Dirty Rich Cinderella Story Read online

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  All characters in this book are fiction and figments of the author’s imagination. www.lisareneejones.com

  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

  EPILOGUE

  EXCERPT FROM DIRTY RICH ONE NIGHT STAND

  EXCERPT FROM PULLED UNDER

  ALSO BY LISA RENEE JONES

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  Lori

  The first meeting…

  With an envelope in my hand and a garment bag to change clothes, I hurry inside the high-rise luxury building of Cat Summer. Cat being the pen behind the popular “Cat Does Crime” column as well as a New York Times Best Selling true crime writer that I’ve not only become part-time research assistant to, but has turned out to be an amazing friend. Rushing through the luxurious lobby, I past the security guard, who now knows me by name, and wave. A short elevator ride up and I’m at her door, knocking.

  She opens the door in jeans and a T-shirt with her blonde hair piled on top of her head. I hand her the envelope. “That’s all the information you needed on that shady PI that was working for the prosecutor in the Milton case you’re writing about.” I motion to my bag. “I need to change and get to my day job. I’m running late.”

  “Of course,” she says, hurrying back inside to allow me room to enter. “Come in and my God, Lori. I can’t believe you finished this research already.”

  “I knew it had to get done,” I call out, hurrying down the shiny hardwood floor and turning right before entering the bathroom to the right of the stairwell.

  I quickly toe-off my Keds, peel away my jeans and T-shirt, pull on a black pencil skirt, a black silk blouse, and a black jacket, before loosening my chestnut hair from its clip. I grab a chunk before I brush it and confirm that yes, thanks to my two hours behind the bar of a coffee shop, I indeed smell like the essence of coffee yet again this morning. I brush out my hair, spray it, apply lipstick and then finish off with a few pumps of jasmine perfume that seems to be the only scent that dilutes the coffee smell.

  “Was the door for me?” I hear Reese, Cat’s hot, hunky husband call out, apparently home rather than at work. But then, he works at home often I’ve found, because he’s working on his second co-written book with Cat.

  “It’s Lori,” Cat calls out.

  Once I’m done, I zip my bag back up, and now I’m ready for my research job at a law firm that at least gives me case work that is interesting. I exit to the hallway and Cat calls out, “In the kitchen.”

  I cut left and enter their stunning open living room wrapped in windows and turn right into the combined kitchen. “This is incredible work,” Cat says, from behind the gray granite island. “I want to talk about you doing more for me and about Stanford.”

  “I would love to do more work for you, but Stanford has to wait.”

  “You were top of your law class with six months to go when your mother had her stroke. She’s recovered. She’s gone back to work.”

  And we have a hundred thousand in bills, living in a crappy apartment our bills forced us into, but I don’t say that. It’s the one thing I haven’t shared with her as we’ve bonded these past six months over chocolate, popcorn, and long nights working. “I really have to get to work, but I love you. You know I do and I’m excited for how this project will turn out.”

  “Can you come by tonight?” she asks. “I really want to talk to you. Reese is having merger meetings here at the house, so we’ll have to go to the bar, but they have great coffee and cinnamon rolls.”

  “Reese is merging his company?”

  “An old school friend of his moved to Texas to take over his father’s massive firm. He’s in town and between the two of them, they’re plotting world domination. They’re meeting alone this morning, and then having advisors here tonight.”

  “Considering your husband is one of the top criminal attorneys in the country, that’s huge. And yes, I’d love to. My mother is working tonight, so I don’t have to worry about waking her up.”

  “Sounds like I’m not the only one trying to get you a life again.”

  “I’m going to work,” I say, picking up her cup of coffee and taking a sip, because nowadays it takes me about three cups in the morning to get to noon. “That’s good. You could be the coffee queen behind the counter,” I tease, before heading toward the door.

  “We’re going to talk about the coffee shop tonight!” she calls after me, but I don’t reply. She’s going to delve into my finances, and I can’t go there. I don’t want to be her charity case. I might work for her, but we’re also friends, and I want to stay friends.

  I head out of the apartment and it’s not long before I’m in the lobby, preparing for the short three-block walk to my daytime office. I exit to the busy street, and round the corner when I smack right into a hard chest. In any city other than New York City, a hard chest might sound pleasant, but here, hard could be dangerous, dirty, or just plain mean. With the impact, I jostle and drop my garment bag, and while I intend to pick it up before it’s trampled by the glut of morning walkers, I do not. Instead, I suck in air with the realization that there is a big hand on the waist of my skirt, and my palms are planted on a chest, on either side of a blue Burberry tie.

