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Vaughn? It must be him. Do I want to answer it?

I roll my eyes and sigh. As if there was ever any question.

I get up just as the second knock comes, and straighten my tank top. I have no bra on, and my girls are perky, but this morning he fucked me in the woods, so whatever. I walk over to the door slowly to make him wait, and then twist the handle and pull it open.

It’s a woman.

No, I take that back. It’s a girl. College-age maybe, and she’s dressed up in a tan skirt suit with a ruffly white blouse peeking through her cropped blazer.

OK, what the hell is this? “Can I help you?” I ask in my most annoyed voice.

She smiles stiffly at me, like she’s some kind of uptight librarian. Her hair is pulled back in a severe bun like a ballerina might wear, her jewelry is large and gaudy like a grandma might wear, and her suit skirt is too short. A micro mini. “Ma’am,” she says, “Mr. Asher asked me to drop off your paperwork. He’d like me to notarize it and then bring it back to him immediately.”

I almost choke. “Excuse me?”

She pushes her glasses up her nose and tilts her head up. “I’m not privy to the details, ma’am, but he said the two of you had agreed to a contract.” She pulls a tablet out of her messenger bag and starts tapping on the screen with a stylus.

“Who are you?” I ask, annoyed. Something is wrong here. Something about her is—

“I’m Felicity, Mr. Asher’s lawyer—”

—off.

“I handle all his business arrangements. And he asked me to come here and have you sign the NDA the two of you discussed over the weekend.”

“Lawyer?” Ha! I laugh. “You’re like twelve years old.”

She pushes her glasses up again and crinkles her nose. “I was a child prodigy, Ma’am, it’s not my fault I’m young.”

And that’s when I realize what’s wrong with her. She’s made up. She’s fake. She’s… she’s…
acting
. She’s dressed like a lawyer might look on TV. Like she just walked out of wardrobe.

And suddenly all that heartache at finding out my dream man is an asshole disappears and is replaced by rage.

“Look, Felicity, if that’s your real name. I’m not sure what kind of game
Mr. Asher
”—I seethe the name out—“is playing with me, but it’s over. So you can take that tablet and that NDA and go tell him to shove it up his ass. Maybe that will give him the sexual satisfaction he’s looking for.”

I slam the door. Shaking. My whole body is trembling as I realize how big a joke he thinks I am.

How dare he? How dare he send this girl, who is probably one of his many, many, many sexual conquests, to my door to ask for my signature?

And I’m sure he does want that signature. He did all kinds of questionable things with me this weekend. He wants to make sure I’m silenced before he goes back to his life in LA.

Well, fuck him!

Chapter Twenty

#Follow

I
HAVE
to sit on my bed and breathe deeply to calm myself down. I’m so angry but beyond that, I’m so humiliated. Vaughn Asher is a complete asshole and I feel so dirty I want to take a shower. I want to get out of this room.

No, this resort. I want to go home. Like right now.

I’m leaving. I walk around the room and pick up all my things, stuffing them into my backpack, then hit the bathroom and grab my incidentals. There’s a pad of paper on the desk and I scribble out a note to Bebe.

Had to go back to Denver, emergency at work, they need me tomorrow. Love you—Grace

I can already hear her when she reads this.
A party-planning emergency that requires you to leave a tropical island so you can work on Labor Day?
She’ll never buy it, but I don’t care. I take a long steadying breath, hike the backpack strap up over my shoulder, and leave the bungalow. I take the path that takes me to the main hotel, ducking out of sight when I hear voices, just in case they are Vaughn or one of his minions, and make it to the valet area where there are a few cabs lined up waiting for fares. The valet is busy, lots of people checking in after the resort was closed for the wedding, so I walk past the guys unloading luggage and approach the first cab in line. “Airport?” I ask.

“Get in,” he says in his Island accent.

I do get in. And as soon as I settle into the backrest I relax and breathe a sigh of relief.

It takes a while to get to the airport even though this island is small and we’re not that far from the central business district of Charlotte Amalie. It’s all the way across the bay and there are times during the forty-minute ride through the coastal traffic that I think I could’ve gotten there faster if I was swimming. But finally, the cab pulls up into the departures area and I pay him and get out.

A few seconds later, I’m alone at the airport with no ticket home.

Inside it’s a madhouse. It’s Labor Day weekend and people want to get home in time to enjoy the holiday tomorrow before they have to go back to work on Tuesday. I get in the ticketing line and wait patiently as one by one we inch forward and finally, after an hour and a half, I’m next in line.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. I take it out and check the message.

Where are you?
From an unknown number. Which by now I know is Vaughn.

I consider not answering, but it’s best to just get it over with. So I text back.
At the airport, on my way home. Thanks for the fun. Bye, Grace.

And then it’s my turn at the ticket counter, so I stuff the phone into my pocket and ignore the incessant buzzing as I concentrate on what they are telling me.

“First class? No, I can’t afford first class. I just want a coach ticket to Denver.”

“Miss, we have one seat left at a discounted price as it leaves in thirty minutes. You have five minutes to make up your mind and you can make that flight with the complimentary premium security access checkpoint. It’s eight hundred and seventy-two dollars. The next available flight is tomorrow.”

