Rogue: A Paradise Shores Novel Read online

  Rogue

  A Paradise Shores Novel

  Olivia Hayle

  “Don’t you remember, Lily? You and me, sneaking away at parties. I’d kiss you senseless, your hair running through my fingers...”

  Yes, I remembered—that was the damn problem. His dark hair falling over eyes that had seen too much. Strong hands that were as gentle as they were rough. The way he disliked everything about my sheltered world, except me.

  I spent years in love with the groundkeeper’s nephew. In the darkness, in the silence, our hearts spoke the same language. Until he left without a word and tore mine right out of my chest.

  “You broke me, Hayden. And you don’t get to come back like none of it happened.”

  Ten years have passed, and she can still bring me to my knees with shame. As if I didn’t break my own goddamn heart by leaving her back then.

  She was far too good for a guy like me. I’d known it, and I had reached for her anyway, and it led to disaster.

  But a decade can change a lot of things.

  This time I’m not giving up without a fight—not when I know she feels the same.

  Her parents might still hate me.

  Her brothers might want to kill me.

  But there is no way I’m letting them run me out of town again.

  Some love stories are simple.

  Ours never was.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  1. Hayden

  2. Lily

  3. Lily

  4. Lily

  5. Hayden

  6. Lily

  7. Hayden

  8. Lily

  9. Hayden

  10. Hayden

  11. Lily

  12. Lily

  13. Hayden

  14. Lily

  15. Lily

  16. Hayden

  17. Hayden

  18. Lily

  19. Hayden

  20. Hayden

  21. Hayden

  22. Lily

  23. Hayden

  24. Hayden

  25. Lily

  26. Hayden

  27. Lily

  28. Hayden

  29. Lily

  30. Hayden

  31. Lily

  32. Hayden

  Epilogue

  Look But Don’t Touch

  Chapter 1

  About Olivia

  Copyright © 2020 Olivia Hayle

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be distributed or transmitted without the prior consent of the publisher, except in case of brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews.

  All characters and events depicted in this book are entirely fictitious. Any similarity to actual events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  The following story contains mature themes, strong language and explicit scenes, and is intended for mature readers.

  Cover by by Sarah Armitage Design

  Edited by Stephanie Parent

  www.oliviahayle.com

  Epigraph

  “She kissed me.

  She kissed the devil.

  Only a beautiful soul like hers

  would kiss the damned.”

  - Daniel Saint

  Prologue

  You were everything to me, and then you broke my heart.

  But I think that part was inevitable. We were destined to love each other. That’s fair, isn’t it, Hayden? At least that’s the way it was for me. I don’t think I ever had a choice, really, from the moment I first laid eyes on you, all those years ago.

  Sure, I didn’t know it back then, but that doesn’t make my love any less real. The truth is, you’ve fascinated me since I was ten years old.

  I once told you that, remember? And you smiled at me with those amber eyes of yours and asked if I meant fascinating, like how a weird bug is fascinating, and my heart ached at wanting to make you understand just how much I loved you. How much you meant to me.

  How much I still love you.

  Things could have been so different, Hayden, if you would have just let me in when I asked the first time.

  If you had given us a chance.

  If you hadn’t left after the accident.

  Maybe, just maybe, you’ll let me in this time around. We’re older and wiser. Things have happened that even the best of intentions can’t erase. But some things haven’t changed. Our hearts still understand one another. The distance and the silence hasn’t changed that.

  Some love stories are simple.

  But ours never was.

  1

  Hayden

  Hayden, 11

  It’s hard to forget the day you’re saved.

  I remember it like it was yesterday; the wind howling in the trees, the sound of heavy rainfall against the tin roof of my uncle’s shabby car.

  “They’ve offered me a job,” he had told me. “We’ll get a place to stay, too.”

  But the house at the end of the driveway isn’t like any house I’ve ever seen. It’s a mansion. A white, sprawling porch wraps around the front, visible even in the darkness.

  “We’re going to live there?”

  “No, there’s a house down by the beach where we’ll live.”

  “They have their own beach house?”

  I can hear the weariness in my uncle’s voice. “Yes. Don’t make this difficult.”

  I shrug and turn away from him. I’ve been nothing but easy. Five moves in the past two years, with five different schools, too. I was the poster child for easy.

  I haven’t seen much of Paradise Shores so far, but one thing is clear—this is a rich place. People like us don’t stay here, not for long.

  “They have children,” my uncle urges. “Mr. Marchand said he had sons. They should be about your age, I think.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “This will be good. It’ll give us some stability.”

  “Yeah.”

  Gary blows out a frustrated sigh. “I’m doing the best I can here, kid.”

