The Renegade Billionaire: A Small Town Romance (Happiness Ever After Book 1)

It’s been a couple of days since Grey and Sage arrived, but it hasn’t been as hard as I thought it would be. At least not with Sage. Greyson Reyes, on the other hand, is more mercurial than Mr. Darcy.

“Hey.” Braxton groans as he walks into the kitchen.

Crap. I was hoping to sneak out of the house without waking anyone up, but I should know better by now. He’s as in tune to me as I am to him. I swear I wake up every time he rolls over, and we’re not even in the same room.

“Why are you up so early?” He shuffles around me and starts the coffee before I have a chance to.

“Ah, I was going to get some things done at the Chug before anyone came in, but I was planning to be back before anyone woke up to make breakfast.”

He frowns, then squints at the clock on the microwave. “It’s five forty-five in the morning, Madison. What the hell do you have to do this early?”

“It’s not that early,” I say. “Grey already left for a run.”

“That’s because he’s a robot.”

“That’s not nice,” I mutter.

“No, but he would know I was only teasing. Grey has always run in the middle of the night when he can’t sleep. It’s two forty-five in California. He hasn’t adjusted to the time change yet.”

Grey isn’t the only one having trouble sleeping. Two kisses with Braxton and he’s consumed my dreams ever since. I’m having actual sex dreams that wake me up sweaty and needy, and I don’t ever remember that happening before, not even as a horny teenager. Every one of my dreams stars the man before me wearing a pair of low-riding gym shorts and a T-shirt so soft-looking I want to sleep in it.

He opens the fridge and pulls out my creamer, then takes my favorite mug down from the cabinet all the while I watch him. He knows all my little habits, my likes and dislikes, and I’ve never even mentioned them.

“You’re staring.”

Probably drooling as well. This is why I’m running away this morning. I need a few moments not surrounded by testosterone to get my head on straight. “Sorry. I just have some admin tasks to catch up on.”

He hands me my mug and nods. “Anything I can help with?”

“Nope,” I say too cheerily, and he narrows his gaze.

“You sure?”

“Yup. You have fun with your boys today. Pops is taking you all to the diner for lunch, right? Then coming into the Chug?”

“Yeah,” he says grumpily, then reaches over his head to stretch. “We can’t do anything else in the basement until a plumber can get here, and Sage is bored out of his mind.”

I wince, and he immediately corrects himself.

“It’s not you or the inn, he just finished his entire college semester’s worth of work before they got here. He’s too smart for either of us to keep up with anymore.”

“Have you thought about encouraging him to enroll in more classes or at least harder ones?”

Braxton nods, his eyes softening as he stares at me. “Grey and I talked about it a few months ago. UCLA will probably happen next year—we just didn’t want to push him before he was ready socially. He finished high school at fourteen, and it was pretty brutal for him.”

“I can imagine. He’s a good kid though. I really like him.”

He stalks closer, so slowly I don’t even notice until he’s inches from me. “He likes you too.”

A smile starts somewhere deep in my soul before finding its way to my lips.

“And he isn’t the only one. I like you too.”

“Is that so?” Who the heck flirts before 6:00 a.m.? Me, apparently.

He doesn’t answer with words, but when he leans in, slow enough for me to step away if I want to, I know what he’s saying with his movements. When his lips touch down on mine, it’s as though he sucks all the anxiety straight from my body.

How is he such a good kisser?

His palms cradle the back of my head as he slants his lips over mine over and over again before delving in with his tongue. He commands my body with a single kiss, and when I feel him grow long against my stomach, I whimper.

I’m seconds from dropping to the floor and begging when the kitchen door swings open as though God himself blew it off its hinges.

“Oh, fuck. Sorry,” Grey grumbles. I can’t see him over Braxton, but I hear his tennis shoes squeaking against the wood floor. He must be spinning in a circle.

Braxton smirks against my lips before pulling away. “Morning, Grey.”

“Morning,” Grey mutters back.

When Braxton finally steps to the side, I find Grey with his head buried in his phone and pointedly not looking anywhere near my direction.

