Wicked Paradise: An Alpha Billionaire Romance

by Tia Lewis

  What would he think about everything he did? I wondered as I walked into the school gym, which had been transformed since I was there to set up the food. The decorating committee had worked their asses off. People were already coming in and setting themselves up at tables, and I said hi to just about everybody I passed. It was incredible, the thought that they all wanted to be part of what I started even when it wasn’t about saving the diner anymore.

  The one person I didn’t see as time passed was the only person I wanted to be with. She had been working overtime putting together the paperwork for the sale while I was busy coordinating the event. It had been days since we had the time to be together for more than a quick cup of coffee. I couldn’t wait until we had time to settle down and just be us. If she wanted to.

  That was the one thing we hadn’t talked about, mostly because there hadn’t been the time. Was she going to keep the house or sell it and move on? It seemed like she wanted to be part of the town for good, but I knew better than to assume anything with her. I wasn’t about to let her go—I’d do anything to keep her with me—but not if she didn’t want to stay. I wouldn’t be that man.

  Amanda

  I was dressed and ready to go to the party. We deserved to have a good time after what we’d been through. I had worked my fingers to the bone to get things settled and finishing up the packing at the same time. I couldn’t stand living with a bunch of half-empty boxes lying around. So if anybody needed a few beers and the excuse to dance, it was me.

  I looked over those boxes as I stood in the living room. There was no shaking the feeling that I was getting rid of him, somehow. Like he was disappearing. I was erasing him. His books, his clothes. They were part of what made him him, and I was giving them away to other people. People who might not ever know where those things came from. I might walk down the street one day and run into somebody wearing one of his sweaters, or see one of his books in the library.

  I patted the top of the box and congratulated myself on a job well done. It had seemed undoable, but the house was down to its bare bones—just furniture and the bare kitchen necessities, a few towels in the bathroom and the bedding. That was it. It could’ve been anybody’s house at that point. There was very little personality without the pictures on the walls or the hundreds of books stacked on every flat surface. No knickknacks. No Craig.

  My house. It was my house.

  I couldn’t get over the idea that it was mine. It had belonged to Craig’s parents, then to Craig. I never imagined it would be mine one day. Why should I have?

  A house of my own. Not just an apartment, but a house with bedrooms and a yard. Not a big yard, and there wasn’t much of a view. Nothing compared to New York, that was for sure. But it was mine. If I wanted it.

  And I did want it. I couldn’t imagine leaving, not after throwing myself into the fray with Dawson. It had felt good, like we were a team. And the town had depended on us. And they were happy, and that was because of us. I couldn’t leave after something like that.

  The thought took my breath away. Actually living there again. I wished I had come to my senses and swallowed my pride before losing Craig.

  My eyes fell on the boxes of items I wanted to keep. A few books I wanted to read, pictures and photo albums, an entire box of records along with the old turntable. A college sweatshirt that smelled like him. A few of the birthday cards he’d saved. Our high school yearbook. I pulled it out and sat on the couch.

  Opening the front cover was enough to make my chin tremble. I had signed the entire inside front cover in big, loopy script. It was just one big long ramble full of inside jokes and predictions for the future. We did what we’d set out to do, though. The doctor and the lawyer. Good for us. We didn’t live next door to each other the way we’d always planned, but who knew he’d move back home?

  There I was, too, on the fourth page. The first of many pictures featuring me. Why not? I had been editor-in-chief of the darn thing. Might as well get myself in there. Still, even if I hadn’t been, my membership in half the school’s clubs meant I was all over the group pictures.

  “Ugh, perms are so not a good look for me,” I muttered as I looked at myself. Or was it a poodle in those pictures? And I had thought I was so hot, too. Dawson had always made me feel like I was, anyway.

  Where was he? I flipped through page after page before finding him in a casual shot in front of the school. He was standing with Craig and a few other guys, that megawatt smile melting my heart the way it used to back in the day. God, all he had to do was smile at me like that, and my panties were virtually around my ankles. I wasn’t the only girl who felt that way, not by a long shot, but as far as I knew I was the only one for him. I had been enough for at least one man in my life. Until I wasn’t anymore.

  I touched that decades-old picture, stroking his face. He should’ve been there with me, looking through pictures, laughing over how young we all looked. It didn’t seem right that we’d ever been that young.

  I flipped over to our senior portraits and noticed there was something between two of the pages in that section of the book. It was an envelope, and when I picked it up, I noticed it was sitting on the page my photo was on. My name was on the front, in terribly familiar writing. He’d left it there knowing I would eventually look for my picture.

  My hands shook as I opened it. There was a folded piece of paper inside, and the date in the upper right corner told me he’d written it two weeks before he died.

  Dear Amanda

  By now you know my not-so-little secret.

  I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about it before, but you had enough going on in your life. I couldn’t stand the thought of you being here with me and watching me fall apart. I know you would have put everything on hold while you took care of me. No way I could let that happen. I love you too much.

