Chapter 10
After the Rehearsal
Jax
The silence in the apartment is heavy. It’s not the peaceful silence of a library; it’s the ringing, pressurized silence that comes after a bomb has gone off.
We walk in, and for the first time in the history of knowing him, Max doesn't immediately hang up his keys on the magnetic strip. He drops them on the console table. They clatter loudly, a jarring, dissonant sound against the marble.
He doesn't take off his shoes. He doesn't check the thermostat. He just walks into the living room, ignoring the coat he’s still wearing, and stands in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, staring out at the city lights. He is vibrating. I can see it from here—a fine, high-frequency tremor running through his shoulders, like a machine that’s been run past its redline.
I lock the door, leaning my forehead against the cool wood for a second. The ground is steady, but my stomach is still doing somersaults.
"I need a minute," I say, my voice raspy. "I need to... I need to get the boat off me."
Max doesn't turn around. He just nods, a jerky, mechanical motion.
I head straight for the bathroom. I look in the mirror. I look like hell. Pale, sweaty, with a scopolamine patch still stuck to my neck like a badge of shame. And the taste... God, the taste.
I rip the patch off. I brush my teeth. I brush them twice.
I use the heavy-duty antiseptic mouthwash, gargling until my eyes water, scrubbing away the taste of bile and ginger chews and Catherine’s expensive champagne.
I splash cold water on my face, scrubbing at my skin as if I can wash away the feeling of Catherine York’s judgment.
When I finally feel human again—or at least like a human who hasn't just vomited on a Chanel shoe—I walk back out.
Max hasn't moved. He is still staring at the skyline, his arms wrapped tight around his chest.
"Max?" I ask softly.
He takes a shuddering breath.
"I terminated the relationship," Max says. His voice is flat, devoid of inflection, reporting the damage like a surgeon calling a time of death. "I executed the nuclear option. I publicly humiliated her. I severed the tie."
"You told the truth," I say, walking over to him. "There’s a difference."
"Is there?" Max asks. He turns to face me. His eyes are wide, dark, and filled with a conflict that tears at my chest. "She is my mother, Jackson. She is the architect of my life. Even if the architecture was flawed... she built the walls. And I just... I just demolished the house."
He runs a hand through his hair, destroying the perfect part. It’s a gesture of pure distress.
"She called me broken," Max whispers, his voice cracking. "She stood there, in front of the Senators and the Board Members, and said she had to pay someone to fix me. To make me 'palatable'."
"She was wrong," I say fiercely, stepping into his space. "You aren't broken, Max. You never were. You’re a masterpiece. She just didn't know how to read the manual."
Max’s jaw tightens. "And the circus she orchestrated... having that drunk fossil call you Jennifer. It was an insult. She allowed it. She created an environment where you were reduced to a... a blurry shape. Where you were a joke."
"Hey," I say, reaching out to cup his face. His skin is ice cold. "I’ve been called worse. My drill sergeant called me 'Private Puke' for six weeks. 'Jennifer' is practically a promotion. It’s biblical-ish, remember?"
Max doesn't smile. He looks at me with such intensity it makes my breath hitch.
"I am proud of you," I tell him, thumbing his cheekbone. "Do you hear me? I am so damn proud of you. The receipt in the butter? That was legendary. Alistair was practically weeping with joy."
Max lets out a shaky breath, leaning into my touch. "It felt... necessary. But the data suggests I should feel relief. Instead, I feel... untethered. I feel uncalibrated."
"That’s normal," I say. "You’re grieving, Max. You’re grieving the mom you deserved but didn't get."
I pull him closer, wrapping my arms around his waist. I can feel the tension radiating off him in waves.
"Listen to me," I say, locking eyes with him. "If this is too much... if the wedding, the spectacle, the chaos... if it's too much, we can stop. We can call it off."
Max freezes. "You want to cancel?"
"No," I say quickly. "I want to marry you.
More than anything. But I will wait. I will wait five years.
I will wait ten. I will wait until Catherine buys another airline and forgets who we are.