  “I know.” I bite out the following words, bitter in my mouth. “Thank you.”

  One day, I won’t need to thank anyone. I’ll be as rich and as famous as those stars on television, on social media, who could go anywhere and do anything. I’ll own a house like this myself.

  “Come on. We can’t stay out here forever.” Gary puts the car in drive and rolls up the wide driveway. His left knee is bouncing.

  Gary isn’t usually nervous. I lean forward and try to get a good look at the house. It’s at least three stories with white, wooden paneling. It has blue double-doors and the porch is flanked by well-maintained flower beds. It looks like a house from a commercial, the ones with golden retrievers and blond children with happy smiles.

  “Are you really sure this is it?”

  Gary scoffs. “Yes, I’m sure, kid.”

  The front door opens. A tall man stands silhouetted against the light, a child standing to his right. He has a hand on her head.

  “Gary?” he calls. “Is that you?”

  My uncle swears and pulls his jacket up around his ears. He’s buzzing with nervous energy.

  “Stay here,” he tells me and steps out into the rain. It wets his thin bomber jacket and makes his brown hair stick to his head. It’s so different from my ink-black hair, the color from my father’s side. It’s the only feature I share with him, although he hasn’t been around lately for me to double-check.

  I watch as he talks with the man, this Mr. Marchand. The girl at his side is peering out into the rain. She can’t see me, not through this darkness and the rain. Besides, Gary always tints his car windows.

  She disappears back into the house.
My stomach growls again, but I ignore it. It’s only a nuisance when Gary hears it.

  I hate making him feel guilty.

  I hate being a burden.

  The girl comes running out of the house, a raincoat hastily pulled on and an umbrella in her hand.

  She stops by my door and pushes back tresses of long, auburn hair. She’s younger than me, but probably not by much. “Hello? Are you in there?”

  I take a deep breath and double-check the Band-Aids across my right knuckles. Don’t let them see that you’ve been fighting, Gary had said, and shook his head when I’d tried to explain that I was only defending myself.

  Then I open the door and set foot in Paradise Shores for the first time.

  2

  Lily

  Lily, 10

  “Lily!!” Parker calls from his room, right across from mine. “Have you seen Atlas?”

  I scratch the golden retriever behind his ear. “No!”

  Rhys snorts from his place in my reading nook and flips another page in his book. “Liar.”

  “He cut my computer time in half yesterday.”

  “Ah.”

  “Lily, are you sure?!”

  “Yes!”

  “I can vouch for her!” Rhys calls. Somehow, his voice drawls, even when he yells. My brothers couldn’t be more different if they tried.

  Heavy footsteps echo in the corridor, and then Parker’s blond head pops into my room. His eyes zero in on Atlas lying by my feet. “Lily!”

  “What?”

  “I asked you!”

  “You did?”

  He groans and heads toward the dog. Atlas bounces up, tail wagging, and Parker pats him on the head. “You know walking him is my chore this week.”

  “Oh, that’s right.”

  “Screw you, Lily.”

  “Mom told you not to say that,” I counter. I know it’s a weak argument, but with three older brothers, I’ve learned to use whatever excuses I can.

  Parker rolls his eyes. “Mom’s not listening right now, is she?”

  “You cut her computer time in half,” Rhys points out, not bothering to look at us.

  “Of course you’re on her side.”

  Rhys—older than both Parker and me, although not quite as old as Henry—snorts again, like all of this is beneath him. He’s getting frighteningly good at that. “I’m on the side of truth.”

  “When it fits you, asshole.”

  “Parker!” Only Dad uses that word.

  Rhys shuts his book with an audible snap. “What’s bothering you today, huh?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Save us both the trouble and just tell me.”

  Parker plays with Atlas’s collar. “I don’t think Dad should rent out the beach house.”

  “It’s not like we use it all that much.”

  “Yes, in the summer we do.”

  I frown. I have to say, I kind of get Parker’s point. The little cottage is right by the shoreline, a stone’s throw from our house. Previous summers, Mom would prepare little beds out there for us, and then we’d lie and watch the stars through the window in the ceiling and eat marshmallows. If we were lucky, she would even tell us a story. The best ones were the ones she made up, because you never knew how they ended.

  Plus, her stories always involved four very brave siblings.

  I look at Rhys. “Why is Dad letting someone else stay there? It’s ours, isn’t it?”

  “It’s for the money,” Parker answers, his voice gloomy.

  “No, it’s not, you idiot. Dad found a new groundskeeper. The guy is bringing a kid, too, apparently. So they’re going to be living there.”

  “Is it a girl?” I ask.

