Alice And The Billionaire's Wonderland (Once Upon A Billionaire Book 3)

by Catelyn Meadows

  Adelie hadn’t been able to think of anything else during the entire, mostly silent, drive back to Coleman’s. Maddox had taken her right to her car and even gone as far as following her home to make sure she made it safely, rather than calling Kirk to pick up her car and drive her himself.

  “I’m all in,” he’d assured her as he’d walked her to her door. “Just say the word, and we’ll do this.”

  Adelie’s mouth had been too dry to reply. She’d chewed her lip, thanked him again for his help, and gone inside and straight up to her room.

  “Of course, I think you should go for it,” Suzie said. “He said it’s not permanent, right? You’d have your own wing in his mansion. You could finish your degree while living in the lap of luxury. Just don’t forget about me while swimming in his room full of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck.”

  Adelie folded another shirt and laid it in the suitcase. “I don’t know, Suz. It’s so—marriage.”

  Suzie flung a hand in the air. “Pfft. Tons of people only see it as a piece of paper anyway. No big deal. Ella’s doing it. You might as well, too.”

  Adelie went rigid inside. That was just it. For Ella and Hawk, their engagement was the real thing, prompted by true, resounding feelings of love for one another that had come over time. Adelie wanted her marriage to fit those criteria. She wanted it to matter.

  She’d fantasized about her wedding since she was a young girl. Walking down the aisle toward the man she loved more than anyone else in the world. Declaring herself his and having a forever kind of love, the way her grandparents had.

  To marry a man she barely knew, knowing their marriage had an expiration date?

  “What?” Suzie asked. “You’re staring at nothing like a major, internal debate is going on in there.”

  Adelie closed the suitcase lid and flopped onto the mattress, resting her hands on her stomach and staring at the ceiling. “It’s just so sudden. I’ll be at his house…alone with him.”

  “You mean you don’t want to stay alone with the mad Hatter?”

  “He’s not mad,” Adelie said, too quickly.

  Suzie rolled onto her side and rested her head in her hand. “Then what’s the problem? Too tempting for you? Secluded quarters with a handsome billionaire… Security sees what’s on the outside, but probably not the inside. You guys would have the place to yourselves. And with that whole ring-on-your-finger scenario, there wouldn’t be much in your way.”

  “Suzie!” Adelie couldn’t remember ever shrieking like that in her life, but her cheeks were so hot they might as well have been sunburned.

  “You do know that’s what happens when two people get married, right? Please tell me I don’t have to have ‘the talk’ with you.”

  Adelie covered her face with her hands and then whacked her sister with a pillow. “That is not why I’m going.”

  “But you can’t say the possibility of getting to know him a little better hasn’t crossed your mind.”

  “And if it has?”

  “See? This is your chance, Adelie. You guys already had a connection at the photo shoot. You were gushing about it like a schoolgirl.”

  The prospect of anything like that with Maddox would be off-limits. It had to be. Adelie changed the subject. “What about you? I couldn’t relax there, living at his house, knowing you’re here all by yourself.”

  “I have my job and my life. Fletcher will come over in the evenings—he’s practically here all the time anyway. Besides, someone needs to stay in Grandma and Grandpa Carroll’s house. We just got the plumbing fixed. Who knows? Maybe I’ll talk Fletcher into a marriage of convenience. Won’t Ella love that? Three marriages all in a row. Jane Austen-style.”

  Adelie didn’t laugh. She knew Suzie had been waiting for years for a proposal from him and wasn’t likely to get one soon.

  “You sure you’ll be safe without me?”

  “What can you do to protect me, sis?” Suzie’s tone was too skeptical for Adelie’s liking. “I’m the older one. It’s not my face all over the place. No one ever noticed me before. They still don’t now. It’s totally fine.”

  “Well…” Adelie traced a finger along the quilt’s stitching. Possibility seared through her, but she worked to keep it in check. She was not going there to be with Maddox. The whole marriage thing was just a façade, to help keep her safe.

  She would be going to keep out of the public eye. She would complete her online schooling and wait for the publicity to settle.

