by Lexi Ryan
She grins. “I might be wicked, but you’re naughty.”
“Damn straight.” I kiss her as my hands work to untie the knot on her robe. I kiss my way south until I’ve found her breasts. When I suck one pebbled nipple into my mouth, she moans.
“Maybe this isn’t so bad,” she murmurs. “Sometimes.”
Lifting my head, I take her face in my hands and shake my head. “No,” I growl, and her smile falls away. “I want more than sometimes and I want more than to be friends and parents together. I want you. Completely and always.”
“What if we can’t figure it out?” she whispers.
“We will,” I promise, sliding my hand between her legs. She opens her thighs and lifts her hips off the bed. “We will.”
Three Days Before Hanna’s Accident
I WAIT until Max leaves for work before I let myself into his apartment and lock the door behind me.
I head straight to his bedroom and the desk in the corner. Max is neat, and there are only a couple of stacks of papers on the desk—a meal and exercise plan for a client and some information about a new piece of equipment he has in the club.
I turn to the filing cabinet and start thumbing through files, not sure what I’m looking for. He wouldn’t exactly label it “Secret File About Hanna’s Bakery.” But I find a file labeled Smith, Peterson, and Frank and pull it.
There’s a copy of the agreement I signed when I agreed to start the bakery with the anonymous investor and some other paperwork from the lawyer, but instead of a deed to the bakery, I find papers from New Hope Bank and Trust.
My stomach twists painfully. It’s bad enough to know that he sold his grandmother’s house to get me the bakery, but knowing that he had to take out additional loans makes me sick to my stomach. No wonder he’s been letting employees go in favor of putting in long hours at the gym himself. He’s busy paying on the loan he took out for me.
For some reason, my gaze catches on a letter stacked neatly on the corner of the desk. It’s addressed to Max, but the name of a local investor jumps out at me. I unfold it carefully, and my stomach sinks.
This letter contains the details of the offer we discussed over lunch. I think this deal could be beneficial for us both, and I look forward to speaking with you further.
“No,” I whisper. He can’t sell his club. He can’t sacrifice his dream for mine.
My phone buzzes, and I pull it from my pocket to see a text from Nate.
Nate: Heading to London. I miss you already. Been thinking a lot about our conversation. Call me?
I bring my hand to my mouth to stop the sob that threatens to escape. When I was a little girl, I imagined that one day I’d fall in love with an amazing man and he’d love me in return. I believed love was enough to overcome anything. But love isn’t like that. The heart has the capacity to love beyond anything my little-girl self could have dreamed up. And where I once thought love was a journey and the destination was being together, I now know that love is more like a state of awareness, and sometimes its best expression is in releasing the person from your life.
I read the text a second and third time and then delete it before I can torture myself with another read. The text disappears, but the history of our texts stays on the screen.
In one hand, my texts from Nate. In my other, the evidence of what Max has sacrificed for me to have my dream.
I hold my breath as I hit the commands on my phone to delete the entire thread. Then I delete my entire call history, and just like that, my phone’s memory of my relationship with Nate is gone.
Present Day
“HEY, HANNA.” Sam stands to greet me at the bank and shifts uncomfortably as I stare him down. “Is this about Liz?” He’s really adorable in that clean-cut playboy-banker kind of way. His light brown hair is clipped short, and his strong jaw is shaved clean. Broad shoulders fill out his suit and tie.
“Not about Liz,” I say, and he relaxes visibly.
New Hope Bank and Trust is where Max does all his banking—unsurprisingly, since one of his best friends will inherit the whole thing someday.
Sam motions to his desk, and I shake my head. He works out in the open, and I’d rather keep our conversation between us.
“Somewhere private?”
He nods and leads me into a little office where they talk to clients about loans and such.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask the moment he closes the door.
He cocks his head. “Tell you what?”
“When Max got the loan for the bakery, why didn’t you tell me he was doing that?”
His smile is so fake that it wouldn’t fool a blind person. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Cut the shit, Sam. Why’d you let him do it? He sold his grandmother’s house for a down payment, didn’t he? Do you realize what kind of a position that’s put him in financially?”
His jaw tightens. “Max is a grown fucking man, Hanna. He makes his own decisions. He didn’t exactly consult me before throwing the whole damn world at your feet.”
“And you don’t approve?” The question comes out too snippy. The fact is, if I’d been in Sam’s position, I wouldn’t have approved of Max’s decisions to fund my bakery.
He shakes his head. “I didn’t say that.”
“He’s in debt up to his eyeballs, and I came to you, didn’t I? I see it in my planner. Before the accident, I came here and talked to you about what I’d found in his apartment. He was thinking of letting someone buy the club.”
Avoiding my eyes, he nods. “You wanted to know how much he owed on your bakery.”
“How much?”
“I wasn’t at liberty to tell you then, and I’m not at liberty to tell you now. But I promised you I wouldn’t let him sell the club. Will and I had offered to be partners before. I made sure he knew our offers stood.”
“Is that all I wanted to know?”
He studies me for a minute before finally admitting, “You wanted to know if you had enough in your trust fund to buy out your silent partner.”
