Chapter 11
Valentine's Day
I woke up early. The sun was streaming through the bedroom curtains, casting golden light across the room while Maxine lay completely tangled in the sheets beside me.
My heart just didn't know how to work right around that woman anymore.
I lay there for a few seconds, just watching her.
Years ago, I'd been desperately trying not to fall in love with my engineer.
Now she was my fiancée.
I smiled to myself before leaning down slowly to kiss her forehead.
“Happy Valentine's Day, beautiful.”
She mumbled something incomprehensible before slowly opening her eyes.
A smile spread across her face almost immediately when she saw me.
“You woke up way too happy,” she murmured sleepily.
“I have my reasons.”
Maxine raised an amused eyebrow.
“Oh yeah?”
“My fiancée is hot.”
She laughed softly, hiding her face in the pillow.
“You’re impossible this early.”
“I haven’t even started yet.”
I moved closer again until I was practically crushing her against the mattress.
My hands slid automatically to her waist as she laughed, trying to push me away.
“Adrien.”
“Hm?”
“You’re heavy.”
“That wasn’t very romantic.”
“Happy Valentine’s Day.”
I kissed her slowly, just because I could.
Because now there was routine between us.
Intimacy.
That overwhelming sense of belonging that still caught me off guard sometimes.
“I have something for you,” I said.
Maxine sat up in bed, immediately curious.
“A present?”
“Maybe.”
I grabbed the small box I’d left on the nightstand and handed it to her.
Her pale eyes softened instantly.
“Adie…”
“Open it.”
She lifted the lid slowly.
Inside was a delicate white gold bracelet with small coordinates engraved on it.
Maxine frowned.
“What is this?”
“The coordinates of where you kissed me for the first time.”
She went completely still, and I knew immediately I’d nailed it. Because her eyes lit up right away.
“You remember the coordinates?”
“Babe, I even remember what you were wearing.”
She let out a breathless laugh before kissing me again.
Full of that silent something that existed between us now.
“I hate you a little for being perfect sometimes,” she murmured against my lips.
“You love me fiercely.”
“Unfortunately.”
I smiled, satisfied.
Then she climbed out of bed and walked to her suitcase.
“Your turn.”
#
Maxine
Adrien went strangely quiet when I handed him the envelope.
“A letter?” he asked.
“Don’t give me that scared look.”
“I’m emotional, that’s different.”
I rolled my eyes as he carefully opened the paper.
I watched his expression shift as he read.
He finished in silence, then looked up at me, and my heart just melted.
“You’re going to make me cry at nine in the morning?”
“You already cried kneeling on our kitchen floor.”
“That’s never going to stop being mentioned?”
“Never.”
He crossed the room in two steps and cupped my face in his hands.
“Keep this forever?” he asked softly.
“You kept coordinates too.”
“Fair point.”
I smiled as he kissed me again.
Adrien always kissed like he had some desperate emotional urgency burning in his chest.
We spent the whole day practically glued together. The city was hot and alive.
The streets were packed with tourists, but we still managed a few almost-normal hours together.
We walked through the city hand in hand.
Took photos.
Adrien insisted on buying flowers from a street vendor just because “they matched my eyes.”
Ridiculous.
Completely ridiculous.
But I smiled like a lovesick teenager anyway.
Because that’s exactly what I was around him.
Sometime in the afternoon, while we were having lunch by the river, Adrien rested his chin on his hand and stared at me again.
“Stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Looking at me like I’m a Renaissance masterpiece.”
“You’re more beautiful than any of them.”
I sighed dramatically.
“God, you’ve really become an insufferable man in love.”
“Your fault.”
He laced his fingers through mine on the table, so naturally, and it was so simple.
So different from anything I’d imagined my life would be. Because for years, I thought love came at the cost of freedom.
But with Adrien, it felt like the exact opposite.
Adrien
Dinner that night was at a private restaurant near the harbor.
Sebastian and Charlotte arrived first.
Logan showed up right after with his fiancée.
Alex came last, complaining dramatically about the traffic.
The table quickly descended into chaos, laughter, and teasing.
Glasses clinking. Sebastian telling absurd stories while Charlotte tried to maintain some semblance of civility.
Logan completely drunk after the second glass of wine.
And Maxine…
Beautiful.
Sitting beside me in a simple black dress, laughing at some idiotic joke of Alex’s.
Her hand rested naturally on my thigh under the table.
Small gesture.
But enough to make my chest tighten.
At some point in the night, Sebastian raised his glass.
“A toast, then.”
Everyone looked at him.
His smile appeared immediately.
“To the engaged couple, the most emotionally unbalanced pair in the paddock.”
“Fuck off,” I responded automatically.
Laughter erupted around the table.
Sebastian ignored it completely.
“And to the fact that, despite all that, you two actually make sense together.”
The silence that followed was brief.
Maxine turned toward me, her blue eyes bright as the ocean as they met mine.
I raised my glass slowly, unable to stop smiling.
“To us, then.”
Maxine laced her fingers through mine under the table, and in that instant—hearing our friends’ laughter while Paris glowed outside—I knew I had found my place in the world. With her. And with these people who had become my family.