Rich Radiant and Over Him (Alicia and Vincent) novel Chapter 124

Alicia came downstairs, towel-drying her hair, and immediately noticed that Wilma still hadn't returned.

Then who made lunch?

Was it Tyrone?

Feeling a sudden rush of excitement, she hurried into the kitchen. Sure enough, the answer was right there: eggshells still sat in the trash. Tyrone had cooked.

Alicia pulled the lunch from the warming drawer, her surprise growing. She never imagined Tyrone—the high-powered CEO who always seemed so untouchable—would actually make a meal himself. She'd half-expected that a man of his stature wouldn't know his way around a kitchen at all.

Her phone chimed.

It was a message from the flight attendant from last night.

"Hello, Miss Shelton. Are you feeling better today?" The message brimmed with warmth and concern.

"Much better, thank you," Alicia replied.

"I'll be in Seaview City for a few days with some time off. I don't really know anyone in the city, and I don't have any friends here. Would you like to hang out?" Winnie's message came with an agenda—she was hoping for a connection to Tyrone.

After all, last night she'd tried to add Tyrone as a friend, but he hadn't accepted her request. So Winnie decided to take a different approach: get close to Alicia, figure out what, exactly, was going on between Alicia and Tyrone, and gather intel before making her move.

The word "friend" caught Alicia off guard.

All her life, Alicia had been an outsider. Orphaned as a child, withdrawn by nature, she'd never really had friends. In college, she became the target of bullying led by Mira Henry's gang. Nobody dared cross them, which meant nobody wanted to be seen with Alicia.

Later, after meeting Vincent, he'd controlled every part of her life—including her friendships. She had become even more isolated.

So "friend" was a word that felt almost foreign to her.

"I'm sorry, I don't really know the city that well myself," Alicia admitted. "I only came to Seaview City for college."

Alicia shook her head.

Melanie let out a sigh of relief and stepped inside. "Are you going out later? Come shopping with me?"

Alicia was surprised, staring at Melanie, uncertain of her motives. After all, Melanie had never liked her.

But teenage girls rarely hide their feelings, and Melanie's face was an open book—her emotions written plainly in her eyes. "Don't get the wrong idea. I still don't like you," Melanie said, puffing out her cheeks in a show of frustration. "It's just... I don't have any friends at school. No one wants to go shopping with me."

Alicia suddenly felt a pang of sympathy for the girl.

Her father was a mystery, her mother had been in a coma for years and still didn't know she was awake, and from her early teens Tyrone had become her guardian, with Wilma looking after her day to day.

Sure, Tyrone made sure Melanie had the best of everything—food, clothes, comfort—but as Melanie herself had said, Tyrone wasn't her real uncle. Living under someone else's roof, never quite belonging, had left her with little sense of security or confidence.