Books by Laurelin Paige
Visit my website for a more detailed reading order.
The Dirty Universe
Dirty Filthy Rich Boys - READ FREE
Dirty Duet: Dirty Filthy Rich Men | Dirty Filthy Rich Love
Dirty Sexy Bastard - READ FREE
Dirty Games Duet: Dirty Sexy Player | Dirty Sexy Games
Dirty Sweet Duet: Sweet Liar | Sweet Fate
Dirty Filthy Fix (a spinoff novella)
Dirty Wild Trilogy: Coming 2021
The Fixed Universe
Fixed Series: Fixed on You | Found in You | Forever with You | Hudson | Fixed Forever
Found Duet: Free Me | Find Me
Chandler (a spinoff novel)
Falling Under You (a spinoff novella)
Dirty Filthy Fix (a spinoff novella)
Slay Saga Slay One: Rivalry| Slay Two: Ruin | Slay Three: Revenge | Slay Four: Rising
First and Last
First Touch | Last Kiss
Spark - short, steamy sparks of romance
One More Time
Ryder Brothers Close
Want by Kayti McGee | More by JD Hawkins
Hollywood Heat
Sex Symbol | Star Struck
Written with Sierra Simone
Porn Star | Hot Cop
Written with Kayti McGee under the name Laurelin McGee
Miss Match | Love Struck | MisTaken | Holiday for Hire
Half Truths
Half Truths
By: Claire Contreras
Prologue
“I wish you’d stay out of it.”
“I wish you’d stay out of it.” He glared at Lana, sitting in his passenger seat. “You don’t even know what you’re getting involved in.”
“I know more than you think.”
He shook his head. They’d been arguing about this for a month. So often that people thought they were a couple. It was a thought that wouldn’t have disturbed him had it not been for what he knew about her and what she was doing. It was stupid of him to think he’d manage to change her mind, but he couldn’t bear the thought of letting her continue on this self-destructive path.
“I’m trying to help you.” It would be his last attempt at convincing her.
“I want you to stop helping, period,” she yelled, then lowered her voice. “You should slow down.”
He eased his foot off the pedal as he took the first curb. He hadn’t ever known Lana to be loud, and chalked it up to the situation she’d put herself in.
“I’m just saying, he’s no good for you and you’re going to regret—”
“Pull over.”
He exhaled. “Will you calm down? I’m not going—”
“Pull over,” she said, cutting him off again.
He was getting furious, but tried not to let it show. Once again, trying to be the bigger person in the situation. Before he knew what was happening, her hands were on the steering wheel. She pulled hard to the right. On instinct, he pulled the other way, slamming on the brakes. She pulled once more to the right and between the water on the winding road, the steering wheel battle, and the braking, he lost control of the car. The last thing he saw was the tree right before he slammed into it. His seatbelt caught the impact of his body propelling forward, and the airbag slammed him back into his seat.
It took him a moment to recover and look over at where Lana had been sitting. He expected to find her sitting there, but her door was ajar and there was no sign of her. His heart pounded in his chest. Had she flown out of the car with the impact of the accident? He scrambled with his seatbelt, but managed to get it off. His door opened with a creak as he stepped out. His entire body seemed to shake as he walked around the car in search of Lana. He could hear water running nearby. A waterfall was near.
“Lana?” he called out. His breath caught when he spotted her near the edge of the waterfall. His pace picked up slightly, as fast as his injured leg let him. The gorge was miles high and he didn’t need the crashing sound of the water as it cascaded to tell him the only thing that would cushion her fall if she fell . . . if she jumped were rocks.
“Lana?” He called out her name again, his voice desperate. Could she not hear him above the sound of the running water?
She glanced back at him, a haunted look in her eyes, and then she jumped.
Chapter 1
The air was thick with fog and a cold chill that seemed to flow through the turning leaves and straight into my chest. I reached for my inhaler out of the pocket of my jacket, shaking it a few times before pushing three times to inhale–two to open up my chest and one for good measure. Asthma was an affliction I’d recently been diagnosed with. Mild asthma, but asthma nonetheless. I guess that’s what I got for trading the concrete jungle for some nature. Now, even after moving back to my home state, I couldn’t seem to get rid of it. I stopped walking at the end of the sidewalk and waited for the group of people in front of me to finish looking at the campus map before stepping up to it.
The only thing worse than transferring to a new university was transferring to a new university your senior year. I didn’t know where anything was and this campus was so big it had its own zip code—literally. Even in my thoughts, I shouldn’t have been complaining. It was an Ivy League university people would kill to have the opportunity to attend, and technically it was the one I was supposed to attend before I decided to follow my boyfriend to Duke instead. Now I was boyfriend-less and following my father’s and brothers’ footsteps instead. My mother joked that I’d swapped herds, trading one boy for another, as if I was a sheep. I found it difficult to argue her point, even if hearing it upset me.
One thing I couldn’t argue with was the fact that my father had been right about a lot of things. Like when he told me I would regret following a boyfriend to college and that the minute we broke up I’d run home crying and begging to enroll here instead. The breakup wasn’t exactly what made me run home crying and begging to transfer, though I couldn’t deny it playing a part. It was my brother’s accident that had done it for me. My brother, who’d been my best friend my entire life and the most vibrant person I knew, suffered an accident that made him miss graduation, give up being captain of the hockey team, and run home with his tail between his legs. Since his return home, he’d been put on anti-depressants and was going to the therapist three times a week. A therapist, who was my mother’s colleague, and was constantly giving the news that my brother still wasn’t speaking to him. That made it worse. He’d only discuss certain things with us, but nothing of substance, and definitely nothing with relation to the accident. It was as if he’d blocked the memory out completely, or was trying to. My parents broached the subject carefully at first, but had now moved on to not saying anything at all, out of fear that they’d trigger him. Behind closed doors, when I knew he wasn’t listening, I asked my parents questions about that went unanswered and ignored and further perpetuated my curiosity and the turmoil I felt over it.