She dipped her head and backed into the sink, clutching her toothbrush in her hand. “Just excited.”
Maddox cleared his throat and backed away too, which gave her enough distance to rotate and brush her teeth and ruminate over all the things she wished she’d said.
They took a cab to a restaurant whose name Adelie attempted to pronounce and missed. Her high school and college French seemed to be doing her little good now that she was here. She did, however, attempt to redeem herself by reading items on the menu, to which the waiter gave her congratulatory nods every few seconds.
Maddox wasn’t kidding about the dinner’s complexity. The meal was a series of courses, from soup to a salad, to the haricots verts alongside coq au vin, and then a decadent cheese course before finishing off with the dessert. Adelie had to say, the cheese was her favorite.
Though she’d slept on the flight, the tiredness of traveling halfway across the world began catching up with her. Her eyelids threatened to droop.
“Ready to crash?” Maddox asked, wiping his mouth and placing his napkin on the table.
Adelie shook herself enough to give him an acquiescent nod. “That would probably be a good idea.”
With dark rims beneath his eyes, he appeared as tired as she felt. She had some chagrin over that. She’d taken the couch—on his insistence, but still, she’d taken it. Had he been able to sleep at all during their flight?
Once they returned to the Elir, their conversation crashed to a halt. She barely bade him goodnight before tumbling gratefully into bed. She was too tired to even consider that an extremely handsome man—her husband—was sleeping just a wall away.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The sound struck the sides of her subconscious. It came multiple times in a row, tap, tap, tapping straight into her fuzzy dreams. Dreams of flying, of sharing the jet’s leather couch with Maddox and feeling his arm secure her to his side, teaching her the definition of spooning…
Tap. Tap. Tap.
His nose was nearing her earlobe. Her imaginary Maddox’s warm breath teased the hair on her neck...
Tap. Tap. “Adelie?”
She blinked away the last dregs of the dream. Her hand spread to the silky sheets beside her, only to find the bed empty.
“You awake?”
“Yeah,” she muttered, pulling the blanket to her shoulders and attempting to ram away the budding emotions brought on from the dream. What was that about? She’d never cuddled with a man like that before. Why should she fantasize about it with him? “Come on in.”
The knob turned, and Maddox entered, but he came bearing gifts. In his hand was a silver tray hosting two silver domes, a pair of small glasses, and a carafe of what looked like milk.
“Good morning,” he said, moving deeper into the room. He looked husky and masculine in a Wonderland t-shirt. Washed gray, it bore the park’s logo and the phrase, We’re all mad here.
“Sorry to wake you, but I realized I didn’t tell you what was on the schedule for today.”
“We have a schedule?” Adelie sat up in her blankets, propped the pillow behind her, and nestled against it. She reached for her phone—which she hadn’t been able to charge last night, thanks to her lack of a plug that fit these different outlets—eager to check the time. Wow, ten-thirty? She wondered what time it was back home in Vermont.
Maddox roosted on the edge of the bed, tray still in his hands.
“We do. Wanna talk about it over breakfast?”
A smile took over her face. “I can’t believe you brought me breakfast in bed. And that you let me sleep in so long.”
“I thought you might appreciate the extra rest.”
“That smells delicious,” she said, smoothing out the blankets between them so he could place the tray on a semi-flat surface. Maddox lowered it, adjusting the tray so one domed plate faced Adelie and the other lay before him.
Together, the two of them dug into their plates.
“Bread?” Adelie said, taking her small servings and enjoying the side of fruit.
“The French love their breads. You should try some of this jam.”
Adelie relished the taste of the freshly baked croissant and the strawberry jam, washing it down with a glass of water. “So, you said we have a schedule today?”
Maddox took a drink of his milk as well. “I’d like to take you on a tour of the city.”
Adelie lowered her glass and gaped at him. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Maddox, I’d love that.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” He held her gaze for several moments before she glanced away.
He cleared his throat. “Well. I’ll let you get dressed. Our bus tour leaves in about an hour, is that enough time?”
“Bus tour?” Her excitement over sharing the city with Maddox alone waned.
“Sure.” He waited for her to place her napkin down before retrieving the tray. “It’s the best way to see all the tourist sights, you know, the really popular ones most people come here to see. I did it once before, it’s pretty amazing. We can go at our own pace, pick which sites we want to stop at, the works.”
“Sounds good,” she said. “Maddox?” She caught him before he reached the door. He paused and peered back. “Thank you for breakfast. It was a stunning way to start the day.”
His mouth twisted against a smile. “Be prepared for it to get even better.” He winked before traipsing out and closing the door behind him.
Giddy in a way she hadn’t been in years, Adelie dressed with a bounce in every step. She couldn’t grasp how ridiculously excited she was to see the city she’d fantasized over since she took her first French class her freshman year of high school. That had been over ten years ago, and yet the intrigue and attraction of Paris, of everything French, had never lost its appeal. If anything, it had only increased.
“And here I am,” she said to herself as she checked her floral blouse and jeans in the mirror. The day promised to be sunny but cold, so she added a blue sweater to the ensemble and strolled out.
