Dakota Cassidy - Talk Dirty to Me

Plum Orchard, Georgia, is about to get even juicier…

Notorious mean girl Dixie Davis is back in town and it’s payback time. Literally. Dixie is flat broke and her best—make that only—friend, Landon, is throwing her a lifeline from the Great Beyond. Dixie stands to inherit his business…if she meets a few conditions:

She’s got to live in Landon’s mansion.

With her gorgeous ex-fiancé, Caine Donovan.

Who could also inherit the business.

Which is a phone sex empire.

Wait, what?

Landon’s will lays it out: whoever gets the most new clients becomes the owner of Call Girls. Dixie has always been in it to win it, especially when it comes to Caine, who’s made it clear he’s not going down easy. (Oh, mercy.) Can Dixie really talk dirty and prove that she’s cleaned up her act? Game on!

Talk Dirty to Me

Dakota Cassidy

www.mirabooks.co.uk

For my agent, whom I lovingly call Agent Fab, Elaine Spencer. You’re a gladiator, my friend. There are no words in the English language to adequately describe how dear I hold the notion that you have always believed.

Also, to the many folks who’ve been involved in making this project a reality:

My editor, Leonore Waldrip—for seeing this one little crazy idea/book in its earliest stages and passing it on. Add to the mix your amazing sense of humor and genius brainstorming, makes you a keeper.

Emily Ohanjanians, your insight, attention to detail, and overall brilliance will forever influence the future words that flow from my fingertips.

An enormous nod to the show Hart Of Dixie, my inspiration for writing Southern fiction. I love every “bless your heart, Lemon Breeland, Lavon Hayes, Annabeth Nass, Zade” moment spent with you each week. If you’re a fan of the show, you’ll know what I mean when I cry, ZADE forever!

To all of my amazing readers—really who else can I count on to talk about anti-inflammatory cream and one’s (ahem) nether regions (all in one whacky conversation that I swear didn’t begin related at all) with me at three in the morning on Facebook but all of you? I treasure our conversations. I hold your thoughts and continued support in the highest regard. Thank you for always being so willing to laugh (and sometimes cry) with me!

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

One

“He looks really good, considering.” Emmaline Amos sniffed, pushing her way past an enormous bouquet of white lilies standing by Landon Wells’s casket at Tate and Son’s Home Of Eternal Rest.

She pulled Dixie Davis with her, away from Landon’s casket and into the privacy of a connecting mourning room where she set Dixie on a couch surrounded by pictures of Landon.

The scent of dark wood paneling, vanilla candles, and Old Spice invaded Dixie’s nose, making her “ugly cry” hangover pulse in her temples with the force of a sledgehammer.

Dixie lifted her sunglasses, thwarting another ambush of tears, so grateful for the opportunity to have had a few moments alone with Landon without the intrusion of the long line of people who’d shown up to pay their last respects.

She muttered up at Em, “Why does everyone always say that, Em? Landon’s dead. There’s nothing good-looking about it. I always thought that was a crude thing to say.”

Em huffed, brushing the brim of her black sun hat, and sat down beside her. She gave her a nudge to make some room. “It’s not crude. I was complimentin’ him. New adjective, please,” she drawled, her Southern lilt like macaroni and cheese to Dixie’s homesick ears. Comfort food for the soul.

“Crass?”

“Crass is harsh, Dixie.”

Landon Wells, her best friend ever, was dead. That was harsh.

Harsher still, Landon’s other best friend, Caine Donovan, was just outside that door.

Don’t forget he’s your ex-fiancé, too.

Right. Dixie started to regret her terse words with Emmaline. She couldn’t afford to alienate the one and only, albeit totally reluctant, ally she had left in her small hometown of Plum Orchard, Georgia.

Maybe what was making her so snappish was exhaustion after the long drive from Chicago. Or the anxiety of returning to said small hometown where everyone knew her name and mostly wanted to throw darts at her picture.

Maybe it was the precariousness of her life in financial semiruin that made her voice what she’d been thinking for almost two hours as mourner after mourner repeated Em’s words while she’d waited for her private viewing of Landon’s body.

Or maybe it was the likelihood that a good portion of the female population of Plum Orchard High, class of 1996, were just outside this very funeral home with metaphoric stakes soaked in the town’s specialty, homemade plum wine, just waiting for Reverend Watson to perform her public exorcism. Then they could seal the deal by driving their angry pieces of wood right through her despicable heart.

It would be nothing less than she deserved.

She’d been a horrible person in high school and beyond, and here in Plum Orchard where time seemed to stand still, no one forgot.

You were horrible long after high school, too, Dixie. To Caine...

Point. Most of her anxiety had to do with the fact that she had no choice but to see Caine Donovan again.

Bingo, Dixie. The thought of seeing him left her feeling fragile and raw.

To this damn day his memory still leaves you breathless.

Acknowledged. Dark, star-filled nights under a scratchy army blanket in the bed of Caine’s pickup truck, the scent of magnolias clinging to their sticky skin. It was just one of many of the images—both good and bad—she’d warred with since her return to Plum Orchard became a reality.

She scrunched her eyes shut before reopening them.

“Sorry,” Em said, dragging her from her internal war. Her blue eyes held sympathy beneath her wide-brimmed hat. “I’m glad they gave you some time alone with Landon before the latecomers swarm in to pay their last respects. I can’t even imagine how much this hurts.” Em squeezed her shoulder with reassuring fingers.

Dixie let out a shaky sigh, hooking her arm through Em’s. “No, I’m the one who’s sorry. I’m tired and on edge, and you’ve been so kind to me through this whole process when I totally don’t deserve—”

“No, you surely do not, Dixie Davis!” Em’s voice rose, then just as quickly reduced to just above a whisper. She peered over her shoulder as though unseen eyes might bear witness to her bad manners. God forbid. “You were a mean girl back in the day. My high school years were torture because of you. And might I remind you, people don’t forget, especially here in little ol’ Plum Orchard. Why, you’re lucky I even picked up the phone during Landon’s last days, knowing it was you I had to talk to on the other end of the line,” she finished on an offended harrumph.

But Dixie knew better than to take Em’s outburst personally. Em was as kind as she was generous, and nothing, not even a faded-around-the-edges grudge, would keep her good heart from beating selflessly.

For all her leftover high school anger with Dixie, Em had called her religiously with updates on Landon’s last days, because he’d asked her to. Em always did what was right. That was just who she was.