Bad Girl: An Enemies-to-Lovers Roommate Romance (Alphahole Roommates Book 3) Read online

  Bad Girl

  Alphahole roommates series

  Book 3

  A

  contemporary

  enemies-to-lovers romance

  By

  DD PRINCE

  Copyright: 2021.

  by DD Prince

  http://ddprince.com

  Cover Design: DD Prince and Haelah Rice Covers

  Cover images: Shutterstock.

  Sign up for DD Prince’s free newsletter to get notified of upcoming book releases - http://ddprince.com/newsletter-signup/

  ***

  All rights reserved. This book may not be copied, duplicated, stored on any retrieval systems, such as on a file server, posted online, or shared by file transfer without the permission of the author. Only brief quotations /excerpts can be shared for review purposes.

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  This book contains mature language and sex. It is intended for adults.

  This is a fictional story, the product of the author’s imagination.

  Bad Girl

  Alphahole Roommates 3

  Each book in the Alphahole Roommates Series can technically be read as standalone but for the richest reading experience, I suggest reading them in order.

  Alphahole, Good Girl, then Bad Girl.

  BLURB

  This isn’t just an enemies-to-lovers roommate romance, it’s also enemies with benefits!

  Jude and Ally have explosive chemistry from the minute they meet, but Ally finds out Jude is a private eye, and she backs off.

  Jude wants to know why.

  Ally has secrets and does her best to throw him off her scent, but that just makes things more interesting.

  And then it gets really interesting when Jude convinces Aiden Carmichael to let him move into the spare room in Ally’s corporate apartment.

  Note: This story has romance, comedy, feels, and all sorts of steam. It’s an enemies-to-lovers, enemies-with-benefits, roommate romance. It’s also got a heroine who fights the hero tooth and nail nearly every step of the way. He works hard to break down her defenses while also exhibiting outrageous over-the-top possessive alphahole behavior.

  Aiden was infuriating in Alphahole. Austin was infuriating in Good Girl.

  In Bad Girl, it’s Ally that might drive you up the wall. Until you get to know her better (I hope).

  If all this doesn’t appeal to you, best wishes. I hope I have something else that’ll tickle your book boyfriend fantasies.

  If it does… settle in for a fun, sexy, sometimes infuriating, but also dirty ride with Ally and Jude.

  This contemporary romance has laughs, steam, suspense, and feels.

  Dedication:

  First, to Georgia - my Georgie-girl. I miss you baby-cat.

  Also…

  For the sometimes-bad girls that don’t think they’re good enough.

  Spoiler alert:

  you are.

  PROLOGUE

  Goodbye Alyssa McQueen

  I’m running. Not like a speeding bullet. Not with the majestic grace of an athlete. Nope. I’m running like a foal on the day it’s born, looking like it doesn’t have command of its legs yet. This is because I’m running while wearing four-inch heels.

  I zig and zag through the shopping mall with the backpack secured on my front instead of my back, so I can make sure I’ve got my arms tight around it. There’s no way I can lose this bag.

  I wobble as I zoom through the purse and wallet store. These shoes are awful to run in. As terrible as they are, I know I’ll draw even more attention if I’m running shoeless, so I keep motoring.

  “Does this place have a back door?” I breathlessly ask the bored salesclerk who’s scrolling on her phone.

  Her eyes roll up from her screen toward my face. I probably look crazed. I am. With fear. I glance over my shoulder to see if he’s gaining on me.

  I don’t have time to ask again, so I haul ass out of there and into the wine store next door to it. This shop is tiny. Bad idea.

  Though, today has been a series of bad ideas.

  There are too many things to bump into that will smash, break, and make a mess – not to mention draw attention to me, which I do not want. Though that might be difficult what with me wearing high heels, a little black dress, mascara tracks down my cheeks from all the crying, not to mention running through a mall with a backpack strapped to my front.

