by Ali Parker
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know, Max. You just sprang this shit on me! I’m processing. But I don’t trust her. She’s a snake. You know it, and I know it. And if she thinks a baby will be enough for you to go back to her, she’s—” Holly paused. Her tone darkened. “You’re not going back to her, are you?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Good.” Holly breathed a sigh of relief. “You’d be a fool to consider trying to make things work with that witch. She’s slimy, Max. Real slimy. I knew it the minute I first met her. There’s always a game going on behind those big blue eyes of hers. She sees people as tools. Steps to get where she wants to be. She sees you the same way. The money. The big house. The fast cars. You’re the perfect sugar daddy.”
“Please don’t call me that.”
“It’s how she sees you,” Holly said simply.
I ran a hand down my face. “That’s just great.”
“Which is why you can’t give in and give her what she wants. Knowing her, she’s already asked for money, right?”
I winced. “Maybe.”
I could practically feel Holly rolling her eyes at me on the other end of the line. “You’re so dense sometimes, Max. For fuck’s sake. Do not give this woman what she wants. Yes, you need to step up and be a father, but you’d better not even consider trying to make Sienna’s life more comfortable. What you do should be for the baby only, not for her. She’s sneaky and vile and—”
“Can we stop trash-talking her now? It’s not helping.”
“I’m not trash-talking. I’m stating facts.”
I groaned.
Holly huffed on the other end. “Where do you stand, then?”
“Making things work with Sienna isn’t on the table. All I want is to make sure she has money to provide for the kid and that we have shared custody. I won’t have that if I don’t show up for Sienna. A court will not favor me. Not with all the resources I have. But I will never rekindle things with her, Holly. I don’t love her. Hell, I don’t even like her.”
“Good,” Holly said firmly. Finally, her voice softened. All the hard edges were gone. “Max?”
“Yes?”
“Are you okay?”
I rubbed wearily at my eyes. “Not really.”
“I’m sorry. What can I do?”
“Let me tell you the rest.”
“There’s more?” my sister asked incredulously.
Oh yes, there was more.
I told Holly all about offering Janie the job at my office after she called me two weeks ago, sounding like the world was trying to drown her. At the time, I’d been optimistic that this might be a second chance for us. Yes, I’d offered Janie the job primarily to help her, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hope it would help me too.
I also explained that at the time I didn’t know about the baby. I found out afterward, and now everything had shifted so dramatically, but Janie was here, and she looked just as good as she always did, and she was just as warm, soft, and kind as I remembered, and I needed that comfort now more than ever.
“So I told her about Sienna and the baby,” I finished.
“Holy shit, Max.”
“I know.”
“How’d she take it?”
“She cried. A lot.”
“No kidding. That girl loved you. I’d wager she still does, maybe more than she realizes. Your breakup wasn’t an easy thing.”
No, it hadn’t been.
“How did you leave things with her?” Holly asked.
I grimaced at the memory and braced myself for my sister’s backlash. “I kissed her.”
“You what?”
“I kissed her,” I said again. “I didn’t mean to. She was so close and she was crying—”
“And you thought, hey, I know just how to cheer her up, and kissed her? You’re a jackass, Max. A real solid jackass. You know that?”
“Yes,” I grumbled.
“Do you know how confusing that must have been for her?”
“I didn’t kiss her to try to hurt her. I wanted—fuck. I don’t know what I wanted.”
Holly heaved a long, dramatic sigh. Neither of us said anything for a minute or two, and when she finally spoke, she sounded tired, not angry. “Shit happens, Max. But you’ll have to make it right with Janie sooner rather than later. Let her know what to expect. Set some boundaries. Or let her in.”
I frowned. “Let her in?”
Holly laughed, and it sounded like she was laughing at me. “Yes. That girl has always meant more to you than any other woman you’ve ever been with. Yes, this mess with Sienna will complicate things, but it doesn’t have to ruin your life. People balance far more complicated personal lives and are happy in spite of it. We’ve been through shit before. You can handle this. And maybe Janie will want to go through it with you rather than go through something else without you.”
Her words stirred some hope up in me.
“But first, figure things out with Sienna,” Holly said firmly.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And call me if you need someone to whip you into shape.”
“Deal.”
“I have to go. What started as a shopping trip for one item is now going to be a whirlwind retail therapy sprint. Wish me luck.”
I ended the call with my sister and found my resolve. She was right, of course. Holly had a tendency to almost always be right, which was infuriating seeing as how I was her older brother. Nevertheless, I was going to do what she said.
I’d make things right with Sienna, and once I knew what that future looked like, I’d sort things out with Janie, and we would decide together how we wanted to proceed.
Together or apart.
Chapter 13
Janie
There wasn’t a mirror in my office, but if I dropped the blinds on the windows behind my desk, I could use the glass as a reflective surface. It would have to do because I had no intention of stepping out into the sea of other employees with red puffy eyes and mascara-stained cheeks.