  I think we both know that in a perfect world, it would’ve been you and me. You’re my soulmate. But life had a sick sense of humor and decided to make it so we would never be together that way. I just want to let you know that you’ve been the best friend I ever could’ve asked for. I hit the jackpot the day we met, and I’ve been the luckiest man in the world ever since then. That’s why I pray in my own way that you don’t hate me when you find out I was hiding my illness from you all this time. I swear, I’ll come back and haunt you if you do. I was going to die whether you knew about it or not. I chose to spare you the torture.

  You probably also know by now that I left you the house—and if you don’t know yet, well, surprise! Not like you need a place to live, not like you need the money from the sale, but I couldn’t imagine giving it to anybody else. And who knows? Maybe you’ll finally wake up and figure out that you need a major change. What better place to start over again? I hope you take what I’m trying to give you right now, because I give it to you with all my heart.

  You deserve to be happy. You need to do whatever it takes to get the happiness you deserve. Even if that means shaking up your life and putting everything you thought you wanted aside, just do what it takes. Don’t be afraid. Life’s too short to be afraid. I mean, look at me. Case in point. Life’s shorter than we think it’ll sometimes be. So don’t waste time. Get rid of what you don’t want and embrace what you do want.

  Or who you want.

  All right, all right. Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. I’m assuming you’ve seen Dawson by now. If I’m right, you’ve done more than that. How do I know? I know you. I know he’s always been in the back of your mind. How do I know that? Because you’ve deliberately avoided ever, ever asking me about him. So that means you think about him. I’m your best friend. I know you too well.

  Give him a chance. Give yourself a chance. Get back to the things that make you who you are. Hint: it’s not the job in New York or the fabulous apartment or any of those things that make you you. I loved you before that. You were an incredible person before that. So what are you missing? What did you add that you don’t need?

 
It’s all right to admit that the direction you went in isn’t fulfilling you. Don’t give me that crap about wasting time going in a certain direction and feeling like you have to keep going in that direction because of all the work you’ve put into your career so far. That’s nonsense. Every day is the chance to start over again. Besides, that job has given you a lot of opportunities. Like the money to relocate if you decided to do so. Whoops, there I go again, hinting that you should move back home.

  It doesn’t have to be forever, even though I hope it is. I hope you and Dawson find a way to be together because you deserve to be together. He’s a good man, and you’re the best woman in the world. You belong to each other—you have since you met. If it couldn’t be me, it might as well be him. He might not have my sense of humor or my fashion sense, but he has a good heart. And he’s nice to look at, if we’re being honest here.

  And in case you’re wondering, I’m not afraid. I’m really not. A little annoyed that there are still things I didn’t get to do, but that’s why it’s so important to me that you do those things. Like finding somebody who deserves you and making a life with them. Oh, and drinking champagne at midnight in front of the Eiffel Tower. That, too. Remember how we always said we would do that?

  Do it all. Do it for me. If there’s any way for me to be there when you do, you better believe I’ll be with you.

  I love you so much.

  The words blurred and ran together as tears filled my eyes. I ran my fingers over the page and felt the indentation of the pen. He had written that for me. My sweet Craig. Always looking out for me, even when he should’ve been looking out for himself. Anybody else might have used their illness as an excuse to turn inward and focus on themselves. They might have cursed Fate and grown bitter. Not my Craig.

  And he was always right, the jerk. Always needing to have the last word, too. I couldn’t argue with him when he was dead, and he had counted on that. I couldn’t argue the idea of Dawson being the man for me. I couldn’t argue that I didn’t need a change of pace or that I knew what was best for me.

  “Why did you have to leave me?” I whispered. “Why did you leave when I need you the most? I don’t know where to go from here. I need somebody to talk it through with. You big jerk. Why did you leave?”

  I folded the paper and slid it back into the envelope with the sort of care I’d take with a million-dollar check. Then, I looked around at the living room. I’d want to do a little bit of redecorating—chintz was never my cup of tea, and Craig’s mom had been a big fan—but I could see myself making a life there. A happy one, even.

  We only had one more thing to settle before I was sure. One more question he hadn’t answered. I decided to go to the party and get my answer.

  Dawson

  “Have you seen my daughter?” Mrs. Greenley looked better than I had seen her in years. I used to notice her walking down the street sometimes, but less and less as time went on. She had always looked frail, shaky. Like she might break if the wind blew too hard. I would chalk it up to her working so hard for so long. It never occurred to me that she was just unhappy. When I saw her there, in the gym, she had a smile on her face, color in her cheeks. I had seen her laughing with a few of the ladies at one of the tables. I couldn’t remember ever seeing her laugh before.

  “No, I haven’t. I’m sure she’ll be here soon.” I looked toward the doors just in time to see her walk in. “See? There she is.”

  When she stepped through the door, it was like everything got a little brighter. I felt that familiar tightening in my pants when I saw the way her long hair curled over her shoulders. She unbuttoned her coat, and I caught a look at the cream-colored dress underneath. She stood out from everybody else without even trying.

