Dirty Games Read online

  DIRTY GAMES

  Barbara Elsborg

  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

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  COPYRIGHT

  Dirty Games is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Barbara Elsborg

  Cover by B4Jay

  Edited by Deco

  Published by Smashwords

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or transmitted in any manner without written permission from Barbara Elsborg, except for brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For all enquiries please contact Barbara Elsborg at [email protected]

  Image/art disclaimer: Licensed material is being used for illustrative purposes only. Any person depicted in the licensed material is a model.

  Smashwords Edition

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  With love and thanks to Rita, for her continued invaluable advice and help!

  Dirty Games

  The last thing Linton needs when he arrives home after three months in the States, is to find his beautiful flat is a squat, complete with his younger brother Dirk, who’s lying in Linton’s bed with a couple who’ve paid him for sex. Dirk isn’t even supposed to have a key. But after Linton throws Dirk out, life slams in hard and if his brother is to have any hope of a future, Linton has to play dirty. Or at least pretend to. What he hasn’t factored in is having to play the game to the bitter end.

  Film star Thorne Morrisey has everything. Good looks, charm, seductive magnetism and a voice that could charm a snake from its basket. He can also be a real shit and yet people still love him - though he’d rather not have the love of his suicidal ex, dumped by Thorne in a very public and humiliating way. His ex’s wealthy brother has his own reasons for wanting revenge on Thorne, and his weapon of choice is Linton.

  Linton and Thorne are on a collision course and in for the game of their lives. But who is playing whom?

  Chapter One

  Linton unclipped his seatbelt and pushed to his feet. There’d been no one sitting next to him on the seven-hour transatlantic flight so at least he’d been able to stretch out sideways. His six-two frame had been cramped in economy, but he was too junior in the firm to warrant an upgrade to business class and too careful with his money to pay for it himself.

  The guy sitting behind him opened the overhead bin and as they reached for their bags, the straps tangled for a moment before pulling free. Linton laughed, the guy glared and Linton sighed as he turned away. He wasn’t going to let someone else’s bad mood spoil the pleasure of returning to the UK. He’d spent the last three months working in New York, and it had been great, but he was looking forward to being back in his flat in Wapping, returning to his usual haunts, and checking up on his younger brother. Well, maybe he wasn’t much looking forward to that. As in—not at all.

  He’d heard nothing from Dirk since he left for the States, though his brother was a constant source of worry whether Linton knew what he was up to or not. Dirk had told him he was going to spend most of the summer in Cornwall, earning money by giving surfing and guitar lessons, and Linton had been annoyed to find himself jealous, particularly because he part-funded his brother’s bohemian lifestyle. But there’d been no response to any of Linton’s emails which had left him both anxious and irritated, and prone to daily Googling of ‘surfer attacked by shark in Cornwall’ just in case. Though it wasn’t unusual for Dirk to disappear for months at a time. When he needed money, he’d resurface.

  Linton joined the line of passengers shuffling down the aisle toward the exit. He’d done little more than nap on the flight and he was weary. At least it was a Saturday and he didn’t have to go to work. If he’d flown in on a weekday, his boss would have expected him to come to the office from the airport, put in a full day at his desk and probably stay late too.

  He’d been due to return next Wednesday, but he’d finalised his work on the project he’d been involved with, completed the handover, then changed his flight. Which gave him a weekend to recover from jetlag and a weekend to prepare for seeing Pascal on Monday, even though there was no certainty Pascal would be working in the London office this week. Although Linton suspected Pascal would make sure he was.

  While he stood in line at immigration, to avoid any more thoughts about either Pascal or Dirk, he concentrated on things he was looking forward to doing. Lingering in a deep, hot bath, lounging on his couch while he watched the BBC news, eating fish and chips, reading the Sunday papers in his favourite café, running along the Thames Path, meeting up with his mates, yelling at Dirk for not keeping in touch. Bloody Dirk. Linton didn’t even know where to start looking for him.

  By the time he reached Wapping, Linton was hot and sweaty, his eyes gritty with tiredness. He’d left New York in the middle of a heatwave to arrive in London’s only slightly less intense equivalent. Once he was certain there was enough hot water, he’d have a bath, then drive to a supermarket and fill his cupboards and fridge with everything he’d missed eating. Birds Eye frozen peas. Mint sauce. Proper sausages. Cheese scones. Yorkshire pudding. His mouth watered as he opened his door. He’d unpack first then— What the hell?

  Even before he’d pulled his cases all the way inside, he froze in confusion. The place reeked of stale smoke. For a split second, once he’d dismissed his fear of a fire, he wondered if he’d managed to open someone else’s door, but he recognised a photograph on the wall, one he’d taken of a wind-twisted tree in Scotland. The frame was hanging askew.

