“Max…”
“That’s my name,” he said, his eyes locked on the television as he surfed the channels. “There’s some shit on these days, right?”
“Max,” she said, going over to bend down to shove his feet from the couch so she could sit down. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m moving back in.”
Tally didn’t know if she should be shocked or terrified. “What? No! You can’t… I mean, your father will never accept you living here. It doesn’t even make sense.”
“You know what doesn’t make sense?” he asked, pushing up so he was positioned in the corner of the couch facing her. “You.”
“I… what? Me?”
“Yesterday, in here, the guys were protective of you. They protected you from me. And, the way you smiled at them when they kissed you goodbye… You’re happy here.”
“Yes, I am,” she said, folding her arms, determined not to feel guilty about it. “I am happy, Max. I won’t apologize for that.”
“You used to be happy with me… Were you ever happier than when you were with me, here, in this apartment? Before I moved to the Estate and all that bullshit. Were you happy with me? With… your Max?”
“You know I was,” she said because she wouldn’t apologize for that either.
He raised his arms and then let them flop to the couch again. “Here I am. Every damn thing you said yesterday was right. No one tells it straight like you do. Thank you for speaking to me the way you did. I do deserve to be punched in the face.” He sneered at himself. “I can take care of you. What the fuck is that? I can take care of you and I will, but I’ll do it from right here with you.”
Shaking her head, Tally stood up. “No,” she said, “you can’t live here and work there. You can’t do it.”
Sitting up straighter, he didn’t take his eyes off her. “I have never been more miserable than I was at that place. Never. And, you were right about us too, we were unhappy there, living with rules, under his orders. No fucking way I’ll do it again. I’m your guy, Tal. Nothing is more important to me than that. No one tells you how to be with me, how we should be together. No amount of money is worth being without you. What we have, what we’re going to have, is priceless. I want this life, no other life. It took coming back here and seeing my life, seeing the guys hanging out, you coming from the bedroom, putting your mark on the place… It took all that for me to see… this is my life. This is the life I should have. This is where I belong. I belong with you and I’m tired of trying to fit in somewhere I hate… I don’t want to be the guy you can’t love anymore. Tal, I can’t be that guy.”
Swallowing, she could feel her lips begin to crack. It was insane and overwhelming and unexpected. Max was talking about them being them again, about them being together again.
“If you’re here, you can’t work there,” she said.
“I know.”
“He’ll disinherit you. You won’t get a cent.”
Bobbing his head, he clasped his hands on his lap. “I know that too.”
“You’re… you’re giving it up? You can’t do that.”
“I can. I have. I will. I do.”
He was so relaxed and at peace that it made her nervous. The simple smile on his face was the most content she’d seen him in months. “Max… Have you told him? Have you told Teddy you plan to walk away?”
“Nah,” he said, like it was no big deal. “I’ve got more important people in my life to look after first. He’ll get the message… I’m going to talk to the guys, make it up to them, get my job back at the garage. Times might be tough sometimes, but we’ve been apart, Tal, nothing can be worse than that. We couldn’t make it through the Stretton shit. We deserve to give ourselves a shot doing it this way. We have a chance to make it. We’re happy here; we were never happy there.”
The idea of him giving up the money and the lifestyle was almost more than she could fathom. Max was a man of his word and she expected since he’d signed on with his father that nothing would break that promise. But, he loved her too, and she guessed he was at war with the loyalty he felt towards her.
For a second, she let herself drift on the notion of them being together here, building a life together, it was seductive.
But, reality struck her hard and she tensed. “No,” she said. “We can’t be together. You have to go.”
A frown crept to his face. “Tal, why are you fighting me? I’m telling you it’s over with them. Fuck the money. This is what I want.”
But, she shook her head and backed away a step. “It doesn’t matter. We can’t. You have to leave. Please leave.”
Standing up, he tried to come toward her, but she backed away. Just the aura she had around her seemed to be enough to tell him that she was serious, and he stopped.
“Tallulah, I love you. This is what I want.”
“I don’t care, Max. I want you to go… And, if you won’t, I will.”
She didn’t have a damn clue where she’d go. She couldn’t stay with any of the guys; Max would track her down. Her only source of income was with them, if she lost that…
“Baby,” he said. “You don’t love me? Remember what it was like before Stretton. That’s what it’s going to be… You’re going to love me again. I’ll fight for you, baby. Whatever it takes, I’ll show you I can be the guy you fell in love with… I brought all my shit back from the house. My shit, not that crap he put me in. I’m back. Me…” He opened his arms. “I swear, you’ll never have to see me in a suit again, not ever…” He smiled. “Least until we get married… unless you want to do that on a tropical beach somewhere or some shit.”
Closing her eyes, her chin dropped and moved to the side. It was like a dream. Max was here, offering her exactly the future she’d fantasized about, and she was having to reject it.
“We can’t be together,” she said, trying to garner all the strength she could. “I can’t be with you.”
“Why not?” he snapped. “Why the fuck not? There’s no damn good reason—are you seeing someone else? That it? Some other guy that you—”
“No!”
