It’s only a blessed half hour before things start breaking up. A nanny comes to take the twins upstairs. The staff clear away the remnants of our last course and everyone starts collecting their coats and saying their goodbyes.
Wallace is sliding my coat onto my shoulders when Maxim walks over. He just stands there. I sense him, even though I don’t look up from my Stuart Weitzman pumps. The silence encompasses the three of us, wrapping around and restraining me like barbed wire biting into my flesh.
“Can I have a word before you go, Lennix?” Maxim finally asks, his voice subdued.
A word. He means to bundle me off to Owen’s office or to the library. He’ll whittle my resistance down to a nub. He’ll make me forget he lied and that I shouldn’t allow him within ten paces of my body or heart. He wants to remind me how he feels and smells and tastes. He used to camouflage the wolf, but not anymore. He’s tamed his hair, cut the burnished waves that used to nearly kiss his shoulders, but his spirit is still wild, howling on some frequency I shouldn’t be tuned into, but I am. He’s now completely wolf and unashamedly Cade. He’s still the rebel, and I’m afraid I’m no more able to resist him than I was in that conference room a decade ago.
Afraid. I’m afraid. That’s an emotion I hadn’t allowed myself to acknowledge in this scenario with Maxim. Is this self-awareness? My therapist will be so proud.
Without lifting my head, I answer before I turn to leave. “No.”
40
Maxim
Last night did not go well.
I’m not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t for Lennix to bring a damn date. Not just a date, but a relationship apparently. One where they go on service projects and build wells together, and generally make the world a better place. I grudgingly admit Wallace Murrow is not a bad guy. Not at all. I made sure of that when they dated before, but they’re back together? In the decade we’ve been apart, I took heart in the fact that Nix never dated any one guy for long. Wallace was the longest relationship I knew about, and for her to go back to him?
I stepped back before. The wounds were fresh. Her anger still burned hot and she’d ignored every attempt I made to contact her. Not to mention I was in the fight of my life trying to save my company, but a lot of time has passed. We’re both in different places now, and I’m done waiting.
I’m not sure how serious she and Murrow are, and . . . this makes no sense, but I don’t know if I buy it. There’s something missing with them. I’d never felt anything like the hot, addictive urgency that surged between Lennix and me, and I haven’t experienced it since. I guess I wanted to believe she hadn’t either. Maybe that is just the arrogant part of me—which I freely admit is a good portion of my personality. Whatever I expected, it bothers me that she isn’t available.
How’d Grim miss that? His security firm was one of the smartest investments I ever made. It pays dividends that have nothing to do with profit. Information is often just as valuable, and Grim deals information like a king pen.
After the last argument with my father, I continued seeking answers on climate change, but also turned my attention to doing what Cades do best: building a fortune. What really exploded the coffers was innovation. Finding inventors interested in creating the things we use every day more sustainably. Not just sports bras and clothing, but tiny parts in electric cars that I now hold a patent on to make that entire industry more efficient.
Grim has, through the years, kept loose tabs on Lennix for me. That wasn’t hard. Her star in the political world rose steadily and spectacularly, which didn’t surprise me at all.
What do I want from Lennix? To know if my memory tricked me, and she wasn’t as fantastic as I remember? Do I need that reassurance to move forward? I can’t call this love, the near-obsessive burn in my gut when I think of her, when I saw her last night. She was a candle lit and extinguished too quickly, but the smoke of what we had has endured, lingering in the air all these years.
I wouldn’t call it love, but it’s something I’ve never found elsewhere, and I need to know if I could have it again.
If I could have her again.
I’m not famous, generally speaking. There are no squealing girls or awestruck fans when I venture out, but in certain circles I’m well-known. DC would be one of those circles, especially with my brother rising the way he has. I pull the brim of my Astros cap a little lower and adjust my sunglasses. When I enter the Royal, the LeDetroit Park coffee shop where, according to my sources, Lennix has breakfast each morning, I don’t cause even a ripple of interest.
She’s seated at the table tucked into a back corner. Sunlight shines golden on her high cheekbones. She’s reading, her dark brows bunched, and she chews on her bottom lip. I stand there for a second watching her. It feels good to simply be able to look at her again. She reaches for the steaming teacup beside her and takes a sip.
“Morning,” I say.
“Shit.” She startles, hissing at the burn and tugging her bottom lip. She sets down her steaming cup of tea and aims a look caffeinated with impatience up at me. “Good morning. Too much to hope this is a coincidence?”
I crook a half-grin and nod to the empty seat across from her. “Can I sit?”
“I mean, you went to all this trouble to find me.”
I sit and lay my sunglasses and hat on the table. “Not too much to figure out since you eat breakfast here every day.”
“It’s creepy that you know that.”
“One man’s creepy is another man’s determination.”
“A new business venture for you. Inspirational quotes for stalkers.” She pushes away the untouched croissant in front of her. “Print that over an ocean scene. It’ll be gorgeous on the wall of some peeping tom.”
“Nice one.” I chuckle and sink lower into the seat. “This could have been avoided if you’d just talked to me last night.”
She glances up from under a sweep of midnight lashes, but slides her gaze away, out the window to the people passing by. There was a time when this woman’s body begged for mine, and now she’ll barely look at me.
“I didn’t think we had anything to discuss,” she says, eyes still trained outside, voice pitched to a level of indifference. “I’m assuming Owen told you my conditions for accepting the job.”
“You mean that Kimba is my handler?” I infuse some amusement into the words, but I didn’t find it funny when Owen told me. I still don’t.
“Your contact.” She looks at me directly. “It’s not unusual for us to divide responsibilities.”
“Is it unusual to have slept with your clients?”
Her eyes and mouth pinch at the corners. That’s what I wanted—the fire I know is there, not these cold ashes she’s giving me.
“This is exactly why I didn’t think we should work together,” she says.
“Because you’re scared? Or would Wally not like it?”
“I’m not scared, and it’s Wallace. Please stay out of my relationship.”
“Your relationship.” I stretch the word out as if examining it syllable by syllable. “So when did you and Wallace start seeing each other?”