🎧 Reviewed by LD | Rating: 4.1/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥

⚠️ This is a full spoiler review. If you haven’t read Dirty Pleasures yet — go read it first. We’ll be here when you’re done.

Not caught up? Go read Book 1 — Dirty Billionaire first. We’ll be here when you’re done.

The Opening

Book two picks up exactly where book one left off. Holly is on a plane back to Nashville and Creighton is about to realize exactly how badly he messed up. What follows is one of the more interesting character transformations in this trilogy, because the man who showed up in book one is not the same man by the end of book two.

The Full Story — Spoilers Included

The Fallout

Holly lands in Nashville, gets picked up by her friend. She rushes home to pack and heads to Boone Thrasher’s house where the tour bus is waiting on her. Holly is the opener, Boone is the headliner, and she will get kicked off the tour if she isn’t there in time. She leaves her phone at home by accident and has to call Tana to retrieve it and overnight it to her.

Meanwhile Creighton gets back to the apartment expecting to find Holly. She isn’t there and he is furious. He calls Cannon, his right-hand man, who admits he told Holly earlier that day that Creighton was too busy for her. Creighton is livid — but then the realization hits. She left his credit card. She left the clothes, the shoes, even the guitar. The guitar. The tour. He forgot about her tour. He promised to make her career a priority and then forgot about her tour entirely. He is still angry she left, but now he sees his own part in why she left.

He takes the jet to her house but she’s already gone. They find out a stop was added to the tour and he flies there instead. Security won’t let him backstage. He tries to bribe his way through and it doesn’t work — this man genuinely believes he can buy anything, so what he does next is genuinely surprising: he sits in the audience like everyone else and watches her perform. He is in awe of her. He had never seen her perform before.

He waits by the tour buses afterward, calling for her until she hears him. They get on the bus and he apologizes and he owns it. He messed up, he didn’t make her a priority, and he says so out loud.

On the Road

What happens next is the part of this book I found most interesting. Creighton joins the tour. He works on the bus. He is present in a way that book one Creighton absolutely was not. He buys Holly her own tour bus so she has privacy. He hires her security. He goes to her meet and greets. When a fan grabs her and kisses her, Creighton punches the man and then immediately arranges for two security guards on her at all times inside any venue. He is all in, in a way that feels completely unexpected given how this whole situation started.

He didn’t propose to Holly because he loved her and she didn’t say yes because she loved him. And yet here he is, traveling the country on a tour bus, working remotely, rearranging his entire life around her schedule. He clearly likes her a lot more than either of them planned for.

What We Learn About Creighton

He tells Holly about Shaw, his ex-wife. He met her when he bought a chain of luxury resorts her grandfather had run into the ground. He had planned to fire her but she offered to work for free if he’d let her stay. They were married six months to the day after meeting. In a moment of generosity he let her keep the resorts in the prenup. Turns out the resorts were all she ever wanted and she had been in love with someone else the entire time. After that, he stopped trusting people.

His uncle — the man who raised him and his sister Greer after their parents died — is now an activist shareholder publicly trying to destabilize the business Creighton built. The uncle who took them in at ten and never once made them feel like family. It explains a lot about why he operates the way he does.

Holly’s Mother

Holly gets a call from jail. Her mother was arrested for breaking into her grandmother’s house. It turns out it was her second trip — she had already come and gone, pawned most of her grandmother’s jewelry for cash. A set of pearls Holly had been deeply attached to were already sold by the time anyone found out.

Creighton, without being asked, sends Holly’s mother on a vacation to get her out of the picture. He also, without telling Holly, bought her record label. That was the deal he was in the middle of when he missed her deadline in book one — he was trying to get her out from under a label that was exploiting her, and it cost him the moment he should have been there for her.

Anica

At a gala Holly runs into a woman who introduces herself as the original Mrs. Karas. Her name is Anica, and Creighton never mentioned her. Holly knew about Shaw. She did not know about Anica. Anica tells her she left Creighton because winning always came first, that Holly will never be important enough, that she will be brought out when useful and bought off when not. The bought-off comment lands especially hard given that Creighton has just purchased her record label without telling her.

Holly has a panic attack in the bathroom. Creighton comes immediately, gets her home, calls his personal doctor. She finally asks why he didn’t tell her she was wife number three.

He says it wasn’t important.

From Holly’s side this reads as dismissal. From Creighton’s side, he is a man who grew up being told he was not worth love and has never once begged for it. He reads her anger as confirmation that she doesn’t love him and never will. He tells her he will not beg her to stay.

They both love each other. Neither of them can say it. Both of them are too broken and too proud to get there. In the end, Holly writes him the same two-word note on the same notepad. Goodbye Creighton. And she leaves again.

Best Part of This Book

Watching Creighton actually show up for someone. He got on a tour bus. He sat in a general audience seat to watch her perform. He hired her security, bought her a private bus, rearranged his working life around her schedule. He didn’t marry Holly because he loved her, but by book two he clearly does, and watching that happen quietly and without fanfare in a man who started out so completely self-centered is genuinely compelling.

The Steam Rating Breakdown

🔥🔥🔥🔥 — Consistent and spicy throughout. The chemistry between them hasn’t cooled at all and the book doesn’t pretend otherwise.

The Ending — Satisfied or Disappointed?

Frustrated in the best possible way. Two broken people who love each other and cannot say it, both too proud to be the one who bends first. It’s the same note she left in book one and it hits differently the second time. You will need book three immediately.

Would I Reread It?

No.

Where to Get

📖 Physical Book
Amazon | Bookshop.org

🎧 Audiobook
Audible | Libro.fm

📱 Ebook
Amazon

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Dirty Pleasures — Meghan March | Full Spoiler