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Max looked perplexed. “Then how does he wear a tribute to you?”
“His shirts. He wears those awful shirts,” she answered happily. “When I was a kid, he used to always wear black. I told him it was depressing and he should wear something happy. He started picking up outrageous shirts, ones that I’m sure he probably got teased about at school. But he wore them because I liked them, and I told him they were happy shirts. When we grew up, he never stopped. So he does wear something for me. And he never quit wearing them, even when he grew up and I started teasing him about them.”
Max frowned. “I always thought he did that to irritate Travis.”
Mia laughed. “That’s only a side benefit and it might be the reason he does it now. But he started it because of me. I loved them when I was a kid. They were always happy shirts with the most outrageous characters or colors. Honestly, even though I joke around with him, I still love them.” She swung around and straddled Max, laying her head on his shoulder. “Tell me why you used to run away. Was it really because of something I did? The way I was acting?”
“No,” Max answered quickly, stroking her hair as he responded. “From the time I understood what it meant to be adopted, I was grateful to my mother and father. I knew I’d been thrown away by my real parents, and I was appreciative every day that I had parents who wanted me, who provided all of the things I needed and other things that I didn’t need. I was luckier than most of the kids at school, and it wasn’t because I was born to them. They chose me. I guess I never wanted them to have a reason to regret it. So I became the perfect child. Or I tried to anyway. I didn’t want them to ever have a reason to regret adopting me. When I was really young, I think I was afraid they would give me back or reject me like my natural parents had done.”
Mia stroked his neck and back lovingly, imagining the perfect little boy Max had been. Really, it wasn’t that hard. The sweet boy had grown into the perfect man. “Didn’t you ever want to rebel?” she questioned curiously, wanting to know the real Max instead of the façade.
Max shrugged. “Not really. Even after my parents died, I still wanted to please them. I graduated from college at the top of my class, did everything that was expected of me when I took over my father’s business. I even thought of getting into politics because I knew it would make them proud. The only time I wanted to rebel from my normal behavior was when I met you.”
“So I was a bad influence?” she asked in a teasing tone.
“Never,” he denied, running his hand down her back and wrapping his arms around her waist, holding her closer. “But it made me realize that I wasn’t happy before I met you. I was living my life for two people I loved, but I wasn’t them. I’d tried to replicate their behavior because I thought being any other way would be a betrayal. I thought I needed to be like them because they were the parents who had wanted me. I was lifted out of a life of poverty because they adopted me. I wanted to be in the same class as my parents, even if I wasn’t born into it.”
His admission made Mia’s heart break. “Just because you’re different doesn’t mean you aren’t still good.” Max was the most wonderful man she’d ever known, and she hated that he’d believed he couldn’t be perfect if he wasn’t exactly like his parents. “I don’t think they even expected that.”
“I don’t think they did either. They would have loved me regardless, because they were good parents,” Max answered, his words muffled against her neck. “I expected it of myself.”
“And when you met me? I know you had relationships before we met.”
“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. “Wearesitting here completely naked.”
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.”
“Sweetheart, you’re brilliant and creative. You were shaped by your past and you were just a kid. Don’t blame yourself,” Max insisted, running a soothing hand up and down her back. “He came back after he was released from prison, threatened me and your brothers, was ready to blow my brains out? How did you keep him from picking me off? From what I understand, he could have easily made the shot and was crazy enough to do it.”
“He was much worse than before,” Mia admitted. “He blamed me for everything and was completely delusional. He thought I really wanted to be with him, and he was willing to do anything to get what he wanted. I knew he’d do it.”No more secrets. No more secrets.“I was unfaithful to you, Max. I’m so sorry.” It was the most painful statement she’d ever made, but Max wanted honesty and she needed to tell him the truth.
Max released her, standing up to walk to the fireplace. Bracing his arms against the stone mantel, his head turned away from her, every muscle in his body appeared to tense. Mia held her breath as she watched his profile. He was almost motionless, the only visible movement the rise and fall of his chest as the breath sawed in and out of his lungs unevenly.
Mia’s future hung in the balance as she watched him, waiting to see if he would look at her with revulsion, scorn her love for him now. But they needed complete honesty between them, and it was something he deserved to know. She wasn’t the same, frightened woman anymore. However, it hadn’t made telling him any easier. The changes she’d made in herself just made it possible for her to tell him.