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His words shocked her. “No.”
“Yes.” He sighed, clearly trying to get ahold of himself. “Listen, kitten. All I’ve ever wanted for you was happiness.”
“I know.”
“You aren’t going to be happy if I kill myself slowly with bourbon, no matter how good the year.”
“Um, yeah…I could really care less how high-quality your liquor cabinet is.”
“I know. You care about me.” There was something in her dad’s tone—an echo of the man who had raised her before his drinking had become such a consuming pastime.
“I love you, Daddy.”
“I love you, too, kitten.” Enough to try to get and stay sober.
He didn’t have to say the words aloud. She heard them anyway and they gave her hope for the future with her dad she hadn’t had in a long time.
They rang off and Max took her to bed, where he cuddled her for a long time before making love to her with such passion she forgot her own name right along with the phone call from her dad.
* * *
Max and Romi made love again the next morning before sharing breakfast and him insisting on driving Romi home before going into BIT.
He got out and came around to open her door with the kind of courtesy that usually either annoyed her or came off as fake. With Max it felt natural and she didn’t mind it. Appreciated the gesture even.
He stopped at her door like he had the other night. “I will not come in.” He smiled more naturally than she’d ever seen him, a tinge of mischief lighting the gorgeous dark gray of his eyes. “My schedule is too full this morning for a late start.”
She shamelessly fluttered her lashes at him with a confidence born of their new intimacy. “Are you saying you can’t resist me?”
“If I could resist you, I would not have spent a year pining.”
Talk about exaggeration. If anyone had been pining, it had been her. Her best efforts to forget him notwithstanding. “Oh, be real, Max. Men like you don’t pine.”
“Call it what you like, but don’t call it resisting you.”
She nodded, touched in a way she was sure he had not intended. But that admission wasn’t just about sex, no matter how he fooled himself.
Romi should know. She had spent her life avoiding things she didn’t want to face. She recognized the signs.
But then maybe he wasn’t trying to fool himself. He’d as good as said it was more than sex the day before. Not love. Oh, no. Not love for Maxwell Black, but it was definitely more than sex.
“I will pick you up for a late dinner,” he said as he turned to go.
“We agreed. I need tonight to think.” Not that she hadn’t pretty much made up her mind, but he didn’t need to know that.
He turned to face her at the bottom step. “You can think after dinner.”
“That’s not what we agreed.”
“We didn’t say no contact while you did your thinking.”
“It was implied.”
“No.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but the words wouldn’t come. To claim she didn’t want to see him would be a lie. “Fine. But I’m not waiting until nine to eat. I’ll expect you at seven.”
His lips flatlined, but he nodded.
“Okay, see you then.” She wasn’t sure what to do with herself.
She should just turn around and go back inside, but she didn’t want to. How pathetic would it be to stand there and watch him drive away?
Pretty pathetic, she figured, but that was what she was going to do anyway.
He’d have to get used to her foibles if he wanted to marry her, even if he planned to divorce her down the line.
Max’s eyes narrowed, his jaw going hard, and then he was striding back up the steps. He didn’t stop when he reached her, but took her into his arms and gave her a very thorough, very possessive kiss. “Seven o’clock. Pack an overnight bag.”
“That’s not the deal.” But she was talking to his back and he didn’t acknowledge the words before climbing back into the Maserati and driving away.
* * *
The phone call with Jeremy Archer was more than a little stilted. Romi was still angry with the corporate shark that treated his daughter like a bargaining chip on his game board.
“Where did you hear that?” he demanded after she’d asked if Maddie had made the threat to give her shares over to Harry Grayson.
“Does it matter?”
“My daughter didn’t tell you. She wouldn’t.”
“If you know her that well, why didn’t you know her well enough to handle this whole thing differently?”
“I don’t need parenting advice from a child.”
“You need it from someone,” she told him with tactless honesty and not even a smidgen of guilt.
