“Not like you and me. Before we met, I did the expected things. I dated. I fucked. But I didn’t feel the same way. You made me crazy from day one. It knocked me on my ass. I lost my control with you. I’d conditioned myself for years to be a calm, controlled, reasonable businessman like my father, but you blew that persona all to hell, and I was worried about losing you if I wasn’t the man you wanted. I knew about your parents, and I knew you needed stability, someone rational and sane,” Max admitted gruffly.
“Oh, Max,” Mia whispered softly, loving him all the more for being able to talk to her now. “I’ve never met a saner man, and I kind of like the man you are now.” Okay…that was the understatement of the year. His dominant, protective love made her feel safe and adored. “What changed?”
“You died,” he answered, his voice tormented. “When I had to start admitting that I’d probably never see you again, hold you again, talk to you again…I hated myself for never letting you know how much you meant to me, that you were my entire world. I fucking regretted every moment I had spent running away when I could have spent that time with you.” He released a masculine sigh before continuing, “Now I hate myself for never seeing you, never noticing that you really needed me. I was a selfish prick. Had I stopped worrying about my image, I might have really known you—you might have told me about Danny.” He took her head between his hands, his expression tortured. “Believe me, the last thing I wanted was for you to tie yourself in knots trying to please me. Hell, you please me just by breathing. You didn’t need to try to be anyone other than who you are.”
Mia didn’t want him to have regrets. “I know that now. But those were my insecurities, baggage from my past. It wasn’t you, Max. We’re both responsible for not communicating. We were actually both hiding; in love, but so afraid of losing that love instead of trusting ourselves and each other.” God, she must have been blind, deaf, and dumb. The love radiating from his gorgeous eyes was unmistakable. Had she really looked, she would have seen him, really known him. “Growing up in my family was hell. My father’s madness and abuse was hard on all of us.”
“Your mother never thought about leaving him?” Max asked huskily, putting his forehead against hers in a gesture of comfort.
“No. Never. I think she’d withstood his abuse for so long that she had closed down just to survive. We begged her to leave, even after we were grown, but she wouldn’t. She made excuses for his behavior,” Mia answered sadly. “I think she loved us, but she couldn’t stand up to my father. I’m sure she lived in her own private hell.”
Max lowered his hands, running them up and down her upper arms, frowning. “You’re cold. You have goose bumps.”
Mia suspected it wasn’t the cold, but the thrill of sitting here with Max, sharing things they’d never shared before. “Then warm me,” she instructed, smiling at his scowl. “We are sitting here completely naked.”#p#分页标题#e#
Stretching out, Max yanked a thick blanket that was draped over the back of the sofa and pulled her over his body, covering her, sandwiching her with warmth as she lay between him and the fleecy covering. “Better?” he asked anxiously.
Mia sighed as she rested her head on his shoulder. “Yes.” How could it not be anything other than sublime to be skin to skin with him like this?
“Are you ready to tell me about the asshole who made you run away from me?” It was a question, but Max made it sound more like a demand. “Travis told me the facts. What I want to know is how you felt about him.”
Mia wasn’t even sure how to explain, but for Max, she’d try. “He didn’t start out the way he turned out to be. He was charming, paid attention to me. The controlling behavior started later, a few months after we started dating. The sad part was, it really wasn’t all that surprising. It was what I grew up with. He was a lot like my father. I wasn’t very strong, Max. I fell into the cycle of abuse. He would apologize and promise never to do it again. But he did. I wanted out, but I guess I wasn’t strong enough to fight my way free of him.”
“Friends?” Max queried quietly.
“No. Looking back, he managed to slowly, methodically isolate me. I had made friends at school, but he didn’t let me hang out with them anymore,” she replied regretfully. “I was so relieved when he went to prison. I thought it was over. I left Virginia after school and came back to Florida, hoping to start over again, be smarter.”