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Even though he was a star in his own right, everyone knew the golden rule: never ever piss off a pop star so he said the only words he could. “Sure, I’ll give serious thought about us getting back together again.”

Ella screamed out loud before she ran toward him and jumped into his arms aggressively. “You’re the best, babe. And you better announce that shit on Twitter too. How did I get so lucky to find you?”

You didn’t,
Dorian thought wryly
, I found you when I needed money. Without your parents’ generous contribution, you’d be singing at bat mitzvahs and first communions in Long Island.

“You’re a lucky girl, Ella.”

One of her small hands managed to fit between his waistband and she grabbed his cock. “I think we’ve got time before your company arrives. Can I get a to-go fuck before I head back to the Chateau Marmont?”

Dorian glanced at the clock and realized it was only five minutes after six. He had the time, even if he was committing an act that he didn’t find the least bit entertaining, he could fake his own orgasm although with Ella, he wouldn’t have to.

She was great in bed—he’d give her that—but she wasn’t even in Alyssa’s league.

I arrived at Dorian’s house with five minutes to spare. As I checked my makeup and straightened the aubergine cocktail dress I wore, which fit me like a glove without making me look slutty but one hundred percent sexy and classy, I spotted a figure running to a pink BMW convertible.

I’d bet both my natural breasts it was Ella Jade—who else would be tacky enough to drive a Mary Kay pink BMW with the vanity plate, “ELLAJ4U?”

I rolled my eyes and applied more lip-gloss to my lips before stepping out of my Range Rover after she’d driven off in a rush of blaring hip-hop music and screeching tires.

I suppose Dorian lived up to his bad boy status about as much as I lived up to my grieving widow status, and neither of us were capable of change, not at this moment in our lives.

Everything eventually came down to timing and ours seemed to be completely off balance. It was “another time, another place” scenario that kept screaming at me loud and clear that if I was smart, I’d turn around, climb back into my SUV, make a stop by Gordon Ramsay at The London WH, and order some of the best takeout in West Hollywood. I could binge-watch the old episodes of
American Horror Story
or
Justified
while being perfectly comfortable in my own home.

Of course my overactive hormones overruled every decent bone I had in my body and every working brain cell in my head. I waltzed right up to Dorian’s home looking like a million bucks, and smelling like expensive perfume—I might as well have had money oozing from my pores. Who the hell was I kidding? I could try to live in obscurity for the rest of my life but men would be after me like dogs in heat. If I didn’t catch one now while I had my looks then I’d be left with the gold-digging twenty-somethings who specifically went out with moneyed cougars. That would be me in another ten years whether I wanted to admit it to myself or not.

I knocked on the door shortly after I rung the doorbell. It was too late now for me to back out of this arrangement even if I had a pretty good idea what Dorian and Ella had done before I showed up. Perhaps that meant he truly was serious about me and wouldn’t expect sex from me that night.

Dorian opened the door in a pair of slightly baggy dark blue jeans and a black silk shirt. He looked good even if he was dressed on the casual side when compared to me. I would have never known anything had gone down between him and Ella except his hair was damp from a recent shower. He smelled good, like a mixture of designer body wash and cologne that had strong accents of sandalwood, mint, and citrus.

“You look great,” he said to me as he kissed my cheek and embraced me warmly.

As we separated, I smiled at him as he led me into the living room. The whole downstairs smelled like some kind of delicious culinary masterpiece awaited us in the dining room.

“I’m impressed,” I stated, looking him up and down with a wry grin on my face. “Not only are you a talented musician but you can cook too.”

Dorian smirked though the slight crimson stain of a blush he was trying to hide put a dent in his didn’t-give-a-shit persona. “I’ve always known how to cook. I didn’t grow up with maids, cooks or a butler you know. It was tough to live amongst strangers after my parents tossed me to the side and couldn’t be bothered to care about me.”

I noticed the bitterness in his voice and wondered who his parents were exactly. Not much was known about his private life or his upbringing except that he’d grown up in South Africa and attended a boarding school there. At the age of fourteen, he’d transferred to a military academy where he graduated at seventeen with honors and after that, everything was a blank slate covered up by him backpacking across Europe for several years until he set down roots in Paris and quickly became known as one of the best DJs in Europe shortly after his twenty-second birthday.

DoPe was born sometime shortly thereafter and he managed to get a hold of Grace Cox as his manager and some of the best producers working the progressive house and trip-hop scene. He’d released three full-length albums:
Collide
,
Listen Up
and his latest,
Sick Beats
. All had gone multi-platinum and had led to an additional three live albums:
DoPe Collides in Rio de Janeiro
,
Listen Up in Ibiza
and
Sick Beats Rock Berlin
.

The man was a legend on the dance scene though most people knew him for his love affairs and trysts with pop stars and hip Hollywood starlets than they did for his music. He’d had more than a few mainstream hits, mostly remixes of popular artists songs that he managed to make better than the original versions.

I realized then although I’d slept with this guy, I didn’t know anything about him that probably couldn’t be found on his Wikipedia page. That was a first for me. I’d always been meticulous and fastidious about the men I’d had sexual relationships with especially in this day in age with sexually transmitted diseases and the whole YOLO culture of having been born a Millennial.

“So, where did you just go? I asked you a question and you completely blanked me.”

“What?” I asked out loud, ashamed that I’d been caught in my own world yet again.