Maddox’s brow lifted with appreciation. His light green eyes, so much like colored glass, flicked from her shoulders to her toes and back to her face.
“You ready?” he asked.
“Yep.” She slung her purse on her shoulder and joined him in getting to the street below.
They toured the city on a double-decker bus splashed with stripes of orange, purple, and white. Adelie was grateful Maddox led the way to the upper level, and while it took more time during the hop-on, hop-off segments of the city, she was able to see more of it during the interim from an upper vantage point.
Every twist, every turn, stole her breath. She gobbled up views of the buildings, the Louvre’s token glass pyramid, the Paris Opera House, and the sad remains of Notre Dame—or what was left of it after the fire that demolished the beautiful structure a few years before.
The bus stopped at all the important places. The Louvre, the Eiffel Tour, the Champs Elysée, which let out at the L’Arc de Triomphe. The architecture was spectacular; it was all completely surreal.
While returning to the tour bus stop after strolling past shops from which she could never hope to purchase anything, Maddox’s phone buzzed. He’d answered calls from Duncan, from investors and handled other business on occasion, but after a fleeting glance at the screen, he returned the phone to his pocket.
“Not going to answer?” Adelie asked.
He sniffed, allowing his hand to grasp hers. Adelie’s stomach burned at the contact. He’d never held her hand like this in public before. Like they were a couple.
“Is this okay?” he asked.
She didn’t need him to clarify what he was asking. She squeezed his fingers in hers. “Yes,” she said quietly.
Adelie noticed Maddox’s phone buzz several more times along their journey from the street and back to their tour bus. Each time, he glanced at the screen, only to pocket the phone once more without replying.
Who could be ca
lling him? And why would he ignore it?
They stopped for lunch at a small corner café where the pastries were the flakiest, creamiest she’d ever tasted. She was starting to see the appeal of eating so much bread, though she topped it off with a refreshing café crème that battled the chill in her fingertips. Maddox rested his phone on the table, and a name blared on the screen once more.
“Who’s Ruby?” Adelie asked, unable to help her glimpse of the name and the picture of a beautiful woman with dark hair, plump lips, and black eyeliner flaring into delicate little wings that accentuated her stunning eyes.
“Hmm?”
She gestured to his phone with her fork. “Ruby. Is she the one who keeps calling you? Who is she?”
He covered the phone with his palm and slid it to his lap as though it was a card that had just been dealt to him. “She’s no one,” he said. “An old friend.”
Adelie’s eyes narrowed. “The same ‘old friend’ you went to Paris with before?”
Like a knee-jerk reaction, Maddox shifted his attention away from her. Adelie’s forehead knitted at the invisible barrier forming between them and at his lack of response—which was basically an affirmation. Whoever this Ruby was, she’d meant something to him at one point in time. Whether she did now or not, Adelie couldn’t be sure.
Her jaw clenched. He was acting so distracted, so different from the warmth he’d displayed during breakfast and again throughout the tour. Did he regret being here with her? Did he wish he was with whoever this Ruby was? Why didn’t he just answer the call?
Doubt sifted through the happy emotions she’d been basking in since they’d arrived. Scenario after scenario sifted through her mind, of who Ruby could be. He wouldn’t have offered to marry Adelie if he’d been in a relationship with someone else, she told herself. But the internal argument wasn’t convincing enough to soothe her worries.
Maddox gripped his phone and rose from the small, circular table. “We should hurry so we don’t miss our next stop.”
Adelie didn’t move right away. Confusion was still a crease in her forehead. Their tour was something they could take at their own pace. It wasn’t as though the bus was sitting at the stop waiting for them. Even if they missed one, another would be along shortly after.
Conflict swarmed inside of her. She wanted Maddox to know how grateful she was for his help after the Coleman’s incident. She wanted him to know how incredible this moment was—or how incredible it would have been sans the mysterious phone call. He’d put his life on hold to marry her. To take her on a fake honeymoon. That had to mean something.
For Adelie, courage had never come easily. This was her Wonderland, to explore a completely foreign world with him. Part of her wanted to admit it wouldn’t matter whether they were in France or back in Vermont, she wanted to let him know she was ready for the journey. To let him know whatever he was hiding from her didn’t matter.
But something still stood in the way, she thought as she stared out at the still water of the Seine and one of Paris’s many bridges intersecting through the city. Pedestrians strolled aimlessly along its wooden planks. And that something buzzed in his pocket again.
Maddox pulled out the phone, turning his back to Adelie. She let her fingers linger on the table’s edge until she managed to collect her wits and make her way to him. He couldn’t keep denying it. The least she could do was point it out to him.
“You’ve been ignoring her calls all day,” Adelie said.
Maddox angled his head away and had the gall to appear startled. As though he hadn’t heard his phone vibrating throughout their tour.
He crinkled his nose. “How do you know that was a her?”
“I have eyes.” Adelie smiled in an attempt to cover the uneasy speculation swimming inside of her. He’d mentioned coming to Paris with someone else before. Was it with whoever this Ruby was?
“Are you going to tell me who she is? You don’t have to. I mean, I know this is just a favor you’re doing me, and we’re not on a real honeymoon or anything like that. I don’t want to keep you from anything.”