  The hall was strewn with shoes and clothes—his shoes and clothes, copies of the Metro newspaper, empty cigarette packets and scrunched up plastic bags. Linton pulled his cases inside and closed the door quietly. He put down his messenger bag and picked his way through the debris to the main room.

  It looked worse in there and he clenched his teeth. Cushions on the floor, beer cans piled in shaky pyramids, several pizza boxes stacked in a similar way. The coffee table was drowning under an avalanche of rubbish, cigarette ash everywhere and there were scuff marks and dark spatters on the walls. And the fucking ceiling. He was relieved the floor was wood and not carpet. He didn’t bother walking over to the kitchen. He could see the overflowing bin, the plates and pans piled in the sink. The work surface was littered with glasses, cutlery and cigarette ends.

  As Linton approached the bedroom, he was pretty sure what he was going to find. Ah, no, not quite. He suspec
ted his brother had taken up residence and he had, but while Dirk lay curled up on the far side of the bed, cocooned in a sheet, most of the space was taken up by a naked man and woman in their forties. The pair spooned with their backs to Dirk, and pissed off as Linton was with his brother, he felt a pang of sympathy for him.

  The pang didn’t last long.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Linton yelled.

  The woman opened her eyes and gasped. The man jerked awake. Dirk stirred, then settled again. Typical.

  “Get dressed and get out.” Linton was talking to all of them but only the woman moved, scrambling for her clothes.

  The man leaned over to elbow Dirk. “Hey! There’s some guy in your—”

  “This is my flat,” Linton barked. “I want you out. Now.” He could almost feel his blood pressure spiking. “Dirk! Wake the fuck up.”

  Linton seethed as he took in the state of his bedroom, the musky smell of sex and cigarettes, the tied-off condoms on the floor, the evidence of drug taking—if those white grains on the bedside table were what he thought they were. As the pair pulled on their clothes, Linton shook Dirk’s shoulder. His brother rolled over and looked up at him through half-lidded, kohl-smudged eyes that widened as he tuned into reality.

  “Shit,” Dirk croaked. “You’re back.”

  “No shit, Sherlock.” Linton glared at him.

  The woman picked up her purse, took out several notes and put them on the bedside table.

  Oh fuck, Dirk. Really?

  Dirk sat up, a muscle twitching in his cheek. He rubbed his face, then pulled the sheet around him. The woman and the guy headed for the door. Neither Linton nor Dirk spoke until they heard the outer door close.

  “Don’t tell me that’s what you’ve been doing. Picking up punters and bringing them here. Do you have no self-respect? Jesus. And in my flat? You fucking wanker.”

  “You aren’t supposed to be back yet.” Dirk pulled the sheet tighter around him. “Sorry the place is a bit of a mess. I was going to clean up.”

  “A bit of a mess?” When that came out as a growl, Linton reined in his temper. “How did you get a key?”

  “I had one cut a while ago.” Dirk dragged his fingers through his scruffy dark hair and kept his gaze lowered. “Just in case.”

  “Just in case I went away so you could move in and help yourself to my stuff? This is precisely why I didn’t give you a key.” Getting angry wasn’t going to make things better but rage swelled inside him, a frothing red tide he became increasingly helpless to push back. “Have you been living here all the time I’ve been away? Christ, you probably watched me leave and scuttled straight in before the door closed.”

  “No I didn’t.” Dirk twisted his hair in his fingers, then scratched his face, the fidgeting and his wide, dark pupils betraying his drugged-up state. “But it didn’t seem sensible to waste money on rent when this flat was sitting empty. I did you a favour. You might have got burgled.” He risked a grin.

  “You think this is funny?” Linton’s fist itched to thump some sense into his brother.

  It appeared Dirk did have one functioning brain cell because when he took in Linton’s expression, he wiped the smile off his face.

  “Did I say you could stay here?” Linton struggled to keep his voice even.

  “No.” Dirk sucked in his cheeks. “But you didn’t say I couldn’t. I thought I could look after the place for you.”

  Linton took a slow look around. “Right. You made a good job of that. Thanks a fucking lot.”

  Dirk pushed to his feet, clutching the sheet. “I can sort it out. Just…go and have breakfast or something and I’ll clean up. There’s plenty of hot water. You can have a bath when you get back. That usually calms you down.” He reached for the cigarette packet on the bedside table and Linton knocked it out of his hand.

  “Don’t you dare,” Linton snapped.

  “I’ll fix things up.”

  “I don’t need your help. I don’t need anything from you except for you to get dressed and fuck off. And leave the key.”

  “I don’t have anywhere—”

  “I don’t give a shit.”

  “My stuff—”

  “Take it with you or I’ll chuck it out. I don’t want to find you or it still here when I get out of the bath.”

  Linton strode into the bathroom, shuddered when he saw the state of it, and went into reverse. Dirk shied away as Linton stormed back.