  Suzie gave her a knowing smile and squeezed her hand before rising from the bed and heading into the hall. Adelie reached for her phone and tapped Ella’s number. Regardless of Suzie’s joke about double and triple weddings, she needed to double-check.

  “Hello?” Ella answered in her perky, bubbly way. She’d always been the positive, plucky type of person Adelie both admired and envied.

  “Hey, it’s Adelie. Do you have a minute?”

  “Sure, what’s up?”

  Adelie spilled the whole situation—or the marriage part of things, anyway. She left out the fact that Maddox had made the offer out of guilt.

  “It’s just that, I know it’s so rushed,” Adelie said, “and you’ve been planning your wedding with Hawk for months now. I don’t want to steal your limelight.”

  Ella giggled. “I never even thought of that! Of course, I want you to get married. If you’re happy and you love the guy, go for it. Hawk and I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  “You—you want to come?”

  “Uh, yes! You were planning on inviting me, weren’t you? And you know Grammy will want to know, and she’ll probably make sure everyone on the Larsen side comes—”

  “No,” Adelie said too quickly. Her heart pranced within her chest.

  This couldn’t be a huge event. It was meant to be a temporary fix to what was becoming an increasingly problematic situation. Now it felt like Adelie was making things worse.

  “Sorry. We want it to be small. After all the publicity my images have gotten, we want to make sure as few people know about it as possible.”

  She was beginning to wish she’d never mentioned it to Ella in the first place.

  “I get that,” Ella said. “No worries, cuz. You can count on me. I won’t tell a soul.”

  Adelie breathed with relief. “Thank you.”

  “I’m happy for you,” Ella added. “You deserve so much happiness. He’d better sprinkle it on you every chance he gets.”

  “I’m happy for you too,” Adelie said, ending the call.

  She wasn’t sure why she’d gone to Ella in the first place. Looking back, considering how hush-hush they wanted to keep this, she probably shouldn’t have said anything at all, but for some reason, she wanted someone else’s input apart from Suzie’s. Ella’s enthusiastic support, Suzie’s confidence in her decision, made every other argument Adelie pitched at herself fizzle.

  She was really doing this.

  Anticipation surged within her as she reached for her phone.

  Here comes the bride, Adelie texted Maddox. As you said, I’m in.

  Great. I’ll feel more comfortable with that. I’ll send Kirk to pick you up first thing tomorrow morning.

  It was so anticlimactic. So formal. So devoid of oomph and fanfare. She’d wanted to be swept off her feet, to be dazzled by a ring and a down-on-one knee approach, with e. e. cummings recited for good measure.

  Who was she kidding? Men weren’t exactly lined up for her, not unless she counted those of the psychotic, stalking, poor personal hygiene variety.

  Maddox was decent. Decent and gorgeous. And rich. She would be safe with him, and right now, that mattered more than anything. Love could come later.

  If it ever came at all.

  ***

  “Please tell me you’re joking.” Duncan had been lying on Maddox’s couch, tossing a tennis ball into the air and catching it repeatedly. Hearing Maddox’s news, however, made him drop the ball and sit straight up in three seconds flat.

&
nbsp; “Should I be?” Maddox said.

  Duncan shook his head, resting a hand on the cushions on either side of him. “The girl is stunning, but marrying her? You’d better have some serious paperwork drawn up for this. And have you even talked to Ruby?”

  The sound of her name jolted Maddox. He hadn’t thought of her since the park had opened. Realizing he hadn’t thought of her in so long a stretch was a triumph indeed.

  “Do I need to?”

  Duncan’s eyes narrowed. “You know Ruby better than anyone else. She wore your ring the last time you were idiot enough to propose. She may not handle this news well.”

  Maddox fought away the warning in his ribs and attempted to sound as unperturbed as he wanted to feel. “So?”

  Duncan stood from the couch. “So, if you’re trying to protect this girl, feeding her to Ruby may be more dangerous than anyone she could encounter on a random trip to the market.”