  “What age is he?” Parker asks.

  Rhys rolls his eyes. “I don’t know anything else.”

  “Hey, how come you found out? They haven’t told the rest of us yet!”

  “Dad told Henry, and Henry told me.” Rhys shoots us both a superior glance. “They’re coming next week.”

  “I hate being the last to know things around here.” Parker clicks his tongue at Atlas. “Come on, boy. Let’s go look at the beach house while we still have a chance.”

  Rhys waits until they’ve left my bedroom before he comes over and leans on the back of my chair. He looks over my drawings in silence.

  I wait with bated breath for his verdict. Once, he’d called an elf I’d drawn inspired, and I’d been on cloud nine all day.

  He points at one I’m still working on. “You’ve gotten a lot better at drawing scales.”

  The giant dragon isn’t done yet, curled around a castle, but I nod nonetheless. “I’ve been practicing.”

  “It shows.”

  Henry and Parker are similar in many ways. Just as good as sports, although Henry is much better at games like Scrabble. Henry had been the one to teach Parker how to ride a bike, when Dad was away at work, even though he was still only a kid himself at the time.

  But Rhys? Rhys is mine, and I grin at his pride.

  “Thanks.”

  He musses my hair in response and reaches for his book again.

  “Do you really not know if it’s a girl or a boy?”

  “That’s what I said, Lils.”

  “But you might have just lied to annoy Parker.”

  The corner of Rhys’s mouth curls. “I really don’t know.”

  “Okay.” I pick up my pen and get back to work. The long wait for next week has begun, it seems, when we’ll find out who the new playmate is. I hope it’s a girl, and I hope we’ll become best friends.

  I’m seriously outnumbered in this household.

  3

  Lily

  Lily, 10

  It was a boy, and he became my brothers’ best friend.

  Hayden spent most of his time with them, playing volleyball under the summer sun or learning how to sail. In the evenings, they’d lie side by side on the couch in the basement, testing one another’s skill at Nintendo.

  But I didn’t know that when he arrived. No, when he came to Paradise Shores, I was ecstatic. Hayden was the same age as Parker, but I was the only one home when he and his uncle showed up. A friend just for me, I thought. He wasn’t a girl—it would have been better if he was a girl—but I’d just have to make do.

  I’ll never forget the way he’d looked that night, in the rain outside our house. Water dripped down his face, dropped from his thick hair. I could see that his eyes were amber, even in the darkness. I’d never seen that on a person before.

  I’d have to try to draw it.

  “What are you staring at?”

  No one has ever asked me that before. “You.”

  “Well, look somewhere else.”

  “That’s silly.” I offer him my umbrella to share. “It’s raining. Come on, let’s go inside.”

  He glances up at his uncle before a defiant spark comes into his eyes. “Okay.”

  “Are you hungry? I can make you an omelet.” Well, I sort of could. Mom tried to teach us the week before and I remember all the steps. I haven’t actually done it on my own yet, though. But I feel very grown-up offering him that.

  “I don’t like omelets.”

  Well, that’s kind of a bummer. I don’t know how to make anything else. “Do you like cereal?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. Come on, we have loads of different kinds. Parker likes to mix, but I don’t.” I find his hand in the darkness and pull him toward the house. “I’ll even show you where the Cocoa Puffs are.”

  His hand is careful in mine. I glance back, but he’s following me dutifully. We’re the same height.

  I smile up at Dad as we pass him and the new groundskeeper.

  “Lily?”

  “I’m going to make him some cereal.”

  Dad nods. “That's nice of you, sweetheart.”

  The new groundskeeper shoots the boy a look, like he’s telling him something. I don’t know what it means.

  The boy nods.

  “Go on, t
hen,” the man says.

  I hang the raincoat on Mom’s peg and grin at the new boy. “What’s your name?”

  “Hayden,” he says. He doesn’t look at me—he’s looking at the double-curved staircases that lead up to the second floor. Mom always keeps a vase of lilies on the table between them. It’s the flower I’m named after.

  “It’s nice, right?”

  “Sure.”

  I look him over from top to toe. He seems pretty sullen, this dark-haired boy who doesn’t smile, but I’m sure he’ll cheer up with a bit of food in him. Henry’s the same, when he’s hungry.

  “Kitchen is this way.”

  He chooses Cocoa Puffs, and he doesn’t mix different kinds of cereal together. It’s a good start.

  I pour a small bowl for myself as well and hop up on a kitchen stool opposite him. Hayden eats in silence, and if he notices me looking at him, he doesn’t mention it.

  But my curiosity gets the better of me soon enough.

  “Well, my name is Lily,” I say.