How does he have an answer for everything?
“Fine, you’re nice to your staff,” I reply flippantly, flinging my hands out wide in surrender. “But that doesn’t change the fact that you and I want different things. I want to do less. You want to do more. I want to go slow. You want to go fast. We’ve been living in a fantasy this summer. An alternate reality. Everly will go back to her mom’s soon and you’ll be consumed with your merger. This coach is turning back into a pumpkin. I’m not going to be what you want when your life goes back to normal.”
“Don’t tell me what I want,” Max bites, his jaw muscle ticking angrily. “It’s taken me years to even want to try something with someone again, Cozy. That fucking means something.”
“But it doesn’t change the fact that we want different things,” I cry, knowing I have to be firm on this because Max is a man who gets what he wants. I let him steamroll me once into going on that date in Aspen, and then I got lost in him. Lost in us, in our connection, in our passion. In the incredible, mind-altering sex and the way he looks at me in the mornings when I leave his bedroom. I got lost in the fantasy that I could be a part of him and Everly…have an instant family.
But the truth is, Max will always be a CEO, and that kind of lifestyle will always put me on edge. I don’t want to be near that life again. I have to be strong to protect my mental health. There is no reality where Max Fletcher and Cassandra Barlow work.
Max tilts his head and eyes me harshly. “Do you even trust yourself to know what you want, Cassandra?”
“What the hell does that mean?” I snap petulantly, feeling tiny pricks of discomfort all over my body.
He steps closer to me, his nostrils flaring like an animal getting ready to attack. “I think you’re making excuses not because we want different things but because you’re scared.” His voice cracks, and he sniffs loudly, his face twisting with pain that I feel in my gut. “You’re scared because my life slightly resembles the thing that almost killed you, so you think you’re going down a path that will leave you broken again. But at some point, you have to admit to yourself that your willy-nilly lifestyle isn’t protecting you from anything. The real world will still be out there when you finally admit the truth you refuse to see.”
“What truth?” I whisper, my throat tight with pain at the way his eyes are locked on mine so intently. I inch closer to him, desperate for the next words that will come out of his mouth. His gaze dips to my lips and then rakes over my face, taking in every tiny millimeter of my features like he’s committing them to memory.
His voice is guttural when he answers, “That the only reason you do less is because you’re afraid to want more.”
His words pop our bubble of tension where we were suspended from time and space. They poke a deep bruise inside me that I didn’t even know existed as I’m thrust back to reality. I pull back and my vision blurs as my eyes well with tears.
His words assault every part of me that I’ve been proud of the past seven and a half months. He thinks I’m afraid to want more? Then he doesn’t understand me at all. I don’t live this way because of fear. I live this way to survive. He doesn’t get it because he’s still in that world that I left behind. Which is why I can’t be with him. I don’t want a front row ticket to that life.
I suck my cheeks in and shake my head, ignoring the tears falling down my face. “Even if everything you said is true, Max, it doesn’t change the fact that Jenson will be your partner soon, and I can’t be anywhere near him ever again.”
“Well, give me a damn minute to figure that part out, okay?” he bites, his eyes glowering at me as he steps back and begins pacing in front of me. “I just found out tonight that I’m going into business with the man who almost killed the woman I love, so I need some time to figure out what the fuck I can do to fix that.”
“Love?” I gasp, my entire body erupting in goose bumps at the word that just tumbled out of his mouth. He couldn’t have meant that. It was a slip of the tongue for sure. My head jerks as I stutter, “You don’t mean that.”
He stops pacing and pushes a hand through his hair as graveness casts over his features. “Shit, Cozy…it has to be obvious. I practically assaulted the asshole for you tonight.”
Panic sets in over my whole body at how quickly this all escalated. How did I go from taking a summer job as a nanny for a rich guy to standing in his driveway, hearing him confess his love to me?