Wicked Paradise: An Alpha Billionaire Romance

by Tia Lewis

  “I wish you would get up,” I finally muttered before taking a big bite of the soft, hot, slightly sweet pancakes. It was like heaven, I thought in the back of my mind before remembering that my best friend was probably knocking at the pearly gates just about then. It wasn’t easy to swallow over the lump in my throat.

  “You really don’t wanna see me, do you?”

  “The fact that you sound surprised surprises me,” I replied. Suddenly, eating as fast as possible and getting the hell out of there was my top priority. “Besides, nobody likes being stared at while they’re housing a stack of pancakes.”

  “I guess I was wrong,” he murmured, voice tight.

  “About?” I shoveled a forkful of pancakes into my mouth, then dipped a strip of bacon into syrup before sliding it between my lips.

  “About all this time making things a little easier.”

  “Listen.” I put my fork down for the first time since the food came. “There’s a reason Craig never mentioned either of us to the other, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

  “And why do you think that is?”

  “I just thought you would’ve moved on by now.”

  I blinked, wondering if he was being deliberately obtuse or if he really didn’t know what he did to me. “I have. I did. But that doesn’t mean we’re friends again. That sort of thing usually happens after a person gets closure and in case you forgot, there was no closure for us.” I dared him to argue, staring him down. He stared right back, which shouldn’t have surprised me.

  “You’re right. There wasn’t. We were kids. We didn’t know any better.” Was that his idea of an apology?

  I let it go. “We were.”

  He stood. “This isn’t the time or the place.” My eyes shifted back and forth, and I finally noticed the attention we were gathering. There were two younger waitresses who worked along with Debbie, and they were making it a point to work very close to us. Closer than they strictly needed to, I would bet. They married ketchup bottles and filled salt shakers in silence—and anybody who’d ever worked with young women knew they weren’t quiet by nature. I wondered how much they’d already heard. Did they have a crush on him? I thought they might, the way their eyes tended to flicker up toward him before turning back to their work. And there I was, some stranger, having a tense conversation with him. Their imaginations had to be running wild.

  He slid his hands into his pockets with a pensive sigh as he looked down at me, forehead creased. “You’re staying at Craig’s, then, I guess?”

  “Yes, I am.” I was staying at Craig’s, surrounded by him even though he was gone. I still couldn’t believe he was gone.

  “Would you mind if I stopped by later? I think there’re a few things we need to work out. I wanna help make this as easy on you as possible—getting the house ready, I mean, but not if you’re gonna bite my head off every time we’re together.”

  “I’ll make it even easier for you.” I stood, sliding my arms back into my coat. My plate was practically empty, anyhow. “You don’t have to come over at all, since we can’t seem to avoid getting into an argument whenever we’re together, and things are hard enough. But thank you anyway.” I fumbled through my wallet and grabbed a ten and a twenty, tossing both onto the table—way more than I needed to pay, especially considering the almost laughably low prices on the menu, but Debbie deserved a smile. Somebody needed to smile.

  Tears blurred my vision as I turned to go, and I nearly ran back to Craig’s just to be alone with my aching heart.

  Dawson

  “Who’s she?” I heard Bailey giggling a little behind me, where she was doing mindless side work that didn’t really need to be done. She couldn’t see me roll my eyes, though she might have noticed the way my hands clenched into fists. No, she couldn’t have seen that, either, since if she had, she’d know to leave me alone. I wasn’t in any mood to fend off clumsy flirtation from a kid practically young enough to be my daughter.

  “You can tell she thinks her shit doesn’t stink,” Maureen offered with a giggle of her own.

  I spun to face them. “I’d appreciate it if you kept your comments to yourself right now.” It wasn’t a good time to act like a snarky nineteen-year-old, not when I had just watched a woman I used to be in love with walk out on me.

  They looked stunned, and both of them took a step back. I realized my jaw was clenched as tight as my fists, and I had growled more than spoken to them. Nobody had ever seen me like that, not since I came home after active duty.

  Bailey looked at Maureen. I could see the panic on her face, on her friend’s. “We’re—we’re sorry,” she stuttered. Her already pale skin turned even whiter.

  “Yeah. We didn’t know you were friends with her,” Maureen added. She chewed her glossy bottom lip furiously.

  I took a deep breath and counted to five. They were just dumb kids. They didn’t know any better. “We lost a friend today,” I explained, and I sounded a lot more like myself when I did. The man they knew me as. I watched them both relax, shoulders falling back into place.

  “Oh, no. I’m so sorry.” Bailey’s hand found her chest just like Debbie’s did when I told her.

  “Someone in town?” Maureen always had to know the gossip. Bailey elbowed her. “Sorry,” she added. “It’s not my business.”

  “Anyway, that’s why we were both a little off.” I let the explanation sit there. They didn’t need to know anything more. They would find out Craig died and put two and two together, and maybe Debbie would tell them about the hours the three of us had spent in the third booth to the right of the door, along the window. She’d tell them how she had watched the three of us grow up there, and all about how Amanda and I fell in love. They would think it was romantic that I managed the diner all those years later, like I was waiting for her to come back to our booth. Girls were like that.