  “What the fuck’s the matter with you? How hard is it to clean up after yourself, to throw rubbish away, put plates in the dishwasher? You could have at least washed my fucking clothes after you’d worn them. What right do you have to help yourself to my things? And you know I don’t let you smoke in here. This place stinks.” He was so close to Dirk he was practically spitting in his face.

  Dirk stood his ground and glared. “You’d rather I stayed in a rat-infested, shit-hole of a squat sharing a barely functioning bathroom with ten others when this place was sitting here empty? At least I didn’t let anyone come and live with me.”

  Linton recoiled. “Why were you in a squat? I thought you were going to Cornwall? I gave you money to pay for your share of that caravan.”

  “I gave up the bedsit to go to Cornwall only it turned out we needed insurance to give surfing lessons and the caravan had been rented out so I hitched a lift back. I found a squat, but it was awful so I came here. I didn’t mean to stay for long, just until I sorted something out, but then it seemed crazy to leave.”

  “You’ve turned my flat into a squat. In what world is this right, Dirk? You’ve brought strangers here who paid you for sex in my bed. What were you thinking?”

  “I needed somewhere to stay. I had no money. I was desperate. I couldn’t cope on the street. I was scared. I thought you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Liar.”

  Dirk pressed his lips together.

  “What did you do with the money I gave you?”

  “Spent it.”

  Linton could guess on what. “You could have asked if you could stay here. You could have emailed.”

  “On what? I don’t have access to the Internet. You won’t get me a tablet or an iPhone.”

  “Don’t you dare whine at me. I know damn well what you’d do with any piece of electronic equipment. Sell it and use the money to get high. There are Internet cafés. Libraries with computers. I haven’t heard a word from you in three months.”

  “Did you email me?” Dirk snapped.

  “Yeah. I did. Even when you never responded, I still emailed.”

  Dirk’s shoulders slumped. “Did you worry when you didn’t hear back?”

  “I don’t need to not hear from you to worry about you.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me I could stay here?”

  Look around. You can’t see why? Christ. “Why didn’t you ask me?”

  “You’d have said no.”

  That was true.

  “I don’t like that you don’t trust me.”

  That irritating whine in Dirk’s voice ratcheted up Linton’s fury. He removed another layer of enamel grinding his teeth. “Look at my flat. Look what you’ve done.”

  “I told you I’d sort it. I wasn’t expecting you back yet.”

  Linton glanced around the room. “I was thrilled when I found this place. More rent than I can really afford, but I loved it so much I went without other stuff so I could have it. You’ve ruined it. I don’t even want to sleep in that bed.”

  “It just needs a clean. It’s fine.”

  “It’s not fucking fine.”

  “It’s all right for you. You’ve got a good job, a fuck-off TV, a fuck-off car. Everything’s right in your world.” Dirk spat out the words. “You wear designer suits and shoes that cost more than I’ve ever earned in a week.”

  “I work hard. Do you have a job? Not counting fucking for money. Though I guess you have to work hard at that.”

  “Ha ha. I did have a job. I was working in a café
in Borough, but…”

  “What did you do?”

  “Nothing. I was late a couple of times, that’s all. It wasn’t my fault.”

  “Of course it was your fucking fault.”

  Linton heaved a sigh. For three months he’d been free of this and now it had all piled back on his shoulders as if he’d never been away. It was as though everything he hated to eat was being forced into his mouth and he was choking on it.

  “Grow up, Dirk.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Can’t you see this is wrong?” He gestured to the dirty sheets on the bed, the used condoms on the floor. And a set of handcuffs? Christ. “I’ve worked for everything I have. Seven years studying to be an architect and now I’m in a job where I’m owned 24/7. I deserve the things I have. I’ve tried to help you. I’ve given you money. I—”

  “Not when I’ve really needed it. When I wanted that car? When I had that idea for the business?” Dirk’s cheeks twitched and he clenched his fists. “You never want me to enjoy myself. You just go on and on about getting a job, stopping smoking, not drinking so much, making something of myself.”

  For crying out loud. “That car was a piece of crap. It wouldn’t have got you to the end of the road. Your idea for the business was a piece of crap too. No plan. No budget. No concept of what was involved. No consideration of the health and safety issues. You can’t just set up juice bars. I said nothing when you told me you were going to spend the summer surfing in Cornwall. Don’t you think I wish I could just swan off and do that?”

  “Yeah right.”

  Linton glared. “I’ve bought you three guitars when they kept getting stolen even though I was fairly sure you’d sold them. Why can’t you just get an ordinary job, work your way up? You’re bright. You could be something. If I thought you’d stick with it, I’d help you go to college. But it’s as though you want to fuck up your life. Well, in case you hadn’t noticed, you’re fucking up mine too.”