AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Sixteen
Max pacedthe living room and looked down at the glass in his hand, surprised to find it empty. It had been the second drink he’d poured himself since he and Abby had gotten home, the one he’d poured after he’d gotten Abby tosleep.
It was the first time in a while he was tempted to anesthetize himself with liquor. He couldn’t do it — he wanted to be one-hundred percent for Abby — but fuck if he didn’t wantto.
The sum total of his knowledge of Abby’s father was a few flashes from childhood — a mean drunk who sent Abby scurrying with his rage — and what Abby had told him. Max had never cared to know him any better, and while he hadn’t exactly wished the man well, he wasn’t dumb enough to ignore the impact his death would have onAbby.
He paced back to the bar and considered the bottle of whiskey, then left his empty glass there and stepped onto theterrace.
The air was crisp and clean, the scent of the desert a kind of primal calming, a reminder that even when the world went to hell, some things neverchanged.
He leaned on the banister and sucked in a deep breath. He couldn’t think about Abby without remembering the look on her face when the doctor in the emergency room had given her thenews.
She’d turned so white her face had almost blended in with the sterile hospital walls. Her eyes had gone glassy, and she’d swayed on the cold plastic chair until he’d put his arm around her shoulders to steadyher.
The rest of it had been a blur — instructions for identifying the body and making arrangements to have it released after the autopsy, brochures on grief and grief counseling, offers to call her nonexistent mother andsiblings.
Max could see that Abby was in shock and not fully cognizant of what was going on. By the time they left the hospital, dark circles had already formed under her eyes. She hadn’t shed a tear, but her devastation was written all over herface.
He’d poured her a stiff drink the minute they’d walked in the door, then ran her a hot shower. When she got out, he’d helped her dress in warm leggings and a sweater. Then he’d given her a second drink and put her to bed like achild.
Through all of it, she hadn’t said twowords.
His heart had felt like it was cracking in his chest. He’d sworn to protect her from harm, to keep her from anything that could hurther.
But he couldn’t keep her fromthis.
“Fuck,” he muttered into the nightair.
He’d been close with his father. There had been nothing unsaid between them, no unfinished business. Max had loved his father and had known he was loved in return. Losing him had left a gigantic hole in his life, but he’d had no regrets about the relationship he and his father hadshared.
Abby would live with this loss the rest of her life. She’d established a certain peace with her father, but she’d never gotten the closure she really needed and deserved. She’d never know if her father would own what he’d done, if he’d put his arms around her and say he was sorry, if he’d spend the rest of his life making it up toher.
She would replay a million phantom conversations in her head over her lifetime, would imagine it turning out a million different ways. She would wish she’d said more to him before he’d died. She might even wish she’d forgiven him, allowed him to pass with the knowledge of herforgiveness.
It would haunt her, in the short-term at least, and there wasn’t a fucking thing Max could do aboutit.
He’d called Nico as soon as he’d gotten Abby settled. Nico had been shocked by the news and had offered to send reinforcements to Vegas if Max needed to step back for a fewdays.
Max had declined. The only thing worse than what had happened to Abby’s father was knowing she had to worry about Jason at the same time. He couldn’t do anything about the former, but he damn well could do something about thelatter.
Dealing with Jason wouldn’t be easy in the aftermath of the accident that had killed Abby’s father, but it gave Max an even bigger incentive. She would need time and space to process herloss.
She would need to feelsafe.
That wasn’t possible with Jason alive, which led Max to a very simple conclusion: Jason had to die — and the sooner, thebetter.
Tomorrow he would help her with funeral arrangements. They would take care of her father, see that he was properly laid to rest. Then Max would wipe Jason off the board, the only way he knew to give her any peace ofmind.
He sighed, his eyes scanning the shadows in the brush around the house. The hospital, the doctor, the silent house filled with a new reality… it all reminded him of the night his fatherdied.
He’d been alone then, the shine of the city twisted and surreal in a world without his father. He and Jason had already been estranged thanks to Jason’s takeover of Cartwright Holdings. There had been nobody to call but Abby, although he hadn’t called her until the next day, not knowing how to say the words, not wanting to make itreal.
She’d raced over to his father’s house, had sat with him for two days straight, making and ordering food, keeping the coffee coming, helping him make plans for things like caskets and press releases, the suit his father would be buried in, the words that would be spoken at theservice.
She’d been an island of calm in the worst storm of his life. Now it was his turn to do the same forher.
Not a day went by that he didn’t think of his father in some way. It might be a restaurant they’d liked frequenting together or the passing scent of cologne that would have Max turning his head, half expecting to see his father striding into the room, commanding and confident, the way he’d been before he lost thebusiness.
He would have been thrilled that Max had finally pulled his head out of his ass and fought for Abby. His father had always loved Abby’s strength, her backbone, her independence. He’d been happy to fund Jason’s college education, but Max had seen the glint of admiration in his father’s eyes when Abby had turned down the anonymous scholarship — amid profuse gratitude for the thought — that she’d known had come fromhim.
Now they were bothorphans.
He turned away from the desert and returned to the house, closing the terrace doors for the first time in months. He passed the bar, ascended the stairs, and made his way down the hall to the mastersuite.
Abby was still out, curled on her side, her knees pulled up, as if even in her sleep she was trying to protect herself against the onslaught of emotion that was undoubtedlycoming.
He pulled the covers up a little, wanting her to be warm, then lowered himself into the chair near her side of the bed. Her face was the last thing he saw when sleep claimedhim.
