Alice and the Billionaire's Wonderland
A Once Upon a Billionaire Romance
Catelyn Meadows
BOOKS BY CATELYN MEADOWS
ONCE UPON A BILLIONAIRE SERIES
Goldie and the Billionaire Bear
Ella and the Billionaire’s Ball
Alice and the Billionaire’s Wonderland
Rosabel and the Billionaire Beast
Hazel and Her Billionaire Tower
Aaliyah and the Billionaire’s Lamp
MAGIC VALLEY ROMANCE
Billionaires and Big Deals
CLEAN CHRISTMAS ROMANCE
All I Want for Christmas
Copyright © 2020 Cortney Pearson
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, printing, recording, or otherwise—without the prior permission of the author, except for use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, incidents, or events are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Beta Read by Scarlett West
Copy Edited/Proofread by Sara Olds with Salt & Sage Books
Proofread by Lisa Lee
Cover Design & Interior Formatting by Qamber Designs and Media
Author Photo by Clayton Photo + Design
www.catelynmeadows.blogspot.com
CHAPTER ONE
Maddox rested his hands on the edge of the rabbit enclosure and stared at the little furballs. In all the years he’d owned Wonderland, he’d never had much interaction with rabbits. Now, he stood before their display in Arbor Ranch and Supply, desperately hoping this last-straw idea of his would work.
It was hare-brained—no pun intended—but he couldn’t lose the park. He had to do something. Sympathy wove through him as he took in the animals’ gray, brown, and multi-colored furs. Stuck in their enclosure, no hope for escape without someone else’s assistance.
“I get where you’re coming from, guys,” he told the rabbits.
“Tell me again why we’re here?” his friend and associate, Duncan Hawthorne, asked from behind him. In suit pants and a tan button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, Duncan stared at the display of animal feed and various accessories with disdain. “I’ve never pegged you as much of an outdoorsman. Or a pet person, for that matter.”
Maddox peered down at his own suit and tie. The irony would have made him laugh if he didn’t feel so downtrodden. Neither of them fit in with the store’s rustic décor.
Duncan had come at Maddox’s request, and he had it about right. This was the first time Maddox had ever set foot in a store offering western wear or livestock feed. He was more of a tennis player and golfer himself.
“Scavenger hunt,” Maddox said. He’d given a lot of thought on how to increase interest in his declining theme park, and oddly enough, his mental deliberations had led him here of all places.
He couldn’t let a rabbit loose in his theme park. Too many issues sprang up with that option. People might sneak their own white rabbit in and claim they’d found his. There also wasn’t a way to humanely prevent the poor little creature from escaping the park, short of caging it, which would then make its location too obvious. And then there was the prospect of someone catching the rabbit at all, which was nearly impossible. On their own? With their bare hands?
A scavenger hunt throughout the park with a white rabbit at the finish line, though. That was totally doable.
“You’re crazy,” Duncan said. “Have you ever considered that the fact your numbers aren’t where you want them to be is a sign you should just pack it in? Cut your losses, sell the place and move on to something that actually will be profitable?”
“Wonderland was profitable,” Maddox argued. It’d made him a billionaire, after all. “I can’t just walk away from the place. If I could just get some investors on board, I could do so much more with it.”
Duncan read Maddox’s not-so-subtle hint about wanting him to invest and lifted his hands. “I’m staying far away from that sinking ship. You opened a theme park in Vermont. You could have done it anywhere, but you picked Westville, Vermont.”
True, the town was small, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t an ideal location for a theme park.
Maddox had appealed to his friend over a year ago, and many times since. But every time Duncan had asked for prospective numbers, what Maddox presented had never managed to impress him.
Several chicks in their nearby heated cages chirruped loudly. They were cute, too, if Maddox was interested in farming or free-range chickens. Which he wasn’t.
“It’s not a sinking ship.” Maddox strolled to the opposite side of the rabbit enclosure. “People in Vermont like roller coasters as much as anywhere else. Besides, look. Here’s a white one.” He reached in to stroke it. The rabbit shuffled on the pen’s shavings. “I wonder if we can have a little waistcoat made to fit him.”
“You’re going to dress the rabbit? Why not just get a Build-a-Bear?”
Maddox gave him a blank look. “Dude, have you even read Alice in Wonderland?”
“I don’t need to read it. Everyone knows the story.”
“Then you know Alice follows a rabbit wearing a waistcoat down his little hidey-hole, and that starts her whole adventure.”
“I’ll tell you what you need to do,” Duncan said, clasping his hands behind his back and joining Maddox as he stared at the rabbits. “You’ve got good bones to the place. What it needs is a makeover. A new look.”
“Wonderland doesn’t need a new look.” Maddox had used his mom’s old sketches of her vision from the beloved story when doing the initial layout. He wasn’t about to change a thing.
“Come on,” Duncan said. “Everyone needs a makeover once in a while. Just spiff up the place. Add new signs, redo the décor. It might show certain investors you’re serious about the future.”
Duncan ran an extremely successful business where he offered financial advice as well as backing. Maddox had begged his friend to give Wonderland a chance and choose it as one of his investments. Was Duncan suggesting what he thought he was?
He held out a hand.