  Our eyes met from across the room, with dozens of dancing people between us. She smiled at me the way people do when they know each other very well, soul-deep, and they feel relief at being together again. I knew that feeling.

  She waved me outside, so I excused myself from my spot behind one of the food tables and walked around the outer edge of the room to get to her. I was surprised when she stepped outside, since it could only have gotten colder since I got there.

  It was freezing. It was supposed to snow overnight, and the thought of cleaning off the truck and opening up the diner in a half-frozen tundra the next morning didn’t appeal. When I was the owner, would it be different? Probably not. I would always love being there in the middle of it all, opening the place up, saying good morning to the customers. And I was sort of a workaholic, too.

  “It smells like snow, doesn’t it? They say we could get a foot, maybe more.” I noticed the way she wrapped her arms around herself. “We could always go inside, where everybody else is.”

  “I wanted to talk with you first, even if I’m afraid I might freeze to death.” She laughed a little, and her breath clouded the air around us.

  “What about?”

  “About us. You know it’s about us. We haven’t done any talking about what any of this really means, have we? Me having the house now, you having the diner. Me not having a job.” She laughed a little.

  “That’s a lot. You’re sure you wanna talk it out now?” I jerked my head in the direction of the door. “When we could be having fun?”

  “I just need to know. It’ll be on my mind all night.”

  So she wasn’t about to let up. “You know how serious I am about you.”

  “But you left me hanging for so long. And you still haven’t told me why. If I’m going to build a life here, I need to know you’re not just going to change your mind one day.” She squared her shoulders and lifted her jaw. “I couldn’t go through that again.”

  I leaned against the wall with a sigh. Good thing the cold rarely bothered me. “I was a kid. I was scared. I didn’t know my ass from a hole in the ground in those days.”

  “None of us did,” she reminded me. “We were all just kids.”

  “You were never a kid,” I chuckled. “You were always grown up. You always knew what you wanted.”

  “What I thought I wanted.”

  “There was nothing wrong with wanting more than what you grew up with. I just didn’t want what I had already seen.”

  “What didn’t you want?” she asked. She stood next to me, then leaned her head on my shoulder.

  “I didn’t want to get left. Love ends, somebody leaves. That’s how it went in my house.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I blew out a long, deep breath before continuing. “There were a lot of things I didn’t tell you about my life back then. You were going through enough. I didn’t want to weigh you down with the shit my parents put me through. I can’t blame my mom, of course. She didn’t want to get sick. But Dad? Yeah. I blame him.”

  “I thought his company transferred him to Philadelphia.”

  I shook my head. “Did you really believe that?”

  She stood up straight and stared at me. “That’s what you told me.”

  “He did go to Philadelphia, but it wasn’t for his job. He left us. Mom, really, but I got included in that.”

  “He left? Like…left for good?”

  I nodded. “A real Prince, right? Just when she needed him the most. Not to mention me.”

  Her hand rested on my shoulder. “Sweetheart, there’s nothing wrong with being hurt because your father was a jerk. What kind of cold person do you have to be to leave your sick wife?”

  “The kind of jerk who doesn’t want to be the husband of a sick woman anymore. You remember him. He was good looking, he was still young—they were only eighteen, nineteen years old when I was born. So he was a little younger than I am now when he left Mom. He had the rest of his life ahead of him, and he wanted a healthy woman.”

  “You’ve done some thinking about this.”

  “I’ve had plenty of time to think about it, haven’t I?” I laughed a little. “It’s not easy. Something I had to do a long time ago was put myself in his shoes.”


  “I had to do the same thing with my mom—put myself in her shoes, I mean.”

  I nodded. “But that wasn’t until maybe ten years after he left, you know? When I was seventeen, eighteen years old, it was a lot more raw. No matter how many times I thought it over, how many directions I looked at it from, one thing kept coming back. Love doesn’t last. It always ends. Somebody gets left.”

  I leaned the back of my head against the wall. I had never spoken the words before. It was like opening a trunk that had never been opened and listening to the hinges squeak. “And you always wanted more. You were smart; you had everything going for you. And you had worked damn hard for your scholarship. You were gonna go out into the world and meet new people and see this bigger existence. Know what I mean? There was no chance that you would still want me after that.”

  “You didn’t know that, though.”

  “As an adult, I get that, but I was a kid. I didn’t know any better. I was scared, and I didn’t want to admit that, either.”

  “You should have talked to me.” She wasn’t angry. She was sad. I heard it in her voice, I felt it in the way she rested her head on my chest. “I would’ve told you how wrong you were.”

  “You couldn’t have known before you went to school how you were gonna feel when you were in school.” I wrapped my arms around her. It felt almost too good to have her that close. “I didn’t want to take the chance. It was easier to go through losing you on my terms. That was what I told myself.”

  “It wasn’t easy for me. I didn’t want to lose you. I loved you so much.”

  “I loved you.”

  “I still love you.” Her voice trembled a little when she said it, and I felt her relax in my arms when it was out there.