He leans his elbows on his thighs and hangs his head.“I’m sorry.You’re right, but it’s not my story to tell.”He turns his head.“I’m so fucking tired, Amelia.Everything is a fight, and I’m just fucking depleted.”
I set my can on the coffee table and inch closer to him.“Then stop fighting.”
“I’m trying.I told Della I won’t force her to sell her share of the ranch.”
“That’s good, right?”
He shrugs.“I think it’s a step in the right direction, but I don’t know what that means for the deal with the Fallen Demons.What’s the point in allowing her to keep her share if we’re going to lose the ranch in the end?”
“You don’t know that.I don’t know much about the club, but I can’t imagine they’d rescind their offer.Shadow wouldn’t let that happen.”
“It might not be his choice.”
I’m not sure how to respond to that, so I remain silent.Dylan’s voice sounds from down the hall, and Maddox’s gaze drifts in that direction.
“He’s playing a video game with his friends from school.It can get intense at times.”
“Why don’t you want me around him?”He asks suddenly, his voice soft but direct.“You didn’t mind me taking him into the bar the night Russell pulled that stunt.”
The question catches me off guard, and I untuck my legs from under me and pull them up to my chest, winding my arms around my knees.
“I didn’t have much of a choice.I didn’t want him to witness anything more than he already had, and I knew if you didn’t take him inside, he wouldn’t leave me alone with his dad.”
Maddox shifts on the couch, his eye finding mine.“Amelia, I’m not asking to be around him just for the hell of it.”
I sigh, no part of me wanting to have this conversation.“Maddox, it’s not that simple.”
“Then explain it to me.”
“I don’t want him to get hurt.His father has done enough of that.Every broken promise, all the times he showed up drunk or high.The missed birthdays.It’s all left scars.”
“I’m not Russell,” he says firmly.“I would never hurt you or your son.”
“Wouldn’t you?”I volley.“I know what it’s like to get close to you, and I know how crippling it is to be pushed aside by you.To be discarded like a piece of trash.I won’t allow my son to feel that pain.”
His jaw tightens, a muscle ticking beneath his sun-kissed skin.“Let’s get something straight for once and for all.I didn’t discard you like you were trash.I thought the world of you, and I selfishly wanted to keep you for myself, but my conscience wouldn’t allow that.I thought letting you go would give you a chance to live a better life.That you could chase your dreams just like my sister was about to.”
“You were the only dream I had!”
The words spill from my lips before I can stop them.I didn’t have many ambitions, but I thought I had him, and that was enough for me back then.It was everything.
“I saw our future so clearly.You and I working your ranch, raising babies, loving each other through the highs and lows.That was the fucking dream.”
His face softens, his arm stretching across the couch.He lays his hand on top of my knee, but I swat it away.
“Don’t.”
“Amelia, it can still be the dream.”
I shake my head.“No, it can’t.That dream is dead and buried, Maddox.”I glance toward the hallway before bringing my gaze back to him.“It can’t be resurrected just because we had sex a couple of times.”
“You think it’s just that easy?”He snaps.“I can’t turn off what I feel for you.”
“You did it once.”
“You keep saying that, but what I felt for you never diminished.I’ve been pining for you for fucking years.Watching you marry another man and have his child destroyed me.Every time I saw the two of you in passing gutted me because you both should’ve been mine.And now I’ve had you.”He lowers his voice, but the look in his eyes intensifies.“Now I know what it feels like to be inside you.How it feels to have you come apart around me.The look on your face when you come.The sounds you make.”He closes his eyes for a second.“God, those fucking sounds.I can’t erase any of it from my mind, and I don’t want to.”He swallows hard, his eyes locking with mine once again.“Just like I can’t erase the words you said to me when you confessed you would’ve left your husband if I had come to you at any point of your marriage.I want to be with you, Amelia.I want to get to know Dylan and be a constant in his life, someone he can rely on.Give me a chance to be the man I should’ve been all along.”
The weight of his words—of what he’s asking of me—it terrifies me.
