Max guessed that was the main difference between him and his father. Although he enjoyed the finer things, he generally wanted what he had. Finally, he understood that he wasn’t going to turn into the man that his father was because he was already so different. He wouldn’t turn into an abusive asshole because he didn’t want to be. Unlike his father, he was actually capable of loving someone without hurting them.
His father had never appreciated what he’d had with Max’s mother. He’d always treated her like such an albatross around his neck that maybe he wondered if he really hated her and had only stayed out of obligation. But Max didn’t really know anything about how his father’s mind worked. For so long, he’d been afraid that they were the same, it was only after letting Letty in a little bit that he’d discovered that he lost his temper in order to protect someone, not drive them into the ground. That he’d give her up before making her unhappy.
The office was small in personnel, just his dad and an assistant, but it sprawled a whole floor. Max nodded at his father’s secretary but didn’t hesitate in heading into the office. His father looked up, seemingly surprised to see him.
“What are you doing here?”
Wanting to spend as little time here as possible, Max dropped the envelope on his desk. “This is an offer from Hector Hernandez to buy the business.”
His father pushed the envelope away and crossed his arms over his chest. Pride was definitely going to get in the way here. “Why would you bring that to me?”
“Because you’re bleeding money, and—for once—I want to be the one to see you bleed.” Max hated his father. Would he ever be able to let it go? Maybe, but not today. “You’ve done enough damage to this family, and if you take this offer, pay Mom a healthy divorce settlement, and leave, all that damage will stop.”
His father sniffed, disdain evident from his sneer. “I have done nothing to damage this family. If it hadn’t been for me, your mother would be dead or lying in a gutter somewhere.”
“If you hadn’t treated her like shit, she never would have started with the drugs.” Max didn’t exactly know that, but it was possible. “The only reason I’m glad you two formed your unholy union is that my brother and sister are here.”
“Is this about that girl?” Max clenched a fist, not wanting Letty’s name in his father’s mouth.
“That’s none of your business.”
“It seems that it is if you’re going to try to destroy mine.”
“I’m not destroying anything.” Max took a deep breath and leaned over his father’s desk. For once in his life, he felt as though he was the one wielding the power, and it felt good. In front of him, his father looked small. Almost as though he’d been shrunken through his own treatment of the people he had once professed to love. All of the nasty things Max had ever thought about his father were on the tip of his tongue, poised to make a killing blow. But something stopped him. “You destroyed your own life—your family, your business, everything. And now I’m giving you a way out.”
His father smirked and leaned back in his chair. Max remembered that look on his father’s face; he’d often worn it right before smacking him or Joaquin or saying something particularly cutting to his wife. Max had to fight his impulse to back down or brace for impact. “I didn’t destroy anything.”
“Stop lying.” Max chuffed, shaking off his childhood. “Abuelo told us everything, and now we’re being generous and giving you a way out.”
“Where would I even go?”
Silence stretched out, and Max clenched his jaw. His father’s chair creaked and the air conditioning kicked on in the office. He could feel his temper flaring, and he knew that’s what the man across from him wanted. For the second time in his life, he refused to play into his father’s hands.
“I don’t care.”
He walked out of this father’s office, gratified to see him pick up the manila folder. Alejandro Delgado might be a miserable bastard, but he wasn’t dumb enough to turn down a deal too good to refuse.
Chapter 20
Elena had always complained about how uncomfortable photo shoots were, and Letty had always thought her sister was full of shit. Until now.
Her lower back ached from arching at the barked instructions of the photographer, and she was beginning to suspect that they turned the air conditioning on extra high so the photos would have a touch of nipple. The camera was sure to pick up the motion of her shivering, so she wasn’t sure that the hard nipples were going to prove worth it.
That morning, she’d shown up and been whisked off to hair and make-up. She didn’t even look like herself, which was probably the only thing that saved her from having a panic attack at being a few scraps of fabric from naked on camera. But part of her knew that something inside of her had changed while she was with Max.
She now thought of herself as beautiful and valued herself as such. She didn’t need the approval of the light guys, the photographer, her mother, even the client. Even though she’d likely gotten this job because of her sister’s reputation, she didn’t even need her. Regardless of her pant size, she owned her beauty.
No matter what Max had been planning on taking from her, he’d given her ownership over her own beauty, and he couldn’t take it back now that they were apart. This photo shoot did not feel anything like posing for Max had. The lights made her sweat until the mascara and eyeliner and glue from the fake lashes made her eyes sting and tear. Her lower back and armpits were wet, but the places that Max had touched that day were as dry as the Sahara.
The photographer barked out orders and was clearly unmoved by her in any sexual capacity. It was just as well. She wasn’t sure if she could imagine anyone but Max touching her. She didn’t want to think about him, but his callused, reverent touch was the only one she wanted. No doubt in her mind, she’d been more than halfway in love with him. She’d been all the way there.
“Just like that.”