Bile rises in my throat. “And what was the answer?”
“More than enough.”
“That’s why I decided to marry him,” I whisper, though I’ve suspected it for a while now. Ever since I remembered finding that letter in his kitchen. “I was counting on a decision I made for all the wrong reasons and you didn’t even warn me.”
“I didn’t know for sure, and you were in love with him.” He rubs the back of his neck. When I don’t reply, he says, “Max misses you, you know. He’s just waiting around like some love-sick puppy, and if you decided you still wanted him, he’d be yours.”
“I can’t,” I whisper.
“He would take good care of you. He loves you so much.”
“I know that.” My throat grows thick and I swallow back tears. “Is there anything else from before my accident that you think I might want to know?”
“Meredith,” he says. “The day you fell, I was jogging on the trail behind the bakery and I saw you two arguing.”
All eyes are on me when I walk through Meredith’s salon and back to her office, but I don’t care. For the first time, I’m taking Nix’s concerns about my “fall” seriously.
Meredith’s sitting at her desk, but her head snaps up at the sound of the door closing. “What are you doing here?” she asks.
If I expected her to act like the snotty Meredith who’s tormented me most of her life, I was wrong. Instead of sharp, her voice is distant, resigned. Maybe months of rejection are starting to get to her after all.
“I want you to give Max custody of Claire.”
She raises a brow. “The choices I make for my daughter’s life aren’t your business.”
“If you don’t, I’ll tell everyone that you were at my apartment the day of my accident.”
Meredith’s face goes white. “I thought you couldn’t remember that day.”
“I don’t have to remember to know what happened.”
“Sam saw you there. He saw you push me against the wall and yell at me. Why would you do it? I know you hate me, but I never would have thought you’d try to physically hurt me.”
She sits back in her chair. “Clearly you underestimate how serious I am about Max.”
I gasp. Because even though I’m here, I didn’t really believe Meredith was guilty. “So you pushed me down the stairs?”
She pushes out of her chair. “I didn’t do any such thing. I came to your apartment and fucking begged you to get out of the way so I could have Max back. And, sure, I punched you in that chubby face of yours, but you had on his ring and…” She clenches her hands. She’s sneering now, her hatred and disgust toward me evident on her face. “Whatever. You gave as good as you got. You gave me a fucking black eye, and then you ended up in the hospital and I had to leave town so no one would think I tried to kill you. And after all that, you didn’t even want him.” Her face crumples and she points to the door. “Get out of here. I’m sorry your fat ass couldn’t navigate a simple set of stairs, but I won’t listen to you blaming me for that.”
“I can’t believe I used to be jealous of you.” I shake my head slowly. “Now I just feel sorry for you.”
“Why? Because I’m a single mom? At least I’m not some whore who got knocked up with a rocker’s babies.”
“I feel sorry for you because you’re ugly, Meredith.”
She snorts. “Look who’s talking.”
“Oh, no. You’re plenty beautiful on the outside. Anyone can see that.” I put my hand on the knob and pull the door open. “But inside, you’re as ugly as they come. That’s why Max doesn’t want you.”
Her face blossoms red. “Get out.”
BRADY’S IS crowded tonight. Everyone who’s here visiting family for the holidays fills the bars to escape them.
I scan the crowd, but before I spot Will, Liz grabs my forearm and drags me to the dance floor.
I raise a brow as she wraps her arms behind my neck. “No offense, but my years of crushing on you came to an end when I fell in love with your sister.”
She snorts. “This isn’t about you, Max. Get over yourself.”
I follow her eyes to the other side of the bar, where Sam is watching us with an uncharacteristic amount of jealousy on his face. “I see.” Not that I’m terribly surprised. Sam’s had a thing for Liz for quite a while. “So what’s happening between you two?”
“Nothing.” She closes another inch between us and leans her head on my shoulder. “He’s not what I’m looking for.”
I lock eyes with Sam and raise a brow in silent question. The fact that he shrugs and walks away is more telling than he knows. Sam’s never been shy about staking his claim, but the way he feels about Liz has evolved over the last few months.
“Can you imagine what would have happened if it weren’t for Hanna?” she asks. “Would those casual dates have turned into something more?” She removes her arms from around my neck and shudders softly as we leave the dance floor. “No offense. It’s just that, these days, you feel more like a brother than a potential screw.”
That makes me grin. “Damn. If you’d told me two years ago that you saw me as a ‘potential screw,’ it’s fair to say things would have been much different between us.”
She groans, and Cally hands her a drink. “And then I’d be the one dealing with Meredith’s bullshit.”
“Yeah,” Cally says, “and maybe you’d be the one with amnesia.”
I frown. “What do you mean, she’d be the one with amnesia?”
“Oh, who knows,” Cally says, “but there will always be part of me that suspects Meredith was the one who pushed Hanna down the stairs.”
Liz shifts uncomfortably. “I don’t think Max needs to hear your crazy conspiracy theories.”
“The one who pushed her down the stairs? Are you saying the accident wasn’t an accident? Are you saying someone pushed her?”