“Right,” I chirp too happily. “I’ll be back.”

I scoot from the room before either of them can say anything. Making out with Braxton makes me feel more alive than anything else I’ve done in as long as I can remember.

Here’s to hoping it doesn’t bite me in the backside when I’m not expecting it.

“Come on, you dumb thing. Just push over one more inch so I can get to the ones in the back.” I groan while attempting to slide another bin from storage. Either I’m getting older or we’re storing more crap for the Cozy Cup Festival than ever before.

“Can I help?”

My hands freeze on the bright blue bin, and I swallow hard. Holding my breath, I stand slowly and turn. It’s always a toss-up on which version of Harry I’ll get, and standing alone in the Chug’s storage shed is not where I want to be stuck with the drunk version of him.

“Just offering help, Mads.” He stands ten feet outside of the shed with his hands raised but his head bowed.

This is sober, ashamed Harry, and my lungs kick back into gear.

“What are you doing here, Harry?” I ask flatly. When he’s like this, I don’t hate him, I don’t fear him, and I’m not even sad for our shared past. At this point, when he’s not drunk and antagonistic, I only feel indifference—for a man I once thought I loved but who no longer exists.

“I was walking by and saw the light on. Knew you’d be getting ready for the Cozy Cup, so came over to see if you needed any help. It used to be my favorite time of year.”

My heart pinches because every good memory I have of the Cup once involved him.

“And I wanted to…”

“To what, Harry? Apologize again? Don’t you ever just get tired of this cycle?”

He walks to the bin I was struggling with, lifts it, checks the label, then moves it to the back of the shed.

“Thanks,” I say, suddenly exhausted, and it’s only eight.

“I just…I don’t know how to get back to what we had,” he says quietly, the weight of his actions clearly much heavier in the sober hours of the morning.

“Harry, you know that’s never going to happen.”

“Because of Braxton?” Hurt and anger make his words choppy, but I’m done worrying about how I make him feel.

“Because of you. Because of you, Harry. We will never be a couple again. You destroyed every ounce of trust I’ve ever possessed, and you did it twice.”

He nods, and then because he spent so many years doing this with me, lifts the bins he knows I’ll need and places them in the wagon I have outside.

“Do you think… Do you think we’ll ever be able to be friends?” he asks, tucking his hands deep into his pockets.

I don’t even know this person anymore.

“I don’t think that will be possible.” My words sound strong even if the piece of my heart held for human decency scolds me. “But life doesn’t have to be this hard for you either.”

He shakes his head because he knows what’s coming—we’ve had this conversation so many times, he probably has it memorized.

“Sometimes you mess up life so horrifically, there is no other life to be had.” He’s staring at a point far beyond me, and I shake my head.

“You still have people that care for you. Your dad loves you. Coach B. is obviously still holding out hope that you’ll get your life straightened out.”

He snorts as though he doesn’t believe me.

“He wouldn’t let you help with the team if he didn’t have some kind of fondness for you, Harry. But you have to stop drinking. All it does is hurt you and those who love you.”

“Have you seen how everyone in town looks at me, Madi?”

“I have,” I say, my voice rising with my frustration. “But you know why. You know why they look at you that way. You know what you’ve done to hurt not only me but so many people who loved you in this town, and you’ve never once apologized. You’ve never once taken accountability.” I bite my tongue before I say more because I feel the anger taking over.

“Mads.” His voice wobbles back to shame. “If you can’t forgive me, how the hell do you expect anyone else to? What’s the fucking point?”

“The point? The point?” I’m nearly shouting and don’t care. “The point is you don’t have to be his horrible version of yourself, Harry.”

“I told you I would try to be better, for you I would try.”

Old emotions cling to my throat. “That’s the problem, Harry. You can’t try for me, or for your dad, or anyone else. You’ll never change if you don’t do it for yourself. It’s a choice you have to make for yourself.”

“It’s not that easy,” he shouts.

