The Billionaire's Salvation(35)

Scrambling to the door, she unlocked it and swung it open.

For the first time in his life, Max looked truly bedraggled.

For the first time in his life, Max looked completely drunk and disorderly.

And, for the first time in his life, Max did not look happy to see her.





It was a sad, sad situation when a man needed a healthy amount of Dutch courage just to face his own wife!

Max was drunk, and he knew it. Okay…he sort of knew it, but was trying like hell to convince himself that he wasn’t. Maybe sitting at the end of Mia’s driveway and taking some shots from the bottle of rotgut whiskey he’d bought in Billings hadn’t been such a good idea. At the moment, he was alternating between being “king of the world” and “emperor of the dumbasses.”

“Max…have you been drinking?” Mia asked, astonished.#p#分页标题#e#

Bingo. Give the woman a prize.

“I’ve had a few,” Max answered, lying his ass off. He’d had more than a few. Several? A lot? Yeah…he thought one of those would be more accurate.

Still, seeing her in front of him, looking as beautiful as she always did, dressed casually in a pair of jeans and a red tank top, nearly killed him. Maybe the alcohol hadn’t helped ease the pain at all, ’cause his chest was aching just from looking at her. She looked…concerned and anxious, and when he saw her blue eyes flash with fear, he nearly lost it. Was she afraid of him, or the whole confrontation thing? She did seem to prefer to run away. But then, he’d done it, too. He just hadn’t done it with another woman.

“You never drink much,” she mumbled, standing back to let him in. “And you never drink and drive.”

Nope. He usually didn’t. In fact, he’d never actually been drunk, which may be the reason he was having such a hard time deciding whether or not he truly was intoxicated. “Didn’t drive while I was drinking—except up your driveway, which, by the way, has a hell of a lot of damn potholes.” And in his possibly inebriated state, he’d driven into every one of them.

He was sauntering into the living room, trying hard not to fall on his ass, when he heard a stifled laugh.

“You’re completely plastered, Max,” Mia informed him, her eyes concerned, but her lips smiling slightly. “How much did you drink?”

“Don’t know,” he answered honestly. ’Cause really, he didn’t remember how many swigs he’d taken from the bottle. He’d wanted enough to make him numb, enough to keep him from reacting to Mia. The thing was, he didn’t think there was enough alcohol in the world to accomplish that.

“How did you know I was here?” she questioned carefully.

“Your brothers. I’m not sure…but I think I killed Travis,” he answered cheerfully. He was pretty sure Travis wasn’t dead, but he’d be battered and bruised, and the idea of that made Max pretty damn happy.

“You didn’t kill my brother, and you shouldn’t have gotten in a fight with him. He’s just trying to protect me,” she told him calmly, her hands on her hips as she looked up at him. “Is that how you got that cut over your eye? It’s bleeding.”

Damn. Travis had gotten a few punches in while trying to protect himself. But at the moment, Max was feeling no pain. “Yeah? If you think I look bad, you should see him,” Max grumbled, highly offended that Mia hadn’t taken him seriously when he’d said he had killed her brother. “He fights like a girl,” he added, knowing he was lying. Had Travis really tried, and had Kade not stopped the fight, Max had no doubt both of them would be in the emergency room right now. “Bastard should have told me. You’re my goddamn wife. I had a right to know that you’d left me for another man.”

Mia reached out and lightly touched the bruises on his face. “Oh, Max. What did they say? That isn’t—”

“I want to hate you. I should hate you. But dammit, I just fucking can’t,” Max said coarsely, hating himself for still not being able to look at her and conjure up the hatred he should have for a wife who had left him desolate and heartbroken for over two years, making everything he’d felt—and still felt—seem like one big joke…at his expense. “Did you know that when I thought you were dead, I wanted to die too? I didn’t want to go on living without you.” Max knew they were drunken words, a pity party for one, but he didn’t give a shit. “I was completely obsessed with you, so out of control that I had to back away from it to keep a leash on myself. And the whole fucking time, your mind was on another man.” He reached out and grasped her wrist, pulling her down with him to the leather sofa, her body beneath his. He might be drunk, but as he looked down at her, he couldn’t mistake the anguished, tormented look in her eyes. Did she feel sorry for him? Christ. He hoped not. The last thing he wanted was her pity.#p#分页标题#e#