As long as I don't have to legally change my name to Jennifer, I’m yours. On your timeline. On your terms."
Max stares at me. The vibration stops. The panic in his eyes recedes, replaced by a desperate, hungry need.
"No eloping," Max whispers. "We have the venue. We have the chocolate cake. We have the pineapple pizza."
"We do," I agree.
"I don't want to wait," Max says, his voice dropping. "I want to be your husband. I want the legal binding. I want the contract. But right now... Jackson, the noise. It’s very loud. My head is... static."
"I know," I soothe him, running my hands down his back. "I’ve got you."
"I need you to take the lead," Max says, clutching my shirt. "I need... I need to stop making decisions. I need to stop calculating. Ground me, Jax. Please."
I understand. This is our dynamic. Max runs the world outside these walls—he manages the hospital, the Foundation, the family drama. But in here? In the dark? He needs to surrender. He needs me to take the wheel so he can finally stop driving.
"Okay," I whisper, my voice dropping an octave. "I’ve got you. No decisions. Just us."
I kiss him. It’s not a gentle, comforting kiss. I take his mouth, hard, claiming him, tasting the desperation on his tongue. He makes a low sound in his throat and melts against me, his hands gripping my shoulders like I’m the only thing keeping him upright.
I break the kiss and grab his hand, pulling him toward the bedroom. He follows blindly, stumbling a little, his eyes blown wide and dark.
In the bedroom, I don't turn on the lights. The city glow is enough. I push him back until his legs hit the mattress, and I press him down. Max collapses onto the bed, looking up at me with a mix of exhaustion and raw want.
"Stay there," I command softly.
I crawl over him, straddling his hips. I reach down and undo his bow tie, tossing it onto the floor. I unbutton his shirt, my fingers moving efficiently, exposing the pale skin of his chest. I lean down and press a kiss to his sternum, right over his beating heart.
"You’re safe here," I murmur against his skin. "You don't have to be the genius here. You don't have to be the York. You’re just mine."
Max shudders, his head falling back against the pillows. "Yours," he whispers. "Make it quiet, Jax."
I strip him out of his clothes, tossing the expensive suit aside like it’s nothing. When he’s bare, I take a moment just to look at him. He’s beautiful—lean muscle and sharp angles, usually so composed, but now flushed and open, waiting for me.
I strip off my own clothes, kicking my boxers away. I grab the lube from the nightstand—Max always ensures it’s stocked, organized, and within reach—and coat my fingers.
"Relax," I whisper, sliding a hand between his thighs.
Max gasps, his hips bucking instinctively. I shush him, kissing him deeply to stifle the sound, my tongue tangling with his as I begin to prep him. He’s tight, wound up from the stress, but he trusts me. He lets me work him open, his breath coming in short, sharp pants against my mouth.
"Jax," he moans, his hands scrabbling at my back, nails digging in. "Please. Now. I need—"
"I know what you need," I growl.
I position myself between his legs, lifting his hips. I line up and push into him, slow and steady. Max cries out, his head throwing back, his back arching off the mattress. I hold him there, letting him adjust, letting him feel the fullness of me.
"Look at me," I order.
Max opens his eyes. They are glassy, wrecked, and completely focused on me.
"I’m right here," I say, starting to move. "I’m not going anywhere."
I set a hard, punishing rhythm, driving into him with everything I have. Max meets me snap for snap, his legs wrapping around my waist, pulling me deeper. It’s messy and desperate. It’s the kind of sex that exorcises ghosts.
Every thrust shakes the "Ice King" persona loose. He’s not calculating angles or probabilities now. He’s just feeling. He’s moaning my name, broken and needy, his hands roaming over my sweat-slicked skin.
"That’s it," I praise him, leaning down to bite the sensitive cord of his neck. "Let go, Max. Give it to me."
"Jax, please," he begs, his voice high and tight. "I’m close. I’m—"
"Go," I tell him, picking up the pace, hitting that spot inside him that I know makes his brain shut off completely. "Let go."