I take a step back, an icy chill making me shiver. “I never said it was easy. I said it was a choice. Every time you pick up that bottle, it’s a choice. Just like every time you picked up a football instead of calling to tell me you’d be late was a choice. When you chose to cheat on me, it was a choice. When you chose to tell lies about me in order to save yourself, that was a choice too. Until you start making the right choices, life will feel like an endless pit of misery.”

“If you know all of this, then why won’t you help me?” he cries. He’s volatile and shaky as the high of his alcohol abuse wears off.

He won’t last long before he opens another beer. I’ve learned the signs well.

“It’s not my job anymore, Harry. All I’ve done the entire time I’ve known you is give, give, and give some more, until I didn’t even recognize who I’d turned into. All I did was try to help you, don’t you see that? I don’t have anything left for you anymore.”

“But you have time for that rich asshole.”

“Don’t do that, Harry,” I say, defeated that once again I thought we might make some progress with this conversation. “Don’t even try to compare my life now to what it was when I was with you. Braxton has never once asked anything of me. Not once.”

“Mads, I’m sorry. That’s not what⁠—”

“Just stop drinking, Harry. And yes, I’m aware that it’s an addiction, but there are people and places that will help you get sober, but you have to make that choice. Don’t you see everything you’re losing? Everything you’re missing out on by drinking your fears away?”

“I didn’t come here to fight with you, Madi.”

“Then why did you come? It’s exhausting to fear you one moment and⁠—”

“You fear me?” He chokes out the words as though they shock him.

“Are you serious right now?”

He can’t be this oblivious.

“Why do you fear me?”

“Harry, you were inches away from punching me in the face when you attacked Braxton. If he hadn’t pushed me behind him, you would have broken my nose, or worse.”

He turns green before me and shakes his head in denial. “No. That’s not— I would never hurt you, Madi.”

My sad, disgusted chuckle hits the air like an atomic bomb. “Hurting me is the only thing you’ve ever done well between us, Harry, and every time you pick up a bottle, every time you verbally or physically attack me or someone I care about, you continue to hurt me.”

“That’s…” He steps back, clutching his chest as if he’s winded. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

The way his emotions fly from anger to humiliation and back again gives me whiplash. It’s the reminder I need to put more space between us.

“And yet, here you are, doing it again. You have no idea of the monster alcohol turns you into. But I won’t allow you to continue hurting me either. I know that somewhere, deep, deep inside of you is a good man. Or the bones of someone who once tried to be a good man. I hope that someday, you find him again.”

“Madi…”

“I hope you find the boy who would rescue stray dogs. The teenager who snuck supplies down to the local food bank when you thought no one was looking. The man who once promised me the world and made me believe him. I hope you find that guy, Harry, because he had the potential to be pretty great.” I see the hope flicker in his eyes. “But not for me. We’re done, and though I appreciate the thought, I think I should take it from here.”

I point toward the shed, then slowly walk away.

“I— I’m sorry, Madi.” His voice breaks, but putting him together means tearing myself apart to fix his holes, and I’m not that person anymore.

“I know you believe that, Harry. And someday, I hope your actions will prove it.”

Locking the shed, I grab the handle of the wagon and walk to the back door of the Chug. Adrenaline buzzes through me, a dizzying combination of anxiety and pride at having that conversation. I’ve always put myself last so everyone around me could be first, and maybe it’s time to start correcting that character flaw.

Heading up to the second floor of the Chug, I sit at the desk where I do most of my admin work when I need to be away from everyone. I slowly open the bottom drawer. The offer for syndication sits right where I left it.

I read it six more times, knowing this is the route forward for me and a career I love so much, but still unable to pull the trigger. There’s something in the legal jargon that isn’t sitting right with me, and if I’m going to do this, the offer will have to be perfect.

Or is that an excuse I’m still using because I feel like a fraud? A matchmaker with no match.

Stuffing the file back in the drawer, I pull my laptop out of my bag and get to work on something I should have done a long time ago, my business plan for The Matchmaker Manual.

I know deep in my bones that this is where my heart belongs, and I’m so freaking good at it. It’s time to stop making excuses, and start preparing for my future, even if that future means only owning a part of the Hideaway for a while.

What does Braxton’s future look like? And how will I feel when it no longer includes me?