  I boogie over to the next shop and find myself in a store called Christmas Everyday!

  The exclamation mark after the everyday is an upside-down Christmas tree.

  It’s April.

  I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas is piped through the speakers and even in my panic, it strikes me as strange that it’s so busy in here. Who buys Christmas decorations in spring? There are dancing hippo figurines in Santa hats, twinkling lights, and sparkle and tinsel everywhere. The movie White Christmas, which my mother loves, is being played on a projector screen that’s aimed at a white wall and the staff who mingle with the shoppers are wearing elf hats and pointy green shoes.

  Is that the guy in the trench coat wearing the Dick Tracy style hat? Shit! He doesn’t see me, but he’s just walked by and his head scans from left to right as he walks, looking like a Terminator movie robot.

  I throw a tall, green elf hat on my head to distract from my blonde hair. “Can I use your restroom?” I plead to an older elf-dressed female employee. She has a grimace on her face.

  “We got no public bathroom,” she rasps in a two-pack-a-day voice. “There’s one by the food court.”

  I do a jig slash bounce and plead with my eyes, hopeful, because she looks like a grandmother – albeit a grouchy one – and grandmothers don’t want to see young people pee their pants.

  She looks more annoyed as she jerks her thumb over her shoulder, pointing at an alcove behind the cash register.

  Hallelujah!

  Not Dick Tracy hasn’t seen me.

  “Thank you! Bless you!”

  I boogie.

  And luck would have it, there’s a door marked receiving right beside the staff bathroom. There’s a warning sign that the alarm will sound if the door opens without the alarm being disengaged.

  And shit. Because that alarm will be blaring and that’s going to draw attention, but it can’t be helped. I have zero choice.

  If Not Dick Tracy catches me, I’m vulture chow, fish food, or something equally disturbing and final.

  These fucking shoes: they have to go.

  Beside the receiving door there’s a coat rack with Santa hats and one Santa coat. Below it, I see a pair of elf shoes.

  I bite my lip in a brief beat of contemplation. Fuck it. I have no other choice.

  They might have pointy toes and big buckles, but these green crushed velvet slip-ons will be a whole lot easier to run in than my current sky-high heels.

  Where are the other peoples’ shoes, anyway? There are multiple people in the store wearing elf shoes. Why can’t I see a pair of Nikes or Converse or maybe even a pair of sensible Tender Tootsies belonging to Grumpy Grandma elf?

  Whatever. I have no time to ponder this further so off go my strappy heels and on go the crushed green velvet elf shoes before I drop the elf hat, fill my lungs with air and then, being mildly superstitious, do a sign of the cross and put my shoulder against the big silver bar across the grey steel door.

  The shoes are a little big but they’re way better than what I had on.

  A split second after I shove and the door opens, sunlight and traffic noises spilling into the store and interrupting the now playing All I Want for Christmas is You, the alarm blares. And I’m running.

  Running for my life with a backpack of money, dressed in a little black dress, long blonde hair in a sleek ponytail, the retro army green backpack on my front, and crushed velvet green pointy elf shoes on my feet in the second week of April.

  No sign of Not Dick Tracy so far, and there is a yellow taxicab, so I wave it down while running toward it.

  I get to the back door behind the driver’s and am just about to pull the door handle when the cab accelerates.

  Shit!

  I see another cab. This one a powder blue one. I dash that way and he stops. Mercifully. And with an amused look on his face.

  Yeah, the shoes with the cocktail dress, I know.

  I hear nothing with the adrenalin combined with the alarm sounds still vibrating my eardrums, but I climb in and breathe out relief.

  “Airport,” I say, still exhaling. “As fast as you can safely get me there, pretty please. I tip very well, by the way.”

  He immediately palms the meter and I breathe out more relief as the car surges forward.

  My pulse? Racing. My body? Shaking. I wipe my clammy hands on my dress and take in the cabbie ID on display.

  Holy shit.

