18. Draven
Draven
I ’d known that I might regret bringing Max to Montana. But I never knew just how bad of an idea it truly was.
It only took an hour for the mistake to become obvious.
Max should never have had to be brought to this place.
And I never should have let him believe that I was someone worthy of his affections.
I knew he wanted to kiss me.
I couldn’t fucking say it, though.
I couldn’t give it to him, over and over again, because I knew the moment I did that, it would be over. I would never be able to let him go. He would be trapped in the golden cage that was my life.
Or would I just be trapped with him, forever?
Wanting him? Needing him? Even when he inevitably realizes that I am nothing but bad news?
I watched as Max stood up from the bay window, crossing over to the other side of the bedroom, suddenly acting like he was a caged animal, crazed, like he had nowhere else to go.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” I demanded. Knowing what he was thinking. Wanting to hear it from his lips.
“Better if I don’t.”
I felt myself darkening. “That’s very unlikely to be true.”
“You can whisk me away, bite me, touch any part of my body you please, but you can’t kiss me, can you?”
His words spilled out like rabid animals, finally off leash.
No.
Just fucking stop, Max.
Now, more than ever, I would do anything to keep him from being pulled deeper into my world. Into me .
It was like I had to hold two universes in each of the palms of my hands, carefully keeping them separate.
My world that I didn’t want Max to even touch , here in Montana. Where I’d stupidly brought him, on a whim, because I wanted to keep him safe.
And the new world I knew in Tennessee.
One where Max was my top priority, without any close second.
“Sometimes I still feel like I shouldn’t be with you at all,” I said, my voice coming out cold and detached.
“You just got done telling me all the reasons your life is worse, lately, and I’m half of them.
The more you get involved with me, the worse that would get.
But I am with you. I keep coming back. I’m invested?—”
“Because you want to baby me, like I’m a little project for you to protect.”
“No, because with you, everything actually feels real ,” he said.
He hadn’t been watching me, instead staring at a far wall with my built-in fireplace. I came up to his side now, touching his arm, turning to look him in the eye.
I’d never felt so out of control.
I was always in control. The only thing that had come close was when I’d arrived to the crime scene with a burning hatred in my heart and a possessive rage I couldn’t contain.
But this was nothing like that.
“Well, since I’ve met you, nothing feels real,” he told me, his voice low.
“Tennessee wasn’t supposed to be my life. Being with my ex-girlfriend’s brother isn’t supposed to be my life.”
“ Being with?” Max balked. “You’re not with me at all. You act above me.”
“You know that’s not true.”
“It’s the only thing that’s true,” he said, the hurt so evident in his eyes. “I don’t know how you even had the fucking balls to do that. Flirting with me, days after breaking up with my sister.”
“It wasn’t days,” I said.
The words hung in the air, suspended in time.
Max furrowed his brow, cocking his head to one side.
The moonlight from outside came in at an angle, painting his face in grey-blue.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
No.
Not this secret.
This was the one he was never supposed to know.
The one that isn’t mine to tell.
My heart felt like it had too much blood to pump.
“It wasn’t days after I broke up with Lily, when I flirted with you. You were never meant to know. Lily and I… we were never what you think we were.”
Max’s eyes scanned my face.
Trying to decipher the secret. The one I swore I’d never tell him—but here I was, doing so many things I swore I’d never do, just for Max.
“Why the fuck was she with you?” Max asked, his voice a broken whisper.
Something lodged in my throat. Pressure flared in my temples.
I watched myself let out the truth, like a door that would never be closed again.
“My father paid Lily to be with me,” I said.
I could feel tears stinging at the back of my eyes, but I knew they’d never fall. I’d never let them out.
I’d vowed, long ago, to never let my father get to me.
Not like this.
“No,” Max whispered.
“Is that enough of an explanation for you? I haven’t told another soul. Lily doesn’t even know that I know.”
He frowned. “How is that possible?”
“Lily won’t ever know that I know.”
I turned toward the tall windows at the edge of the bedroom, looking out over the mountains and the field below. Under the moonlight, everything was in shades of black, white, and cool blue. The petals on the rose bushes below looked black.
“Remember when I told you that I found my dad’s burner phone, that one night? Found out about all the women he’s been having affairs with?”
“Yes.”
“There was one other thing I discovered. It was messages with Lily.”
