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“Or is this less about talking and more about sex? Are you here for a booty call, Noah? Do you want to go upstairs and make love then disappear?” She took another sip. “Not love,” she corrected, with a self-scathing roll of her eyes. “Silly me. There was nothing loving about what we did, was there?”
The side of his jaw clenched. “I realise I hurt you.”
Her eyes flashed. “Hurt me? No. You made a fool of me, that’s not the same thing.”
“A fool of you? How?”
She clamped her lips together. She had no intention of telling him the truth – that she had let herself dream of so much more than he’d ever offered.
“You’re right,” she murmured caustically. “You didn’t make a fool of me; I did that all to myself.”
“How? Why?”
She finished the wine, her throat stinging with the acidity of the drink.
“It doesn’t matter now. It’s in the past, right?”
He came around the kitchen bench, but stilled when Max threw him a warning glance. It was all too familiar, reminding her of their last morning, when she’d come into the kitchen thinking of a future they might share in some way and discovering that he was leaving, with no intention of seeing her ever again.
“If it was in the past, would I be standing here right now?”
“I don’t know why you’re standing here.”
“Don’t you?”
She shook her head slowly, unwilling to even guess.
“There’s no easy way to tell you this.”
Her eyes widened and her heart sunk to her toes. “What?” Panic flooded her. Was he hurt? Sick? Was something wrong? Was it something with Gray? “Just say it, Noah.”
“All I wanted was to keep you safe,” he ground out. “To do a favour for a friend.”
Her stomach rolled. “I know that.”
“And then I met you and everything changed.” A frown caused his brows to knit together, a crease forming on his forehead. “Everything. My world, my life, my priorities, my thoughts on you, the universe, everything I wanted. I met you and all of a sudden, you’re all I can think of.” His throat chorded as he swallowed. “You’re all I want.”
Max sucked in a sharp breath, his confession the complete opposite of anything she might have expected.
“I fell in love with you, Max. Walking out of here and leaving you that morning was the hardest damned thing I’ve ever had to do. I hated every moment of that morning, that argument, of leaving you, but I told myself I had to. That I’d done my job, that you’d get over me. I thought I couldn’t give you what you wanted – what you deserve – a great future with a guy who loves you like you deserve to be loved. I thought I was doing the right thing by leaving, but it has been a form of agony every day since. I’m in love with you.”
“You’re in love with me,” she whispered, shutting her eyes.
“And I know I probably ruined any chance with you by walking away. I realise I hurt you, that you trusted me and I betrayed that trust in the worst possible way. I should never have left here. I should never have ignored what you were saying, I should never have fought you, because you were right. What we shared was special and perfect; it was the most beautiful and right relationship I’ve ever known.”
Her lips parted on a soft exhalation.
“I want to be in your life.” He stood with his shoulders braced, looking every inch the confident-bordering-on-arrogant man he was, and yet she saw beneath it, to the uncertainty in his gaze, borne of a fear she might reject him. “I came here tonight to see if there’s any chance you’re okay with that.”
Was that seriously a question?
“Noah,” she sighed, eyes closed as she tried to rally her thoughts.
“As much or as little as you want,” he growled. “We can take it slow, start from scratch. Go on dates – I’d love to date you, Max.”
Something popped in her belly, like little fireworks. She pressed her hand there and spun away, her cheeks overheating.
“Or I can leave, if you’d like, and give you time to think about it. The ball’s in your court.”
