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. “We are sitting 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 ass**le 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.
“The bastard raped you, didn’t he? He should have gone back to jail.” Max turned back to her, his arms dropping to his side, his face filled with rage, his fists clenching and releasing. “Death is too good for a bastard like him.”
Mia could feel Max’s entire body vibrating with anger, but she realized that he wasn’t angry with her. She held out her arms to him, and Max strode toward her, scooping her off the sofa and settling down with her on his lap, his arms tight around her. He hated Danny. And he trusted her, knew she hadn’t betrayed him willingly.
“He violated me. He didn’t rape me. He wanted me to suck him off...and I did. You were almost on the plane. You just needed a few more minutes. I didn’t care, Max. I would have done anything he wanted right at the moment, as long as he didn’t hurt you,” she told him desperately.
“Fuck! I would rather the bastard had killed me than to force you to do that…” Max’s voice trailed off, his face blanching, his expression slowly changing to one of realization. “The night you recovered your memory, in the shower…?”
“I still have nightmares about him. I was dreaming about it, and I woke up with my memory returning. I wanted to replace the bad memories with good ones. And I did,” she confessed.
“Shit. That had to be hard. You didn’t have to—”
“I wanted to. I wanted to so very badly. And it was hard. But it wasn’t difficult,” she said with a tremulous smile, trying to dispel some of the remorse she could see on his handsome face. “I’ve always wanted to, but you never seemed to want that, so I stopped trying.”
“Oh, baby…I wanted it. I wanted your sweet mouth on me so badly that I knew if it happened, I wouldn’t be able to stay controlled,” Max told her bluntly.
“It was good,” she told him with a tiny smile. “It will keep the nightmares away.”
“I’ll keep the nightmares away. You’ll never have bad dreams again. I’ll replace every moment of sorrow you’ve had with happiness. I swear I will,” he said fiercely, though his expression lightened.