“I couldn’t,” I admitted.
“Did you try?”
“Yes.” Of course I had. Anything to keep me far away from Max.
“Did you fuck him?”
I cringed inwardly. “Yes,” I admitted, knowing my honesty would hurt him. But he wanted the truth.
He disapproved, of course. “Why?” he asked, tilting his head, his eyes narrowed with suspicion.
“Why what?”
“Why did you fuck him?” He spat the accusation, venom dripping off his tongue.
“Because the man I wanted turned out to be a lying son of a bitch,” I said, meeting his gaze.
A humorless scoff escaped him. “Thought I was a bastard.”
“Who said you were the man I wanted?”
“Let me be the man you want.”
The room shrank, the focus narrowing down to just him and me. The faint sound of the coffee grinder mixed with the heavy thumping of my heart. Max’s proposition hung in the air. I stared at him blankly.
“What do you mean?”
“I want a chance,” he began again, his voice regaining strength with each word.
A chance for what? A chance to finish what he started?
“A chance to do right by you. I want the same chance you gave the other men. I want a chance to be the man you deserve.”
“There isn’t a chance in hell we would work,” I argued, my bitterness born of betrayal.
I’d thought he wanted to kill me, but instead, the man wanted a chance?
“Maybeinhell,” he countered, a faint smile playing on his lips briefly before it reached his eyes.
What was the matter with him?
“No. Max, you are insane.”
“I want you to be my wife.”
My jaw clenched. Death was far more appealing than a marriage with him. “I willnevermarry you,” I said without hesitation. “You lied to me for years. You betrayed me and my family.”
“I didn’t lie.”
My hand hit the table lightly. “You can’t be serious,” I scoffed in disbelief.
“I never lied to you.”
Perhaps he was right, technically. He hadn’t lied to me, but he had betrayed the trust I had in him. Max had a lot of power over me that went beyond physical strength. He understood how to pull on my heartstrings like no one else.
But I couldn’t forget how awful he was.
He’d killed Lucas. Max had done that just to prove a point. To show me he had the power. He was a Romano. I couldn’t forget that, but his pretty face made me want to.
