue eyes that brought to mind gingham and clear sky.  Red cheeks and a horrified expression on her face as barely-warm tea splashed over her enticingly ample chest.

Yes, she was fucking beautiful.

When my gaze sought hers, though, it was like I wasn’t even there.  Like I was dirt on the floor instead of a human being.  She just stared down at her pink, fuzzy sweater with her pink-frosted lips turned down.

I opened my mouth, not to apologize, but to tell her what she could do with that stupid-ass sweater.  She beat me to it.

“My sweater! It’s garbage.”

“Yep.” I smirked.

She didn’t notice.  In fact, she answered me as if I
had
apologized.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

Her eyes finally found me, but they didn’t linger long, and I wondered irritably what she saw that made her dismiss me so easily.  What kinds of things turned her off?  My too-long hair, maybe.  It should’ve been cut weeks ago, and she was the kind of girl who dug preppy, I could tell.  The rough look of my skin, definitely.  I worked for a living.  I didn’t sit behind a desk or manicure my hands or go to…the man-spa or wherever the fuck it was that pretty-boys went to get groomed. 
She would want everything I wasn't.  Everything I didn't want to be.

I wasn’t even sure why it pissed me off so badly.
  After all, it's not like anyone else had put me in my current position.  I was the one who landed myself in jail instead in my father’s law firm.  I was the one with something to prove.  I’d walked away from that life on purpose. 

I shoved myself to my feet, bent down to grab my belongings, and stood up again, prepared to tell her to go fuck herself.  Except she was already gone.  So was my good mood.

I stormed out to my truck, cursing the girl for wrecking my goddamned day, taking me from feeling good about my life, straight back to remembering everything I’d failed at.  All from a single, disdainful look in those fucking blue eyes.

  I tossed everything into the back, stepped on the gas, and peeled out of my parking spot.

And there she was.  Again.

S
tanding there in those ridiculous, hideously dull shoes that are supposed to somehow
miraculously
feed starving children, and her tits popping out of a low cut sparkly top.  My disgust level rose to an all-time high.  

She was
the most beautiful, heart-stopping piece of perfection I’d ever seen.

My res
entment spiked, and I had to do something.  Anything. 

I stepped on the gas
, and my brute of a truck lurched forward on a straight line toward her.  I was a little surprised at the depth of my fury.

After five, long, shitty-ass years of
dealing with the emotional fall-out of my own bad decisions, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that I could make another giant-sized, ill-informed one.  Then again, my own special brand of douche-baggery sometimes did startle even me.  

My dad’s voice dug at me. 
You always did have a shitty learning curve, son.  Should’ve stuck with the family business. You owed it to us
.  

Did he learn
that
in law school?  Fuck him and fuck that, I didn’t owe anybody anything.

So my foot pushed down, and my truck slammed forward through the mud, right toward the pretty blonde princess.
 

At the last second, I finally got a hold of myself, and hit the brakes. 

What came next was priceless.

An arc of muddy water envelop
ed her, coating her smug little face and her too-tight pants.  

Serves her right
.  

At the same time, though, I couldn’t help thinking about how I wouldn’t mind throwing her down in that mud and fucking the cute little pout right off her face.