What she was contemplating would break his heart, just like he’d broken hers when he’d left town after the film festival, but what choice did she have? Could she risk his happiness just so she could be with the man she loved? If she got up from the bed. Oh God, leave Treat? If she packed her things and drove to the airport. Tears filled her eyes just thinking about it. If she left a note explaining why she’d left. What would I say? Would she really be saving him from a lifetime of resentment or would she crush his heart beyond repair?
Max stepped quietly from the bed. She went to the window and stared into the reflection of the moon on the water. She needed a guidebook, or a mother who could tell her the right way to handle this. Since she didn’t have either, she had to make a choice. Was she selfish if she wanted nothing more than to be with him? No matter what he had to give up?
Max felt like a thief as she gathered her belongings and went silently into the night.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
TREAT’S ARM FELL on an empty sheet. He opened his eyes and listened for Max. The house was too silent. He went to the window and looked down on the empty deck, then went into the bathroom, wondering if she’d gone for a walk. As he took the toothpaste from the basket beside the sink, he realized her things were gone.
“Max?” he called into the empty house. He ran down the stairs, his heart thundering in his chest. He tried to deny the wrenching in his gut. She can’t be gone. She wouldn’t do that to me—to us. He tore open the door and raced to the empty spot in the driveway where her car had been.
“No!” he yelled into the crisp morning air.
Treat stumbled back into the house. She can’t be gone.
He reached for his phone, and a handwritten note stopped his heart. He picked it up with a trembling hand.
Dear Treat,
When I read your letters back at my apartment, I knew how much you loved me, and how much I loved you became crystal clear. Being here with you these past few days has only solidified that in my heart and in my mind. But I’ve been where we are now, where one person has to give up something big to make the relationship work, and in the end, the very love that drives people together can turn to resentment. Once the honeymoon stage runs out and real life comes in with deadlines and pressures and late nights when all you want to do is be left alone, you can’t help but lose the feelings that drove you together. And then the resentment creeps in.
I didn’t mean to listen to you on the phone, but I overheard you saying you were giving up acquisitions—the very thing that gets your juices flowing. I can’t be the one to cause that, and I’m not sure I can travel the world like you do. I like to travel, and I love you, but not having a home and moving around so much would make my need for organization go overboard. And I’m sure it would eventually drive you crazy.
I love you, Treat, but I can’t let our very different lives tear apart what we have. If I leave now, we’ll always have these past few days. It won’t be enough, and I know that, but it’s better than waking up one day as strangers who feel trapped in a relationship. I can’t go through that again. I’m sorry, but I guess I’m still too weak—even with your love giving me strength.
There’s more, and I never thought I’d admit it to anyone, but I may never love anyone the way I love you, so I will share it with you now. Someone once told me that you can’t have an honest, happy relationship with a partner until you have an honest, happy relationship with yourself. There are still a few demons lurking in my head, and I think I have to deal with them before I can be a fair partner to anyone, especially you. You deserve so much more.
I know how much you want Thailand. You deserve it, Treat. Go. Do what you are so very good at and what you love. I’ll always love you, and I know you’ll always love me.
My heart will always belong to you, but please don’t follow me. Let us go so you can thrive.
Your sweetness at heart, Max
The lump in his throat didn’t change the anger that roared in his chest.
“No.” He slammed the letter on the table. “No. I’m not losing you again.” His phone rang and he snagged it from the table without looking at the number.
“Max?”
“Uh, no. It’s Savannah.”
“Sorry.” Treat’s mind was reeling. He had to call Max and talk her out of what was sure to be the biggest mistake of their lives.
“I thought Max was with you.”
He closed his eyes against the urge to snap at her. “She was.”
“Trouble in Loveland?”
“Savannah, not now. What do you need?” He calculated how much time it would take him to get to the airport, drive to Max’s apartment, and set things right.
“Sorry. It’s Dad. He’s sick, and I’m really worried about him.”
“I just saw him. He was as strong as an ox.” I’ll have to convince Max that acquisitions aren’t all that important to me. How can I do that? I’ll hire someone to do them. I’ll pay the attorney double if I have to. Treat had built his empire based on his keen negotiating skills and his belief in personally being involved with every transaction. He’d entrenched himself so deeply that there was never a need to look outside of his own abilities, partnered with his legal and financial advisers, when it came to the acquisitions. Now he was seeing another side to what he’d always done. He’d been hiding—from life, from commitment, from love. For the first time in his life, he realized, he cared about someone enough to want to stop hiding. There’s got to be a way.
“Treat, are you even listening to me?”
The edge in Savannah’s voice pulled him back to the call. “Sorry. Tell me again.”
“Treat. You have to come home.”
“I’m on my way.” He hung up and called his travel agent, who had him booked on a flight out of Provincetown forty-five minutes later.
He called Max on the way to the airport, and as the phone went to voice mail, he realized that Max hadn’t checked her phone once the whole time they’d been together. In fact, he didn’t remember even seeing her phone, which made him wonder if she’d even get his message—but he had to try. “Max, please don’t do this. I love you, and we can figure this out. My dad’s sick. I’m headed there now. I’ll call you once I know what’s going on.”
BY THE TIME Max arrived at home it was almost noon, and she was exhausted. She’d cried so much on the plane, the stewardess asked her if she needed medical help. Not unless they can fix a broken heart. She dropped her bags on the floor and fell into bed.
Nine hours later, Max woke up feeling like a wet dishrag. The headache that thumped and squeezed was only a minor discomfort compared to the ache in her heart, but she’d done the right thing. You can’t take an aggressive, successful man and steal him out of his element for good—that would be like caging a bear. Eventually the bear would recognize the bars for what they were and tear them down—even if it meant hurting the person who had been nurturing him, tending to his needs, loving him, for years.
She wandered into her living room feeling dazed and hungover. She eyed the couch, but the memory of Treat sitting beside her on it was too much to bear. You did this to yourself. He begged you to make a life with him. The emptiness was like nothing she’d ever known. She went to the refrigerator and swung open the door. Blech. Nothing looked good. She needed something, but she couldn’t pinpoint anything that would fill the void.
After wandering aimlessly around the apartment, she finally grabbed a book and went back to bed. Within the first page, she was sucked back into sleep.
THE NEXT MORNING, Max lay in bed stewing over what she’d done. She had no energy to get up from her comfortable bed. She wasn’t hungry, and though she knew she should get up and go to work, her motivation had slipped away somewhere in the night. She closed her eyes and faded in and out of sleep until late in the afternoon.
She hauled herself out of bed and went to the little balcony off the living room, where she pressed her hands against the cool glass, thinking of Treat. If she closed her eyes, she could feel the bay breeze against her face and smell the salty air. She could feel Treat’s hand on her leg. She opened her eyes with a start.
“You’re pathetic,” she said to her reflection in the glass. “You did this. You turned him away. This is your fault, and now you have to suck it up.” She turned away with tears in her eyes. Great. Now I’ve turned into a crazy person who sleeps all day and talks to herself.
That was enough to send Max into a warm shower. As the water rained over her, she thought of Treat, how much she missed him already and how she’d freaked out when they were first in bed together at her apartment, which brought her mind to her ex-boyfriend and how much he’d messed up her head. God, she hated him. What the hell have I done? How could that one relationship in college fuck me up so badly? She turned the water hotter until steam filled the glass doors and she couldn’t see out, until the memories of her ex-boyfriend separated from those of Treat, and until the tears that she didn’t realize were falling melted into the rain from the faucet.