Pretty, Dark and Dirty

Prologue

When I was little, I suffered from frequent night terrors that led to a fear of sleeping with my back exposed. My father, awoken by my cries, would lift me from my crib and carry me in to sleep between my parents in their already too-cramped bed.

I don’t recall the nightmares, but if I close my eyes, I can still feel the weight of my father’s arm around me, and the solid presence of his chest against my back. The vague awareness of feeling safe, warm, and protected.

These days, I no longer need to close my eyes to remember how it felt to be loved.

I have only to slide my hand across the sheet to find another hand reaching out for me, or whisper, Daddy, in the dark to feel his arms enfolding me.

I came to the city in search of answers. What I found was a love I couldn’t have known, had the truth been made plain to me from the start.

And had I known the price Mason and I would pay in my pursuit of the truth, I’m not sure I would’ve climbed on that bus—

But I did, and there’s no going back now, for either of us.

Chapter One

I’ll never forget the first time I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I was four years old, holding my mother’s hand in front of an immense portrait of George Washington. My toes pinched in my bunny-rabbit sneakers after hours of wandering through galleries, and I couldn’t stop squirming in my itchy denim overalls.

Exasperated, my mother turned to my father and said, “Mason, just take her.”

He hoisted me up and carried me off to the Egyptian wing, past the reflecting pool and into the Temple of Dendur.

“Look, Jetty,” he’d said, using his nickname for me. My gaze followed his finger to the remains of a small statue encased in glass. “That’s the priestess Tagerem, God’s Wife to the Egyptian sun god Ra.”

“What’s a Ra?” I asked.

“One of the most powerful gods in all of Egypt. He rides a chariot across the sky during the day, making the world bright.”

At the time, it had made perfect sense to me, because I knew men could be gods. My father was surely a god, for he was the star around which my entire world revolved. I beheld his kingdom from atop his strong, broad shoulders. Up there, it was possible to witness things that would’ve otherwise gone unnoticed by one so small.

Standing in more or less the same spot fourteen years later, I wondered if knowing the truth—that Mason wasn’t my real father—would’ve made a difference. Most likely not. When you’re young, you’ll accept almost anything as normal. And back then, Mason Black had been my everything.

Who the hell was I kidding? Long after he’d abandoned me at the age of twelve, he was still my everything.

I would have gladly gone to the grave believing he was my flesh and blood. It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that I learned the truth about him, but the damage had already been done. He'd broken my heart into a thousand pieces by leaving me six years ago; what was a few hundred more?

Rising onto my toes, I craned my neck to scan the blockade of onlookers by the temple wall. Mason had warned me that weekends at the Met could be crowded, and crowded was an understatement. My bus arrived at Grand Central Terminal a few minutes after I was supposed to meet him in the lobby. By the time I joined a ticket line, I was already twenty minutes late.

I looked for him at the information kiosk, and when I didn’t see him, I sent a text. Ten minutes and zero responses later, I headed into the Egyptian wing in the hopes that he’d gotten bored and gone inside without me.

That was half an hour ago.

Abandoning the temple, I took a seat on the stone lip beside the reflecting pool and pulled out my phone. No new messages. My foot took to bouncing; I was starting to freak out. It was possible Mason had left his phone at home, or forgotten to charge it. He probably thought I’d stood him up.

Or, far more likely, he hadn’t shown up at all.

As far as I was aware, Mason had no idea I was privy to the fact that he wasn’t my father. I was both dreading and anticipating his reaction when I confronted him about knowing the truth. Well, half the truth. I still didn’t know who my real father was, only that Mason wasn’t it. I hoped he might be able to shed some light on the subject, or at least be able to point me in the right direction so I could find him for myself.

But first, I had to find Mason.

With no other way to contact him and nowhere else to go, I was starting to get anxious. His address was unlisted. I didn’t know anyone else in New York City, and the money in my bag wasn’t enough to cover another bus ticket, plus food. There had to be an ATM somewhere in the museum. I’d hoped to save the bulk of my high-school graduation money, but if push came to shove, I supposed I

could use some of it to rent a cheap hotel room or a bed at a youth hostel.

I was about to send Mason another text when I heard an unmistakable gasp from the chorus of soccer moms idling nearby. I could almost smell their arousal.

The throng of women parted, and there he stood, daylight bursting through the clouds. I had to crane my neck a little to see all of him. He was taller than I remembered, and broader, his shirt hugging the muscles in his chest like a second skin.

My breath caught in my chest as I met his gaze. Mason was the sort of handsome that made people’s necks snap as he passed, the kind you had to rub your eyes to believe. My mother used to say he didn’t just make art, he was art. A walking, talking, living, breathing work of art.

He was the sun. It hurt to look at him.

“Hey Jetty,” Mason said.

Smoothing my lychee-scented lip balm, I curtailed my grin into a modest smile.

“It’s actually just Jett now,” I said.

“Mind if I sit down, Just Jett?”

I smiled at his dad joke as he took a seat on the stone bench beside me. I was at a loss for words, but it didn’t seem to matter. Mason’s smile was as warm as midsummer, his hazel eyes tinged gold. Not a smirk of pretense or a squint of disenchantment to be found. Just wonder, pure and refreshing like a mouthful of ice water.

I swallowed, forcing my affection down. It was far too soon and six years too late to be thinking such thoughts about a man who had lied to me for over a decade and then disappeared without a trace. I may have come all the way from New Hampshire to see him, but I didn’t want him to think this would be easy.