  “I need some air,” I told nobody in particular as I went outside. It was chilly, just shy of cold, the way November usually was. The winter never got too drastic in Virginia, though we had seen more snowfall than usual over the last several years. Global warming or something like that. My mom used to love snow—whenever it fell; she’d just about lose her mind like a kid hoping for a snow day. And if it fell anywhere around Christmas, well, it was like winning the lottery.

  I smiled a little as I thought about her. What would she think about Amanda being back in town? She had always liked her, even though the Greenley name wasn’t one of the most respected. Then again, my dad had up and left when we needed him the most, so what was in a name?

  What would Mom think? She would tell me to grow up and try to explain myself, but it was all so far in the past, I hardly remembered where things went wrong. I remembered that last night well enough, but not why I pushed her away in the first place. It had seemed like a big deal at the time, the way things always seemed like a big deal to eighteen-year-olds. I had thought I was hot shit back then, hadn’t I? Like I knew everything. I was so jaded already, too. Abandonment did that to a person. Only I hadn’t had a clue. Not really.

  I was doing it for her, I told myself. I could remember that. And it wasn’t like I didn’t want her anymore. It wasn’t like I had ever really stopped wanting her. Not really. It would be easier for both of us if we didn’t stay together. People grew up and went their separate ways all the time—I had told her that. What a corny line. I rolled my eyes at the memory.

  I hunched my shoulders as I took a short walk around the block, turning the corner at the library before heading to the next corner. The breeze became more of a wind every so often, and it sneaked through my heavy jeans. How many times had I wished for a wind like that when I was in the desert? I used to fantasize, literally fantasize, about shivering.

  I waived at Hal Jones, owner of the market around the corner from the diner. He was having a smoke outside the automatic doors, the collar of his jacket turned up against the chill. I passed the VFW post and made a left at the co
rner. I hadn’t been there in a long, long time. Not since just after I came home. I didn’t see the point of sitting around, always rehashing shit that needed to stay in the past. And that was all those sad, old men wanted to do. I always donated, though, and the diner was always a sponsor in their fundraisers. I just wouldn’t step foot inside unless I had to.

  It wouldn’t be enough for her after spending so much time in the big city, the little market, the library, the schools, Friday nights at the Post or one of the other bars in town. There were plenty of those. Church Sundays with coffee and donuts after. Football games, basketball games. A parade on Memorial Day and July Fourth. It wasn’t enough. She had always wanted more, and that was probably because she had never been quality when we were kids. No-good daddy. Worn-out mama. She was the only child—the three that came after her all died not long after they were born. Even her stupid asshole father had finally figured out that they should stop making babies who were too sick to live. It was too much for his wife, who was already put out enough after raising a daughter on her own with almost no financial help from a man who couldn’t hold a job for more than a few months at a time. Not that her mother had done much raising, either. She didn’t have the time or the energy.

  Amanda had dreamed about more. She might not have known exactly what she wanted back then, but she knew it was more than what she had. More than the sad life of her mother. So she’d worked her ass off in school and gotten a free ride. The rest was history.

  I found myself resenting her a little just then, and I asked myself why. There was nothing wrong with a person wanting more for herself—hell, I had wanted more, too. That was why I enlisted, or at least part of the reason why. The lure of money for college, seeing more than just my little dead-end town, all that. Not that college had been first on my list of things to do when I got home. Funny how something like that put everything in life into a different perspective.

  I remembered the high-and-mighty tone of voice she’d put on when she told me who she worked for. Like I cared. Like I was one of those snobs she knew—not that I knew them.

  I didn’t know them at all, just like I didn’t really know her anymore. I shook my head at the way I judged her. She was proud of herself. I could’ve been a little nicer about it. She wanted to prove that she did well out there, but I acted like it didn’t matter. No wonder she’d looked so hurt. What a way to greet her on coming home.

  I passed the garage on the way back to the diner and found Frank and Scott, one of his mechanics, working on an old truck. I went to high school with Scott, and we were sort of casual friends. When he caught sight of me, he waved a hand. I crossed the street to see what he wanted.

  He was grinning as he wiped oil from his hands with a rag so filthy, I wondered why he bothered trying. “Am I going crazy?” he asked.

  “Is that a trick question?”

  He snorted. “I could swear I saw Greenley walk by going to and from your place. Was it her? Or am I just nuts?”

  “You’re nuts, but yeah, that was her.”

  His face lit up with a sort of knowing look. Great. So that was what I had to look forward to—knowing looks, winks, nudges. We were never exactly quiet about being together back in the day. It wasn’t like we were hiding it, and kids aren’t good at keeping personal stuff personal. We had made out all over town.

  He looked me up and down with a sly smirk. “What’s she doing here?”

  “It’s a long story. You’ll hear more about it.” I shifted back a little to let him know I had to go.

