10. Max
ten
max
I woke up slowly, and even in that half-awake state, I knew it was going to suck to open my eyes. There was a throbbing at my temples thanks to the wine I drank the night before.
All of it came back like an avalanche.
The sexy massage. Car telling me that he was in love with me and needed to tell me something just before the world exploded. Or my world, at least. Had he been ready to tell me who he was? He had kept saying there was more we needed to talk about, but I had kept changing the subject. Had I somehow known he was holding things back?
“I know you’re awake,” Carver’s deep voice sounded, and I exhaled slowly as my eyes opened and blinked the sleep out of them. “Morning, princess.”
“Don’t,” I whispered. It hurt to hear him call me that after everything.
He was my boss and had known it all along.
He’d had cameras at my place. Watching me when I didn’t know it. What else did he do? I licked my lips and sat up, pulling the robe I was in tightly around my body.
“How did…?” I started to ask, hating the heat that inflamed my face.
“I brought you up here and cleaned you up and covered you in the robe after you threw up in my office.” My eyes shut and my head dropped.
When I opened them again, I stared at my hands. I’d found those cameras and started to think back. The key that fell from my key ring, how he knew I was at the bus stop after my shifts at the exact time, almost like he was waiting on me. Those things hadn’t just happened; he’d made them happen. Created opportunities to be around me. Had he copied my house key? Do you care? a voice in my head asked. One I quickly shook off.
“Thank you. I’ll get up and clean?—“
“No,” he cut me off, and I looked up at him. “I already handled it.”
“Please don’t tell me you called Bertie!” When I sat up a little too quickly, my head protested.
“Careful.” He leaned towards me, holding my shoulders. One of his large hands rose and stroked the side of my face. And like an idiot, I leaned into his touch. “You shouldn’t have made her clean that up. That’s so embarrassing!”
“I didn’t,” he answered without explaining any further.
“Or Stan.”
“He didn’t clean it up, either.” I frowned. “Don’t worry about it. It was taken care of.” Maybe Stan had hired someone new and forgot to tell me yesterday. What with everything that happened, it probably slipped his mind.
“Here.” He reached for a glass of water and handed it to me, and then two white pills. I stared at them in the palm of his hand, a hand that had been rubbing me down less than twenty-four hours ago.
“What’s this?” I asked suspiciously.
“Tylenol. For your headache,” he explained, and I took it. The cool water felt great with how dry my mouth was.
“I should go,” I whispered. I’d already made a fool of myself, showing up drunk and belligerent. I sat on the edge of the big luxurious bed that felt like a literal cloud. The mattress was the most luxurious thing I had ever slept on.
“Stay,” he said, leaning forward. My eyes dipped from his down to his lips.
“Carver,” I whispered.
“Car. That’s who I am to you.” And just like that, it snapped me out of my thoughts.
“No, that’s who I thought you were,” I whispered, pressing my lips together and trying to blink away the unexpected rush of emotions that swept over me.
“Max—“
“You’re my boss. You literally own the ski resort!” I pointed out, and he sighed.
“Fine, I’ll sign The Crown over to you, and you can be your own boss,” he said, as if it made sense to sign over a multi-million-dollar asset as easily as it was to let someone have a pair of your shoes. That snapped the tears away, and my brows bunched together.
“Are you crazy?!” I exclaimed. His hands took mine in his.
“About you? Yes. Absolutely. One hundred percent.”
“This is not funny, Car.”
“I’m not joking, Max.” He looked way too serious.
Seeing him in what he probably wore on a regular basis instead of the athleisure casual stuff I was used to seeing him in was jarring. He was still the man I had fallen in love with, or at least I hoped he was.
But he was also different. I breathed in and shook my head. “Why?” I asked, finally breaking down and trying to face whatever it was I thought we had and somehow make sense of what he had been up to.
“I fucked up,” he rasped.
“When?” I hated that I loved the way his hand stroked mine. “When you lied about being a masseuse or when you lied about who you were, or was it when you’ve been watching me without my permission with all those little cameras?”
