Pretty, Dark and Dirty: A Forbidden Romance Read online

  Pretty, Dark and Dirty

  By Margot Scott

  ©2020 Margot Scott

  Edited by Kathleen Payne

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental. All characters are productions of the author’s imagination.

  This work is intended for adults aged eighteen and older.

  Some lines should never be crossed.

  But sometimes the temptation is too good to resist…

  Mason Black was everything to me: my father, my provider, my protector. But then one day, he vanished, leaving me lost and alone.

  I was devastated.

  Years later, just when I thought I had put the pieces of my life together, my world splintered apart again. Everything I thought I knew about my biological father and Mason’s role in my life? Turns out, it was all a lie.

  Every. Last. Word.

  Now Mason’s back. However, he offers no excuses, no explanations. He just wants me to be what he claims I’ve always been: his little girl.

  But the ache inside me won’t be denied. The longing I feel isn’t one of a little girl who misses her father.

  No. I need Mason to be more than just a father figure. More than a loving protector.

  I need him to be my Daddy.

  Author’s Note

  Please be aware that this novella contains detailed depictions of sexual activity within a highly taboo older man/younger woman relationship, in addition to brief discussions of past sexual abuse.

  Like my Quick and Dirty Reads, it features a guaranteed melt-your-heart ending. However, unlike those shorter stories, this book is NOT a light-hearted romp.

  The word “Dark” is in the title for a reason, folks.

  Please read responsibly.

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  Contents

  Pretty, Dark and Dirty

  ©2020 Margot Scott

  Author’s Note

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  Playlist

  Also Available from Margot Scott

  About the Author

  Prologue

  When I was little, I suffered from frequent night terrors that led to a fear of sleeping with my back exposed. My father, awoken by my cries, would lift me from my crib and carry me in to sleep between my parents in their already too-cramped bed.

  I don’t recall the nightmares, but if I close my eyes, I can still feel the weight of my father’s arm around me, and the solid presence of his chest against my back. The vague awareness of feeling safe, warm, and protected.

  These days, I no longer need to close my eyes to remember how it felt to be loved.

  I have only to slide my hand across the sheet to find another hand reaching out for me, or whisper, Daddy, in the dark to feel his arms enfolding me.

  I came to the city in search of answers. What I found was a love I couldn’t have known, had the truth been made plain to me from the start.

  And had I known the price Mason and I would pay in my pursuit of the truth, I’m not sure I would’ve climbed on that bus—

  But I did, and there’s no going back now, for either of us.

  Chapter One

  I’ll never forget the first time I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I was four years old, holding my mother’s hand in front of an immense portrait of George Washington. My toes pinched in my bunny-rabbit sneakers after hours of wandering through galleries, and I couldn’t stop squirming in my itchy denim overalls.

  Exasperated, my mother turned to my father and said, “Mason, just take her.”

  He hoisted me up and carried me off to the Egyptian wing, past the reflecting pool and into the Temple of Dendur.

  “Look, Jetty,” he’d said, using his nickname for me. My gaze followed his finger to the remains of a small statue encased in glass. “That’s the priestess Tagerem, God’s Wife to the Egyptian sun god Ra.”

  “What’s a Ra?” I asked.

  “One of the most powerful gods in all of Egypt. He rides a chariot across the sky during the day, making the world bright.”

  At the time, it had made perfect sense to me, because I knew men could be gods. My father was surely a god, for he was the star around which my entire world revolved. I beheld his kingdom from atop his strong, broad shoulders. Up there, it was possible to witness things that would’ve otherwise gone unnoticed by one so small.

  Standing in more or less the same spot fourteen years later, I wondered if knowing the truth—that Mason wasn’t my real father—would’ve made a difference. Most likely not. When you’re young, you’ll accept almost anything as normal. And back then, Mason Black had been my everything.

  Who the hell was I kidding? Long after he’d abandoned me at the age of twelve, he was still my everything.

  I would have gladly gone to the grave believing he was my flesh and blood. It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that I learned the truth about him, but the damage had already been done. He'd broken my heart into a thousand pieces by leaving me six years ago; what was a few hundred more?

  Rising onto my toes, I craned my neck to scan the blockade of onlookers by the temple wall. Mason had warned me that weekends at the Met could be crowded, and crowded was an understatement. My bus arrived at Grand Central Terminal a few minutes after I was supposed to meet him in the lobby. By the time I joined a ticket line, I was already twenty minutes late.

  I looked for him at the information kiosk, and when I didn’t see him, I sent a text. Ten minutes and zero responses later, I headed into the Egyptian wing in the hopes that he’d gotten bored and gone inside without me.

  That was half an hour ago.