  “Ruby ended our engagement,” Maddox argued. “Why would she even care that I’m getting married to someone else? It’s not like she’s going to lop off Adelie’s head for this.”

  Duncan bent for the tennis ball, which had rolled several feet away. “Are you so sure about that? I can just see her calling for a beheading now.”

  Maddox didn’t like this turn of the conversation. “I’m done with Ruby,” he insisted. “I have been for years now.”

  Except he’d never managed to get the engagement ring from her. Ruby had said she wanted to keep it as a memento.

  “Of all the good times,” Ruby had added before tiptoeing up to give him a kiss that hadn’t seemed like an ending at all. That kiss had done it. It had made him realize what a fool, what a puppet on her strings, he’d been. She’d played him even as she’d been breaking up with him.

  Sure, she’d known he wasn’t hard-up for cash, but any decent person would have returned the ring so he could at least get his money back. But no. She’d kept it, so it could sit in a drawer or in her jewelry box, gathering dust. Maddox vowed then and there that he was done with her, done with a woman who cared more about her own interests than anyone else’s.

  He was still done with her now. “Are you coming to the wedding or not?” Maddox asked. “I need a best man.”

  “Not at City Hall, you don’t,” Duncan argued, tossing the tennis ball once more and catching it. “But sure, man. If you want me there, I’ll be there.”

  Relief stole over Maddox. He didn’t really need a best man, but he did want his friend to be there. He’d be meeting Adelie in a few hours. Martha, his maid, had worked hard to prepare Adelie’s room and what would become her private accommodations in his house. Maddox had gotten security codes and keys updated for her so she could come and go as she wanted as soon as she was ready to.

  This would work out, he told himself, trying not to be thrown by the fact that in less than twenty-four hours he’d have a wife who was practically a stranger to him. A beautiful, adorable stranger.

  This was for her. He’d meant it when he’d said as much. But he couldn’t deny the pull she’d had on him from day one.

  “It’s nothing,” he told himself once Duncan left. She’d be there under his protection, that was all. She was so shy, so insecure. He couldn’t do anything that might push her too far or hurt her feelings. Not to mention his own failed engagement with Ruby. Keeping as much distance as possible would be the best option, for both of their sakes.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Fletcher pulled up outside Westville’s City Center building. Though Maddox had offered to have Kirk pick her up, she’d asked Suzie and Fletcher to take her instead. It made things seem a little less daunting that way.

  A sign on a low barrier announced the building’s name. The opening was dotted with flags, flowers, and squat bushes. Statues of men and women in suits added a finishing touch to the building’s archway just before its entrance. The last time Adelie had been here was to vote. Now she was here to sign a certificate and marry Maddox Hatter.

  It all seemed so extreme, but she didn’t want to be living under the same roof with a man she wasn’t married to, and she was very much looking forward to the security guards and tall fences surrounding his house’s perimeter.

  This won’t last, she told herself, gripping the bouquet of daisies Suzie had gotten for her—from Coleman’s of all places. She’d been repeating the phrase in her mind since she’d left home with Suzie and Fletcher. Odd, that the man who’d enabled her to save her family home was also the reason she had to leave it.

  Suzie rotated from her place in the front seat. “Ready to get hitched?”

  Adelie gripped the daisies’ stems tighter. “You say that like it’s easy.”

  “Because it is,” said Suzie. “You don’t love the guy. You don’t owe him anything. You’re doing this because he owes you.”

  Adelie couldn’t completely agree. She’d meant what she’d told him in the car the day before. She didn’t want to seem like she was taking advantage of Maddox. He’d already given her outrageous amounts of money.

  “You’ll be fine,” Suzie said.

  Adelie was tired of hearing that. Sure, she would be fine. She would have courage. This was her decision, and she was taking this chance.

  She’d talked it over with Maddox, and while they could have both worn sweats if they wanted (yoga pants, in Adelie’s case), they agreed to wear their Sunday best.

  She’d sorted through her closet before throwing in the towel, however. This was her wedding. Brief in duration or not, it might be the only wedding she ever had, and she wasn’t about to wear any ordinary dress.

