PLAYER Read online

  Contents

  Also by Pamela DuMond

  1. Before

  2. Healer

  3. Tycoon

  4. Cinderella

  5. Baby Teeth

  6. A Clusterf**k

  7. Midas Touch

  8. St. Charles

  9. Sugar Grove

  10. Bet on It

  11. Nashville

  12. Empathic

  13. Memphis

  14. Dallas

  15. God’s Money

  16. Magical Thinking

  17. Prodigal Son

  18. Walls, Watchtowers, & Moats

  19. St. Petersburg

  20. Las Vegas

  21. Deceitful Bed

  22. A Million Pieces

  23. Leaving Las Vegas

  24. A Covering

  Excerpt: MOVIE STAR

  FREE: His Sexy Cinderella: A Crown Affair Prologue

  Books by Pamela DuMond

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  PLAYER

  21st Century Courtesan: Book One

  Pamela DuMond

  Pamela DuMond Media

  PLAYER: 21st Century Courtesan: Book One Copyright © 2018 Pamela DuMond ~ All rights reserved. Also contains material from TYCOON: A 21st Century Courtesan Prologue Copyright © 2018 Pamela DuMond ~ All rights reserved.

  * * *

  Please respect the author who worked so hard on this story. Do not upload this book to other sites or do anything else naughty, illegal, or immoral. They’re all bad for you legally and karmically.

  * * *

  The above book(s) is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  * * *

  No parts of these books may be used

  or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any other means, without written permission of the author, except in the use of brief quotations used in articles or reviews. You can contact the author at www.pameladumond.com .

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  PLAYER

  ISBN-13: 978-1-941731-03-1

  Print: 9781941730602

  TYCOON

  ISBN-13: 978-1-941731-04-8

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  Photo: IStock

  Cover by Glammypammy

  Published by Pamela DuMond Media

  Also by Pamela DuMond

  ‘HOT’ ROMANCE

  21st CENTURY COURTESAN series

  * * *

  TYCOON: A 21st Century Courtesan Prologue

  PLAYER #1

  MOVIE STAR #2

  BELOVED #3

  HUSBAND #4 - Coming soon

  THE CROWN AFFAIR series

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  His Sexy Cinderella - A Crown Affair Prologue

  The Prince’s Playbook #1

  His Majesty’s Measure #2

  The American Princess #3

  The Duchess’s Decision #4

  PLAYING DIRTY ROM-COM Stand Alones

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  The Client

  The Matchmaker

  The Bodyguard — Coming soon

  ‘SWEETER’ ROMANCE

  ROYALLY WED ROM-COM series

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  Part-time Princess #1 —Optioned for Film/TV. Licensed as a CHAPTERS Interactive Stories Game.

  Royally Wed #2

  Part-time Poser #3

  Royally Knocked Up #4

  PLAYING SWEETER ROM-COM Stand Alones

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  Ms. Match Meets a Millionaire

  The Story of You and Me

  MORTAL BELOVED TIME TRAVEL series

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  The Messenger #1

  The Assassin #2

  The Seeker #3

  The Believer #4: Jack & Clara — STAND ALONE

  COZY MYSTERIES

  ANNIE GRACELAND COZY MYSTERIES

  * * *

  Cupcakes, Lies, and Dead Guys #1

  Cupcakes, Sales, and Cocktails

  Cupcakes, Pies, and Hot Guys

  Cupcakes, Paws, and Bad Santa Claus

  Cupcakes, Diaries, and Rotten Inquiries

  Cupcakes, Bats, and Scaredy Cats

  Cupcakes, Bars, and Rock Stars

  Cupcakes, Spies, and Despicable Guys - Also available to play as a Chapters Interactive Stories Game .

  Cupcakes, Screams, and Drama Queens - Coming soon

  NON-FICTION

  Staying Young: Simple Techniques to Look and Feel Young

  About PLAYER

  21st CENTURY COURTESAN: Book One

  * * *

  DESCRIPTION

  Beautiful, broken billionaires pay Ma Maison Agency ungodly sums of money to be with me so I can help them heal.

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  The work is brutal enough but now someone's stalking me. I’ve made enough money to support my family and I'm getting the hell out. I’m down to my last four clients.

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  One wants to play me. One wants to buy me. One wants to marry me. And one wants to murder me. Will I get out in time...