When was I going to stop analyzing every part of my life and learn how to live? Probably never since I was indirectly responsible for a man’s death and there wasn’t a statute of limitation on murder.

True, I was never suspected and his death had been ruled natural causes due to his age, health, lifestyle and the medications prescribed for various ailments common with men his age but that didn’t mean my secret was safe. As long as Campbell was around and breathing down my neck, I would never be safe.

“Sorry,” I replied as our eyes met. His were so blue they resembled the Caribbean ocean while mine probably looked hazel with green flecks caused by wide-eyed, acute guilt. “I have been spacing since Richard’s death. I don’t know why . . . hopefully, it’ll get better once it sinks in he’s really gone.”

He walked toward the back of his house and I followed until we reached the dining room. He’d tastefully decorated the expensive oak table with good china, immaculate silverware, two wine glasses and a bottle of Pinot Gris. Whatever he cooked looked like it was a stew or a soup since the dish was set in the middle of the table. A large china bowl with the top firmly in place, and a large soup-serving spoon next to the dish confirmed my assumption.

“I didn’t know what you liked but since I saw you devouring seafood earlier, I knew you aren’t allergic to it so I made a South African specialty with an American twist. It’s lobster tail soup jazzed up with various vegetables and prawns in a butter-cream base. Yes, it sounds heavy and caloric but believe me, it’s worth every sinful spoonful,” Dorian explained as he pulled my chair out and I sat down.

“Wow. Thank you, and I’m sure I’ll enjoy it a lot. It just means I’ll have to add an extra half hour at yoga tomorrow but I’m sure you’ll make it worth my while.”

The double entendre was not lost upon him as he responded, “You know there’s more ways to work off this soup than yoga.”

I waited until he sat down so I could look him in the eyes as I said, “Well that’s very true but I’m sure doing the horizontal shuffle with the insatiable Ella Jade probably wore you out.”

He studied me as he opened the wine and poured us each a half a glass. “You sound jealous. If it makes you feel better, I wore a condom. It was her idea—not mine. We weren’t supposed to see each other again until tomorrow when we’ll lay the first track down at the studio.”

“I’m not jealous at all.” I sipped from my wine and enjoyed the enchanting crispness of the elegant white wine that seemed to light up my taste buds. “I’m just not into sharing. If you have personal issues to work out with your ex-girlfriend then you can’t possibly become serious about me.”

“You’re not into sharing yet you have spent more than a decade sharing a man with his wife. Isn’t that a contradiction in terms? Not to mention you were cheating on your spouse.” Dorian swigged from his wine. “Tell me, was the child you became pregnant with really Richard’s?”

I knew what he wanted from me: shame and indignation as if I dare bring up his little early evening delight when I was not only an adulterer but having a long-term sexual relationship with my adopted brother. Had it been on my terms, I might have felt guilty but since Cam had been ordering me around for most of my life and Richard had done the same, I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

No matter how “progressive” our society became, what was good for the goose was not good for the gander. Men could string women along and have as many as they wanted yet society never judged them. If a woman did the same, she was considered a skank, whore, or generally a female of low self-esteem with “daddy” issues.

I said nothing as he served the soup, giving me a smaller proportion to what he served himself. All I could think of was that old adage my adopted Mother repeated constantly when she thought I was eating too much,
“Calories, Calories, Alyssa! Gluttony is a sin, and unbecoming of a God-fearing young woman.”

“Well?” Dorian asked again. “You never answered my question.”

I tasted the soup and he was right, it was sinfully delicious. Plus it bought me time to answer a question I truly didn’t know the answer to, and never bothered to find out.

“Yes, the child I lost was Richard’s baby.” I glanced at him beguilingly. “My affair with Cam isn’t entirely consensual. If I’d had a choice, I would have stopped it ages ago. I thought it would stop when he got married but after he married one of those stuck-up, sexually repressed Mormon bitches from our congregation, I innately knew it wouldn’t.”

“I guessed as much from your body language toward him.” Dorian finished his soup in record timing and cleaned his mouth with a cloth napkin. “So, tell me, Alyssa, was the sex between you and Richard entirely consensual?”

What the hell was this? Twenty questions?

“Yes, it was. In my own way, I loved my husband.”

Liar!

“Is that right? I mean . . . didn’t he cause your family a tremendous amount of grief?”

I didn’t like where this conversation was going. Unfortunately for me, I hadn’t seen the signs even though they were all there in plain view. He obviously knew much more about me than I did about him. Yet even if that was the case, I refused to discuss my parents’ death with anyone. A shrink couldn’t get it out of me and neither could the police investigators or my adopted family. In that case, the evidence truly was my voice because I refused to give credence to the one event in my life that changed me forever.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I responded with a straight face. “Richard was a good man. He lived an exceptionally charmed life, and I suppose his only regret was he failed to leave a legacy behind other than the music he produced.”

“Richard Conlon, formerly known as Jeroen van den Beek, lived a very charmed life, and I can assure you his legacy extends beyond his music. He immigrated to the States at a young age. He was determined to make it and nothing or no one would stand in his way. Including his best friend who came to America with him. You see, Richard Conlon had no surviving relatives except for distant family in Ireland. They looked very much alike—they could have passed for brothers. Hell, they were brothers—half at least. The Conlons worked for the van den Beeks, and Mary Elizabeth had a long-term affair with Edvard, Jeroen’s father.”

I stood slowly to my feet. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”