Madeleine Wakes: A Wife-Watching Romance by Max Sebastian

Author:Max Sebastian [Sebastian, Max]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Romance, Erotica, Fiction
Publisher: KW Publishing
Published: 2014-02-21T16:00:00+00:00

Nine

After a long day spent flying, even though a good three hours was simply stolen by the time difference from West to East Coasts, Hugo felt pretty tired as they finally got into JFK.

By the time he’d gotten home and unpacked, he hardly needed to look at the clock to know he could still make Madeleine’s soiree. He just felt it in his bones.

He decided, after a quick change into something smart but casual, that he would duck into the event, and perhaps try to keep a low profile. Madeleine didn’t need to know he was there—he could tell her afterwards, if it felt right.

Madeleine’s bookstore was down in a little street close to NYU which had a surprisingly cutesy feel, with little shops and a couple of half-decent looking bars. Bathed in the slow twilight of a summer evening, it took on a Disneyfied air that made Hugo think he was walking onto the set of a movie. This was the kind of scene to which Internet retail was putting an end, he thought as he approached the little store that had somehow resisted both the challenge of the Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, scourge of independent stores as well as the more recent Amazon-backed slow demise of the physical bookstore.

Shelf Indulgence—it even had a cutesy name.

The party was already spilling out onto the street as Hugo drew near. He was impressed—he was happy to admit it—he was already really impressed. The place seemed quite full, very lively.

Hugo was nervous to say the least—but, at last, he bit the bullet and headed inside. He was immediately accosted by the offer of nibbles.

“Vol au vent, sir?”

“No, thanks.”

“The readings will be getting underway shortly.”

“Thanks.”

Many of the people appeared to Hugo as though they’d stepped out of the English Literature department of the nearby university, on both sides of the faculty, from the older bespectacled professors in their frayed tweed jackets to the younger postgrads talking animatedly about the earlier works of the guest speaker of the evening, one Horatio Marks, along with a smattering of the more bookish of the student body. There were some locals, some vegetarian, hemp-shoed liberal culture aficionados and even a few professionals like Hugo, dropping by after a day at the office.

It was a merry affair, with glasses clinking as virgin cocktails were passed around and supped over improving conversation. Inside, the place was surprisingly large—he hadn’t appreciated the full extent of the place on his first visit. It expanded from a ground-level front space to a lower ground floor that ventured quite far back, split by a labyrinth of shelves and tables stuffed with books.

Hugo came through to what appeared to be the main interior space, where a wide expanse of floor had been cleared to provide seating in front of a microphone primed for artistic expression.

He spotted Madeleine almost immediately, hobnobbing with some particularly artistic-looking guys, one of whom he assumed was the draw of the evening, Horatio Marks. Madeleine did not spot him, but Hugo was not in the mood to march up to her and pronounce his arrival.

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