My phone rings in my pants and I grab it and press answer out of habit before I remember that I’m avoiding Asher. “Grace,” he says, his voice urgent. “Stay right where you are, I’ll be there to pick you up in ten minutes. Stay put, do you hear me, Grace?”

I press end and look the ticketing woman in the eye. “Book it. Here’s my card.”

I have exactly one thousand one hundred and two dollars in my bank account—that includes savings—but I do not care. I refuse to let that asshole find me stranded here at the airport like a child.

Fifteen minutes later I’m through security and I’m walking down the aisle to the only seat left in first class. I drop down into my seat, the window, so the woman next to me is put out, and stuff my backpack under the seat in front of me.

I breathe a huge sigh of relief. I hope I never see that man again. I never want to see his face, like ever. Even on TV. I’m not going to see
Invisible Man 2
, even though
IM1
was my favorite movie last year. I am over it. Totally one hundred percent over it.

In fact, I grab my phone and bring up my Twitter account real fast. I look up for the flight attendant and he’s busy making coffee or something in that tiny galley kitchen, so I open up my account and start deleting tweets. I just want to erase Vaughn from my life. My fingers are flying down my profile page, but there’s no good way to delete them all without deleting my whole account. I consider that, out of desperation, and I’m just about to give in and do it when the flight attendant stands over my row and tsks his tongue.

“Airplane mode, please. And I can see your Twitter page, so I know you’re not in airplane mode.”

He waits there, tapping his foot, until I go into my settings and flick that little tab to airplane mode.

Well, whatever. Vaughn has no idea who I am on Twitter, but as soon as I get to my stop in Atlanta, that shit is going.

I plug my headphones into my phone and bring up my tunes, then settle back into my oversized seat and try and enjoy my first, and probably only, first-class experience.

A few hours later, after I’ve been served lunch, champagne, orange juice, a hot towel, and a movie—
IM1
, it’s the only one playing—I’m satiated, relaxed, and even a little bit giggly over my ridiculous weekend with movie star Vaughn Asher. It’s sort of a blur, and sort of surreal. I mean, did I really get fucked by him in a tropical forest? Did I really put a vibrator against my pussy in the company of the great Adam Asher?

I laugh out loud and several people look over at me.

It was sorta fun, but Jesus, I’m glad it’s over. I’m not his type, he’s way too much ego for me, and we really did fight the entire time. I prefer my quiet, predictable, low-conflict life and the only dates I see in my future are virtual ones on Saturday night Dirty Heaven twitter chats.

The plane lands and phones begin dinging as everyone switches them off airplane mode. I stretch out, ready to get off this plane and find my next gate so I can just go home to Denver. I fish out my phone to check my messages. Bebe is gonna be pissed off when she gets that note. I switch the phone off airplane mode and it begins dinging.

A balloon bubble pops up on my home screen telling me I have twenty-two messages.

What?

I swipe my finger to go into my messages app and look at them.

Unknown number.

Unknown number.

Unknown number.

Unknown number.

They go on and on like that. More and more and more.

My email app dings and I press that to take my mind off what might be happening on my phone. I have fifty-two new emails from Twitter.

I open the first one and it takes me a few seconds of staring to realize what I’m seeing.

Vaughn Asher (@VaughnAsher) favorited one of your Tweets!

Vaughn Asher (@VaughnAsher) favorited one of your Tweets!

Vaughn Asher (@VaughnAsher) favorited one of your Tweets!

Vaughn Asher (@VaughnAsher) favorited one of your Tweets!

Vaughn Asher (@VaughnAsher) favorited one of your Tweets!

On, and on, and on. Down to the very last new email for today.

Vaughn Asher (@VaughnAsher) is now following you on Twitter!

I scream.

People startle and flight attendants come to help me. But I fall back against my seat, unable to process what just happened to my life.

I’ve been outed. He knows. Every last dirty thing I’ve said about him over the years—from
I wish I could slide my pussy against your scratchy chin
to
You have long thumbs, I hear your cock is three times that size
—he knows them all.

And then my phone dings a message.

I force myself to look down.

I can’t wait to play Dirty Heaven with you this weekend—Vaughn

I die of humiliation right there. I just die.

Buy Book Two

Read other books by J.A. Huss

End of Book Shit

End of book Shit (EOBS) is something I do at the end of every book I write. It’s a chapter where I get to say anything I want about… whatever. So this time I’m going to talk about this series! Fitting, right!

This book, this whole series, actually, was an idea presented to me by my assistant last year. She came up with both the concept (normal girl meets movie star on tropical island) and the premise (Normal girl infamous for filthy tweeting meets the object of said filthy tweets and forges a fragile relationship with him as he bosses his way into her heart.)

So I told her I’d write it and publish it. And I did! We did, actually. My assistant, for those of you on Facebook with me, is Jana Aston. She and I became friends after she read Panic last October and she became my PA shortly thereafter. She’s a huge part of my writing life and she deserves lots of credit and
thanks yous
for hanging in there as I butchered her tale almost beyond recognition! Hehe. I really did, but I think she’s happy with it now. (At least I hope she is).