Mia could see the hurt look in his eyes, and it almost leveled her. Obviously he’d noticed it was missing, but he hadn’t said anything. “Why would I take it off if I was wearing it? I never took it off.”
“I know,” he answered grimly. “I wondered about that myself.”
Frustrated, Mia dropped her napkin on her empty plate and reached for her glass of wine. She took a sip, trying desperately to remember what had happened, to conjure memories, any information about the past few years. As usual, she could see nothing but a blank space of time, as though she’d been sleeping through the last few years. “I can’t remember,” she admitted softly, wanting desperately to know what had happened. She needed to know, and so did Max. Obviously the uncertainty was haunting both of them. “Tell me what happened after I disappeared. Were there ever any clues to where I went, what I did?”#p#分页标题#e#
“No,” Max replied darkly. “The last thing you remember happened a week or two before you disappeared.” He stopped and reached for his beer, taking a gulp before he continued, “I’m not even completely sure what day you vanished. I found your things on the beach the day I came home from an overnight business trip. It could have been the day I left or the following day. I came home late. I hated myself for ever leaving on that trip.”
He looked tormented, and she hated it. “Max, it wasn’t your fault. You were considering running for public office, and you had business out of town—”
“It was bullshit. All of it. I never wanted to be a politician, and I could have left most of the traveling to upper management. I was a goddamn coward, Mia. I took those trips to take a break from us.” After downing the rest of his beer, he stood abruptly and went to the refrigerator for another one.
Mia felt her hand trembling as she reached for her wine, taking a healthy sip. He needed a break? Had he wanted out of their marriage? “Was I suffocating you because I loved you too much?” It was a hard question to ask, but she needed to know. Max had been her whole world since they’d met, and maybe it was too much for him. She had a tendency to be a bit extreme in everything she did, while Max was exactly the opposite. Maybe he couldn’t bear her intensity for long periods of time, even though she’d really tried to tone it down for his sake, not wanting to scare him away.
Max twisted the top off his beer, laughing harshly as he tossed the cap in the trash. “It wasn’t you; it was me. I wanted to be smothered by you; I wanted to be the only man you saw, the only man who existed for you.”
“But Max, you were—”
“It wasn’t enough,” he told her roughly as he slid into his chair again, piercing her with a possessive stare that Mia had never seen before. “The things I wanted weren’t right in my mind. My dad loved my mom and treated her with tenderness and devotion. Although I felt those things too, there was also this total obsession that I didn’t think was right, natural. You’re my wife, a woman who deserves my respect. I never wanted you to leave me. I didn’t want to scare you away by acting like a lunatic. The way I felt wasn’t rational. I wanted to kill any man who looked at you.”
Oh, God. He’d felt the same way she did, and he hadn’t been able to deal with it. The crazy love, the over-the-top desire to rip his clothes off and have wild, crazy sex until they were both so sated they couldn’t move. Her levelheaded Max, her sensible husband, her tender lover really felt the same savage emotions. He just hadn’t wanted her to know.
“So you’re really a closet dominant male?” she asked, shivering as she watched his face, the turbulent emotions making the flecks of gold in his eyes glow as he stared at her as though he wanted to swallow her whole. Her core flooded with heat as she watched him struggle, secretly hoping the alpha would break free. Just once…she’d like to see Max totally lose control, not in a bad way, but in a very, very good way. It would make him more human, more real, and she welcomed it.
If that’s a part of Max I haven’t seen…bring it on!
“I think I’m beyond that, and I don’t think I’m in the closet anymore. And I’m still perfectly rational with everyone and everything except you. You’re the only woman who’s ever made me feel this way,” he growled, his face damp with perspiration.
Mia tried to hide the longing that she was certain was showing on her face, wanting to do nothing except crawl into his lap and make him completely lose control. The feminine power she had over him was suddenly a heady, dizzying feeling. This man, who was her entire world, wanted her above all things, above any other woman on earth, and she knew she could make him lose it. But he had trusted her with his feelings, and she wasn’t going to use them against him when he was struggling, vulnerable. She loved him too much. What he’d been taught growing up by the parents he’d loved and the way he was feeling now were warring against each other.#p#分页标题#e#