Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
THE TRUTH ABOUT MAX
Celeste
I whip my head toward Rosa. "What about Max?
" The words scrape out of my throat. I hadn't thought of him once while counting Mom's breaths under those hospital lights.
His face in the doorway last night sparked pure rage.
The audacity—after dumping the wedding planning on me, abandoning our reception, then acting betrayed over Lexi's drunk friend?
After three weeks of treating me like I'm invisible in his precious Malibu mansion?
He gets to be there for me after all that?
Nope. My hands shake as I dig my nails into my palms. He doesn't get to be there for Mom's final moments.
That space belongs to those who've shown up—Liv, Tally, Lexi, Rosa. Not him. He should’ve known to stay away.
Rosa's brown hand clamps down on mine, her grip fierce and steady as an anchor chain.
My racing pulse slams against her fingers, then gradually surrenders.
God, this woman. When she looks at me, it's like being bathed in sunlight after months of darkness—her eyes burning away the shadows that have been choking me.
Without her these past few weeks, I'd have already walked straight into the Pacific, let the salt water fill my lungs, and welcomed the cold embrace pulling me down to the seafloor. She is the only lifeline I have left in Max’s home.
Rosa's eyes burn with sudden conviction.
"Max is a good man." Her jaw sets, and something flashes across her face—not just a furrow between her brows, but a fierce protectiveness that makes my chest tighten.
She's been there through everything: his blood-soaked knees, his teenage heartbreaks, the man he's become.
I open my mouth to argue, but the words die in my throat.
How can I reconcile this "good man" with the one who cuts through our shared spaces like I'm nothing but vapor, who's built walls between us so thick I can feel them crushing my lungs?
The raw certainty blazing in her eyes makes me wonder what catastrophe I'm missing—what devastation carved him hollow enough to make this cruelty seem like self-preservation.
I open my mouth to protest, but she silences me with a single, razor-sharp glance that slices through my objections before they can escape my lips.
Her eyes burn with an intensity that pins me to my seat—the look of someone clutching dynamite knowledge about this man who's become my personal riddle.
My heart hammers against my ribs as I swallow hard and nod, bracing myself for whatever bomb she's about to detonate.
Her voice drops to a whisper. "Max has had a difficult life," she says, her fingers fidgeting with her beaded bracelet.
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing.
Join the club, who hasn't? I think of my father’s accident on that ski slope, how I’ve always felt responsible for his death.
Now my mother lies in a hospital bed, her skin the color of old paper, tubes snaking from her arms. My dreams of becoming a working screenwriter are utterly destroyed.
Meanwhile, Max is a billionaire with cheekbones that could cut glass, eyes the exact blue-green of the Malibu shoreline at sunset, and a smile that's graced the cover of Forbes three times in the past year alone.
The world doesn't just fall at his feet—it prostrates itself there, begging for attention.
What am I missing?
Rosa inhales deeply, fidgeting with her gold locket.
"This isn't in any tabloid. But Max..." Her eyes cloud over as she shakes her silver-streaked head.
"His mother Catherine—I learned this from Michael before he vanished, and from Max's brothers after too much wine.
" She pauses. "Catherine was extraordinary—remembered birthdays, left wildflowers for neighbors.
Michael said meeting her was like summer lightning.
For ten years, they were inseparable—finishing sentences, dancing in kitchen darkness, stealing food from each other's plates, sharing private jokes.
All those threads that make a marriage—they had them. "
I nod, wondering where this was going.
Rosa's fingers find her necklace again, twisting the pendant in a nervous rhythm.
"By thirty-five, she had those six wild boys running circles around her.
The ones you didn't meet at the wedding.
" She pauses, her eyes drifting somewhere past me.
"Then came the diagnosis. Breast cancer—aggressive, but they caught it early.
Stage 0. Her oncologist told them both not to worry.
Even with how fast that particular type could spread, they'd found it in time.
'A double mastectomy,' he said, 'some chemo, and you'll be back chasing those boys around the yard. ' That's what they promised her."
I close my eyes, a lump forming in my throat. I somehow know where this is going and it would explain a lot about Max. But I let her go on.
Rosa sighs. "According to Michael, the cancer diagnosis terrified them both, though the doctors were optimistic since they caught it early.
Stage zero. Very treatable. They booked her surgery right away.
" Rosa's fingers twist in her lap. "Then Catherine started getting sick every morning.
At first, she blamed the cancer, but her oncologist said that wasn't possible—not at that stage.
So she bought a test." Rosa's voice drops to nearly a whisper.
"Two pink lines appeared in that little window, and everything changed. "
I nod, willing her to go on, even though I don’t want to hear the rest.
“Catherine refused to end the pregnancy, despite her oncologist's warnings.
The doctor had been clear: postponing chemotherapy, combined with the physical demands of carrying a child and the aggressive nature of her tumor, meant she likely wouldn't survive.
