Mr. Hot Grinch (Alphalicious Billionaires Boss 3)

And then Luke ruined everything.

No. Then I ruined everything.

People screw up, and yeah, it sucks. People get mad, people have fights and arguments, and people get pissed and refuse to hear each other out. Bitterness and resentment are real, and they can fester and ruin even the brightest feelings and the best of intentions. I bet all those people who didn’t make it, who once loved each other like crazy, can define a moment that changed everything for them—when one or both of them decided to stop trying. Do they regret it? Do they wish they could go back in time and react differently? Fix it? Fix the past version of themselves? How many good things get thrown away because of stubborn pride?

For the love of chicken nuggets.

I turn and fly back through the door I just burst out of. In my rush to get back to the living room, I don’t even know if I closed it behind me or not. Luke’s still sitting there. He hasn’t moved, and he looks awful. He’s hurting, but it’s beyond that. He blinks in disbelief to see me standing there as if I might be a ghost he conjured up.

“Okay.” I cross my arms. “Okay, I believe you. I believe you made a mistake, and I believe you love Shade enough to do almost anything for him. I believe you were a jerk who didn’t even consider that I had feelings or that I might want something different, something better for myself. Not better than Shade, just better than an arrangement. My parents were partly to blame, but I guess I’ll choose to believe they wanted what was best for me because they do love me, and I know that. I know what you felt was real. I watched you open up, I watched you make the decision to let me in, and I watched you struggle. I know what you felt was real, and I didn’t mean what I said just now. I promised myself I wouldn’t cave and forgive you and give you another chance, but I lied. I did feel it. It was real for me—it still is—and it’s what makes me the angriest. I shouldn’t want you, but I still do.”

Luke blinks slowly. Then he blinks again. He slowly gets off the couch, and it’s like I’m watching a stop motion movie—all jerky movements and uneven gestures.

“Are you serious?”

“Yes. No tricks. No treats.”

It might have started out all wrong—us. It might have started out, quite frankly, pretty weird, but even still, I found Luke. And I found Shade. It didn’t take me very long to feel like a sort of family and to realize I’d lost my heart to Shade before I started to lose it to Luke as well. I don’t want to give up on that. I don’t want to be one of those people who wish for a time machine because she quit on one of the best things that happened to her over something no one could change or take back, something everyone was deeply sorry for.

I thought it sucked being too nice, but maybe being too nice is just right. I don’t want to be anything else. I don’t want a hard heart, and I don’t want to be so wrapped up in the bullshit that I lose sight of forgiveness and myself.

Luke smiles at that. It’s slow and cautious, but eventually, it grows and spreads and takes over his face.

“No tricks. And no treats on my end, either.”

We crash together like we’re magnets in science class. Like we were always magnets. At first, we just had the wrong ends facing each other, repelling each other, but slowly, we turned it around and figured it out, and now, now it’s like we’re locked so strongly by all the force and sciencey laws that we have no hope of being pulled apart.

Luke kisses me like that, and I savor him, drown in him, and kiss him right back.

I hate to say it because every kid hates to say it, but I guess the expression my parents shared was right. Everything is going to turn out okay.

Maybe the universe doesn’t hate me so much, after all.EPILOGUELukeFeeney finally heard her parents out. Once she went home and talked things through with them, they unfroze her bank accounts. I think they only froze them because they wanted her to come back home—not to stay but just to talk. After she had her own money, Feeney rented an apartment. She got a job, and we did what regular people do. We started dating. She thought being in the house with me right away would be too much, so I kept Mary Anne on as a nanny until I decided to work from home.

When Shade started school, we both cried. Feeney openly, and me doing my best to hide it. By then, Feeney had moved in with us, and we were living as a family. I think she cried over all of Shade’s milestones. When we got married, we decided on a small, super-private wedding. Sam was the only one Feeney chose to stand up with her, so I guess she’d fully forgiven her for the part she played in the scheme, as Feeney liked to refer to it. She was pretty sore about it for a while, but eventually, she let it go, and we earned back her trust.