She’d drifted off into her own world of thinking about Max and needed clarification on the photographer’s instruction. “Just like what?”
“That thing you just did with your face, like someone just kicked a puppy.” A few clicks and whirrs from the camera, and then the light shifted directly into her eyes. “That’s the look the client wants.”
Letty’s curiosity was going to kill her at this point, so she asked for the thousandth time, “Who is this sick client who wants pictures of a sad chick in a bathing suit?”
Her question must have taken him off guard, because he put the camera down to his side and smirked. “You don’t look sad, honey. You look lovelorn, and it’s going to sell the hell out of that bikini.”
Her mother was going to flip. Having her “fat” daughter in a magazine that all her friends read was going to make her absolutely nuts, and it didn’t make Letty anxious at all. She was being paid to do this, and she would figure the rest out. She didn’t need her parents’ approval anymore.
The rest of the shoot went by in a blur. After about fourteen hours, she was on her way to Elena’s still caked in makeup, but surprisingly without regrets. The humid breeze floated through her car windows, cooling her skin and lifting her hair as she drove on I-95. Every so often music floated in or car horns, and it was all soothing, like coming home. A smile curled her mouth for the first time in days.
Sure, her heart was bleeding because she missed Max. But that wouldn’t be the case forever. She’d survived Simon, and she would survive this. Wouldn’t she?
By the time she arrived back at her sister’s condo, her mood was all over the place. Filled with conflict. If she could feel this good without Max, maybe she hadn’t loved him. After Simon, she’d buckled down to work. After Max, she felt free. Maybe the next guy would be the guy for her, the one who could hold her heart and keep it safe. But just thinking about a next guy made that organ ache.
She knew then that she belonged
to Max for good. No matter what she told herself, she couldn’t think about getting involved with someone else right now, which had to mean something.
As soon as she turned the corner and saw Max lounging up against the wall, stroking his beard with his head down, she knew that she’d been kidding herself. His soft, button-down shirt was open at the neck, his enticing chest hair making its way out. The way the fabric molded itself to his biceps and chest was sexier than him naked. And his pants—she couldn’t even get into that.
Like he’d sensed her enter the hallway, he looked up at her. His gaze was just as searing as it had been that first day and she was shaking all over inside. A thousand different hopes swirled around in her mind—that he was here to beg for her forgiveness and tell her that he loved her the chief among them.
She couldn’t stop her feet from walking toward him. The need to smell him again, touch him again, kiss him again was almost overwhelming. Her rational mind wanted to tell him to get the fuck out of her sister’s hallway and get the fuck out of her life, but she couldn’t do it. Couldn’t pull the trigger.
“What are you doing here?” Despite wanting to seem cool, his words had some awe in them. She was in awe of the way he made her feel just standing there.
He wet his lower lip with the tip of his tongue, and she couldn’t help thinking of that tongue and what it could do to her body. At this point, she needed to demand words from him. He still owed her an explanation.
“Did you think I would just let you walk away and let that be that?”
“Yes.” He’d told her himself that he had never tried to have a relationship, and that if she ever walked away from him that they were done. And she’d walked away.
He pushed himself off the wall and took a step toward her. She moved backwards, knowing that she wouldn’t have the strength to deny him if she let him touch her. “Letty, I was humiliated that you had to find out that my dad cut me off, that I was still dependent on my parents’ help. And I knew that would push a whole lot of buttons for you.”
And she’d been afraid of having to go to her parents and beg them to bail her out. Both of them had thought they were the simple answer to each other’s problems. Instead, they were both a bucket of problems for the other one.
“You have to know that I would never use you for money.”
“Instead, you would have used me for my connections.” She threw up a hand when he took another step forward, and he obeyed her silent command. “That was just a detour to get where you really wanted, to be a famous artist so you could throw it in your father’s face.”
“That’s not true.”
“Then, why didn’t you start getting serious before I showed up?”
“Because I need you.” His words were laced with the same kind of greed he’d shown her in bed, and she craved it. So much that it took her breath away. “I needed you in my life, in my world, before I could make anything that anyone would want to see.”
“I don’t want to believe this is all a load of shit.”
He reached out and grabbed the wrist of her still-outstretched hand. Craving his touch so much she ached with it, she let him.
“I’ve wanted you since the moment you walked into my studio. The way you all but told me to go fuck myself, got to me right here.” He pressed her hand into the center of his chest, and she couldn’t help but curl her fingertips into the hair there, torn between ripping it out to make him feel the pain that he’d put her through and petting him. “And I fucked up by not defending you when my father said those things. He’d cut me off, and I knew I couldn’t support you the way I wanted to—the way I need to.”
“Which was stupid—”
“It was stupid. Everything I did with you was stupid from that very first day to the night at the gala. I allowed my temper and my pride to push you away.”
“To be honest, I was more upset with myself. For falling for someone so easily. It all felt too easy.”
