by Carol Rose
Fingers still on the sweet, responsive kernel beneath her pubic hair, he arched up into her body, allowing the cresting waves to overtake him. Swelling larger inside of her, he heard her rising cries of satisfaction. Blinded and mute but for his groans, Max felt himself erupt, spilling into her.
* * *
An hour later, Nicole bit her lip and tried to keep from laughing. Across the small office where she’d typed Max’s words day in and day out, he sat at a desk muttering to himself, the very image of creative genius. Wearing only boxer shorts, his short dark hair tousled, he bent over the writing pad on the desk.
She watched him, conscious of the warmth glowing around her heart. There was still no knowing what the hell they were doing, but he was at least with her now. She didn’t know if she wanted to turn her world upside down to be with Max long-term, but she reveled in this moment with him by her side.
How things could change in the matter of a few hours? Her head felt as dizzy as a ping pong ball, but she kept wanting to break out in joyous chuckles. She still didn’t know what all was going on in Max’s head, but after they’d made love on the landing, he’d changed drastically for the better.
Not completely an idiot, she knew there were still obstacles ahead, but with him here with just across from her, she couldn’t keep the smile off her face.
He was actually sitting just across the room from her, writing. This was a first, him actually working in the same room with her. Always before, he’d seemed to need his space to write, preferring the window sill on the landing.
“What?” he said glancing up and catching her watching him.
“Nothing,” she replied, the corner of her mouth quirking up. “I’m just glad you’re here.”
Raising his eyebrows, Max said, “Good.”
With his head bent again over the scribbled pad under his hand, she tried to make herself go back to work as well. There was no way to know where the relationship between them was going, but she’d fallen down the rabbit hole into his world and, right now, she couldn’t regret it. Maybe later, but not now.
Ring!
Nicole glanced over at the phone on the desk next to her. In the weeks she’d been here, the only time the phone rang was when Ruth, Max’s accountant or Cynthia called…other than Claire’s early morning awakening.
God. She still felt bad about that even though she’d called her friend and apologized profusely this morning. She hated worrying her.
Ring!
She hoped it wasn’t Claire calling again, unable to wait for their evening rendezvous.
Glancing over at Max, oblivious to anything other than his work, Nicole reached for the phone.
“Hello?”
“Is Max Tucker there?” a male voice asked abruptly.
“Um….” Not sure what to say, Nicole looked over at Max who still wasn’t attending. Did telemarketers call him? Maybe the guy was a reporter since he hadn’t identified himself as working with the publishing house.
“May I ask who’s calling?” she said hesitantly.
“This is Peter Tucker,” the man on the other end of the connection bit out, obviously irritated.
“Oh! Just a minute.” Holding the phone gingerly as if to avoid annoying Max’s brother any further, Nicole said, “Max, he says he’s Peter Tucker.”
Max looked up, staring at her.
Without a word, he rose and came to take the phone out of her hand.
“Max speaking,” he said, his face even more of an unreadable blank than usual.
Anxiously watching him, she marveled at how well the man blocked his emotions from showing. Did he even care that his brother was making another move toward him? And this despite the less than satisfactory banquet experience just last night!
“Yes…if you want to.” Max listened for several minutes. “Where? Okay. At four? Fine.”
With that, Max hung up the phone.
“Was that really your brother? What did he want?” she asked impatiently, following Max as he left the office. “Did he sound mad? Do you think he realized you wanted to be supportive last night?”
Pausing halfway down the hall, Max turned back to her, saying, “Get some shoes on. We’re going out.”
Watching him walk away toward the stairs, she echoed stupidly, “Going out? Where?”
“To meet my brother,” Max answered sardonically as he climbed the stairs. “You’ve got your wish. My brother’s talking to me again.”
Seeing him disappear upstairs, Nicole wished she felt more successful in getting the brothers together. But Pete hadn’t sounded very loving on the phone and she’d just watched Max turn into a block of stone again. Things didn’t look very promising.
Suddenly realizing what Max had said to her, she called up to him, “Why am I going with you?”
His response floated down to her, his tone deeply ironic. “Because people should receive the rewards of their labors.”
“I don’t think your brother will want me there,” Nicole protested.
Max looked over the railing. “Who gives a shit? You’re coming.”
In vain, she tried to reason with him for the next thirty minutes. When the man had his mind made up, he wouldn’t budge, damn him.
Riding down the elevator with him, she asked him if he was trying to annoy his brother by including a stranger in their meeting. Max just smiled at her in his least-pleasant manner. Driving in the cab, she pointed out that he needed to make a genuine effort to meet his brother halfway…and bringing her along couldn’t help!
Max glanced at her, unmoved.
This meeting was so important to him, Nicole fumed to herself, and here he was messing things up by dragging an outsider along. Whatever conflicts lie between them had to be settled by the two brothers themselves. If she’d felt that Max needed her there for support, she’d have gone willingly. But the only emotions on his face were a grim sort of acceptance and a glint of evil satisfaction when he looked at her.
Exactly what had his brother said to him on the phone?