“Don’t tell me my sister was involved with your father?—”
“Romantically, sexually? Fuck no. Lily would never . She is a sweet girl, even if…”
“Christ.”
I shook my head. “She only needed money. It’s as simple as that. I saw messages between them where my dad would let her know the payment went through . They had screenshots attached sometimes. And… my father was paying Lily half a million dollars a year to be with me.”
“No fucking way,” Max breathed.
“Five hundred thousand a year to keep me interested. To keep me in a committed, heterosexual relationship.”
I turned to see him shaking his head. “Lily wouldn’t do that. She would never get involved with someone just for money.”
“You’re right. Initially, it was real. For the first couple of months, it was a genuine interest. She met me, dated me, and quickly started to learn why I was…
not boyfriend material. I scrolled all the way to the beginning of my father’s messages with her.
He came to her when he got the sense she might be about to leave me. ”
“Fuck.”
“She was ready to move on. He made a deal too sweet for her to do that. It wasn’t that Lily never liked me. She liked me, and she was interested in me. It was just that she realized she could never love me.”
“She wouldn’t ?—”
“She would,” I said firmly. “Just another person whose life rules get bent, get fucked up, by being anywhere close to my orbit.”
Max found the edge of my bed and sat down there. He looked at a faraway spot on the floor for a while, processing the information just like I’d needed to, long ago.
“But she’s just like me.”
“In a lot of ways, yes. Being with Lily always felt too good to be true. Hearing someone tell me they loved me, even after seeing the way I lived. I always knew I didn’t deserve love, but there was Lily, giving it freely.
Accepting me, even after nights where I didn’t sleep, and I came upstairs with bloody knuckles.
Only makes sense why she said she never cared if I slept with other people—in fact, she encouraged it?—”
“Fuck this. No.”
My insides felt hollow.
“The moment we got to Tennessee, he cut her off, and she broke things off with me politely.”
“I can’t handle this. I need to call her.”
“Don’t. Lily deserves to let the dust settle on her own.”
“But…”
“I don’t blame her, Max,” I told him. “I really don’t. I even still have some form of love for Lily. She is a good person.”
“She lied to you. And fuck, to me?—”
“Money does strange things to people. Coming into contact with power like my father does, too. It’s for the better. It’s over now. I’m going to let it be part of the past, and you should, too.”
“If you think I’m not going to talk to my sister about this, you’re out of your fucking mind.”
It was a little strange, watching it happen in real time.
Watching Max start to comprehend how empty my world could be, even when it was so full of wealth.
I had everything, but really, not much of it was real. My horses, yes. The friendship I had with Dominic. The way I loved the mountains and the land here.
That was about all.
“Now do you see why I kept this from you? Why it’s not even fully my story to tell?”
He didn’t say a word.
There was still one thing I hadn’t told him, something I couldn’t , even as it pushed at my insides like an overinflating balloon.
There was one final secret.
That one moment when I’d hurt someone I swore I’d never touch.
His face, down in the dirt.
My hat, held in one hand.
His pulse, only barely still beating.
The secret lurked somewhere deep inside me, like vicious eyes peering out from a dark corner.
Why Lily really got cut off from Dad’s payroll.
Not my story to tell, either.
My stomach went cold. I was silent for a minute, feeling myself building a wall of ice between me and Max brick by brick.
Protecting him.
Taking the pain, shouldering the guilt, and keeping him at a distance like I knew I had to.
“Do as you please,” I told him. “This room is yours.”
I walked away, heading down the long hall toward one of the guest bedrooms instead.
Max didn’t call after me. Didn’t protest.
He let me go.
I woke to a hand on my arm, my breath catching as I shot up in bed.
“ Fuck .”
My heart pounded. I’d been dreaming, vague, bad dreams.
“I tried six different doors before I found this one,” Max’s voice came through the dark room.
It was him.
I knew it would be him, or maybe I’d just been hoping it was him. Hoping this all wasn’t a dream.
I’d drawn the blinds shut and I could barely see anything other than the outline of his figure and the dim light from the doorway where he was standing.
I was disoriented, being in my house that no longer felt like mine, and being in a room I’d never slept in before. This room had mostly been used after parties, for anyone to crash in when they needed.
“This house does have a lot of doors,” I finally said, my voice heavy with sleep.
“Too many.”
I took in a slow breath, watching his figure in the doorframe.
“But you found me,” I said.