I groaned when I saw my shadowy reflection in the glass.
“You’re an absolute mess,” I grumbled.
I ran my index fingers gently under both of my eyes in an attempt to wipe away the dark smudging from my mascara and eyeliner alike. It hardly helped at all. It merely pushed the inky stains outward, where they remained in two circular smudges at the corner of each eye.
“I look like an oversized inkblot.”
I felt like one too.
All my insides had melted together into a mixing pot of hurt and pity. I felt sorry for me, but even more sorry for Max, and I worried about the baby coming into the world in a storm of confusion.
After wiping furiously at my eyes some more and only managing to make things slightly better, I pulled the blinds back up and gazed out at the sunny afternoon. The world still carried on all around me. It had a funny way of doing that.
When Piper left for the year to spend each month with one of her Casanova bachelors, time had slowed down a bit. My days still looked relatively the same, except for when I came home to no Piper. But I settled into that because for some innocent reason I believed it was temporary, and when her twelve months were up, she’d come back to New York with her new beau on her arm, and we’d make things work, just like we always did.
I hadn’t expected her to move to another state.
After she’d moved in with Wyatt and gotten married, time continued hurtling by. It reminded me that even though I was longing for what had been, there was no way for me to stop it.
This felt like that but on steroids.
The news from Max about the baby had paralyzed me. I was the sword in the stone, stuck, trapped, and as I stood there cold and alone, everyone else’s life continued inching forward to new ends—ends I no longer had a place in.
“He’s going to be a father,” I said to the glass where I could no longer see my reflection clearly. “And you’re going to have to acc
ept that one way or another.”
But I don’t want to.
“You have to,” I insisted.
What would Max say if he knew I was having this conversation with myself? Would he swoop in to help me like he had when I called him drunk from my bathtub back in my New York apartment? Would he drop everything for me?
Could I still let him do that when he had so much more on his plate?
I shook my head and let my gaze fall to the floor. “You can’t be the damsel. Not anymore.”
Tears threatened to blur my vision once more.
With a sharp intake of breath, I lifted my head, smoothed out my blouse, and gathered my resolve around me like a second layer of skin. Right now was the time to be strong. I had to get the hell out of this office. I had to find a quiet, safe place to process all of this.
There were worse things than people seeing my tear-stained cheeks.
I collected my purse, turned off my computer, and hurried out of my office. Nobody out in the hall or office lobby paid me much mind as I walked briskly past my office window and Max’s door.
His voice carried out of his office. His door was open half an inch, not enough for me to see him moving around in there, but just enough for me to hear his sharp, frustrated tone.
He’d never spoken to me like that.
Sure, I’d heard him get frustrated. And on more than one occasion, that frustration had been directed at me. It wasn’t uncommon for us to argue at the end of our relationship. But I’d never heard the edge his voice held now. His tone was as sharp as a knife and hollow at the same time.
I lingered at the door and listened.
“You’re not making any sense,” Max grated. “You asked for support. This is what support looks like, Sienna. What do you want me to do, sit back and wait for you to keep me in the loop? This is important. This is—”
She cut him off.
I bit my bottom lip and looked around. Nobody was paying any attention to me. The receptionist was on the phone behind the front desk and clicking away on her computer, most likely making appointments and updating Max’s calendar. Shawn was nowhere in sight luckily, because he’d most definitely have tapped me on the shoulder and gently suggested I give the boss man some privacy. Everyone else was hurrying to and fro across the office, going about their business.
I was the only one who heard Max beg Sienna to see him tomorrow.
“Please,” he said. “I need to see you for myself. I need to know you and the baby are okay. How am I supposed to do that from here?”
Whatever she said, he didn’t like it.
“I hardly see how those two things are the same,” he said.
The conversation escalated. Max barked into the line that she could do whatever she damn well pleased before he slammed the office phone down. I heard his chair creak and assumed he’d fallen into it.
Unable to help myself, I nudged the door open a crack and popped my head in. “Max?”
He was slumped in his chair, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. His eyes were closed, and when I spoke his name, he didn’t open them.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
How many times would I have to ask him this over the coming months? Weekly? Daily? How many times would he lie?
How many times would I do the same?
“She doesn’t make any damn sense,” he said.
I let myself into his office and closed the door behind me. “What did she say?”
He let his hand fall to the armrest of the chair and gazed tiredly up at me. “She has a doctor’s appointment tomorrow and I asked if I could drive her and be there with her so I know what’s going on. So I could support her. But she said no. She would rather go alone. She did ask, however, if I could send her some money so she could go pamper herself at the spa afterward and manage her stress.”
I blinked.
Max chuckled, but there was no humor in the sound. It was bitter and cold, like an unfinished love song. “I don’t know why I expected anything different from her.”
“Maybe she feels like she has to do this alone?” I didn’t know Sienna, but I knew Max, and I wanted to offer him something supportive and comforting rather than speaking my mind.
