AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Except maybe Rosabel’s,” Adrian muttered under his breath.
I laughed, knowing he was asking for it.
“It’s a good thing you’re miles away,” I said. “Otherwise, I think Dunc would throw a punch.”
“Get over it, man,” Duncan said, his voice elevating. “You know there’s nothing going on between me and my assistant.”
“Why else has she lasted as long as she has?” Adrian persisted, a familiar teasing gleam in his eyes.
It was true. The people—women, especially—in Duncan’s office tended to have a short work-span. His brusque manner and tendency to glower didn’t exactly create the best morale boosters in the office.
“Shut it.”
Adrian lifted his hands. “In any case, maybe you’d better reach out to Scarlet,” he said from within the phone screen.
Maddox shook his head. “Not me. I’m not having anything more to do with her again if I can help it.”
“How about that cute cousin of Ella’s?” Adrian said, changing the subject. “Adelie? The blonde who came to thewedding with Ella.”
“She’s quiet,” Duncan said. “Might be good for you, Maddox.”
“I’m not hooking up with anyone, quiet or not.”
“Why not?” I said, cottoning on.
I didn’t mind the lighter topic after all the heavy we’d been wading through lately. “The Pact is over. She’s cute. Perky.”
Maddox sank into his seat and stared out the window. “I have other problems to worry about. I’m losing Wonderland.”
“You keep saying that,” I said.
He’d mentioned it while we’d been visiting Adrian in Montana last spring too, after Adrian’s dad passed away. But I hadn’t put much stock in it at the time, and since the rides at the park seemed to be rolling along the same way they always had, I’d assumed he was being skeptical.
“But it’s really happening,” Maddox said. “I don’t know what to do.”
Duncan and I caught one another’s glances. When he’d spoken of it in Montana, we’d all just played it off. Was Maddox genuinely worried about his theme park?
From the solemn expression on his face, I suspected yes, he was.
“Maybe it’s time to sell,” I suggested.
Maddox grimaced.
I got the conflict there. If it came down to it, I wouldn’t want to sell Ever After, either. He’d started the theme park to honor his late mother. There had to be a way to salvage it.
The four of us ended the call. I drove Maddox andDuncan to their vehicles, which they’d left parked at Ever After. Once they were gone, my thoughts refused to settle.
While I was concerned for Maddox’s dilemma over Wonderland, I couldn’t shift my focus away from our conversation with Will and from Duncan’s continued implications that signing a new contract to dissolve The Pact would hold little sway, not if this other person was determined to take us all down.
Resolve streamed through my veins.
We couldn’t risk anyone else getting hurt.
If Will hadn’t been behind the attack on Ella, we had to find out who was.
epilogue
ELLA
