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His voice had dropped, and the quiet intensity in it made looking at him unbearable.

I turned my gaze away because I couldn't lie. “No. I don't regret Vegas.”

The silence that followed was somehow worse.

I forced myself to meet his eyes again. “But I still think we need some space.”

There.

I'd done it.

I'd protected him, or at least that was what I tried to tell myself while something inside my chest felt as though I'd ripped it loose with my bare hands.

Max watched me for another moment, and I had the horrible feeling he knew I was lying about the reason even if he didn't know the truth.

“All right.”

No argument followed, no demand that I reconsider, and no attempt to use what had happened between us to change my mind.

He simply stepped aside and gave me the space I'd asked for.

I walked past him.

The rest of the day crawled.

Video should've helped because there were plenty of things to concentrate on. Vegas had adjusted its forecheck in the second period, we'd given up too much through the neutral zone, and Kinkaid had approximately six hundred opinions about our defensive coverage.

Normally, I would've absorbed every word.

Instead, I was painfully aware of Max sitting three seats away and refusing to look at me.

That should've made me feel better about what I'd done.

Max already had enough problems without adding my father, my money, or a twenty-year-old video of a woman falling down a flight of stone steps to the list.

Instead, guilt settled heavier in my stomach.

If Max ever discovered the truth, he'd be furious that I'd decided what he could handle without asking him. The hypocrisy wasn't lost on me, particularly after I'd spent weeks resenting him for doing exactly the same thing every time he'd pushed me away because he thought being with him was somehow dangerous.

Apparently we'd learned absolutely nothing from each other.

By the time Kinkaid dismissed us, I'd managed to arrange the money.

It had taken two phone calls, a transfer between accounts, and a conversation with my financial adviser that I'd navigated with enough half-truths to make me feel vaguely ill, but the full amount would clear before midnight.

I should've felt relieved.

Instead, I was exhausted.

Max stood near the door when I left the meeting room, and for a second, our eyes met. Instinct made me slow, but he looked away first.

That hurt more than it had any right to.

The transfer cleared at eleven thirty-seven.

I sat on the edge of my bed with my laptop open and checked the confirmation three times before sending Dad a screenshot, then waited while the minutes dragged toward midnight.

My phone finally vibrated at eleven fifty-five.