Michael pleaded with her to reconsider. She remained steadfast. ‘I can't be responsible for taking a life,’ she told him quietly. ‘This is in God's hands now.’”
Rosa shakes her head. "Catherine passed three weeks after Max was born.
The disease took her so fast." She folds a dish towel with practiced hands.
"Michael—he'd never touched alcohol before.
His grandparents were alcoholics, and he always said addiction skips generations.
He knew the risk. But after losing her...
" Her voice trails off. "Joe brought me in because those boys needed someone.
Michael couldn't be there for them—couldn't be there for himself.
Morning till night, that bottle was his only companion.
" She looks up, eyes distant with memory.
"I remember him saying once, 'If Catherine had lived, I'd never have known what whiskey tastes like.
' First drink he took, something in him just... vanished."
I swallow hard. The weight of what Max must carry every day hits me like a physical blow.
A child born into tragedy, his first breaths coinciding with his mother's last. His father's mind fracturing at the loss.
A family splintered beyond repair. And somewhere deep inside Max, that voice must whisper: I caused this.
I know it's not true—no baby asks to be the fulcrum on which a family's fate balances—but how do you silence such a whisper when it's been your lifelong companion?
Rosa nods. "Michael did his best to hold on.
He'd string together these stretches of sobriety—three months here, six months there—but you could see the strain in his eyes the whole time.
During those good periods?" Her voice softens.
"He was magic with those boys. Got them up at dawn for surfing lessons with this Hawaiian champion he somehow befriended.
Packed the station wagon for weekend camping trips where they'd catch their own dinner.
But eventually, the bottle always called him back.
" She pauses, her fingers twisting in her lap.
"The last time anybody saw him, Max had just turned seven.
Michael dropped all the boys at Joe's place with their little backpacks. That was twenty-two years ago."
I shake my head. "Poor Max." The tabloids paint him as Hollywood's golden child—the wunderkind who seized control of a floundering studio at twenty-four and transformed it into a titan that stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Disney and Warner Bros.
Everyone genuflects before his perfect jawline and billion-dollar smile.
But behind those magazine covers must be a man haunted by ghosts.
A mother who chose death over terminating her pregnancy.
A father who drowned his grief in whiskey before vanishing altogether.
And Max, left carrying the weight of a family shattered by his very existence.
How do you build an empire when your foundation is made of absences?
“Max blamed himself for everything. He was too smart for his own good—at four, he'd sit on my lap reading Oliver Twist aloud, those big eyes so serious.
Nothing got past that child. When his mother died shortly after he was born, he pieced it together.
He watched his father collapse in front of those home videos night after night, whiskey bottle dangling from his fingers, and draw his own conclusions.
The family photos and videos told him a story: they were happy before he arrived.
In his mind, if he'd never existed, Catherine would still be alive, his father would be sober, and his brothers would have their mother.
That's a crushing weight for any child to bear. No wonder he lashed out.”
Reading Dickens at age 4? So he’s a genius on top of everything else. Still, I wouldn’t wish his situation on my worst enemy.
Rosa's shoulders drop with her exhale. "After Michael walked out, Max fell apart.
Started believing it was his fault—the abandonment, his mother's passing, all of it.
Reasoning with him became impossible." She looks straight ahead at the road, her knuckles gripping the steering wheel, 10 and 2.
"Thank God for Joe's fortune. He could afford the best specialists for his grandson, and Max needed the help.”
She looks ahead at the road, her eyes clouded with memory.
"Those years... Max's knuckles always bandaged from punching walls.
The dents in the drywall from his forehead.
Finding him watching flames dance in his wastebasket at three in the morning.
" Her voice softens. "The therapy helped, but the damage was done.
He built a fortress around himself—only lets in those who knew him before Michael left.
Me, his grandparents, his brothers, Gianni.
That's his entire world now. He once told me, 'I can't survive being left again. Not ever.'"
I close my eyes, feeling the warm afternoon sun on my face through the car window. "But what about…"
"His relationship with you?" Rosa asks, her voice gentle but knowing.
I look ahead and realize that we've arrived back at Max's house, the arches and embellishments of his Mediterranean style palace gleaming against the backdrop of the Pacific.
The waves crash rhythmically against the shore below, indifferent to my turmoil.
"I'm hopeful that he might be willing to give it a chance. "
I furrow my brows, twisting the platinum band on my finger. "Why do you think this?"
"He said I could tell you about his past." Rosa's weathered hands grip the steering wheel tighter, her knuckles whitening. "For him, that's a sign. The first crack in the wall he's built around himself."
I shake my head violently, my hands trembling. "But I'm nothing like him. Nothing. Have you seen the women he parades around? They're all six-foot glamazons with trust funds and connections. I drive a car held together with duct tape and prayer." My voice cracks. "I'm not his type."
She leans forward, eyes burning into mine. "Exactly," she whispers, gripping my wrist. "Which is why you're the only one who could ever save him."