I wanted to look away, but I held his gaze. “You won’t hurt me.” I didn’t know it then, but I was the one who would hurt him.
Regret—or something like it—passed across his face. Then he gave in.
I won’t say any more about it except it sure as sunshine wasn’t what I’d expected. All I can say is neither of us—each for our own reasons—stopped what happened. I knew my reasons. But was I ever wrong about his. Afterward, he whispered sweet things to me, kissing me until we both fell asleep to the sound of the surf against the rocks.
I knew it was wrong, what we’d done, just like it had been wrong with Alex and Cal. But it didn’t feel wrong. I suppose I wasn’t the first girl to use that old excuse.
Knowing what I know now, would I change what I did that night if I could? I honestly don’t know. Isn’t that a horrid thing to say? Except for what happened next. If I had it to do all over again, I wouldn’t hurt him like I did the next morning. But at the time, I thought it couldn’t be helped.
——————
After Max and I... after we’d made love—I’ll call it that, because that’s what it was—I woke in the dark, wrapped in his arms. The waves lapped gently at the shore, the moon’s tidal pull spent. Thecedars sighed in the breeze and birds chirped. The fire had died, but Max—gallant even in his sleep—cushioned my head with one arm and anchored the quilt over me with the other. His leg weighed heavy over mine, his breath a slow rhythm.
I didn’t want to move, to disrupt the warmth that was Max and me, together. This was how it was supposed to be. Well, not really. I was supposed to have a ring on my finger, vows said in a church in front of God and everybody, wasn’t I?
As the sky lightened, I could see Max’s sleeping face. His long lashes made half-moons of shadow on his cheeks. He looked so peaceful, maybe even happy. That’s what I’d wanted, I told myself. To make him happy, at least for a time. Was that so wrong?
Max had made love to me like it meant something. And in the end, it had. More than I expected. More than I could even admit. That was the problem. This could be the start of something new between us, something big that neither of us had asked for. Just the thought of me and Max—together, like that—I couldn’t even breathe.
That’s when I realized I loved him. And that’s when I knew I’d have to give him up.
Maybe Max thought he loved me, but he deserved more. More than a thief and a liar. Sure, he knew that I wasn’t a virgin. But he didn’t know why. He didn’t know about Alex. Or about the Rose and Bert and Cal. He could never know that. Besides, I didn’t have a future here in Hollywood with Max. I was going back to Odessa with everything Papa needed. Even back then, I guess I thought I could still become someone Papa could be proud of.
The best thing would be to end this with Max now. Before it went any further. He could go back to Julia and the Dorises. We could go on with the plan, like nothing had ever happened. It wasa common story in Hollywood, nothing to get worked up over. That’s how I’d play it, I decided, lying in the warmth of his arms. Even if it broke my heart. Problem was, I was going to have to break his too.
Max stirred and blinked awake. His eyes were liquid gold in the rising sun. “Good morning.” He pulled me closer and gave me that slow smile, but I wasn’t the only woman in his world. I couldn’t be.
He bent his head to kiss my forehead, then my cheek, his lips moving to the corner of my mouth. My thinking was already getting muddled as he brushed his lips over mine. I had to stop him but I really, truly didn’t want to do what came next.
I tipped my head away from his kiss and pulled out of his arms. It was like stepping into an icy lake after the warmth of the sun. I tried for a light tone. “Looks like we both were a bit sozzled last night.”
He went still. An awful, horrid stillness.
I sat up, my back to him, and scooped his father’s dressing gown from the ground. “Morning is for coffee and regrets,” I said lightly, pulled on the dressing gown, tied the belt. “Isn’t that what they say?”
When Max finally spoke, his voice held a world of sorrow. “So that’s how it’s going to be?”
There was no easy way to do this. The quicker we got it over with, the better. “We made a mistake. Nothing for it now.”
For a brief, desperate moment, I wished he’d pull me back and kiss me and tell me I was wrong. But he let out a breath like a surrender, his voice queer and choked. “Sure, Mina. If that’s how you want it.”
I swallowed what felt like a rock in my throat, and it fell, cold and hard, into my belly. He stood and pulled on his trousers. Ikept my eyes on the smooth water, the waves small and lapping at the shore like they, too, were sorry for the way they’d acted last night.
He gathered up my dress and underthings. My eyes were stinging, and I blinked hard, staring at my toes, at the grass poking through the sand between the flagstones. His feet came into view and I was forced to look up.
He stood like a statue, the breeze toying with his hair. He wasn’t even trying to play along. The eyes that had looked into mine last night were filled with hurt. He held out my clothes. “They’re still damp, I’m afraid.”
“It’s my fault,” I said, taking them. “It was my idea.”
“I should have stopped you.”
A spark of anger flared in me. “It’s not like I didn’t know what I was doing.” It came out harder and crueler than I’d intended. If I had to hide my heartbreak, why couldn’t he?
He dropped his hands to his sides, defeated. “I’m sorry just the same.” The naked pain on his face just about broke me.
——————
The drive back to the city was eternal and silent. It started to rain, and by the time we pulled up at my place, fat drops were running down the windows.