Cally’s face goes blank. Then she mutters a curse under her breath. “I thought he knew.”
“Knew what?” The women just stare at me, so my voice holds warning when I say, “One of you, tell me.”
“We don’t know anything for sure,” Cally says. “None of us was there except Hanna, and Nix says Hanna will probably never remember that day, but the nature and extent of her injuries indicated foul play.”
“Like someone pushing her down the stairs.” Jesus. Why did Hanna never tell me this?
“And maybe like someone knocking her around a little before they pushed her.”
Liz winces. I feel like the wind’s been knocked out of me. Because I know who was at Hanna’s house the night of the accident.
When Meredith climbs my front steps, I’m waiting at the front door, my arms folded across my chest. The days are short and the streetlights are already on even though it’s barely seven. They throw just enough light on her face for me to see the confusion on her face.
“Where’s Claire?” she asks.
“She’s sleeping.” I don’t budge from my spot.
“Well, move over. I want to get her.”
“I don’t think I want her going home with you.”
Her eyes flash with anger. “You can’t keep my daughter from me.”
“I’m pretty sure the police would have my back on this if they knew what you did to Hanna.”
“I seriously doubt the police care about some stupid drama. I don’t even think I care about it anymore.”
“Assault doesn’t fall into the same category as ‘stupid drama.’”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Hanna’s accident. Her fall down the stairs? You went to her house that night. I know because you came to the gym afterward and mentioned you’d been there. Then you left town for two weeks. I’m guessing with a guilty conscience.”
“The only thing I feel guilty about was not acting on my suspicions that she was cheating on you. I could see it in her eyes, in the way she was always mentally somewhere else when she was next to you. I only felt guilty that I’d screwed up too much for you to take me seriously when I told you about my suspicions.”
“She never cheated on me.”
“Just because she was keeping you in limbo about the engagement doesn’t mean it wasn’t cheating.”
“We were broken up,” I growl. She stumbles back and grabs the porch rail, so I soften my voice when I say, “No one knew, but we were broken up.”
She blinks at me. “You deserve better than that.”
I wave away her objection, trying to get us back to the point at hand. “You’re telling me you went to confront Hanna and the same night she happened to fall down the stairs and get bruised up like someone was beating on her?”
“I’m telling you I’d never do anything like that, and you’re a fucking asshole for thinking I would.” She rolls her shoulders back and lifts her chin. “Now move aside. I want my daughter.”
She pushes past me and into the house, and I let her. What else can I do? Claire is her daughter, and I have no evidence that my accusation is true. I can’t quite wrap my mind around the idea of Meredith using her fists when she prefers words, dirty looks, and carefully crafted manipulations.
When I enter the house, she’s buckling Claire into the car seat.
“You all deserve each other. You deserve Hanna and she deserves her cheater asshole baby daddy.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means everyone knows he’s still screwing Vivian Payne. Everyone but Hanna. Hell, if she just looked at the magazines from the week she was in the hospital, she’d know what he was doing in London. But, hey, maybe none of you care about something as silly as fidelity.”
“Meredith,” I begin, but she avoids my eyes and pushes past me as she takes our daughter to her car. “Please stop,” I call.
She ignores me, climbing into the driver’s seat and pulling
away without a word.
The Day of Hanna’s Accident
HANNA’S CURVES slide under my soapy hands. Every sweet moan that passes her lips feels like my reward for the shitty parts of my life.
I step back to get a better look at her and the shower water changes to rain and we’re outside the club in St. Louis again, but she’s nude and there are cameras everywhere.
She mouths my name but no sound passes her lips. Those deep, dark eyes stare into my soul.
“I’m scared,” I say, my voice hoarse.
She nods sympathetically and shifts her gaze to someone standing behind me. Two women appear, and she’s in a wedding dress, crying tears I never meant to make her shed.
My phone rings and drags me from the convoluted dream. I force my eyes open and reach for it, but my hand connects with flesh instead of phone.
My head is pounding like a son of a bitch, but I force my eyes open.
The woman moans and curls into me.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I haven’t slept with a woman since I met Hanna. She walks away from me, avoids my calls for five days, and I’m waking up with some strange woman?
I spring out of bed and drag a hand over my face. My head doesn’t appreciate the sudden movement, and I have to catch my balance against the wall as I search my mind for answers.
The phone goes silent, thank Christ. I scan my mind for any remnants of memories from last night. I remember the concert. Then after, I found a pub and some tequila.
I was so fucking lonely.
I called Hanna and got her voicemail.
Stumbling across the room, I find my phone peeking out from under the nightstand on the opposite side of the bed. Seeing the notification light flash at me, I hit the button for my voicemail.
“Nate, this is Hanna.” She sounds exhausted. The clock tells me it’s noon here, which means it’s seven a.m. in Indiana. “I’m sorry I missed your call last night. You must have been out late.” Out and lonely as hell, thinking I’d lost her, wondering if I was being irrational. “Are you still coming to New Hope when you get back to the States? We need to talk, but I don’t want to do it on the phone. Okay. Just…call me when you can.”
