People, on the whole, made a lot of assumptions about Warren Worthington. He had it all, didn't he? Money, looks, charm. A beautiful girlfriend. A successful nightclub. A new house. They didn't take into account the fact that most of his money was stolen, siphoned off from various accounts to fund the running of Paradise. His relationship with Tessa was in pieces, and he'd avoided trying to put it back together, burying himself in renovations and work so he didn't have to think about it. The house he'd bought on the cheap because it was half finished, the owners having suddenly being rendered penniless in the bad economic climate. He'd been waiting for the situation to bite him in the ass, for things to come tumbling down around his ears as it had for so many others.

( He hadn't even remembered his twenty-fourth birthday. )