“I’ll take the fucker down, Tal, whoever he is—”
“I’m pregnant.”
She hadn’t meant to blurt it out. The moment the words left her lips, she curled them into her mouth and silenced herself. The frown on his face stayed in place as he searched her, but after a few seconds, his attention slipped down to her stomach.
“You’re… you’re… It’s mine?”
Pushing her shoulders back, she pulled on her determination. “I won’t answer that.”
Trying to walk away seemed like the best option, but she only got a few steps before he grabbed her upper arms and pulled her in front of him.
“Tally—”
“Please,” she whispered. “Please, don’t make me say it… He’ll make me abort and I… I can’t, Max. I can’t. I won’t do it… I won’t kill our child.”
“Oh my God,” he exhaled. “Were you going to tell me?”
History really had repeated itself this time. “No,” she said. “At least, not until it was too late for him to force me into anything… I hadn’t decided whether to tell you after that or not.”
Scooping a hand onto her cheek, he brushed away her tears. “Tal, I would never want you to give up our kid.” His lips curled. “Baby, this is amazing. Oh my fucking God, this is great!”
There was real exuberance in his embrace when he pulled her forward into his arms, which only told her he didn’t have a clue what it really meant.
“I wonder if this is how your mom felt.” His arms loosened. “She must have been so scared that your father would take you away from her.”
Easing back, he bent his knees to get to her level. “Baby, no one will break up our family.”
“I’ll deny it,” she asserted. “If he asks me, I don’t care if he thinks I’m a whore. I’m having our baby, Max.”
Widening his smile, he cupped her head, stroking he
r cheeks with his thumbs. “I’d kill for you, Tal, and for our kid,” he murmured. “I won’t ever let anyone take our child away.”
It was obvious that he didn’t understand her fear. “The mistress rules, they were all put in place after Teddy’s affair with your mom. He didn’t ever want to be in the same position again. That’s why he got me to sign those contracts; he didn’t want you in that position either. He didn’t want you trapped by obligation… It might sound crazy, Max, I’ve only known a week, but…” Pressing her hands to her abdomen, she let her fingers alternate. “I love this little one. I’ll do whatever it takes to protect him. I’ll sacrifice anything I have to.”
She’d expected him to read between the lines and know that meant him. As soon as he did, Tally thought his smile would drop and that maybe he’d get angry. Instead, he surprised her by swooping forward to sweep her feet from under her.
“And, that’s why I love you,” he said, carrying her toward the bedroom. “You’re one determined chick. You’d go to war for our family and I’ll be right there at your side, fighting with you. It’s you and me, Boss.”
Kicking the bedroom door out of the way, he carried her to the bed and laid her down, bowing to kiss her lips before moving to the end of the bed. With a knee between her feet, he unzipped one of her boots and then the other, pulling each off to drop them onto the floor.
“Max,” she said when he crawled up the bed on his knees, between her legs, pushing her skirt up out of the way. “I can’t let this happen… You can’t give up your life.”
“This is my life,” he said, bowing down to kiss her lower abdomen. “I love you. I love our family.”
She wanted to remind him how insane it was to give up a billion-dollar lifestyle for a ten-dollar one, but his breath on her stomach made her laugh and she brought her hands around to his head.
“You only just found out,” she said. “You can’t love him or her already.”
With his mouth still on her stomach, Max let his eyes rise to hers. “You ignore your momma, Junior. Daddy’s home and he’s not going anywhere.”
He really looked so happy, and it made her sigh. Her Max was here. That man there, gazing up at her with his mischievous, adoring eyes, was the same man who’d shared this bed with her before.
“Are you sure? I can’t… I can’t lose you again, Max… We can’t trust you and be hurt by you… Our child, Max… Your father will want me to kill him or give him up… I can’t, I… I won’t.”
Rising to prop his fists on the bed on either side of her waist, Max met her eyes. “Tallulah Taylor, I’m going to marry you before this baby is born. We’re going to have junior, then we’re going to have another, and another, and as many as you want… No one will hurt my children or my wife. No one. I don’t give a fuck about Stretton, I never did. Everything I did, I did to make you proud, and somewhere along the way, I forgot that, and I let you slip away… Nothing is going to break us up again. The guy can sue us. We’ll live in a goddamn box on the street, I don’t care. As long as I lie with you every night, and our kids are surrounded by love, he can go fuck himself.”
Trying to subdue her smile wasn’t easy, but he was so sure. Tally had always pushed him towards Stretton, at first because it was her job, and then because she thought it was the key to his happiness. But, she’d seen him smile more since she got back from work than she had the whole time she was his mistress at the Stretton Estate.
“You know, if you’re going to be a father, you’ll have to learn to curse less.”
“Whatever you want, Boss,” he said, lowering slowly to brush his lips on hers. “You’re gonna rule us all.”
The slip back to his old speech patterns made her shiver and she slid her hands onto his cheeks as he deepened the kiss. Opening her mouth, she sucked his tongue deep into her mouth and her legs began to coil around his.
