Chapter 6
Home (Adrien Moreau)
My heart was racing.
I'd raced in Monaco in the rain. I'd defended my position at three hundred kilometers per hour. I'd won a world championship with an entire grid trying to take me down.
But crossing the damn hallway to the closet felt harder than any race I'd ever run.
Behind me, the apartment sat in heavy silence.
Maxine was still standing near the kitchen counter, arms crossed like she was trying to hold herself together.
And the guilt crushed me because I did this. I made her feel insecure—her, of all people.
The strongest woman I knew.
I opened the closet door and stood there for a few seconds, staring at the small box hidden on the top shelf.
Sebastian was right.
I really did look like a criminal hiding a body.
I let out a low, nervous laugh before grabbing the box.
That was it.
Fuck the planning.
Fuck Barcelona.
Fuck the restaurant.
Fuck the rehearsed speech I'd been running through my head for weeks.
None of that mattered anymore. Because I didn't need a perfect setting.
I needed her.
I walked back to the living room, box in hand.
Maxine frowned immediately.
“Adrien…?”
She was still wearing my oversized black t-shirt, the one that slipped off one shoulder, barefoot, hair a mess, the wine glass forgotten beside her on the counter.
And my chest tightened so hard it almost hurt.
This was home.
Not Paris, not the apartment, not the tracks.
Her.
She was the only thing that had ever felt like home to me. Maxine noticed the box before I could say anything, and her eyes slowly widened.
My God.
The expression on her face almost finished me right there.
I took a step toward her.
Then another. Until I was standing right in front of her.
“I screwed everything up.”
My voice came out hoarse.
Honest.
She opened her mouth, but I shook my head before she could speak.
“No, let me talk now because apparently I'm a complete idiot when it comes to surprises.”
A shaky laugh escaped her, and that gave me courage.
I gripped the box tighter.
“I got so obsessed with making this perfect that I forgot to do the one thing that actually mattered.” I swallowed hard. “Make you feel loved.”
Her eyes started to well up.
Fuck.
No.
I couldn't stand seeing Maxine cry.
I moved a little closer.
“You're the best thing that's ever happened to me.” My voice cracked this time. “And I know it sounds crazy because everything between us happened so fast… so intense… but I think I loved you before I even understood what that meant.”
She brought her hand to her mouth, and I gave up on the rest of the speech.
Because nothing I'd rehearsed could be better than this.
So I knelt right there in the middle of our messy kitchen.
No candles, no flowers, no expensive restaurant.
Just the two of us and the most overwhelming love I'd ever felt.
Maxine let out a small gasp when she saw me kneel.
The tears finally started to fall.
My chest nearly exploded at the sight.
I opened the box slowly. The ring sparkled under the dim kitchen light, but nothing came close to her.
Nothing.
“I have no idea how I'd exist without you now,” I admitted quietly. “I don't know when you became the first person I think of in the morning and the last one before I fall asleep… I just know it happened.”
She was crying silently now, and I was close to it too.
“You gave me a home even when I was still trying to figure out who I was.” I took a deep breath. “You gave me peace. You gave me love. You gave me you.”
My vision blurred.
Shit.
“So marry me, Max.”
Silence.
The whole world seemed to stop.
She stared at me like she was trying to remember how to breathe.
Like she was feeling everything at once—and then she really started to cry.
Not delicately.
Not restrained.
Maxine Webster simply fell apart in front of me, and I don't think I'd ever found her more beautiful.
She shook her head over and over, laughing and crying at the same time.
“You're an idiot,” she said through tears.
I laughed, completely breathless, finally letting my own tears fall.
“I know.”
She slid off the counter too fast and practically fell to her knees in front of me.
Her hands trembled as they held my face.
“You almost killed me this week.”
“I'm sorry.”
She let out a tearful laugh.
“I was ready to hate you.”
“That would have been fair.”
“Shut up.”
Then she kissed me. Hard and wet with tears.
The kind of kiss that changes something forever. I was still holding the ring when she smiled against my mouth and finally whispered:
“Yes.”
My heart stopped.
She laughed at the sight of my face, completely wrecked with emotion.
“Yes, Adrien Moreau. Obviously I'm going to marry you.”
It was my turn to kiss her, barely able to breathe.
Laughing and crying, completely wrecked.
I slipped the ring onto her finger with trembling hands, and Maxine looked at it as if she couldn't believe it.
But then she looked up at me, and that's when I knew no perfect plan could have been better than this. Because it was us—and enough love to turn an ordinary early morning into the most important moment of my life.