  Abandoning the temple, I took a seat on the stone lip beside the reflecting pool and pulled out my phone. No new messages. My foot took to bouncing; I was starting to freak out. It was possible Mason had left his phone at home, or forgotten to charge it. He probably thought I’d stood him up.

  Or, far more likely, he hadn’t shown up at all.

  As far as I was aware, Mason had no idea I was privy to the fact that he wasn’t my father. I was both dreading and anticipating his reaction when I confronted him about knowing the truth. Well, half the truth. I still didn’t know who my real father was, only that Mason wasn’t it. I hoped he might be able to shed some light on the subject, or at least be able to point me in the right direction so I could find him for myself.

  But first, I had to find Mason.

  With no other way to contact him and nowhere else to go, I was starting to get anxious. His address was unlisted. I didn’t know anyone else in New York City, and the money in my bag wasn’t enough to cover another bus ticket, plus food. There had to be an ATM somewhere in the museum. I’d hoped to save the bulk of my high-school graduation money, but if push came to shove, I supposed I
could use some of it to rent a cheap hotel room or a bed at a youth hostel.

  I was about to send Mason another text when I heard an unmistakable gasp from the chorus of soccer moms idling nearby. I could almost smell their arousal.

  The throng of women parted, and there he stood, daylight bursting through the clouds. I had to crane my neck a little to see all of him. He was taller than I remembered, and broader, his shirt hugging the muscles in his chest like a second skin.

  My breath caught in my chest as I met his gaze. Mason was the sort of handsome that made people’s necks snap as he passed, the kind you had to rub your eyes to believe. My mother used to say he didn’t just make art, he was art. A walking, talking, living, breathing work of art.

  He was the sun. It hurt to look at him.

  “Hey Jetty,” Mason said.

  Smoothing my lychee-scented lip balm, I curtailed my grin into a modest smile.

  “It’s actually just Jett now,” I said.

  “Mind if I sit down, Just Jett?”

  I smiled at his dad joke as he took a seat on the stone bench beside me. I was at a loss for words, but it didn’t seem to matter. Mason’s smile was as warm as midsummer, his hazel eyes tinged gold. Not a smirk of pretense or a squint of disenchantment to be found. Just wonder, pure and refreshing like a mouthful of ice water.

  I swallowed, forcing my affection down. It was far too soon and six years too late to be thinking such thoughts about a man who had lied to me for over a decade and then disappeared without a trace. I may have come all the way from New Hampshire to see him, but I didn’t want him to think this would be easy.

  “Have you been here long?” I asked matter-of-factly.

  “About an hour.”

  I winced. “Sorry. My bus was late. Didn’t you get my texts?”

  “I did.” He scratched at the stubble along his jaw, drawing attention to his shirtsleeves. They’d been folded up to reveal the network of veins that snaked his arms like tributaries. I used to trace those veins with magic marker, all the way up to his shoulders, transforming his arm into a map of the Nile River.

  “I decided to walk around in case you’d already come in,” I said.

  “I know. I watched you buy your ticket.”

  I leaned back to look at his face. “That was like, an hour ago.”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “I wanted to look at you.”

  My cheeks burned. As a rich and famous portrait artist, Mason had turned people-watching into a vocation. He used to draw me all the time when I was little, but just then I found his gaze unnerving, like the phantom sensation of having to pee before a performance. His scrutiny pared at my composure, and I was afraid he’d scrape away the layers only to be disappointed by what he found inside.

  “See anything interesting?” I asked, keeping my tone light.

  Mason cocked his head to study me. He seemed to be weighing his words. “Your hair’s a lot darker than I remember. And you’re taller, but that makes sense, considering how long it’s been.”

  I wanted to ask him why it’d been so long. But he looked so pleased to see me, I didn’t want to ruin the mood. I was already predicting an awkward conversation once I revealed my true motivations for this visit.

  Mason and my mom had never married, but she’d given me his last name: Black. I have vague memories of him living with us when I was little, before the two of them broke up. Mason moved into his own apartment, and I spent nearly every weekend at his place, until the day he left. If I hadn’t stumbled across a number in my mom’s contacts, marked only with the letters MB, and sent a quick text from my own phone after downing one too many post-graduation tequila shots, he’d still be nothing but a memory.

  “Your hair used to cover your ears,” I said, still at a loss for any topic of substance. “It looks good short.”

  His mouth quirked up at the corners.

  “So do you, Jett.”

  He nudged my arm and then waited, probably to see if I’d nudge him back. If I did, it would mean he could touch me.

  I held my breath and nudged him.

  Mason pulled me into a side hug, his big hand gently squeezing my shoulder. Pressed so close together, I couldn’t help feeling comforted by his sturdiness and the pleasing scent of his clothes.

  Over the next few hours we made our way through the American galleries, tethered it seemed by an invisible thread. I kept close, lured by the thrill of simply basking in his presence. Every now and then, he would pause to point out something about composition, or to shake the hand of yet another fan who recognized him as the Mason Black.