Before she could let them tighten, he reared up high on his knees and grabbed the edges of her shirt to rip it open. “You never answered my question, baby,” he said, pulling her arms out of her shirt and tugging at her bra to get it off.
“What question?”
“You gonna marry me?”
“If we’re going to be Flynns, I will,” she said, unbuckling his belt and pulling open the buttons of his jeans. “I never want the name Stretton. I will never let my children have it either… I always planned on our little one being a Flynn.”
“Baby, I never changed my name, and I never will. This is the Flynn house.”
He started to bend again, but she put her hands on his abs to stop him. “He’s not evil, you know, your father, he’s… misguided and stubborn and conceited… But, he’s not evil.”
“You’re minimizing.”
Licking her lips, she couldn’t hide the apprehension in her swallow. “I’m afraid, Max.”
Stroking her hair from her face, he lay down over her, letting his weight comfort her as much as the soothing motion of his hand. “The only thing he can give us is money… Does that mean something to you? Is that something you want for our child?”
Maybe it was her pregnancy, or maybe it was sharing this bed with him again, but her selfish side flared enough to let her tell the truth. “I’d rather he have his daddy… The money never meant anything to me.”
She didn’t even like it when he tried to buy her things when she was living as his mistress. Max kissed her. “Then that’s what he’ll have… Trust me, baby. I’m back and I’m not going anywhere.”
Resting her hands on his cheeks, she looked into him. “Promise me, Max. You, me, and junior. I need to know you’re sure. This is a huge decision.”
And one she’d never thought for a second that he’d make with the allure of the life Teddy Stretton was offering as an alternative.
“I only know who I am when I’m with you,” he said. “I can’t be without you, Tal… I can’t.”
Trusting him, she breathed out her tension and pulled him down to join their mouths. Wrapping her arms around him, she wanted to pull him close, but he slithered down her body and began to kiss her breasts, then her stomach. Taking extra care to stroke her there, she felt his lips move against her skin. Although she couldn’t hear what he was saying, it was pretty obvious he was having a conversation with their child.
Finding out she was pregnant the previous week had been a shock. Tally hadn’t wanted history to repeat itself. More than three decades ago, Cindy, Max’s mom, had found herself alone with a child, probably terrified that Teddy would steal him away. Tally had always known Max wouldn’t harm their child. She couldn’t believe that Teddy would ever get his hooks into Max so deep that he’d consider it. But, she didn’t trust the patriarch.
Even in her wildest dreams, Tally couldn’t have imagined having this. Max, the father of her child, cupping his mouth against her abdomen, whispering words of love. He kept on doing that, though his other hand managed to pull down the zip of her skirt while he spoke.
And, when he slid an arm under her to raise her hips, she let him pull her skirt off, and his jeans weren’t slow to follow. “You can’t just come back like nothing happened and slide straight back into—” Grabbing the lace in both hands at her hip, he tore through it and then ducked down to kiss her. Her body responded in the way it had when she’d first lay down on this bed under his command. Refusing him was futile, this was the man she loved; he was back with her. “Never mind.”
“Open those legs for me, Boss, I’m hungry for your pussy. The sweet girl needs to be worshiped, and I’ve got the tongue to do it.”
He was already tracing his mouth toward her center, and her lips curled as her legs parted. Losing her fingers in his hair, she recalled the first time he’d said those words to her. “It’s been a while since you…”
Tally swallowed her words when his tongue flicked over her clit. Max was back. Her Max, and she wasn’t going to let him go again. Sacrificing for herself was one thing, but giving him up now meant sacrificing him for their child too.
TWENTY-SIX
Tally didn’t mean for them to lock themselves in the apartment for two days, but they did. Sharing a bed had turned into sharing food, and then there was making out, which ended up with them in bed together again.
Talking about the baby and their plans for the future, she was infused with a sense of optimism like she hadn’t had before Max came back into her life.
Max hadn’t wanted to go out, he’d wanted to stay in with her and junior, who he spoke about like the baby was already here. Tally hadn’t noticed when she’d come back from work that Max had built her bookcase, but it turned out he was a pro at carpentry and was already planning a whole bunch of furniture for the nursery, which would just be in the corner of their bedroom.
Money was alright at the moment. Max hadn’t withdrawn anything that had been in his original accounts, as she’d suspected, so they had what he’d accumulated in there, and that included some of what Teddy had paid him. Having come from nothing, Max was always preparing for a rainy day.
“Four is a good number,” Max said, his weight resting across her shoulders through the arm he had draped there.
They were walking down the street towards Fitzpatrick’s. “It’s not your uterus. I’m not committing to any more than one until I get through this experience first. I promise I will have your baby, Max. This baby. After that, I make no promises.”
Turning his face down, he buried his mouth in her hair. “You’ve gotta face reality, baby,” he said. “I knocked you up without even trying. Fact, you were trying not to get knocked up, but my guys just wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
More than a few times, his level of virility had been brought up during their joking around in the last couple of days, mainly by him.
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