He brushed her hair behind her ear, and she shivered with anticipation. She knew she had to wait for the rest of his explanation even though she wanted to throw herself into his arms and kiss the hell out of him. “I know. I couldn’t see past my own family bullshit to know how to take care of your heart. I just didn’t want to hurt you more.”
“Nothing hurt more than you helping me believe that I’m beautiful and then walking away.” That hurt to admit. She’d never wanted to see herself as shallow, but that’s the world view she grew up with. Accepting that she was the fat sister and believing that no one would ever desire her was just an extension of how her mother saw the world. And even as Max had been awakening all sorts of new feelings and confidence in her, she’d still been afraid.
She’d had to walk away from him—to know she would walk away from him and still feel whole—in order to truly believe that she was good enough for him to love. If he hadn’t lied to her and she hadn’t walked away, maybe she would have questioned it for the rest of her life.
But, in this moment, a question was all she was. Her pulse thrummed with needing to know what he was doing here, what he would say, how she should react. Because the only thing that seemed sure was that she wanted to forgive him, wanted him to live up to everything he was in her head.
He bit his lower lip this time and arched one brow, and all the questions frittered away until she could only feel the heat he stoked at her core.
“I didn’t want to be away from you for even a day.”
“It’s been almost a month.” Twenty-seven days by her count.
“I had to figure some things out first, work some things out with my family.”
“Have you figured it out?” The idea that he’d had to deal with the man who abused him so that she wouldn’t think he was with her for her family’s fortune ate at her.
But he shook his head. “I needed to work some things out with my real family—my siblings, Grandma Lola, Rogelio.”
“Your mother?” Even though his mother had displayed some extremely poor judgment, Letty hoped that Max was at least willing to try to let her back in.
“Yes. She’s not going back to my father, not anymore.”
“Tell me everything.”
“Maybe we can go inside first.”
Her hands shook as she pulled out the key to her sister’s door. Elena would be gone for several more days, so she and Max could talk. Just talk, right now.
He took the keys from her shaking hands, and her body said, “Just talk, yeah right.” The energy between them was still so electric, so magnetic that she marveled at the fact that she resisted him for so long. Weeks and weeks she didn’t touch him, didn’t feel his hands and mouth on every inch of her skin. She’d missed out on worlds of pleasure in this man’s arms, and maybe—maybe—she could survive a few minutes more.
She caught a whiff of his scent—beard oil and a little bit of dried sweat that would be unappealing on anyone else. It was like the finest cologne on Max. Once inside her sister’s apartment, she went into the kitchen. “Can I get you anything to drink?”
Max gave her a pointed look and tugged her by the arm to sit on the sofa, the tiny sofa that barely had enough space for two small women. Their thighs brushed and pressed against each other with every, single breath. Her nerve endings were singed by the casual contact. She was a live wire now, like the power had finally been turned back on in her body.
“I went to my cousin Javi and his father with a business proposal.” He braced his hands on his spread knees, and she put one of hers on him for support. She wanted him to win. “They bought out my father from the business. They bought the whole thing and paid all of us out.”
“How did you convince your father to accept the deal?”
“I told him the truth.” Max’s pinky curled over her thumb. “I told him that he wasn’t going to get any of us back by using money—his business wasn’t the succe
ss it had been without my mother. And I told him he could disappear, and we would make everything look good. He always only cared about everything looking good.”
“And you don’t.” Not a question. Max didn’t care about how anything looked. The man she loved didn’t see what her family had always seen when they looked at her. He saw beauty, and he had somehow convinced her to see herself the same way.
“I care about how things look.” He grasped her thigh, likely knowing she would be ready to run away after that. “I care about the look of your flushed cheeks after I’ve made you come, the way your hair spills over my pillows, and the way you look at me when you first wake up.”
“Those are all good things to care about.”
“I’m not done.” He turned to face her, and she followed suit. They looked each other in the eyes, and their bodies held the same tension—like a rubber band stretched to its limit, about to break or spring back together. “I’m getting some money out of the deal, Javi’s loaning me some of the money that I would have eventually inherited until I get paid from the exhibition.”
“That’s good.” Letty’s mind raced with everything they would need to do to get ready.
“And my gallery is putting up my work at Art Basel.” The bottom sunk out of her stomach. This conversation was like a rollercoaster of emotions, and she couldn’t decide whether she wanted to stay on or get off. “Simon’s not in charge anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“I told my father that he had to get rid of him—as his last act as a board member.”
Letty was shocked. “You made him give up his business and his board seat?”
“Yes.” He took both of her hands in his. “I learned something about my father after the night you left me. I learned that I am nothing like him, never have been.”
“How did you learn this?”
“My father is a coward. He only kept my mother under his thumb, only abused us because he couldn’t hold his own against people his own size. Now that my siblings and I are grown-ups, now that my mother is sober, he felt his power slipping away. And he struck out at the only people who he could reach anymore—me and my mother—in order to hold onto the power he was losing.”
Night and Day Page 18
