Page 36 of Billionaire's Bookworm

We made short work of the rest of my task list, straightening shelves and updating inventory. Wade moved through the store with the same quiet efficiency he brought to everything, pausing occasionally to study titles that caught his eye.

“You never did tell me,” he said as he reshelved a collection of poetry, “why a bookstore?”

I paused in my counting of the register. “What do you mean?”

“Just curious what made you choose this path.” His tone was casual, but something in his expression made me wonder if he was asking himself the same question about his own choices.

“Because books are magic,” I said finally, the truth easier than I expected. “They let you be whoever you want to be. No expectations except the ones you choose for yourself.”

Something flickered in his expression. “A refuge.”

“Yeah.” I looked around my store––my dream––with its carefully curated sections and cozy reading nooks. “Sometimes we all need a place where we can escape the world, if only for a little while.”

The silence that followed felt weighted with understanding––and something else I wasn’t ready to name.

“I should go,” he said finally. “Early call tomorrow.”

Right. Because despite the way he seemed to find peace here among the shelves, Wade still had a life I pretended not to understand. A world I’d walked away from.

“Sure. Goodnight, Wade.”

He paused at the door. “For what it’s worth, Emma? What you’ve built here? It matters.”

The bell chimed, and he was gone, leaving me with the uncomfortable feeling that maybe I’d been too quick to assume which world Wade James wanted to belong to.

* * *

I was just startingto lock everything up when Meg called out from across the street, “Emma! Hey, hold the door!”

She jogged over with her camera bag bouncing against her hip and stepped inside the bookshop. “I just wanted to show you. I got some great candids today. Thought you might want some copies for your store’s social media.”

Right. She’d been shooting the story time event for the Beachy Keen Reads Instagram account I’d been attempting to grow. I’d almost forgotten she was there, she had such a way of blending into the background when she worked.

“Sure, thanks.” I waited as she tinkered with some of the buttons on her camera, muttering under her breath.

“Oh yes, here it is. Look at this one,” she exclaimed, turning the display toward me.

The photo made me pause.

Wade sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by kids, but it wasn’t the posed reading shot I expected. He was laughing at something off-camera, head thrown back, completely unselfconscious. Glitter sparkled in his dark hair, and his rolled-up sleeves revealed the edge of what looked like a tattoo. He looked... content. Happy. Nothing like the billionaire playboy I’d convinced myself he was.

“You know what I love about candids?” Meg asked, studying the image. “They catch people in their truest moments, when they’re not trying to be anything for anyone else.”

I couldn’t tear my eyes way from the photo. From the genuine joy on Wade’s face, so different from his usual careful smile he turned on the rest of the world.

“Want to know something funny?” Meg clicked to the next shot––this one of Porky sprawled contentedly at Wade’s feet. “This reminds me of those photos I took at the Anderson wedding last month. You know, when that guy in the thousand-dollar suit ended up sitting in the grass playing with all the kids?”

I smiled despite myself. “How’d that turn out?”

“Oh, that suit was ruined, full stop. But the shots… they were the best ones of the day.” She gave me a sidelong look. “Sometimes the real story isn’t what people want you to see. It’s what they show you when they forget anyone else is watching.”

Meg smiled and gave me a tiny little salute, before stepping outside and heading back in the direction of her studio.

I finished locking the doors and gathered my things, Porky padding quietly beside me as we walked through the darkening streets. The winter evening was chilly, but I barely noticed, my mind replaying Wade’s words.

What you’ve built here.

Not what you’re doing here, or what you’re playing at here.What you’ve built.

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