“She made the threat,” he confirmed. “Why? Are you planning to capitalize on it?” he sneered. “It won’t happen. That drunk isn’t getting his hands on my company.”
It was only twenty-five percent, but Romi didn’t quibble particulars. She was too furious. “My dad is not a drunk!”
Jeremy’s bark of laughter was harsh, clearly unconvinced.
It infuriated her. Her dad was an alcoholic, but he wasn’t a waste of space, like this heartless man implied. “You were friends once.”
“We still are,” Jeremy said, sounding surprised she’d say that.
“You know the old saying, with friends like you, my dad doesn’t need enemies.”
“Don’t presume to judge what you don’t understand. Neither you nor my daughter ever showed the least interest in business. You have no idea how our world works.”
“I know that my dad’s world is one worth living in and yours isn’t.”
She wasn’t surprised by the hangup that followed. Nor was she tempted to call back. Romi had gotten the information she’d wanted.
Maddie had made the threat. Whatever the particulars were, Romi didn’t know and wasn’t about to interrupt her SBC’s honeymoon to find out.
Maddie hadn’t told her because she knew Romi would have demanded she tear up the paperwork. To no avail. Romi had no doubts on that score.
Maddie could be more obdurate than executives in the oil industry denying the existence of global warming.
Even if Romi told Maddie of Max’s threat, the redhead wouldn’t alter the paperwork. In a month maybe, when she was happily married and sure that Viktor would keep a tight rein on Jeremy. But until then? Maddie would not consider losing the shares worth backing down from her father.
Oh, Romi planned to talk to her SBC about it anyway. When she got back from her honeymoon, but since the threat to her shares wasn’t the main reason Romi planned to say yes to Max’s proposal, it wasn’t a priority.
She wasn’t going to say yes because of his threat to her father’s sobriety either. Harry Grayson wasn’t going to stay sober if he couldn’t remain in the program without the motivation of Max’s merger. Romi was honest enough to admit to herself that she hoped this thing worked for her dad both in the short and long term, but she wasn’t marrying Max and signing his ridiculously long prenuptial agreement for her dad’s sake.
She was going to say yes to the blackmail proposal because she couldn’t imagine her life without Max in it.
Did that mean she’d done the one thing she’d been determined not to and fallen in love with the Corporate Tsar?
She thought probably it did.
Surprisingly, that knowledge did not make her want to bury her head in the sand or run. In fact, there was a certain amount of freedom in acknowledging that there was no point in fighting something that had already happened.
She loved Maxwell Black and had every intention of taking a chance on marriage to him. Romi was primarily a positive person. She hoped for the bes
t and for the most part believed it would come to pass.
She’d broken things off with Max a year ago because he had put a definitive sell-by date on their relationship.
There was nothing to hope for when he’d been adamant he only wanted six months to a year.
The prenup he’d given her to read over made it clear he didn’t expect the marriage to last past ten years, but there was no requirement they divorce at that time. Regardless of the language of the contract, Max was going into this with a different attitude.
For one thing, he wanted children with her. Enough that he’d lost his vaunted control enough to make love to her without protection. Subconsciously, he wasn’t afraid of creating that permanent bond between them.
After his own childhood, he wasn’t ever walking away from his children, even if he thought he might walk away from her.
It might be wishful thinking, but Romi doubted that outcome, too.
A lifetime wouldn’t be enough to grow bored or grow apart. They shared a soul even if he didn’t see it that way and she thought maybe he was starting to get an inkling.
Romi had never been a person to be dictated by what others believed. She believed in soul mates and, she realized now, she believed Maxwell Black was hers.
How could she not take the chance on marriage to him?
When he came by for dinner, she’d have an overnight bag packed and an answer to his proposal.
CHAPTER TEN
MAXWELL CURSED THE tail end of rush-hour traffic as he drove toward the exclusive neighborhood where Harry Grayson had purchased his house before Romi had ever been born.