  “Are you okay?” he asks, probably because I’m leaning into him, like I can’t stand, not away from him as he’s obviously a stranger.

  “Yes,” I reply, when I should move, but instead, I blink into intense pale blue eyes framed by slightly wavy, finger-tousled, dark brown hair. “I’m f
ine,” I add, which is an understatement considering he smells like sandalwood, musk, and man, and I’m having the most sexual experience of the past two years of my life, on the street with a stranger. Oh God. What am I doing?

  “I’m okay,” I say again, shoving away from him, aware now that he’s not only tall, broad, and in an expensive suit, he’s handsome, cheeks chiseled, eyes not just beautiful but intelligent. Like half the men I went to law school with, but somehow, unlike any of them, which I can’t explain in my mind at this moment, so I don’t try.

  Seeking the safety of my bag, and senses, I squat down to grab it, only to have my morning destiny stranger do the same. He stares at me and I don’t move. I just squat there, in the middle of a New York City sidewalk, which could be dangerous, not to mention dirty, but I’m rattled and I don’t get rattled. Cat was right. I was top of my law school; back then I wasn’t a coffee queen, but rather the queen of taking down men just like him and yet I’m still not moving. Move, Lori! I scream in my head. “I need to get to get to work,” I say, reaching for my bag, but it’s too late.

  He grabs it and when I begin to stand, he catches my arm to help me to my feet, heat darting up my arm, and Lord help me, across my chest. I actually think my nipples tighten. Okay I don’t think, they do tighten. I don’t have time to recover before I find myself captured by his probing, compelling stare once more. “Let me buy you a cup of coffee,” he says, in what is more a command really than a question. “I did run into you,” he adds. “It’s the least I can do.”

  “I’m pretty sure we ran into each other,” I say, and he’s still holding my bag and me. Why am I letting him touch me? “You don’t owe me anything and I have to get to work.”

  I go for my bag. He holds onto it. “How can I reach you?”

  “I run into people at this very corner a few mornings a week,” I say, with an awkward laugh that is also not like me at all. “See you tomorrow?” Wind blows my long brown hair into my face, and to my horror, among other, more intimate physical reactions, he brushes it from my face.

  “I’m out of town tomorrow,” he says, his full, arrogant, sexy lips curving while his blue eyes spark with amusement. “How about tonight?”

  “No,” I say, because it’s the right answer. For me. For my mother. For now.

  “Then when?” he presses.

  “Another morning,” I say, stepping back from him, freeing myself of his touch, when I really don’t want to be free at all, but my life doesn’t allow a distraction like this man could easily become. “I really have to go,” I add firmly, grabbing my bag and side-stepping him and then darting away, in between two people, and then to the center of what feels like a huddle of bodies.

  I look over my shoulder and just like that, my stranger is gone. It’s for the best, and yet, I have the gnawing sense of regret, like I want a do over that I shouldn’t want at all. It’s not time for hot men, with blue eyes and hard bodies. Correction, intelligent, blue eyes. They were intelligent, and brains make beauty sexy, but that’s irrelevant. I will not be meeting him on that corner again. It’s done. I can’t go back even if I wanted to.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Lori

  I end my day job in the center of a file room of a law office that is established and respected, but unlike Cat’s husband, the partners here don’t want to grow. Therefore, they don’t need someone like me to be more than I am at present: a clerk. For now, that works for me. I don’t want to be at a firm that might represent my future when I can’t give all that I have to give to become a success. I simply can’t work eighty-hour weeks for a limited income to pay my dues right now. At least I’m learning with every case I research here and with Cat. I’m staying fresh. I’m staying ready to be on game when I return to Stanford. Or finish at NYU or whatever I have to do to just get that degree.

  With the offices already dimmed, I store my garment bag in a closet at the back of the file room on my way out. I just don’t have it in me to carry it to Cat’s and then on the subway home tonight because while Cat lives near my workplace, my mother and I cannot afford a place anywhere near this neighborhood. I exit the building that is on the opposite side of the courthouse from Cat and Reese’s building, and start walking, dialing my mother as I do. She answers on the second ring.

  “How are you?” I ask.

  “Stop worrying about me,” she chides. “I’m feeling good.”

  “It’s only your first week back to work,” I say. “I hate they put you back on night shift.”

  “I’m just glad to be back,” she says. “It’s time for you to get back to you.”

  “Not yet,” I tell her. “I’m working late.”

  “You work early, and you work late,” she says. “We need to talk about you, daughter. We’re going to the next time I can actually get us in the same house.”

  First Cat, and now my mother, I think. “I love you,” I say. “Let’s leave it at that for now, okay?”