  She wanted a wedding dress.

  Yesterday afternoon, she’d dragged Suzie with her to Darnell’s, the best—and only—wedding store in town and found the perfect thing. It was A-line with three-quarter sleeves, a floor-length, tulle skirt, and a delicate spray of embroidered flowers on the bodice, as though she’d romped through a meadow, plucked a sprig of wildflowers, and tucked them into the belt of white ribbon at her waist.

  Suzie had helped her twine her blonde hair into knots at the base of her neck. If nothing else, she felt beautiful, and that was all she could ask for, under the circumstances.

  “Ready?” Suzie said again, stepping out of the car and opening Adelie’s door for her.

  Adelie joined her outside. The sky could swallow her, it was so wide and blue and completely cloudless. Where her nerves had been frazzled during the photo shoot—and during every split second afterward—the most peculiar sense of calm settled over her.

  She looked into Suzie’s blue eyes. “Yes.”

  The single syllable word held so much more than its usual capacity. She was ready. She wanted this. Even stranger, it felt right in a way she couldn’t explain. Impulsive, rushed, necessary, obligatory. But right.

  Fletcher met the sisters and offered Adelie his arm. Grateful, she took it, sliding her other arm through Suzie’s. Together, they entered City Hall to find Maddox waiting with their marriage license in hand.

  Duncan Hawthorne stood at his side, looking dashing in a suit of his own, but she only had eyes for Maddox. He wore a navy suit the color of dark seas and midnight stargazing, set off by a dark shirt and black tie. Her heart skipped a beat. She cradled the daisies to her chest and chewed her lip, completely entranced by him.

  His lips parted, and the most delicious gleam ignited in his eyes, which never left hers.

  “You look like a bohemian goddess,” he said.

  Adelie dipped her chin. “You look pretty good yourself.”

  Maddox visibly swallowed before holding the marriage certificate toward her. “Just need your signature,” he said. “And then we can—”

  “Get married?” Adelie finished.

  He cleared his throat. “Yeah.”

  “Steady now,” Duncan muttered under his breath.

  As a matter of fact, Adelie’s hand was steady as she took the certificate to the nearby counter, borrowed a pen from the adjacent cup, and si
gned her name. She paused only at the sight of Maddox’s messy signature on its own line above hers.

  Just how far would they take this marriage? Would she change her name? Adelie Hatter had a ring of dizziness to it.

  A man approached and introduced himself as the deputy marriage commissioner. He shook Adelie’s hand first and then Maddox’s.

  “You two ready to tie the knot?” he asked.

  “We are,” Maddox said.

  The commissioner inclined his head. “Okay then. Our private ceremony room is just down here.”

  Adelie moved in a daze. She stood on one side of the polished desk within the small room, with Suzie and Fletcher behind her. Maddox stood across from her, with Duncan at his elbow. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ella and Hawk slip in, settling themselves in the seats behind Suzie and Fletcher.

  Vows were spoken. Promises were made. Before she knew it, the final, token words pronounced them man and wife.

  “A kiss is customary,” the commissioner said, “though not necessary.”

  A kiss. Her entire body seized. She’d imagined this moment so many times. Wondering how it all worked, how a man’s lips managed to find just the right spot on her own.

  She’d read of thousands of kisses, of stymying moments perfectly crafted to make the readers’ hearts flutter. She’d witnessed kisses in movies, thrilling over the moment when the two romantic interests finally gave in to their budding attraction and defied whatever odds were against them, declaring their devotion with a single, mouth-meeting gesture.

  Now it was her turn. It was finally time for her to experience the same thing, to feel her own flutter, to be utterly and completely taken by Maddox’s lips pressing to hers.

  Her heart raced. Her gaze was plastered to his. She could hardly breathe after all that had just happened. All that was about to happen.

  Keeping his eyes on hers, Maddox lifted her hand to his lips. The touch of his mouth on her skin was a monument, a shrine, worthy of wonder and reverence. Her entire body tingled. If a kiss on her hand held that much effect over her, she could only imagine what it would be like when their lips connected.