  He pulled off his cap and ran a forearm over his forehead, which only left a streak of dirt there. “You okay, buddy?”

  “Just great. Long day, ya know?” I shrugged it off. “You haven’t been around in a while. You know how Debbie feels about you. She’s starting to wonder if you have a girlfriend she doesn’t know about.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, well, no girlfriends—but that don’t mean no girls.”

  I managed a grin and waved as I crossed the street again and finished my walk. It might have been a mistake to go out. I didn’t want to leak the news about Craig—I didn’t even know how to go about it—but I couldn’t walk around the block without running into somebody wanting to shoot the shit. I usually liked that about my town, but not so much just then. I was never very good at hiding when I had something on my mind.

  I held the pie in front of me so it might be the first thing she saw when she opened the door. When she did open after I knocked three times, she looked like a woman smiling in spite of herself.

  “Your favorite,” I reminded her. I took in the sight of her and wondered how I went so long without seeing her every day. She was the prettiest girl in town when we were kids, but time had made her beautiful. No, she didn’t have that fresh, young look like she used to, but there was something more. A woman could be beautiful when a kid was only pretty. Probably just my imagination running away with me, like the old song said.

  “Pecan pie,” she whispered. “I haven’t had good pecan pie in years.”

  “I thought so.” I held it out to her, and she took it after pausing for just a second. Wondering what came with the pie, I was sure. She was so easy to read.

  “Thanks,” she said, grimacing a little. “I was always a sucker for a good pie.”

  “I remember that, too. I remember a lot of things.”

  “Do you?” She leaned against the doorframe with a sarcastic grin. “Then you should remember my telling you that I didn’t want you coming over here.”

  “Oh, I didn’t forget that. But there’s something you don’t know.”

  “I already know you don’t care what I want,” she smirked.

  “That’s not true. I care what you want. Only somebody else wanted something, too.”

  She tensed. “Who?”

  “Craig. He would want me to help you with this. It’s too much for one person to do on their own.”

  She seemed to catch her breath a little. “You must have gotten awfully close to him if you feel like you can speak for him.”

  I shrugged, sliding my hands into my pockets. “Yes, ma’am, but I also know how this goes. The getting-shit-together phase. And it sucks. It takes longer than you think it’s gonna take, too. It’s heavy.”

  “You speak like you know.”

  “Maybe I do.” Those days were never very far from my memory, just waiting to be called up every time I passed the old house. Understanding dawned in her eyes and sympathy.

  She looked down at the pie and grinned. “You might as well come in. This is heavy, too. Another thing I’ll need help taking care of.” Her eyes swept the street. “Besides, I’m sure we’ve already attracted enough attention to keep gossip going at the beauty parlor tomorrow.”

  Amanda

  He always had a way of getting through to me. I could never hold him at arm’s length for long. Back when we were kids together, our friends used to take bets on how long I’d stay mad when we fought. Both of us were hard headed and never the type to enjoy saying we were wrong. So fights would go on for days, weeks sometimes. He’d be over it long before I was. And that would piss me off even more. How could he not care that I was mad? How could he not want to talk to me? Didn’t it rip him apart the way it ripped me apart?

  But it never lasted. I couldn’t be away from him for too long or else I’d die. It was as simple as that. It was always as simple as that for a hormone-crazed teenager. I had gone twenty years without him and survived just fine, hadn’t I? I hadn’t died, and I wouldn’t die just because he was dredging all that old stuff up for me.

  I took the pie to the kitchen and pulled out two plates. I heard him moving things around in the living room and left him to it for the moment while I got my head together. How did he always make me do what he wanted me to do? When I was determined not to give in. Pride already kept me away for too long; I reminded myself. I couldn’t let it screw me over when I needed help.

  The house was tidy and free of obvious clutter, but
there was a good forty years of life stored inside. Craig was always a sentimentalist. He got rid of only some of the things his parents had collected over the years—he’d replaced the cookware, given away the clothes that didn’t hold any emotional value. But there was so much left. The basement, the attic. I’d already had a good cry after a short temper tantrum when the enormity of it hit me.

  “Do you want coffee?” I called out to Dawson as I sliced.

  “Oh, God, yes.” He sounded just about as overwhelmed as I’d felt earlier.

  “So you started looking through the boxes,” I smirked. I had pulled a few up from the basement in a futile attempt to start organizing.

  “I never took him to be a packrat,” he said. “Maybe we should just take out storage space and put it all there and be done with it.” I walked out to the living room with a tray and saw him standing there with hands on hips, shaking his head.

  “Like shoving everything under the bed instead of cleaning your room.” I set the coffee and pie on the coffee table and sat next to him.

  “I never did that.”

  “Yes, you did. I checked once or twice when you left me alone in there. You have a bad habit of shoving things away, don’t you?”

  A smile played at the corners of his mouth as he took a bite of pie. I couldn’t help watching as his tongue darted out to catch a crumb before it fell from his lips. I swallowed hard.