What was she doing, saying something like that? The words hurt on their way out. She didn’t realize how heartless it sounded until they’d already escaped. The truth was, she was falling for him. An admission like this made it sound like he was as disposable to her as she felt to him in that moment.
Maddox’s green eyes glinted with realization. A crease appeared between his brows, and he scowled at his phone.
“You’re right,” he said, resting a hand on Adelie’s arm. He then brandished the phone. “Hang on, I’ll be right back.”
With determination, he strolled away from her, away from the wooden pedestrian bridge they’d paused near and its view of the Seine running right through the city. The river appeared almost concrete, like another street.
Adelie waited a moment near the bridge’s side, taking in its lampposts and the benches lining every handful of feet. She remembered hearing a story of a love lock bridge in Paris, where tourists would attach a padlock to its barrier and throw the key into the Seine as a symbol of their undying love. It hadn’t been all that long ago that the number of locks attached to the bridges began compromising the bridge’s safety and stability because of their massive weight, and the mayor of Paris had ordered the locks to be removed.
Had this bridge been a love lock bridge?
Whether it had been or not, this was Paris, the City of Lights, arguably one of the most romantic places in the world. It wasn’t exactly the ideal location to get ditched.
Adelie couldn’t deny that was how she felt watching Maddox turn away from her to answer the call of an extremely beautiful woman who he refused to tell her anything about.
The same jealousy that had gnawed at her during their lunch turned from a drip to a deluge. She wasn’t unfamiliar with the sensation. She’d spent the entirety of her teenage and adult life watching every guy she’d ever been interested in show interest in someone else.
She hadn’t had a claim on any of them, though, so the heartache that usually accompanied those instances had been relatively easy to manage.
This, though. Like it or not, she did have a claim on Maddox. A huge claim. Adelie tried to argue it away, to tell herself she shouldn’t be so rash, that regardless of the M-word joining them, their relationship wasn’t that serious and never would be. While she’d wished their wedding was more of the romantic variety, she hadn’t realized until that moment how badly she wished their relationship was everything that word stood for and more.
An unforeseen wave of sadness swept over her as she watched his back, as he continued his conversation, as he made his way farther and farther from her.
Before he’d taken the call, he’d said she was right. He’d told her to wait for him.
She was right? Right about what, how he shouldn’t let her keep him from talking to whoever this other woman was?
Adelie stepped out of herself for a moment. What was she doing here? She was in this heritage-rich city, standing on a bridge, surrounded by dozens of others but feeling utterly alone. Adelie hadn’t known herself since she met Maddox. He was constantly trying to get her to be something she wasn’t. A model. A wife.
She should have stood her ground from the start. Then again, was there a better time to start doing just that?
The old Adelie would have waited near the bridge. She would have hung around while her husband was off chatting on the phone with another woman, too scared to navigate her way back to their hotel room on her own.
She was done being that timid dormouse. She was ready to be the Cheshire Cat, living each day with a smile, coming and going as she pleased. If that meant she was a little mad, she’d take it.
Not waiting to catch his attention, or seeing if he would make his way back toward her, Adelie walked away from the fence and down the bridge. She had money. She could find her own hotel room. Maybe in America, back where everyone knew her as the Alice to his Wonderland, she had to
play the part to the role she’d agreed to. But here in France?
She was ready to be the woman she’d always dreamed of being. Larger than life, confident, secure, no longer letting anyone else dictate her actions or make her live in fear. She was also beyond eager to have her own room to manage her heartbreak without having a witness.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Adelie made her way to the nearest bus stop and boarded, feeling strangely out of focus. She sat on the first available seat, not bothering to make her way to the bus’s upper level the way she’d done with Maddox, and she rode her way through the city toward the Elir.
The longer Adelie rode, the more she began to awaken from her selfishness. What was she thinking? Maddox had invited her here. He’d paid for their airfare, the hotel, he’d arranged everything. He’d been so kind to her. She was being petty over a silly phone call. It didn’t mean anything, and if it did, the least she could do was allow him to explain who it was.
She checked her phone, eager to text him and apologize, only to press the button multiple times and receive no response.
“Great,” she muttered to herself. She’d forgotten its low battery during the rush of the day, the tour, the sights. Not having a correct plug to fit the European electrical outlets, she hadn’t been able to charge it the night before. And with Maddox’s romantic breakfast and the exhilaration of the day, she hadn’t thought to check with him before they left.
Now not only was she completely alone, but she had no phone to boot.
The Elir’s grandiose, brick form made her heart leap. Adelie took the next stop and got off, scuttling her way along the street, inside the hotel—stopping in the gift shop to purchase a European phone charger—and up to their room. At least she still had her key.
She hoped Maddox might be there waiting for her, but the room was quiet and empty. Carved and hollow as well, Adelie shuffled in, inserted her key into the hub above the light switches to activate the room’s electricity and lights, and closed the door behind her.
“How did it get like this?” she asked the quiet.
Alice And The Billionaire's Wonderland (Once Upon A Billionaire Book 3) Page 14