  Rather than dine at one of the museum restaurants, Mason insisted I let him take me to his favorite Italian place with the good breadsticks. I could tell he was keeping a leisurely pace for my benefit, letting me soak in the sights and sounds and smells of the city. It’d been years since I’d visited Manhattan, and I missed it. Everything about it. The rush and the thrum and the weight of it.

  The host at the restaurant recognized Mason and seated us at once. A few of the patrons eyed us curiously. I found the attention unnerving, but Mason appeared used to it. Not long ago, Art in America had dubbed him The Modern-day Egon Schiele for his contour line drawings of sex workers with their children. But the work that’d made him super famous was a series of frankly intimate paintings titled The Family in Repose: a father, mother, and their twin sons, cooking breakfast, clipping toenails, checking email, changing their socks. He’d lived with the family for two years, quietly observing.

  Two years invested in a family that wasn’t his own.

  The host seated us at a quiet table in the back corner, away from prying eyes. Still, even the waiter seemed mildly starstruck as he took our orders. I couldn’t blame him. When Mason’s work started gaining traction a few years after he disappeared, I became obsessed. In place of concert posters on my walls, I had prints of Mason’s paintings. Surrounding myself with his art allowed me to pretend he was still part of my life.

  I followed his career with the zeal of a fangirl lusting after her favorite pop star. It was his genius that inspired me to pick up a paintbrush. As it turned out, I, too, had a knack for visual art—a knack that turned into a passion that led to an acceptance into New York University’s studio art program.

  Mason had been quick to jump on my thinly-veiled request for a trip into the city, going so far as to invite me to spend the summer painting in his private studio—an opportunity of a lifetime for any wannabe professional artist, but an even more monumental break for me. It was my chance to reconnect with the man whose love of art had rooted itself in me from the very beginning.

  However, most importantly, it was my chance to get some answers about why he’d deceived me.

  By the time our food arrived, piled high and piping hot, I was ravenous. He’d been right about the breadsticks. Over the next hour, we ate and talked about his works in progress and my plans for college. As eager as I was to confront him, I decided not to push for answers just yet. Whether it was pent-up resentment or the mystery surrounding Mason that made him seem so alluring, all I knew was that being around him made me feel needy in a way I wasn’t used to.

  “You still hate peas,” he said, looking amused. I’d forgotten to ask for no peas in my gnocchi, and I was avoiding his gaze by pushing the little green globes around my plate. “Your mother always hated them, too.”

  “I know,” I said. I suspected that was the reason she never forced me to eat them.

  He pushed his own empty plate away. “How is Gretchen doing?”

  It was strange, hearing my mother’s name fall from his lips after all this time.

  “She’s good.”

  “Still seeing the podiatrist?”

  I shook my head. “He’s been gone for a while. The guy she’s dating now is a complete corporate stooge.”

  “You don’t like him?”

  I shrugged. “He’s nice, in a back-to-you-Tom sort of way.”

  “Does he wear themed ti
es?”

  “Yeah, but he saves the really dorky ones for special occasions.” It occurred to me that I couldn’t recall ever seeing Mason in a tie. His style had always consisted of jeans and paint-stained tees with the occasional sweater. Today was no exception. "He’s good to her, if that’s what you’re getting at."

  "I'm more concerned with whether he’s good to you."

  “We tolerate each other.” I tore off a hunk of garlic bread and swiped it through the sauce on my plate, cutting a clean line through the red. “So much curiosity about Mom’s love life. You must miss her.”

  Mason didn’t respond right away. “I’ll always care about your mother.”

  I sensed his hesitation. “But?”

  He shrugged. “But I’m sure I don’t have to tell you she’s guarded. It’s hard being close to someone who hides so much of themselves from you.”

  Almost as hard as staying close to someone who disappears from your life altogether, I thought.

  Still, I nodded in understanding. For as long as I could remember, my mother kept secrets, sometimes for no apparent reason. I knew next to nothing about her background, only that she’d had me when she was very young. Once, she let it slip that she’d grown up in a big, old house in Virginia with half a dozen bathrooms and twice as many fireplaces. When I asked if we could go see it someday, she immediately changed the subject.

  “I’m the complete opposite,” I said, freeing an elastic from my wrist. “Can’t hold back to save my life, for better or worse.”

  “I’d say for the better.”

  His gaze tracked my fingers as I plaited my dark locks into a manageable braid.

  “You’re even more beautiful than I remember,” he said.

  Something like gratification trilled through me before I could tamp it down.

  “Um, thanks.”

  The force of his stare and the intensity behind it made my pulse stutter. For a brief moment, I imagined holding his fingers to my throat so he could feel the rampant beat.