MIMI: FINDING LOVE IN PARADISE VALLEY (A PARADISE VALLEY ROMANCE)

By Charlene Mathis

Mimi Bailey was a typical, everyday girl who didn't believe that romance was in her future, even though she was an "undercover" romance novelist. In her experience, size fourteen women tended to get overlooked in the romance department big time. She had no romantic prospects when she threw a dart at the map of the United States and picked the place where the dart landed as her new home.She moved to Valparaiso, Indiana, and was welcomed by a strange sense of homecoming. On her tour of her new home city, she saw a young man sitting on a curb, beside a white BMW, in the parking lot of a McDonald's restaurant. He appeared to be experiencing some kind of distress, so she reached out to him and offered to buy him a cup of coffee. He took her up on her offer and they went to another restaurant where they had a couple of alcoholic beverages instead. She discovered that he was a local attorney and that he was married. He did not share with her the cause of his distress, and she did not pry. They spent only a half hour together chatting about mundane things, and when they were finished, they both left knowing only each other's first name.Two years later, they ran into each other at a networking event. He was so happy to see her that he invited her to have breakfast with him. He told her how significant meeting her two years ago had been for him. He was convinced that she saved his life.Their friendship began to grow. He wanted her to meet his wife. Unfortunately, things were not going well in Vince's marriage. He was a man who was trapped between his wife's cold neglect and his new friend's innocent warmth. Emotionally, he was getting much too close to Mimi. His wife accused him of having an emotional affair and demanded that he break off the friendship. She gave him an ultimatum: either he broke off the friendship or they would have no marriage. Two years earlier, she had given him an ultimatum. Despite the fact that he wanted children, she demanded then that either he had a vasectomy or she would leave him. He underwent the procedure. Two weeks later, he went for a sperm analysis which proved that the procedure had been a success. It left him feeling depressed and almost suicidal the day he met Mimi. He took a week off work to go on a retreat in order to think things through regarding his marriage. He decided to take his wife on a year-long trip around the world in a last-ditched effort to save his dying marriage. Two nights before the trip, his wife gave him some information concerning Mimi which had him rushing to Mimi's place in an angry rage. Anger led to a night of unplanned passion, but Mimi rejected him when he decided to leave his wife and stay with her. He left heartbroken, and the two had absolutely no contact for five years. Mimi returned to Valparaiso five years later to sell her house and return an expensive diamond necklace Vince had sent her as a parting gift. She is ready to move on with her friend Luke, a devout Christian and Gospel singer who had proposed to her several times.She avoided going to see Vince, and Luke became very angry. He accused her of still being in love with Vince and broke off the relationship over the phone.A day or two later, Mimi went to the same McDonald's where she first met Vince. To her surprise, there he was again, sitting on the same curb, right next to a brand new Bentley. However, this time he did not look distressed even though his marriage had crashed and burned. He told Mimi later that he had gone to the place where he first met her in order to find some inspiration to look for her. He was afraid that she no longer cared after five, long years. But just when it seemed they had a chance at a life together, Vince's wife suddenly announces that she was pregnant with Vince's child and no longer wanted a divorce.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1980925216
• ISBN13: 9781980925217
• Release Date: April 2018
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 355 Pages
• Weight: 1.34 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.9" x 6.0"