  I blink a few times to make sure I’m really seeing what I see.

  As the car pulls up to line up three cars back from the stoplight to go left out onto the main drag, I see a hat and trench coat emerge from a mall entrance, so I slide halfway down in the seat and drop my head like I’m searching for something in an effort to hide.

  That’s when I catch what looks to be a pink stuffed animal on top of
a dark jacket on the floor of this cab.

  Reaching down, I start to say, “Someone forgot a-” Oh. As I lift it I realize it’s a wig.

  A baby pink wig. A dark purple blazer.

  My luck sucks hairy monkey balls; it really does.

  What’s happened to me lately has me convinced of it.

  But at the sight of the wig and the blazer coupled with whose cab I just happened to climb into, I feel like that luck is changing.

  Folded over, I quickly wind my ponytail into a knot and pull the pink wig over it. I straighten up and shrug the blazer on, then I look up.

  The driver laughs.

  I meet his gaze in the rearview mirror.

  “That works for you, love,” the older guy with gray hair and kind, crinkling hazel eyes says.

  “Does it? You have no idea how much I needed to find this in here. Can you go any faster? I want to make sure I lose somebody. You drive fast and I’ll wear this, and I just might have a shot.”

  “Someone after you?” he asks, looking concerned. “Boyfriend? Boyfriend’s wife?”

  I pause briefly and my eyes graze the cabbie ID on his visor again to make sure I really read what I think I read.

  “Gangster,” I correct, feeling a peaceful sensation flood me. “Well, someone on a gangster’s payroll who is pretending to protect me. But I see through it.”

  The cabbie hits the pedal, and we swerve into another lane, sending me flying to the opposite end of the back seat.

  “Best get movin’, then.”

  “Thank you,” I breathe.

  “Not super-smart of you to tell strangers this stuff, little lady.”

  I shake my head. “I haven’t been real smart at all lately. That’s about to change.”

  I see the frown line over the bridge of his nose in the mirror.

  I dare to glance behind us, and Not Dick Tracy is nowhere in sight. Phew.

  “You have kind eyes. I’d probably want to trust you based on that, but truthfully, I see your name on your permit.” I gesture to the back of his seat.

  His eyebrows shoot up in question.

  “My dad was a cabbie. He had a friend named Scotty King that used to be his day driver. Hack Team King and McQueen. So, I’m thinking we might sort of not be strangers.”

  He stares into the mirror a beat and then his face changes. “You’re not Marty McQueen’s little girl!”

  “The one, the only.”

  “Alyssa! Loved your old man. He was like a brother.”

  We’re in the fast lane on the highway now and Scotty King is pushing the speed limit. We’re making good time.

  “Haven’t seen you since his funeral. I didn’t recognize you. I’m sorry about that.”

  “Think nothing of it,” I say, “It’s been over twelve years. And we only met a handful of times.”

  “Where are you heading from here?”

  “I don’t know,” I admit, “I need to hide, I think. I’m … I’m in big trouble.”

  “Right. Okay, so go to Baltimore. When we park, I’ll give you a number for a friend of mine, Tori. She runs a temp agency and a rooming house. She’ll rent you a room and get you a job while you figure out your next move. She’s got ways to help people hide.”

  I blink in surprise. But, really, after all Daddy told me about Scotty King, I’m not that surprised. And I’ve always felt like Dad’s my guardian angel. This, today, him picking me up might prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt.

  “Yeah? Really?” If this were just anyone, I’d ask if it’s a rooming house for prostitutes and if I’m about to become an indentured servant, but Scotty was one of Dad’s best buds, so, no way. I feel in my gut I can trust him.