  PRAISE

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  "If Sierra Simone and Skye Warren had a book baby it would be PLAYER." USA TODAY Bestselling author Samanthe Beck

  * * *

  “…breath-taking, beautiful, and brilliant. A must-read…” USA Today bestselling author Maggie Marr

  * * *

  “…original, suspenseful, mysterious, sexy, and dramatic… a captivating read.” Angela Hayes

  * * *

  “An addicting read… I was hooked pretty much instantly.” E. Walsh

  * * *

  “I am ADDICTED! If I could give this book more than five stars I would. I devoured it in less than 4 hours… I can't wait for the next installment.” Liz Vrchota

  * * *

  “…was completely enthralled and blown away by this book!” Vegas Daisy

  * * *

  “…she was a strong independent woman… she was covering up for things that had happened in her past.” Katie83

  * * *

  “…loved this novel and could not put it down… addictive.” M. Ratclif

  * * *

  “... These two were hot, hot, hot! Like, keep a tall glass of water, and a fan nearby, hot.” Liz Vrchota

  * * *

  “Player is the first book in the 21st Century Courtesan series and what an amazing story it is.” Erica Wojdyla

  * * *

  “This book grabbed me from the first page and didn’t let go until the last...” Ashleigh

  21st CENTURY COURTESAN is a sexy, dark, addictive series filled with love, lust, family loyalty, deceit, revenge, and all the sweet little things in life worth killing for...

  * * *

  Player: 21st Century Courtesan Book One Copyright © 2018 Pamela DuMond ~ All rights reserved.

  For the Survivors

  * * *

  Because the wounds aren’t always visible.

  “Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.”

  * * *

  Sir Walter Scott

  “Marmion” 1808

  1

  Before

  BEFORE

  It is a cold winter day in Wisconsin. The kind of mean-girl cold where my eyes water from the winds gusting off the lake, not from the fact that I’m terrified that Mom is once again, full blown manic.

  I stamp my galoshes on the snow-embedded gravel trying to center myself as she pitches trash bags bloated with papers, clothes, and food, into the back of our salt-stained beater SUV. Mom’s bad episodes happen twice a year. On occasion, a psychotic split lands her in a place with a 72-hour hold, and they keep he
r locked up for a few weeks or months.

  When Mom’s able to function, when she’s able to swing through normal highs and lows and not crash like a meteor to earth, they release her, and she comes home to me and my sister. She comes home to people who love her. “Hey, Mom,” I say. “Ms. Portman my ballet teacher decides who goes to recital today.”

  “Ballet’s on hold,” Mom says squeezing over-stuffed grocery bags into the car.

  I peer down at my winter boots – mid-calf length galoshes, and focus on the dangling laces. If they can stay attached, I can too. I silently recite the words the social worker, Miss Williams told me over and over until they ear-wormed into my brain. ‘You are strong, Evie. You are sturdy. Not a rickety shed shaking in a twister’s path. You survive when the storm blows through.’

  “In the car. Now.” Mom says slamming the back door over and over until it latches.

  I climb in the back next to Ruby who is already strapped into the seat next to me, absorbed in her tablet.

  Mom slides in behind the wheel yanking the door shut. “Check your sister’s safety belt.”

  I know it’s fine yet I tug on it to make Mom happy. “Good.”

  “Again,” Mom says, turning the key over and over, the engine grinding until it fires.

  “Good,” I say, passing a hand over it, unzipping my backpack, staring at the ballet slippers that I packed in the hopes that today might be uneventful: that our spur of the moment trip is simply a run to the store for milk, or eggs, or something special Mom’s cooking for her boyfriend, Kyle, when he gets home from work at the hardware store.

  Mom revs the engine. “I am done with Kyle and his shit for good.”

  My heart wobbles. “This time.”

  “Forever time,” she says. “Buckle up. We’re out of here.”

  I cinch the belt across my lap.

  ‘When the storm blows through, Evie,’ Miss Williams told me, hold onto something. A person. A feeling. A thought. Something solid with heft and grit that keeps you grounded no matter the twister spinning around you.’

  I think. I reach. I find it. Ballet. I’m still hoping Ms. Portman picks me for the recital. “Mom, about ballet…”

  “Ballet’s not happening today.” Mom throws the car in reverse, squints out the rear window and backs like a bullet out of the long, skinny driveway, snow piled high on either side.

  “Uh-oh.” Ruby clutches her stomach, a frown on her face.

  This isn’t the first time we’ve left home in a hurry. Most likely we will be gone for a few days, maybe a week. Nine out of ten times we return. Quietly. Shamefully. Apologetically. ‘Please. I didn’t know what I was thinking,’ Mom would say to the live-in boyfriend. ‘I’m sorry. It will never happen again. I don’t know what got into me.’

  She screeches out of the driveway onto the rural road, a skinny patch of gray asphalt, lonely against the white winter day, and I hope that I don’t puke, ‘cause I’m feeling sicker by the second. She throws the car in drive, and we pitch forward. Thick clouds bump across the open skies. It’s as if the heavens unzipped them, and a big sloppy mess of snowflakes hit the windshield.