As the cab pulled up to a stop at the small park that was the designated meeting spot, she tried one desperate tack, “How do you know I won’t blab everything you say to the tabloids?”
Max got out of the cab and reached in to pull her out, “Because I have your signed promise not to speak to the press and…you know I’ll sue.”
Standing beside the cab as he paid the driver, Nicole couldn’t find any reply.
As the cab drove off, Max turned and walked into the park, Nicole trailing after him.
With upscale apartment buildings all around them, the tiny park was a nestled gem of green amidst concrete. A statue of some long-dead hero stood at attention down the main path, marking the center of the oasis. Beside the memorial, slightly obscured by a turn in the walkway, stood a man Nicole thought was Pete Tucker.
Max felt his stomach tighten unbearably as he remembered his brother’s grim face from the previous evening. Behind Max, a reluctant Nicole trailed, her footsteps echoing faintly in the deserted park. This was the moment of truth. Caught up in the grip of his struggle, he’d reasoned that precipitating his own fate gave him some measure of control. If she had to know the truth about him, then let it be at his instigation. He’d dragged her here to witness the blood bath that would shortly ensue between he and Pete. But as he walked toward the spot where his resentful, angry brother waited, Max’s courage failed him.
This was hard enough…this meeting with the brother he barely knew and whom he’d so badly wounded. She didn’t have to witness this. Surely, it wasn’t necessary to take on all his demons at this one moment.
Swinging around to face Nicole, Max said, “Okay. You don’t want to intrude? Just stay here. Sit down on that damned bench and wait for me. I’ll go on around the corner and meet with my brother…alone.”
The relief and approval on her face shoveled another load of guilt on Max. She thought he was leaving her here in an effort to appease Pete. How little she knew him.
“Oh, good,” she breathed, smiling at him. “Yes. Go meet with him. I’m sure it’ll be better without me…and remember, he’s reached out to you, even if he seems angry at first, he is reaching out!”
Her softly called words fading as he walked away from her and rounded the slight bend in the path, Max knew a pitiful sense to run back and cling to her. Hell, what man wouldn’t want to be the man Nicole had convinced herself he was? Someone with a heart as well as a head, possessing kind and good intentions.
A man nothing like him.
Max had never seen it coming, never realized how association with his brother could lead him into his greatest misjudgment.
As he followed the path toward the statue where Pete waited, a surge of anger shook him. How could Pete have not known what a mess his personal life was in? How could he have let things go so bad for so long? It was bound to blow up in the idiot’s face!
Standing at the base of the statue where they’d played as children, Pete looked as forbidding as Max knew his own face to be. His steps slowing as he drew closer, irrationally Max felt his own ire rise. This wasn’t all his fault, the mess between them. Not really.
Bracing himself, he paused six or seven feet from where Pete waited.
His brother’s face hardened as he spoke. “What is it with you? Don’t you have enough money? Enough fame?”
“What are you talking about?” Max said with no inflection in his voice. He’d geared himself up for this in the past hour, but the knots in his gut only tightened.
“You want everything for yourself!” Pete declared hotly. “Even my small successes you have to overshadow!”
With an exhalation of anger, Max denied the accusation, “That’s not true. Don’t be an idiot.”
“Well, that’s what you always manage to make me look like,” Pete insisted, his voice rising. “That’s what last night was all about, wasn’t it? You wanted to remind everyone that you have more opportunities, more fame and more money than your older brother! You’re the big man! A better, more successful writer! An American icon, for God’s sake!”
“I’m not trying to overshadow you—“
“Oh, this is just something you do naturally?” Pete demanded, his face growing redder as he spoke. “I guess that’s true! Demeaning me is something you’ve always done well, along with all your other amazing talents!”
“This is stupid! What exactly did I do last night? Nothing except show up at your piddly banquet,” Max declared with a defensive arrogance. He had nothing else to protect himself. He already felt like a piece of shit. “I had nothing to do with that sideshow for the press! It was all your people, the ones putting on the damned event!”
“My piddly banquet and my piddly award meant something to me,” Pete yelled. “You had to have known that, had to have realized how the press would react to your coming. You’re trying to strip everything away from me, aren’t you!”
“This is asinine!” Max responded, as angry now as his brother, but fighting to keep it under control. “I didn’t come to that banquet to cause a mess for you. And I don’t want anything from you! Not a damned thing.”
“No,” Pete said, his lowered voice trembling now with his intensity. “You’ve pretty much taken it all, haven’t you? But it wasn’t enough that you ended my marriage by sleeping with my wife—“
“I didn’t sleep with her!”
“Only because I walked in on you!” Pete shot back. “How many other times were you more successful in bedding my wife?”
“I didn’t! And I wasn’t the only one your wife went after!” The words felt torn from Max’s gut. “Alexa was sleeping around on you for years! Years, dammit!”
God. Fifteen minutes of insanity. Why hadn’t he pushed Alexa away when he’d realized what she was after?
“I didn’t sleep with her,” Max said again.
But his brother refused to hear, just as he had these past four years.
“You ended my marriage and made my son a victim of divorce!” Pete accused, anguish in his face.