  “Yep. Change your name. Change your habits. Do not contact anyone from your old life. I’m assumin’ it’s the Steele brothers who are after you. Or else the Papalia crew.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “Good guess. Cabbies are the eyes and ears of a city. I saw the guy you were hidin’ from, too, and don’t know him but know he’s a dirty cop and know who he consorts with. I’m sure your old man told you stories – we sit here and either shut up and drive while fares have all sorts of conversations in our back seats. Or a good chunk of ‘em tell us their secrets, feeling like they can, for some unknown reason, trust us based on looking at the backs of our heads. We know shit. Don’t tell me which of the two it is that’s after ya. The less I know, the better.”

  “With you, I bet it’s the eyes in the mirror. Your eyes look kind.”

  Laugh lines appear around those kind eyes just briefly before the concern is back. “Give you my number, too. You get stuck, you call me, and I’ll see how I can help. Memorize it and hand it back before you get out of this car.” He passes me a card. “Your father was a good man. His friends felt that loss, we all took it hard. He probably spoke to the big man upstairs and made it, so I was here to see you runnin’ in those pointy shoes. What’s in the bag you’re hangin’ on so tight to? Or do I wanna know?”

  “A whole lot of cash.”

  A lot of it. I haven’t counted it, but I suspect there’s enough in here to last me a good long time. “You want some?” I offer.

  He sighs. “Shit, Alyssa. How much trouble you in?”

  “Lots, I think.”

  “You’ll need all the cash you can get. Listen, don’t spend any more than you have to; save it in case you need to get gone again after Baltimore. And then get gone and save the rest in case you need to get gone again. If it’s the Steele brothers especially, you’ll need resources. You hear?”

  I nod.

  “You have the foggiest idea of what you’re dealin’ with?”

  Another nod from me.

  Obviously, he knows what I’m dealing with too by his offer.

  “Okay. Memorize that phone number yet?”

  “I’ll do that right now.”

  1

  Ally

  San Diego, California – Several Months Later

  Present – The Day After Carly and Aiden’s Wedding

  I stick the key into the bottom lock on the door of apartment 1406 and test the knob. It turns. But I haven’t unlocked the deadbolt, so it shouldn’t.

  Before the door is all the way open, my heart is racing. Has someone been here? Are they here waiting for me right now?

  I’m constantly telling myself to be aware of what’s happening around me. Never, ever oblivious. It’s critical. People who think they know me have no idea I’m continuously surveying my surroundings to see if anything sticks out, if anything suggests I should make a run for it.

  I take precautionary measures daily to ensure I’m safe.

  Is it time to bolt, to turn around and abandon my life in San Diego? Or is this how it ends? My system is clearly flawed, and I know this only now because it’s failed me. If someone is in there, they’ve seen the knob turn and so they know I’m on the other side of this door and maybe they have a gun ready and aimed at me.

  I had no choice but to use my actual passport to go to St. Kitts because there was no time to get a fake one, and it’s been nagging at me. But it’s not like I could miss Carly’s wedding. Aiden flew us all there and back, but the whole thing was spontaneous so there was no advance warning and I needed to show my passport coming and going.

  Is the jig up?

  I love my life here. I love my job. My friends. I love being Ally Kingston, even though that’s not who I’ve always been.

  Alyssa McQueen vanished into thin air months ago and I’ve been hoping vehemently that she’ll never be discovered. In fact, it’s critical she isn’t.

  I did my best to cover my tracks and I had help. Lots of help, actually, courtesy of Scotty by helping me connect with Tori, but the rest of it – with Tori and that bag of money. Scotty would give me crap for taking a variation of his last name for my San Diego job, but he likely saved my life by connecting me with Tori. And Tori connected me with her brother Wade, who has helped me immeasurably since I got here.

  The bad guys are obviously really bad and probably haven’t just given up on losing out on the nearly three quarters of a million dollars I took. Not to mention the embarrassment to my ex of me taking off. And that other thing that was in the bag. I can’t even think about that other thing that I found in the bottom of that bag without bile rising up the back of my throat. The only thing as scary as that other thing are the threats Thad made to me before I took off. That’s why I can’t be found.