Chapter 44
44
Max
Max had never wanted anything more than to shatter the space between them. She needed his lips on her mouth, her neck, her thighs. She, who needed no one, who had been on her own since she was sixteen, who’d got through prison, for fuck’s sake, needed Greyson Hawke in all of those places, and more.
But she had one last shot to get this right, and there was so much between them that needed to be said. ‘You left the watch. You trusted me enough to leave it. You knew I’d come back.’
‘Yes.’ The word was a breath, his hands still pressed on her face, waiting for her.
‘But you told me there was nothing between us, you said I’m not your type. Did you mean any of that?’ She looked down; she didn’t trust herself to not fall apart if she saw any hint of a lie in his eyes.
‘You’re not my type,’ he said, and she felt the world rumble and shatter beneath her. ‘Because I never let myself fall for women like you. Beautiful, smart, cunning ... You were everything my dad – the man I thought was my dad – raised me to fear, to hate even. Like the stories of the Big Bad Wolf. Because of my mum leaving, he raised me to stay clear of people like you. I know that must sound childish, pathetic, but you have to understand, everyone I ever met, any friend I ever made, any girl I ever liked – they all fulfilled my father’s prophecy. People only wanted to get close to me in the hope that I would bring them closer to the Barbaranis. And even if someone liked me for me, I never let her get close enough, because that thought was always in my mind. But then I met Sophie, and I thought that maybe dear old Dad had been wrong, that maybe this beautiful, successful woman was actually interested in me .’
Max put her hand on his chest, feeling his thumping heart under her fingers, which were pulsing to a similar, erratic rhythm. ‘I spoke to Sophie at the gala, before ... everything. I know she broke your heart when she published that article, I know that one action made it seem like she’d only been with you to get her scoop on the Barbaranis, but I really don’t think that’s true.’
He waved her comment away with a shake of his head. ‘I don’t care about what Sophie did, not anymore. I’m just trying to get you to understand why I was ... why I’m so—’
‘Frustrating?’ She moved her hand up to his neck, pulling herself closer, the thrill of his quickening breaths spurring her on. His hands moved to her shoulders, thumbs brushing the strap of her nightgown.
But there was still a piece of glass wedged in the corner of her heart.
‘You know I was Plan B?’ she asked.
His eyes were heavy with something she never thought she’d see in him. More than wanting. Needing. But they blinked, confusion mixing with desire.
She couldn’t let him get any closer, because it would push the shard deeper. ‘It was my fault. All of it. If I hadn’t ... if I hadn’t pushed so hard for the Skinner angle, we might have realised what Frankie was planning sooner. We could have made the connection between Esme and ETR and Libby.’
‘And if I hadn’t been with Matteo La Marca at the gala, maybe I would have been shot protecting Giovanni like I should have been. You told me that wasn’t my fault.’
‘This is different,’ she said, tears salting her lips. Her heart was a rock in her throat. ‘Libby ... I believed her. I trusted her, I thought—’
‘You thought she was your friend.’
It crashed inside her, like two cars colliding on Toodyay Road. Glass and blood and flames.
Her parents’ deaths had left a festering hole somewhere deep inside her, somewhere too dark, too sore to press. Jackie had ripped it further. But Libby had found it, pressed gently around it, wormed her way in – pretended to fit, to fix. Libby had chosen Max to be the jester in her play. Libby the magician, pulling rabbits out of hats and sawing herself in half. Only now did Max see the false bottoms, the contortionist tucked inside a second box.
She hated Libby for the trick, but she hated herself more for believing in magic in the first place.
‘She’s a con woman,’ Grey said. ‘She saw what you needed and she disguised herself as that. She read your kindness, your loyalty and your sense of justice and she sold you a bunch of knock-off shit. This was not. Your. Fault.’ His thumbs traced circles around her shoulders, branding his words into her skin.
It terrified her that it wasn’t enough; she didn’t just need his words, she needed him.
‘I know,’ Grey said. ‘I know how it feels when you think it’s real and it’s not.’
Max stepped closer, that Christmas paper scent she’d tried to ignore, to cast away, wrapping her up in its headiness.
She didn’t know if he was talking about the man he’d thought was his real father, or Giovanni, or Sophie, or if he meant the life he’d thought he’d planned and analysed and curated so meticulously – only to discover a lot of it had been shadow puppets against a bedsheet.
But now the sheet was on the floor, the lights were on, and they were both standing in front of their lives, looking at everything from a new angle.
‘Max ...’ His voice was weak. ‘I swear to god if you get any closer ...’
‘What?’ she whispered in his ear. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘You don’t ... I’m not ... You should go, you’re upset.’
‘So are you.’
‘But I’m ... I can’t—’ He closed his eyes, his hands falling from her shoulders. ‘I’m exhausted. I have no willpower around you right now. And I know I’m not who you thought I was, I know—’
‘You know nothing, you ginormous idiot,’ she said. ‘Haven’t I shown that I want you? Only you? How many times do you realistically expect me to save your goddamn life before you realise that I ...’
She stopped herself, suddenly shy. She’d almost said what she’d said in the passageway, holding the gun up to Frankie. She’d almost said she was in love with him. And she’d only been brave enough to say it back then because she thought she was about to die.
But that had almost been easier than what she hadn’t asked yet.
‘Did you wish it had been real?’ she asked. ‘With Sophie?’
‘It was never real,’ he said. ‘It was never this. You’re not Plan B, Max. You’re not a plan, you’re a goddamn lightning strike in a clear sky. You burned down my life. My pretend, grey lie of a life.’
‘But you love plans.’
‘I love you .’ It slipped out in that grizzly, frustrated way he’d spoken to her that first night, back when they were strangers.
Her breath caught, the point of the glass shard edging out of her heart, slowly, painlessly.
‘And I trust you.’ His brown, forest-floor eyes locked on hers. ‘I trust you more than I trust myself.’
And only he could know those were the words she needed. Only he knew that was the last piece, the last key, the last shot left in the gun.
She brought his mouth down to hers and fired.