Shame splintered through Max, piercing him and driving his words out with force. He’d let Alexa redecorate his apartment. He’d tolerated her lingering to chat over coffee. He hadn’t slept with her, but he might as well have. “She was sleeping with half of Manhattan! I wasn’t the one who broke up your—“
“But she wanted to marry you,” Pete averred with anger. “You were the bigger prize. The man she had to leave me for.”
“I didn’t want the bitch!” Max thundered. He hadn’t really wanted Alexa…but he’d caved into temptation when he most should have been strong. The temptation of a woman’s company and a pretty woman’s flattery. If Alexa was scum, what then was he? What kind of man—even unconsciously—encouraged his brother’s wife to make a play for him?
Bitterly, he regretted his colossal stupidity…his moment of weakness. No matter how lonely he was, he should have refused her overtures, should have kicked her out of his life earlier, if only out of respect for his brother.
“Oh, you didn’t want her?” Pete said, a sneer on his face. “Well, you must have wanted her enough to get your dick stiff and fuck her!”
A wave of piercing regret swamped Max. In one moment of incredible stupidity, he’d maimed his only brother. “You don’t believe me, but I didn’t have sex with her.”
“I know what I saw that night!” Pete yelled. “You were kissing her and her damned blouse was half-off!”
His voice clogged, Max could only say, “I’m…sorry. I’m sorry, Pete.”
“And that’s supposed to make it all better.” After a moment of struggle, Pete’s face contorted by rage and grief, he choked out, “Not good enough!”
Without another word, he turned and stalked away.
Max watched him go, feeling as if the earth had fallen away from him and tumbled him into the pit of despair he’d been running away from for three years. How could he have done something so damned stupid?
CHAPTER TEN
Nicole felt frozen in place, her horrified gaze on Max as he swung away from the spot where he’d exchanged harsh words with his cheated brother.
He slept with his brother’s wife? How could he!
Seeing her standing in the path, Max came to an abrupt halt, surprise and chagrin obvious on his face.
“What the--?” His words died mid-query.
Still rooted in the middle of the path, she had a crazy moment of regret. If only she’d stayed where he left her, she’d never have known this, never have realized what an asshole he was.
The bench where he’d left her, several yards away, was easily within shouting range—hadn’t she heard their upraised voices and come searching for him in concern? But if she hadn’t come around the bend in the path, she’d at least have been spared the knowledge of his treachery! Towards his own brother yet!
She’d heard his brother shouting at him and had been worried. That was the only reason she’d come snooping.
“You slept with your brother’s wife?” she said when she finally found her tongue, her words incredulous and condemning. But behind the question was hope. Surely, she’d heard wrong. How could the man who attracted her so completely have done something so hurtful and wrong?
His face dark, Max said, “No.”
“You slept with his wife?” she demanded furiously.
“No.” Max met her gaze steadily, his mouth now a firm, straight line.
“Well, Pete certainly thinks so! He walked in on you kissing her with her blouse half-off, so something must have been going on? My God! You broke up his marriage and you never thought to mention it to me all this time?” she yelled, enraged at his betrayal, both of his brother and of her. “All this time I’ve been trying to get you and your brother reconciled! You never thought to mention this to me? Here I’ve been feeling sorry for you!”
As if her words slapped him, his head reared back. “I never asked you or anyone to feel sorry for me.”
“Well, you o
ught to!” she yelled. “I can’t think of a better word than ‘sorry’ to describe—wait a minute, yes, I can. You’re a bastard! You could have at least mentioned that you betrayed Pete! You betrayed your brother and you’ve been letting me make a fool of myself. Going on and on about the importance of family and how you needed to forgive him for his resentment!”
“Hey,” he snapped. “The details of Pete’s divorce and my supposed involvement were all over the tabloids three years ago. How was I to know Johnna! didn’t cover the story!”
“Your supposed involvement? You were involved! You can’t blame that on the press,” she declared with withering sarcasm.
“Shit!” Max rubbed the spot between his eyebrows with the heel of his hand. “I did not sleep with her.”
“So you were just innocently standing still while she pressed her lips to yours and stripped off her clothes?” Nicole asked with withering sarcasm.
“I said I didn’t sleep with her,” he snapped back. “I didn’t say I had nothing to do with her!”
“How could you not, at least, have told me?” she demanded again. “I mean, you just let me go on and on driveling about reunions and how brothers ought to get along. I’m an idiot! You get ‘involved’ with his wife and here I am trying to help you deal with your past because I’m an idiot and I don’t--”
“I’m not proud of it, okay?” he roared suddenly, the noise sending birds rocketing out of a nearby tree.
His outburst cutting her words short, Nicole stared at him, startled by seeing him lose his cool façade.
Max took a deep, steadying breath. “I’m…not proud of myself. My behavior with Alexa was possibly my worst lapse in judgment ever. I was stupid and lonely and weak. I let her redecorate my living room. She was there at the apartment a lot. And for one brief moment, I allowed myself to get…clouded by her interest in me. How pitiful is that! But I didn’t have sex with her!”