It seemed weird to me. Why wouldn’t Sienna want Max Fisher, the most glorious man on the entire planet, to accompany her to a doctor’s appointment? If I were in her shoes, I’d want him stuck to my side like glue. Screw the spa. Just give me Max.
“Maybe,” he sighed.
I moved across the office and around his desk so I could lean against it and put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m here for you, even if it hurts.”
Max tilted his head back and gazed up at me.
I forced myself to smile and knew he saw right through me. Nevertheless, he reached out too and gently rested his hand on my hip.
I swallowed.
Max got slowly to his feet. We were inches apart, the toes of our shoes practically touching, and his hand was still on my hip. My heart did a little hop-step in my chest like it was trying to play hopscotch all by itself. My fingers trembled and I pulled away from his shoulder.
He caught my wrist in his hand. “I hope you know I wish I could have protected you from this.”
“From what?” I asked lamely. I knew what he meant. The truth.
“All of it.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
Was I glad? Not really. Was this worse than New York? Also not really. No matter where I was right now, I was empty. Maybe this was the closure I needed but didn’t want. Maybe the knowledge of Max’s future unfolding right in front of me would be enough of a kick in the ass for me to finally get my shit together and move on.
Max’s hand moved up over my hip to my waist and farther still. Eventually, his hand settled at the base of my neck where he traced a lazy circular pattern above my collarbone.
“I’ve missed this,” he breathed. His eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed. “With everything going on, I can’t help but scratch my head wondering why you and me never worked out. Why we let things fall apart the way they did when we both obviously wanted something more.”
Was this real life, or was I dreaming?
“We wanted different things,” I reminded him.
Max shook his head. “No, we wanted the same thing, but neither of us were willing to compromise in order to get it. Now I wish I had. If I could go back…”
“Max.”
His eyes flicked up from my collarbone to meet my gaze. He searched my eyes. “If you could change things, would you?”
Yes. I’d give anything. Do anything. I couldn’t say the words. If I put them out into the universe, there would be no going back, and no matter what, he had a baby on the way. No matter how much I cared about Max, I wasn’t sure if I was ready to be the girl on the sidelines while he became the father of another woman’s child—not when I wanted the same thing for myself in the future. Something he might not be able to give when the time came.
Max cupped my cheek. “I’m sorry, Janie.”
I closed my eyes and leaned into his palm. Try as I might, I couldn’t recall the last time he’d touched me like that. At the end of our relationship, the distance had made it impossible for us to show intimacy through touch. What was more, when we were physically together, there was still space between us—space neither of us seemed able to close. Our walls were up.
But they weren’t right now.
I was still floating in the darkness behind my closed eyelids when Max’s lips grazed mine. My breath hitched and my heart fluttered as the kiss deepened. Something inside me unraveled like a knot that had been tied too tightly and I couldn’t undo myself.
His kiss left me unbound, untethered, and I leaned forward to balance on the balls of my feet as his hand plunged into my hair and held me against him. His fingers tightened in the hair at my nape. He held fast. The neediness in him made me think he was afraid I’d tie myself up again so tightly he couldn’t get b
ack in.
But I had no intention of doing such a thing.
Max lifted me onto his desk and set me down. He stepped between my thighs and inched my skirt up until it sat over my hips. The top of his desk was cold on my bare ass and the underside of my thighs.
His lips tore from mine and he left a trail of kisses down my jaw and along my neck.
“Tell me to stop,” he said hoarsely.
I arched my back and clung to him, relishing the way his hands roamed over my body and squeezed my thighs.
I didn’t want him to stop.
“Tell me to stop or there’s no going back,” he managed.
I draped an arm over his neck and pulled him down to me as I lowered myself onto my back on his desk. He nudged a pencil holder, stapler, and empty coffee cup out of the way. The pencil holder tipped off the edge and scattered on the floor.
I hooked a leg around his, reached down, and undid his belt. “I don’t want to go back.”
Max let out a primal growl that set my skin on fire. His hand closed over mine and he pushed me away as he finished undoing his pants. He took a condom out of his pocket and I resisted the urge to make a joke about his preparedness. He pulled himself free, all fluid motions and gruffness, and I spread my legs in invitation.
I needed this and so did he.
At least that was how I justified what we were doing as I let the moment swallow me whole.
He rolled the condom on before he nudged my panties to the side. I inched to the edge of the desk and let myself hang off it. He held me up with an arm wrapped under my lower back. Before either of us had a chance to catch our breath, he pressed firmly up against me. His cock pushed inside, one inch, followed by another and another, until finally that emptiness inside me was gone and I felt full.
Whole.
From there, things got frantic. I clung to him and he clung to me as we rolled our hips and rode each other fiercely. Someone could interrupt us and walk into his office at any moment. Clearly, neither of us cared enough to let that threat stop us, but we weren’t taking our time and savoring the moment either.
We were fucking like animals.
His fist settled in my hair once more. He nipped at my lips and crushed my breast in one hand while he drove deep inside me. I whimpered. He groaned.