Axel:A Bad Boy Romance(24)

It was a long and elegant dress. The fabric was green silk and the  sleeves and bottom hem were lined in black fur. It came with a set of  costume jewelry, large, red rubies and bright gemstones. His mother had  cried actual tears when she had seen it. Then they spent about thirty  minutes arguing over the price with Mrs. Connelly declaring too  expensive for such a frivolous occasion and Axel reminding her he had  the money and already paid for it. Finally, she had acquiesced enough to  try the damn thing on, but she still wasn't making any promises.



She was still putting up a fight. Even as she was putting the dress on.  Axel was in his best, black three-piece suit. He glanced at himself in  the mirror. He was clean-shaven and his shoes were shined. But he didn't  want to look okay; he wanted to look great. Marie was going to be there  and, so far, she had only seen him in his training gear.



"It's just so lovely," he heard his mother cry though the door.



He knew there were tears of happiness happening back there and he was  glad there was a door between them. He shook his head and sat down on  the couch grabbing a magazine and flipping impatiently through the pages  for a few moments before standing up again. They still had thirty  minutes before they had to leave and already Axel was feeling antsy and  nervous.



Mrs. Connelly came out of the room, looking stately in her fine dress.  The fabric rustled as she walked, the silk shining under the lights. She  looked like something out of another time. Like a character on one of  those unending Jane Austen movies his former girlfriends had forced him  to sit through.



"Are my eyes red?" she asked, dabbing at her eyes with a lace  handkerchief. "I just can't seem to stop crying. I can't believe I  raised such a nice, sweet boy who would do something like this for his  mother." The tears started again and Axel looked away in embarrassment.



"You keep on like this and I'm never doing anything nice again," he grumbled as she pulled him into a hug.



***



The courthouse building next door let the museum use their parking  garage for the night and Axel parked his Mercedes and then opened the  door for his mother and took her arm as the walked towards the party.



"I always hated this creepy old house," he scowled as they walked to the front door.



"It's not creepy. It's lovely inside. How many times have you actually been in it?"



"Once, on a fieldtrip in the fourth grade. Didn't like it then, don't like it now."



"You can be so set in your ways," Mrs. Connelly said with a shake of her  head. "Why don't you try giving things a second chance every now and  again. Maybe if you look at the mansion with an open mind you'll find  you actually like it."



They walked up the marble steps and Ingrid stood at the entrance way in her own fine dress shaking hands and greeting everyone.



"Oh, my, Mrs. Connelly, don't you look wonderful," Ingrid said as she looked at the green dress.



Axel tuned out the conversation of the two ladies once he realized they  were just complimenting each other and he searched for Marie. They  weren't inside yet, but if he craned his head he could see past the huge  front door and into the house proper. There were plenty of people in  there, quite a few in period costumes, but no Marie.



"Well, please, come inside," Ingrid said and Axel walked through the door and into the mansion.



Okay, it's not too bad, he thought as he looked around. It was dark and  old-fashioned, but now that it was festooned with lights and there were  people all around, it didn't look that creepy. This was quite the party.  Everyone was dressed to the nines and there was a piano player on the  baby grand in the entryway. Bartenders were making drinks and appetizers  were being passed around. It was much nicer than chicken or fish at the  Holiday Inn.         

     



 



His mother was a great success and he could tell she was enjoying  herself. Every other minute someone came up to gush over her dress and  Mrs. Connelly would say it was all Axel's doing and they would call him a  good son and on and it went and still there was no sign of Marie. Where  was she? Didn't she know he was coming? Did she not want to see him at  all?



Leaving his mother with a gaggle of older ladies he walked through the  dining room and around the entire downstairs. A fire crackled in the  formal living room where guests sat on claw foot chairs and placed their  glasses on tablecloth protected side tables. He felt a little  disoriented when he found himself surrounded by men in and women in  clothes that had gone out of style three centuries ago and he reached  for his cellphone in his pocket to remind himself that they were still,  thankfully, in the twenty-first century.



He found her in the dining room. A long table had been set up for the  meal. There were plates, napkins, and several different forks and knives  for each guest. Marie, looking stunning in a purple dress with her hair  pinned up, was bent over the table, polishing a rogue fork. For a long  moment Axel just watched her. Her face was screwed up in determination  as she traced her hand along the table making sure everything was  perfect.



She gasped when she saw him, putting her hand on her chest to calm her beating heart.



"Sorry," Axel said. "But you looked focused and I didn't want to disturb you. You look stunning, by the way."



She blushed and looked down in the floor, smoothing the lines of her  dress. "No rest for the weary," she said as she waved her hand over the  sumptuously decorated table.



"Surely the table can spare you for a few moments. It's a shame you  don't have a drink in your hand. This is a party, after all."



She smiled and nodded and led the way out the back door to the bar on  the patio. "Thankfully, the weather has held," she said as she took a  glass of cool white wine from the bartender.



Axel had no desire to talk about the weather with her. Inside, the piano  player picked up a new, happier tune. The key was light and the notes  tumbled about them before being released into the warm dark air. There  was a sparse wood behind the mansion and the leaves on the trees rustled  in the night. The town was otherwise quiet; he imagined the place  sounded quite the same back when the Hawks still resided inside.



"Is your mom having a good time?" Marie asked.



"She is," Axel answered. "Are you?"



"Oh, definitely. But it's a lot of work. I just had to put a crying Cate  to bed. She was so sad she had to leave before the party really  started. She was very excited for everyone to see her new dress," Marie  said before taking a long sip of her cool drink. Her face was flushed  and she put the cool glass onto her forehead, closing her eyes and  giving out a sigh of pleasure. "Sorry," she said, gesturing to the  glass. "I'm just a little hot."



"Don't worry about me," Axel said looking her up and then down before settling his gaze back on her eyes.



She shook her head with a smirk and lowered the glass. "Lori's a good trainer," she countered.



"Better than me?" Axel demanded taking a step forward.



"She's nicer," Marie said after a moment's thought.



"You thought I was mean?"



"No, it's not that. It's more...with you the trainings were hard and  when I did well, they just got harder. It was like you were always  moving the finish line a little bit farther away. It was exasperating,  but at the same time you made me determined to cross that line. I was so  annoyed with you that losing to you would mean defeat and I just  refused to accept that. I kept going out of spite."



"But you kept going," he said raising his eyebrows. "That's how I was  trained and I'm the best. You're never done training. There is no finish  line. In my business if you stop, you die. So I always keep going  forward. I set goals and when I reach them I create new ones. It never  ends."



"That sounds like so much work," Marie said with a shake of her head.



"It is. But that's the point of living isn't it? To be your best self.  For me, fighting is what I love and I want to be the best. And there's  always someone coming for your title. You always have to be ready to  take down a challenger or face a rival. A day I'm not training or  working out is a day I'm wasting. I believe you only get this one life.  Each day happens only once and your life passes whether you want it to  or not. You have to make each day one worth it."         

     



 



"That's impressive and it makes me feel very guilty about all those nights spent watching Real Housewives reruns."



"Reruns?" he demanded.



"They are so addicting, you have no idea," Marie said as she tried not to laugh.





Chapter Twenty-Five



There were a thousand butterflies swooping in her stomach and she had no  idea where they had come from. She wasn't just flushed from the heat  anymore. It was Axel. He looked so handsome in a suit. The dark color  accented his features and he was clean-shaven, the line of his jaw  calling out to her. But that wasn't it, not really. She was really  thinking about what was hiding under that suit: tattoos and scars from  old fights. He wasn't really a gentleman in a tuxedo; it was just an  outfit for the night. But he wore it well.