Everything inside of her rejoiced, elated to know that he’d felt the same as she did, that his love was anything but lukewarm and tepid, controlled and sane. Now, it seemed almost ridiculous that they had both never fully revealed the intensity of their emotions for fear of losing the one they loved to the point of insanity. “You can be whoever you really are with me, Max. I’ll never stop loving you.”
“I think that’s the problem. I was never truly alive until I met you. I was the guy who never lost his temper, never let emotions get in the way of a business deal, and I was pretty much indifferent about everything. The only thing I wanted was to be a good son to my adoptive parents because they had given me so much. I guess I thought I needed to be in their image, act like a Hamilton, to make up for the fact that I wasn’t their blood child. I didn’t even know who I was,” Max admitted.
“And do you know who you are now?” Mia asked softly, loving him even more for being able to bare himself to her.
“Not completely,” he said with a masculine sigh. “But I can guarantee you that I’m not indifferent, especially not when it comes to you. I know exactly how I feel about you. I always have. I just wasn’t sure you could handle it.”
“I can,” she told him emphatically. Trying to give him a reprieve, she glanced away from him and asked calmly, “Tell me what happened after you found out I was missing.”
Max took a deep breath before he answered, “Obviously, there was an extensive search, but it only lasted about a week because there were no leads. After that, they were convinced you had either drowned or there was only one possible suspect if you were murdered. They weren’t really looking at other possibilities because nothing else made sense.”
“Who?” she asked him, confused.
“Me,” he answered, his voice low and hoarse. “A woman with no real enemies vanishes and can’t be found, the usual suspect is her husband.”
“Oh, God. Max, I’m so sorry.” It had to have been awful for him, being suspected of murdering his own wife. “There was no motive, no reason to even suspect you.”
Max shrugged. “Crime of passion? Another woman? Another man? Money? Believe me…they checked every possibility, dug through every record to make sure I hadn’t done anything to you for any of those reasons. When they finally decided I wasn’t guilty, they assumed you had drowned. They said they didn’t suspect foul play. There was never a demand for ransom, no reason to believe you were abducted. There was no activity on any of your accounts. It was like you had just…vanished.”
Tears sprung to Mia’s eyes as she watched him trying so hard to impersonally state just the facts when he’d so obviously suffered. Had their positions been reversed, she wasn’t sure she could have come out of it still sane. “The media must have been horrible.”
“Luckily I was spared that part of it. They kept the investigation quiet. I cooperated, gave them whatever they wanted.”
Whatever she had done, Mia hated herself for putting Max through hell. He was a man with pride, a man of integrity, and being stripped of all that he was for the investigation had to have been devastating. Squeezing her eyes closed to prevent her tears from falling, she whispered softly, “I wish I could remember. I wish I knew why I did this to you.”
Max rose from his chair and scooped her up, sitting back down in her chair with her cradled in his lap. “Hey, don’t cry. You don’t know what your reason was or what happened. Don’t blame yourself. I survived. You’re here now. That’s all that matters to me.”#p#分页标题#e#
Opening her eyes, the tears falling down her cheeks, she asked him, “Why are you still wearing your ring? You must have given up hope, thought I was dead.” She lifted his hand, running a finger over the platinum band and feeling lost without her own wedding ring. Sure…it was just an object, but it was a symbol of her love for Max, and she missed the heavy weight on her finger. Her wedding day had been the happiest day of her life, and the loss of her ring nearly killed her.
Spearing his hand into her hair, he tilted her head back as he told her roughly, “I never gave up hope. Right after you disappeared, I made a promise to you that I’d never give up. I couldn’t. In my heart, I never accepted that you were dead. I guess I thought that if you really were, I would feel it.”
A sob escaped Mia’s lips as she looked at Max’s earnest, fierce expression.
Why? What possible reason could I have had to put him through this?