  “I love you, too,” she whispers. “So much, honey. I gotta go.”

  She hangs up and I slide my phone into my oversized Coach handbag that serves as both briefcase and purse; a gift from my father when I started Stanford. It’s not a Louis Vuitton, he’d said. But it’s a start. You’ll have to buy the Louis with all the lawyer money you’ll make. He’d been a contractor, who’d worked us up to middle class New York City with a healthy college fund that made my partial ride to Stanford enough to get me in. Only we weren’t as well off as I’d thought. He’d died of a stroke six months before my mother’s stroke, which she is thankfully recovering from, and even with his life insurance, it left us nearly bankrupt. I start replaying those days in my head, and it’s not a good place for me. Not a good place at all. I’m strong, but every once in a while, like now, it’s quicksand, and I don’t even realize I’ve finished my walk until I’m standing in front of Cat and Reese’s building.

  Inhaling, I mentally step out of that pit of hell. My father is gone. I can’t change that. My mother is healing. Another six months and I’ll get back to school, even if it’s not Stanford, and at least get a diploma. I run my hands over my black skirt, and ensure all is in order, tugging on my jacket for extra measure. Then I do what I do. I step out of one world and force myself into another. I open the door and enter the lobby, glancing at the time on my phone that tells me that I’m on time.

  I cut right toward the bar and enter the dimly lit, rather cozy spot, that is usually a madhouse of attorneys and courthouse personnel, which is why Cat and I have never once visited together. At the present eight o’clock hour, however, it’s calm, only a cluster of random people scattered around the circular bar in cozy leather seats. Cat stands up from a corner table and motions me toward her. She’s dressed in a red suit dress, when a day at home for her usually means jeans.

  I weave through tables, and I have no idea why, but I have butterflies. It’s Cat. This is my job. She’s my friend. Unless…she wanted to talk about my future and now she’s firing me. I almost laugh at myself. That’s insane. She’s not firing me. Where did that idea come from? And she certainly wouldn’t dress up to fire me or do it in public.

  “Why are you all dressed up?” I ask, settling at the table with her.

  “Because fifteen minutes ago, Reese called. He’s at dinner with the CEO of Mellatag and wants me to join him.”

  “As in the CEO of the biggest tech company on the planet?”

  “Yes. The same CEO that Reese represented when he was accused of murdering the CFO, when it turned out it was the CFO’s wife. He apparently finally decided he wants to write his story. He wants me to co-write it with him, but he’s headed out of the country and wants to see me now.”

  “Oh. Well yay and this,” I say, gesturing between us, “can wait.”

  “Except I have something to tell you and I couldn’t wait.”

  “You’re firing me.”

  She laughs. “What? No. Are you crazy? Why would I fire you? God. I wish I ha
d time to find out why your head is in the place it’s obviously in right now. But instead, let me give you something better to think about.”

  “What kind of better?”

  “I have to talk fast so bear with me as I just rattle off a ton of information.” I nod, and she continues, “There’s a legal consortium that picks the brightest of the brightest to receive a full scholarship award. That includes school, living expenses, and a paid internship at one of the firms sponsoring the consortium. There’s a rotation between firms so you won’t get a choice. It’s like a draft of sorts. The process to get picked is rigorous, probably six months, but Reese is good friends with one of the key board members. We recommended you. They’re very interested in receiving your application.”

  I blanch. I can’t breathe. Then I think I’m breathing too heavy. “I—it sounds wonderful and I’m honored, but I don’t think I could afford to take it. Living expenses in these types of programs usually aren’t enough and the internship is the same. Low pay. I can’t—”

  “It comes with a lump sum of a hundred thousand dollars, split in half, at the beginning of the program and the end. And you only have nine months of school left.”

  My hands flatten on the table. “Oh my God.”

  “I know. It’s wonderful. They only pick one a year, though, but we’re going to make it you.”

  “Surely they want to pay that hundred thousand out over three years, not nine months.”

  “Actually,” she says. “The first reaction was really positive. They’d be investing in someone who has a proven track record at an Ivy League school, but they’d want you to finish at Yale so you’d be a short drive or train ride from the offices. I have more details, but I have to go.”

  “Yes. Okay. Have I told you I love you?”

  She smiles. “I love you, too, woman.” We stand up and she hugs me. “My mom died of a stroke,” she whispers in my ear. “My father almost did.” She leans back to look at me. “Soul sisters. We were meant to meet, and this opportunity is meant to happen to you. Eat dinner. On my tab, because I owe you for that research you did this morning. And take a to-go order to your mother.” She doesn’t wait for a reply. She rushes away.