Total pages in book: 28
Estimated words: 25313 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 127(@200wpm)___ 101(@250wpm)___ 84(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 25313 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 127(@200wpm)___ 101(@250wpm)___ 84(@300wpm)
I created my own ending. It might not be real, but at night when I lie in bed, I dream of Neverland. Of the boy who told me that I had a gift I should share with the world. I pretend the happily ever after I imagined is real.
My phone dings, and I see a message from my agent.
Gina: NEW YORK TIMES!!!!!
I stare at the words. Tears slip down my cheeks but for all the wrong reasons. I should be jumping up and down with excitement, but all I can think is that our story is done. I wrote it. What now?
Gina: They’re already doing a second round of prints.
Me: Awesome.
I’m sure she’s confused by my lackluster response. Melody Ledger a New York Times best-selling author with my first book, Neverland. It was easy to pick a pen name. Melody Ledger. A name I always dreamed I’d actually carry as my own one day.
It goes to show that dreams can come true, but they don’t always come with a happily ever after.
4
EASTON
“You got a death wish?” Owen asks me. His wife pokes her head out from the front door. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
I have a lot of wishes, and to be honest, in my darkest of moments, that might have been one of them. If anyone could and would grant that wish, it would be Owen.
He has a dark past, but things in life will change a man when he falls in love. Hell, what I went through took me from a boy to a man in the blink of an eye.
“Your wife has been ignoring me.” Getting a hold of Maggie has been almost impossible.
The woman can be a ghost at times, but a person can only hide so much. Especially from a hacker. You can try and clean up behind yourself, but flicks of digital prints are left. I knew I’d have to come out here if I wanted a chance to speak to her. If I wanted to truly get her attention.
“You wanting to see my wife is not helping your case.” Owen hooks his fingers in the front loops of his jeans, trying to appear nonthreatening when we both know he’s anything but.
With a family like mine, you know a lot of things. With great wealth comes power. That power can get you a lot of things. Like how I know that once upon a time, Owen was a hired hand. One that somehow crossed paths with his wife, Maggie—or Magic, as she’s known on the Dark Web or whispered about in the government.
Magic is a good name for her. The things she can do often don’t seem possible, but she does them. I dug into her as much as I could, having always known she would sometimes help the government with projects. What got my attention is when I heard she’d been one of two people that stopped an attack on a group trying to infiltrate WITSEC. That was exactly what I wanted to do.
Now, I’ve been playing a bit of cat and mouse with Magic. Not that she’s aware of it. I know what draws her out. Anything new or developing in technology. So what did I do? I bought one of the biggest tech companies in the world. I also let her come and play her little games with some of my projects and even steal a handful of things. If I didn’t have more pressing issues, I would offer to pay her a hefty sum to show me flaws in my own systems. Though it’s not about money for Magic.
My eyes flick to the giant barn off to the side of the main house. They live out in the middle of nowhere. I wonder if some of the things she’s stolen are in there. It doesn’t matter. Maggie isn’t interested in my tech developments to do harm; in fact, it’s often the opposite. She wants to know how to stop other people from using it for those purposes. Also, some of it is sheer curiosity. She can’t help herself. Once she gets fixated on something, she goes all in.
“You know damn well, Owen, I have no interest in your wife that way. In fact, I think if anyone could relate to what I’m doing here, it’s you.” Out of everyone, he should understand what I'm going through. He was a goner the moment he laid eyes on Maggie. The same way I was the first time I saw Melody all those years ago.
Maggie is a bit odd, to put it nicely. In order to grab her attention, you have to do something outrageous. Owen wanted her attention because he wanted her and nothing more. It had all worked out for him, and now they are living their happily ever after.
Maggie steps outside onto the deck. A small baby bump shows under her dress. A hint of longing hits me hard. I take a slow breath to hide my emotions, but I doubt either of them miss it. They notice everything.