Free Trophy by SE Chardou Page B

screeching tires.
    I suppose Dorian lived up to his bad boy status about as much as I lived up to my grieving widow status, and neither of us were capable of change, not at this moment in our lives.
    Everything eventually came down to timing and ours seemed to be completely off balance. It was “another time, another place” scenario that kept screaming at me loud and clear that if I was smart, I’d turn around, climb back into my SUV, make a stop by Gordon Ramsay at The London WH, and order some of the best takeout in West Hollywood. I could binge-watch the old episodes of American Horror Story or Justified while being perfectly comfortable in my own home.
    Of course my overactive hormones overruled every decent bone I had in my body and every working brain cell in my head. I waltzed right up to Dorian’s home looking like a million bucks, and smelling like expensive perfume—I might as well have had money oozing from my pores. Who the hell was I kidding? I could try to live in obscurity for the rest of my life but men would be after me like dogs in heat. If I didn’t catch one now while I had my looks then I’d be left with the gold-digging twenty-somethings who specifically went out with moneyed cougars. That would be me in another ten years whether I wanted to admit it to myself or not.
    I knocked on the door shortly after I rung the doorbell. It was too late now for me to back out of this arrangement even if I had a pretty good idea what Dorian and Ella had done before I showed up. Perhaps that meant he truly was serious about me and wouldn’t expect sex from me that night.
    Dorian opened the door in a pair of slightly baggy dark blue jeans and a black silk shirt. He looked good even if he was dressed on the casual side when compared to me. I would have never known anything had gone down between him and Ella except his hair was damp from a recent shower. He smelled good, like a mixture of designer body wash and cologne that had strong accents of sandalwood, mint, and citrus.
    “You look great,” he said to me as he kissed my cheek and embraced me warmly.
    As we separated, I smiled at him as he led me into the living room. The whole downstairs smelled like some kind of delicious culinary masterpiece awaited us in the dining room.
    “I’m impressed,” I stated, looking him up and down with a wry grin on my face. “Not only are you a talented musician but you can cook too.”
    Dorian smirked though the slight crimson stain of a blush he was trying to hide put a dent in his didn’t-give-a-shit persona. “I’ve always known how to cook. I didn’t grow up with maids, cooks or a butler you know. It was tough to live amongst strangers after my parents tossed me to the side and couldn’t be bothered to care about me.”
    I noticed the bitterness in his voice and wondered who his parents were exactly. Not much was known about his private life or his upbringing except that he’d grown up in South Africa and attended a boarding school there. At the age of fourteen, he’d transferred to a military academy where he graduated at seventeen with honors and after that, everything was a blank slate covered up by him backpacking across Europe for several years until he set down roots in Paris and quickly became known as one of the best DJs in Europe shortly after his twenty-second birthday.
    DoPe was born sometime shortly thereafter and he managed to get a hold of Grace Cox as his manager and some of the best producers working the progressive house and trip-hop scene. He’d released three full-length albums: Collide , Listen Up and his latest, Sick Beats . All had gone multi-platinum and had led to an additional three live albums: DoPe Collides in Rio de Janeiro , Listen Up in Ibiza and Sick Beats Rock Berlin .
    The man was a legend on the dance scene though most people knew him for his love affairs and trysts with pop stars and hip Hollywood starlets than they did for his music. He’d had more than a few mainstream