  Ruby burps, her cheeks popping apple red.

  “If I miss ballet today Miss Portman won’t let me be in the recital,” I say. The nerves in my stomach sizzle like drops of grease dancing in a frying pan.

  “Miss Portman can be a bit of a bitch,” Mom says. “There’ll be other recitals.” We shoot down the stark, narrow road, blow past telephone poles, skeletal trees, heaps of snow plowed in odd shapes like puzzle pieces that don’t fit. Crows circle high in the cloudy gray skies over the fields.

  A knot grows thick and hard, curling and tightening in my stomach. Queasy and Hope, my usual team of advisors, give me a heads up when something’s not the norm. When something’s playing out a little different.

  ‘Pay attention, Evie, take a ticket, and hop aboard. Your ride’s leaving the station.’ Queasy says, always the worrier.

  ‘Maybe everything will turn out just great!’ Hope’s the eternal optimist.

  They’ve been dogging me since I was five years old. The first time was when I’d spiked a fever, Mom shoved the thermometer in my mouth, declared I had the flu, and tucked me into bed. She pressed a cool cloth to my warm forehead, rubbed my shoulders, soothed me with a story about bears and beds.

  I finally slept, but Grandma Berlinger popped up in my dream, shaking a large baking spoon with an owl’s head carved into it. ‘Look out for your Mother, Evie Beanie. I am past tired, and taking a trip. Not coming back any time soon. Love you, munchkin.’

  ‘Grandma?’ I asked, blinking my eyes open, but she’d vanished.

  Mom got the call the next morning that Grandma had passed.

  We traveled to her house to pay our respects. To collect Grandma’s jewelry that she promised to mom before Uncle Nate could steal it. After graveside prayers, I wandered into her kitchen, spotted that same wooden spoon with the owl head on the counter and jumped half a foot. I wandered right back out and kept on walking down the crunchy gravel driveway until Mom ran after me and asked me if I was okay.

  I shook my head. “Grandma’s spoon.”

  “The owl spoon?” Mom rubbed my arm in the way that quieted me.

  I nodded.

  “Damn bird always scared the crap out of me, too.” She ruffled my hair and kissed my head. “We’ll get through this together, Evie Beanie. Love you, baby.”

  And we always do get through whatever the problem is, but there’s a more determined set to Mom’s jaw this time. I don’t know why, but this time things feel different.

  There are no other cars in our lane and we fly down the highway like a bullet, passing a few vehicles headed in the opposite direction, moving a lot slower than us. One car flashes its lights repeatedly and I wince, the beams boring holes in my brain.

  “Fucking asshole.” Mom keeps her foot on the gas. A T-shaped intersection looms. A traffic light swinging from overhead cables hooked up to poles turns from yellow to red.

  “Red means you’re supposed to stop,” I say, squeezing my hands together, feeling heat blossoming on my face and chest.

  Mom grumbles and taps the brakes.

  I worry about Ruby. Does she know Mom’s freaking out? Is she scared? But she’s still playing a game on her tablet.

  Mom hits the brakes harder and we grind to a halt. A hundred yards ahead the road ramps up to train tracks, its guard rails painted candy cane colors. She taps her fingers on the steering wheel.

  Maybe I’m thinking too much. Maybe we’re just picking Kyle up from work. Maybe my warning signals really are the flu? I place the back of my hand to my forehead. Hmm. Feels normal.

  The warning lights adjacent to the train tracks flash, a ding-ding-ding of alarms as the striped protective guard rails lower, crossing in front of each other.

  Mom taps faster.

  Harder.

  An incoming text pings on her phone. “Crap no.” She digs her hand in her purse and drags it out, staring at it. “What does he want?”

  Queasy wriggles its thin, hairy toes down deep into my stomach and digs in. My stomach lurches. I wince and clutch the front of my parka, my breath shallow, my heart lurching about in my chest.

  I am not a rickety shed.

  I survive when the storm blows through.

  Mom tosses her phone onto the passenger seat. “I don’t care what he wants. I am done. We are out of here.” She glances up at the freight train chugging down the tracks toward us. Her hazel eyes narrow and I can almost see her brain calculating options like time lines drawn on a white board in History class. She takes a deep breath and white knuckles the wheel.

  “Fuck it,” she says and hits the gas.

  The car pitches forward and I fly back in my seat. The gates close in front of us. Ding-ding-ding the approaching train shrieks.

  “I can totally be late today,” I say— ding, ding, ding—as we hurl toward them. “I’ve only been late once before. It’s fin
e. Really, Mom.” Panic rises inside me elbowing Queasy out of first position.

  Ruby’s face blotches red and she hiccups uncontrollably.