Free Holiday Naughty: My Alpha Bad Boy Client by Rebecca Lee Page A

feelings for him. I was still competing for him.
     
    “I am leaving Shawna,” he said.
     
    “I heard, but I heard it was the other way
around,” I said, turning for the bathroom of my suite, but really
just looking for proper distance.
     
    Being right next to him at that moment
wouldn't have been right. It would have sent the wrong message. I
wasn't going to be the available other woman subject to his
whims.
     
    “I know you know about Gabrielle,” he said.
“But this is hard for me to admit. I was using her. I wasn't going
to let you be the other woman. I wanted to protect you. Shawna
thinks it's her. We're done. Me and Shawna, but also me and
Gabrielle.”
     
    I froze, suddenly feeling like we had a
chance. I didn't give the ethics of what Andrew did any deep
consideration. I just loved the idea of winning. I loved how great
it felt to be that important to him. I turned and looked at him,
holding myself up against the door threshhold of the bathroom.
     
    “I got us this,” he said holding out a key.
“It's a condo. In Miami Beach. One key for you and one for me. It's
an address with my name on it. I want to add your name. If you'll
have me?”
     
    I reached out my hand. It hit me I had one
more stop to make before I left Philadelphia.
     
    *
     
    The twenty sixth was more autumn or spring
like. Everything was suddenly brown outside the West mansion. Where
before there was pristine clean white snow from an artist rendition
of a Hallmark card, by the time I was ready to head south, there
was just mud.
     
    Christmas in the north, as I grew up to know
it in the paintings and in movies, was gone.
     
    I gave the cabby ten bucks and asked him to
wait outside. At the last moment, I grabbed a suitcase. I rolled it
behind me to the massive door of Tyler's mansion.
     
    Martin answered and greeted me warmly.
     
    “Mr. West is gone to town Ms. Frey,” he
said. “He didn't give me any indication as to when he'd
return.”
     
    “Did he take the motorcycle?”
     
    “I am sorry ma'am,” he said. “I don't share
private information when it comes to Mr. West. He did leave
something for you. It's wrapped and sitting on the desk in the home
office upstairs.”
     
    Martin moved aside, apparently inviting me
in. I left the suit case outdoors on the steps.
     
    Everything in my intuition told me the
fantasy was ending. That this gift was going to be the period on
the last sentence of the last chapter.
     
    The package was on the desk, Underneath it
was a set of clothes neatly folded.

    “Which is mine?”

    “Both from what I was told,” Martin said,
leaving me alone in the room.

    I opened the box.

    “Oh my God. How?”

    It was a tiara. One almost identical to the
one I wore the night of homecoming. The one I threw in the trash
outside the school when I found out Brad was done with me.

    The note inside the box read simply:

    “ You will always be the queen of my
holidays. Thanks for helping me believe in the magic once again.
Tyler”

    I was so stunned, I almost forgot about the
clothes under the package. I ruffled through them.

    There was a dark pea coat and black
longshoreman's cap.

    I'd made the right decision in taking the
estate away from Tyler.

    At that moment, I knew beyond a shadow of a
doubt he was a common thief.

Chapter 28--Tyler
     
    I allowed myself the rare outrageous
expenditure in the name of convenience.
     
    I was on a private charter jet steaming
south for Florida. The next day was New Years.
     
    The days since Christmas had been hell. I
kept telling myself it was Philadelphia and the dingy mud and dirt
everywhere. But it was more than that.
     
    I still thought of Beth. It wouldn't go
away. But she left. Probably went back to her man she had before
our Christmas together. I was just the trust fund kid to her. I
wasn't the man who started with nothing because his parents would
never give him anything, but became a self-made millionaire
anyway.
     
    I thought the Keys sounded nice for