Page 148

“No.” His answer came immediately. “Never of you.”

“Then what?”

His eyes met mine. “Of what you’d choose when you knew.”

And there it was.

Not an excuse, but something worse. Something I understood.

Max Renaud, who had spent weeks putting every decision back into my hands, had found the one decision he couldn’t bear to give me because he was terrified I might make the choice he didn’t want.

Whether I still wanted him.

My anger didn’t disappear. If anything, understanding him made it hurt more. “You didn’t trust me.”

Pain flashed across his face. “Ash—”

“You trusted me with your dragon.” My voice cracked, and I stopped long enough to get control of it. “You stood in that clearing and showed me the thing you were most terrified I’d run from, but you didn’t trust me enough to let me decide what to do with the rest.”

“I wanted to.”

“That isn’t the same thing.”

“No.” His whisper was barely there.

“You were so fucking scared I’d leave that you made sure I couldn’t make that decision until after—”

I stopped.

My gaze betrayed me again, going to the hay. Max followed it, and his face went white.

And suddenly I wished I hadn’t looked, because I didn’t want what had happened between us turned into something ugly. I’d wanted him. I knew I had. I’d walked him into this barn because for once I’d been absolutely certain of something, and I refused to let his fear take that certainty away from me too.

“I chose what happened here,” I said.

“I know.”

“Do you?” I nearly yelled the words.

His eyes closed.

I pushed myself to my feet despite the protest from my ribs because I couldn’t sit still anymore. “I’m not letting you take that from me. I wanted you. I brought you in here. I chose this.” I gestured between us, furious now because my voice was shaking anyway. “But you knew something that I didn’t, Max, and you don’t get to decide it wouldn’t have mattered. That was supposed to be my decision.”

“You’re right.”

I almost wished he’d argued. “You don’t get to just agree with me.”

“I don’t know what else to do.”

That finally silenced both of us.

Max looked wrecked, and some stupid part of me still wanted to cross the space between us and fix it. That might have been the most frightening thing of all, because ten minutes ago I would have trusted that instinct without thinking.

Now I wondered where it came from.

Max must have seen something change in my face.

“I was afraid you’d look at everything between us and wonder whether any of it belonged to you,” he said. “Every time you wanted me, every time you came to me, every feeling you’ve had since we met. I knew exactly what this information could do to you because it’s what I’ve spent fifteen years doing to myself.”