He shatters. It’s visceral. He cries out, his body seizing up, clamping down around me so hard it nearly sends me over the edge right then and there. I ride out his orgasm, feeling him unravel beneath me, and then I let myself go, pouring everything I have into him with a few final, deep thrusts.
I collapse on top of him, my heart hammering against his ribs. We’re both panting, slick with sweat, tangled together in a mess of limbs and sheets.
The room is cool now. The adrenaline has faded, leaving a heavy, exhausted silence in its wake. The city lights of Manhattan cast long, shifting shadows across the duvet, painting us in shades of gray and blue.
Max is asleep. Deeply asleep. He is curled into my side, his head resting heavily on my chest, his breathing slow and rhythmic against my skin. His hand is still gripping my forearm, a subconscious anchor even in his dreams, his fingers twitching occasionally as if checking the data one last time.
I stroke his hair, brushing the sweat-damp strands off his forehead. He looks younger like this. The lines of tension around his eyes—the ones that have been there since the moment I met him—are finally gone. The tremor is gone. The calculation is gone.
He looks peaceful.
But I am not peaceful.
I stare up at the ceiling, and the anger I pushed down on the boat, the anger I set aside to take care of him, comes rushing back. It’s not the hot, reactive adrenaline of the moment. It’s cold. It’s a slow-burning, corrosive sludge in my gut.
Broken.
She called him broken.
I replay the scene in my head. The way she stood there, in her Chanel suit and her pearls, and talked about her own son like he was a defective appliance she had to pay to refurbish.
She didn't speak about him with love. She didn't speak about his brilliance, or the way he saves lives every day, or the way he memorizes the specific hydration needs of my plants because he knows I forget.
She spoke about him like a bad investment.
Fifty thousand dollars.
She paid a doctor to hide him. To erase him. To force him into a box that was too small, too tight, too painful, just so she could present a "palatable" heir to the Board.
My hand tightens in Max’s hair, and I have to force myself to relax so I don't wake him.
I think about the years he must have spent trying to be what she wanted. The masking. The exhaustion. The constant, crushing pressure to "calibrate" himself, to edit out the glitches, to be perfect.
I think about the fact that she looked at this man—this incredible, complex, beautiful genius lying in my arms—and saw something that needed to be fixed.
I want to scream. I want to go back to that boat and set it on fire. I want to find Catherine York and scream until my throat bleeds, until she understands that she is the one who is broken. She is the one missing the parts that matter.
"I hate her," I whisper into the dark.
It feels good to say it. I don't just dislike her. I don't just find her difficult. I hate her for what she did to him.
I look down at Max. He shifts, letting out a soft, contented sigh, nuzzling his face into the crook of my neck. He trusts me. He let go. He finally stopped running the numbers and just let himself be.
And I swear, right then and there, that I will never let her make him feel like a project again.
I will be the wall. I will be the filter. If she wants to get to him, she has to go through the Trauma Cowboy first. And unlike Max, I don't have a politeness protocol. I have a darker set of skills, and I am perfectly willing to use them.
Let her have her yachts. Let her have her Plaza rehearsals. Let her have her cold, calibrated, empty world.
I have this.
I have the guy who eats pineapple pizza and calculates the structural integrity of pretzels. I have the man who stood up to a hurricane to defend me, who loves me enough to rewrite his entire life, and who trusts me enough to fall apart in my arms.
She lost him. And she doesn't even realize the value of what she threw away.
"Goodnight, Max," I whisper, kissing the top of his head, pulling the duvet tighter around his shoulders to block out the chill. "You’re safe. I’ve got the watch."
He shifts again, his breathing hitching for a second as he drifts into a deeper cycle. He mumbles something incomprehensible into my skin.
"Statistically..."
I freeze. Then, a small, genuine laugh bubbles up in my chest, cracking the shell of my anger.
Even in his dreams, he’s running the numbers.
"Yeah," I say softly, closing my eyes and resting my chin on his head. "Statistically, we’re gonna make it. And statistically, your mother is going to regret today for the rest of her life."
I hold him tighter.
"I promise."