title: Thirty Lessons
author: Eason, Mary
description: It's been said that life is just a series of events with consequences.
  
  On their own, they don't add up to much, but when you put them all together you never know where they'll end up taking you, or what the outcome will be once you're there.
  
  For me, Paige Wilder, the first big event to happen in my life that would prove to have profound consequences came on the brink of my thirty-ninth birthday. I allowed my best friend to talk me into crashing a masquerade party where I ended up taking home the most handsome fantasy I'd ever met. Unfortunately, he turned out to be none other than my brand-new boss, Jude Martin. My twenty-eight-year-old, brand-new boss.
  
  Even though I knew Jude was not the type of man to stick around, walking away from him proved to be the hardest thing I'd ever have to do. So, I left New York for the small town of Stormyville, Vermont to start my life over without memories of Jude everywhere around me.
  
  When Jude walked into my little home a few weeks later and asked me to marry him, I confess I didn't believe a word of it. When he told me, he would do anything to make me happy, for the first time ever I believed him.
  
  After all, how many women actually get the opportunity to sleep with their fantasies much less marry them?