by Lexi Ryan
Chapter Ten
“Listen.” Max squeezes my hand and tugs me toward the side room and away from Mom and Granny, who are chattering with Maggie over the calendar.
It’s done. We set a date. I have six weeks before I marry Max.
This is the room William uses for special collections. The first collection shown in here was of some shockingly intimate portraits of Maggie, but the artist kept it under wraps, so no one knew what he was showing until the opening. Asher bought them all that night, and rumor has it he burned them in a bonfire behind his house.
I don’t know what happened between Maggie and the painter, but it sure looked like he’d put her secrets on display. As I scan the walls, now covered with a collection of Maggie’s mosaics, I wonder what that would be like—your biggest secrets, your biggest shame on display to the world. Would it be painful, the shock of it? Or would there be an element of relief to know you didn’t have to work so hard to hide anymore?
“We need to talk,” Max says softly behind me.
I spin around and my stomach pitches at the worry written across his expression. Does he know about Nate? About Sunday night? Does he suspect that another man’s been touching me? Kissing me? Sliding his fingers inside me?
The memory sends a shudder through me that’s equal parts arousal and fear. I’ve wanted Max my entire adult life, and I’m terrified I might have ruined my chance.
“What’s going on?”
He draws me into his heat and nuzzles his smoothly shaved cheek against my neck. “You smell delicious. It feels so right to have you in my arms again.”
“Who’s the one with the faulty memory now?” I ask, trying for humor. “I believe you had me in your arms just last night.”
He cups my face in his hand. “This is all happening so fast—the wedding date, the venue—”
“Oh my God. You want to call it off?” The words slip from my mouth on a squeak at the same moment my stomach releases from its panicked clench and takes a free fall to the floor.
“No. That’s not it.” His lips meet mine—firm and sure. It’s not a kiss of seduction but one of demand. “I want to marry you. I wouldn’t have given you that ring if I hadn’t wanted that. But…” His hands fall from my face, and he drags one through his hair. “I know everyone thinks I just proposed last week, but they’re wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“I proposed months ago.”
Laughter carries from the hallway back to us, and I hear Granny say, “—young, lusty love. Let them have their moment!”
“I don’t understand. Then why does everyone think we just got engaged?”
“I gave you the ring, and you…” He turns away, his broad chest lifting on a deep inhale.
Nate. I was going to throw away a life with Max for a fling with some rocker? Was he the reason I told Max I wasn’t ready? How stupid could I be?
“I didn’t accept,” I whisper.
“I don’t think you believed I was in love with you.” He runs his fingertips lightly over the swirls of yellow glass pieces making up a mosaic interpretation of Starry Night.
I’m such an idiot. Because that’s something I would do—I’d deny a proposal from a man like Max, a man I’ve wanted my whole life, just because I didn’t believe he really loved me.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
He turns back to me and tilts my chin up until he’s looking in my eyes. “But I was in love with you, Hanna. And I am. Desperately, hopelessly, helplessly in love.”
“Max.” I put my hand on his arm. “I was an idiot. I—”
“I told you to keep the ring, that I would wait until you were ready. I was beginning to think you didn’t want a future with me. You’d pulled away. We barely spent any time together. We were just in this hellish limbo while I waited for you to decide.”
“I’m so sorry,” I repeat.
“Don’t be. Because then I got to the hospital and you were wearing the ring. You were confused and beat up and it was terrifying, but every time I saw that ring on your finger, I believed everything was going to be okay. It had to be.”
“Sounds like I’d finally come to my senses.” But what damage had I done in the weeks between?
“You needed to know. No one else does. We kept it quiet. I wanted the decision to be yours. All that matters is that you decided to put on the ring. And when I saw you in that hospital bed, my ring on your finger…” He shakes his head. Swallows. “God, it’s such a cliché, but you’ve truly made me the happiest man in the world. You owe me no apologies.”
“What I did hurt you.” I glance over my shoulder to make sure our private conversation stays that way. “I owe you every apology for that.” And maybe more than an apology. Maybe an explanation. Maybe the truth.
He draws me against him and crushes me to his chest, and I breathe him in and swallow back my tears. I could tell him. Maybe I should, but the idea of losing this…
I look up at him. “When did you propose?” I ask quietly.
“Three months ago.”