“Max—“I stood up. I wasn’t sure what the point of this conversation was or if it even had one.
“You were stalking me, Carver!” I shouldn’t have been surprised that he had followed and stood as well. His tall, strong, broad body hadn’t intimidated me before.
“Max, baby?—“
“Tell me I misunderstood. That those cameras weren’t you. That my missing key when we first met wasn’t you. That you had nothing to do with those things.”
“I can’t,” he rasped, and before I knew it, he enclosed his arms around me, hugging me so tightly I had no choice but to press my face against his chest. I hated how much I loved how it felt to be encapsulated in his embrace.
“Car, this isn’t funny,” I muttered, trying to fight my traitorous body with how safe she felt in his arms.
“I’m not trying to be,” he roughly whispered against the top of my head.
“Carver—“
“I love you,” he rasped, tipping my head up so that our eyes would connect. “I walked into that room so fucking pissed. I look back at myself, at the man I was before I walked into that room, and feel like I was pissed at the world for a million things, and after that…” He shook his head. “All I saw was your back, and I didn’t know which way was up.” Carver’s hand stroked my cheek.
“I couldn’t put it into words, and then you turned around thinking I was someone else. I offered to step out.”
“I remember,” I cut in, but he shook his head.
“I offered to step out of the room with the sole intention of running off. Heading to my office and hiding in there to pretend I hadn’t seen you, that I didn’t know someone like you was out there.”
“Carver.”
“I know it sounds extreme.” He shook his head. “It sounds fucking crazy, but it’s true. I knew who you were meant to be for me before we spoke a single word.”
“That’s… not possible.”
“Tell me you didn’t feel it,” he rasped.
“That’s just physical.”
“What about now?”
“Now it’s all messy and a lie. Not to mention illegal! What you did was wrong!”
“I know,” he owned up to it like I knew he would. Carver wouldn’t try and lie to me or bullshit. “I crossed a lot of lines, and I am sorry, but honestly? I wouldn’t have done things any other way.”
“Are you serious right now?” I asked, trying and failing to step out of his arms.
“Max…” he groaned and looked like he wanted to pull out his hair. “You had a certain impression of me. Every time I tried to tell you, you mentioned something about your asshole of a boss, and I don’t know, I got scared. I messed up. I should have been honest and told you who I was from the beginning, but I wanted you to get to know me for me and not as the owner of the resort.” I hadn’t minced words when it came to everything I had heard about the new boss.
“I thought you and I were… on the same level. You made me think you worked for the same jerk,” I argued.
“Baby—“
“And now that the truth is out or what I hope is all of it…” I paused, searching his gaze. “Is it all of it?” I asked vulnerably. I hated feeling like suddenly, after having the rug pulled out from under me, only to be expecting it to be pulled again. He stared at me for a moment too long. “What is it?” I asked quietly. “Are you married. You have kids? Multiple wives all over the country? What?”
“No,” he scoffed. “I shared your location.”
“What?”
“One night when you were in the bathroom, I grabbed your phone and had you share your location with me.” A muscle twitched under his eye. “I just… I needed to know you were safe. You wouldn’t take me up on giving you a ride to and from work. You were so damn stubborn about taking the bus in and out of the city that late at night… and that week before, I had a meeting and wasn’t able to follow the bus home. I hated feeling… scared.”
“For me?” I asked, completely dumbfounded.
“Yes!” he clipped. “Meeting you, I knew“—he shook his head—“you were going to be the biggest distraction at the worst time possible.”
“Sorry,” I muttered, feeling like he had just kicked my puppy.
“I don’t mean it that way.” He shook his head. “You’re the best and biggest surprise I could have ever had. I knew it the moment I walked in, and then I froze. It was the end of the massage, and I couldn’t figure out how to ask for your phone number without sounding like some kind of creep. I didn’t even know you worked for The Crown in that moment.”
