CHAPTER TWELVE
NATASHAWASLEFTalone with her thoughts, and she was trying hard not to let those thoughts wander off the island. It wasn’t working very well. Her view of the pool, after a morning full of wispy women and buffed and shaved men, was now empty. Everyone else was on the other side of the island at the photoshoot. Max had left to escort Alya, but he’d be back soon. It was Sunday, the last day of the shoot. Their last day together.
Natasha had probably laughed more in the hours she and Max had been alone together than during her entire relationship with Wayne. But that wasn’t fair. Wayne was different—he made her think, pushed her to do better...well, at least it had started that way. They’d discussed journal articles, and he had helped her solve some of the stumbling blocks in her own research ideas, which had led to the grant that would be funding half of her salary next year.
Which was why she’d assumed that he’d be thrilled about the next step in her career. Yes, she’d known his most recent grant proposal hadn’t gone through, but he was in a different field. This was what had stung the worst the night of her un-celebration dinner. Not that he’d encouraged her to see other people, but that his support ended the moment it looked like she might be a peer, not just a protégé.
Natasha frowned. She had devoted her life to a path that was the polar opposite of her mother’s. And yet she had managed to hit that same sore point of betrayal. For her mother, each of her downward spirals had begun at the point when her career had begun to eclipse her partner’s. For Natasha, it was the moment she realized that her relationship with Wayne had never been based on mutual respect, on equal footing.
She was pretty sure Max would never feel threatened by her accomplishments—that wasn’t the issue. But if Wayne made her think, Max did the opposite: he made her feel things that made logical thoughts dissolve into lust-filled nonsense. Long-term, this would be a nonstarter, but short-term? This could mean more of the kind of elusive, carefree fun that she was just starting to explore with Max.
As if she’d conjured him with her thoughts, she watched Max stride across the pool area toward her.
He stopped next to her lounge chair, so she moved her legs to the side, and he sat down, then ran a hand up her calf.
“Photoshoot going well for Alya so far?” she asked.
He grinned. “When I left, they had her lying on the beach, not far from where we were last night.”
“Good thing you didn’t leave that condom lying around,” said Natasha.
“And let some poor sea creature find it?” he asked solemnly. “I wouldn’t dare.”
He was quiet, stroking her calf, looking out at the pool. This was their last time alone. Anything she wanted to do or know had to come now.
“Tell me more about next Saturday,” she said.
He sighed. “The Jensen Family Foundation teamed up with the Martinelli Foundation to create a breast cancer research institute at the Sydney Memorial Hospital. It’s the donor dinner, with a few quick speeches, dancing, an open bar.” A hint of a smile quirked at the corner of his lips. “Shit like that is more fun if you have a couple drinks.”
Natasha took a deep breath. If she wanted to ask more about his family, now was the time. “Are you on good terms with your family?”
“My grandma’s a trip,” he said. “You’ll like her.”
They both knew it wasn’t his grandma she was referring to, so she waited. Like everyone else, she knew the basics. Max was third generation in a ranching family with more money than everyone else in Western Australia put together. Every country had its dynasties, and the Jensens were one of Australia’s, partly because of their wealth and partly because of their mystique.
Max sighed. “The answer is no, Natasha. My father and I just aren’t a good match. We never have been.”
“What does that mean?” she asked gently.
“My father doesn’t say much, and when he does, it’s mostly to tell me what to do,” he said with a wry smile. “My brother, TJ, doesn’t say much, either, but he stopped telling me what to do once I got big enough to challenge him. So now we get along.”
She heard a tangle of emotions in his voice. “It hasn’t gotten better over the years, now that you live far away?”
“Somewhat. Though my father still had plenty to say about what the press printed about me.” Max shrugged. “I don’t give a shit about it unless it hurts someone else, though I suppose I’ll have to change that now that I’ll be heading up the foundation.”
Natasha definitely understood what it felt like to not fit into the mold a parent had hoped for. Her own mother still couldn’t grasp why she had pursued an academic career instead of something “easier”—and more lucrative—in entertainment.
Max was silent. He lifted her leg and rested it on his lap, holding it with his big, warm hand, his thumb caressing her calf slowly.
She thought the conversation might be over, but after a while, he spoke again. “When my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, her depression got worse. My father—he didn’t know what to do about it.”
“What did you want him to do?”
“Help her. Make her happy.”
She wrinkled her nose but said nothing. He seemed to understand her unspoken response anyway.
“I know,” he said. “You don’t believe in making other people happy.”