His arms dropped, and I missed his embrace immediately. I shivered, feeling chilly for the first time since I’d woken up. I watched as he stepped back and reached into his back pocket to bring out his wallet.
“What are you doing?” I asked and watched as he opened it and pulled out a fifty-dollar bill.
“This is the bill you gave me. I kept it in my wallet because it was something you gave me.”
“That was supposed to be your tip since you didn’t let me pay for my massage, which now I guess I know why.” I shrugged, and he nodded.
“Princess, when I found out you worked here, yeah, it freaked me out. I won’t lie,” he admitted. “I have never, not once, got involved with an employee. I never wanted to be that cliché.”
“No offense, but maybe that’s more of an everyone else not being interested in getting involved with a jerk and less of a your choice kinda thing?” His lips twitched, and something in my shoulders relaxed.
“I wish.” He sighed. “My assistant is a pain in the ass who has been trying to talk me into taking her to dinner since about three days after I hired her. That’s who I was trying to avoid when I slipped into your room.”
“Oh.” I chewed on my lower lip trying to think of who his assistant was. I didn’t like someone trying to get him to notice her. Is this what jealousy feels like? Probably. Especially if it made me want to yank her hair and poke her eyeballs for daring to look at what was mine. Mine? Is being possessive contagious?
“I love you, Max. I messed up. Crossed lines I shouldn’t have. I own that.”
“Good.” I nodded, crossing my arms over my chest, more than aware of just how little I was wearing beneath the plush bathrobe.
“I let you get the wrong idea of me,” he said with the utmost sincerity and exactly what I needed to hear. But if that was the case, why did I feel torn?
Did I have the wrong idea about who Carver Storm was?
Or did I actually get to know the man under the designer suits?
“Okay.” I shrugged.
“Okay?”
“I accept your apology,” I found myself saying and meaning every word. “I forgive you.”
“Just like that?” I licked my lips and took a step back. As much as everything inside of me was yelling at me to give him a chance, to give us a chance, years of only counting on myself were fighting back.
“What does that mean for us, Max?” he asked, somehow knowing that I was erecting walls around my heart as we stood in front of one another.
“What us? We…” I paused, not sure of what to say. I knew what I wanted. My body and heart were yelling at me to take a chance. To give in and see where things would go with Carver Storm. I glanced around the room and then down to the floor. “Beautiful, talk to me.”
“We’re too different, Car, I mean Carver. Or Mr. Storm? I’m not even sure what to call you.”
“Yours,” he hissed. “I’m yours and, baby, we’re not. You know me,” he stressed. “When I was with you?—“
“I know. And I get that, I do, but… at the end of the day, you’re penthouses and own hotels. I’m a studio apartment and sell coloring books.”
“Baby—“
“You wear“—I pointed up and down at his outfit—“I mean that right there is probably more than my whole closet combined and multiplied by two.”
“So? Who cares about that? I sure as fuck don’t, baby.”
“I just… maybe we can be friends or something?” I smiled tightly, and I could see the stubborn way his lips set. He wanted to argue with me but didn’t know if he should. “I’ll keep working in the laundry room, and you keep… you know, doing what you do, and maybe if our paths cross… well, they cross.”
“Are you telling me we’re over?”
“We didn’t do too much. You didn’t let us, and now… I don’t know, Carver. I think I need time.” He took one long step forward and pulled me close to him.
“Daddy is only giving you some space because of how much I messed up, Max,” he growled, “But don’t think for one fucking second that you and I are over.”
“We never even went out on a date or to the movies,” I whispered. “We never really started.” I wanted to take the words back the moment they slipped past my lips, but I stood my ground.
“You might think that, baby girl, but it’s nowhere close to the truth. And we both know it,” he growled before sealing his lips against mine. Carver’s kiss was demanding and firm yet somehow tender. My body plastered itself to his as we kissed and got lost in the moment that ended all too quickly when he pulled away and walked out of the penthouse room, leaving me wondering what the hell I had done.