The next few days crawled past.
Max didn’t race home after Julia’s phone call. Mainly because he’d assured himself she was bluffing. When he finally strolled in hours later, he was alone in the suddenly too-big loft penthouse. Even then, though, he had told himself that it was for the best. He’d begun to care too much for her. Having her leave was the best thing that could have happened.
Besides, because of the legal papers she’d signed, he still had a claim on her and her child, which meant she wouldn’t be getting rid of him as easily as she’d supposed.
He left the apartment at dawn every day and stayed late at the office every night. He told himself it was because he was free to devote as much of his time to his work as he wanted. But the truth was, he hated the silence in his apartment. He hated that he could still hear the echoes of her laughter, her sighs, her soft whispers in the night. He hated that her clothes were still in the closet and just the act of his choosing a suit every morning meant he was assailed by her scent. He hated that he’d left the high heels she’d kicked off on her last day in the apartment right where they’d landed on the floor at her side of the bed.
And he really hated that he hated all of that.
He shouldn’t care.
Should be glad to have his own life back the way he wanted it.
He wasn’t, though, but he’d be damned if he’d go racing after her. He’d done the right thing by her. He’d married her, offered to take her child as his own. He’d protected her from a blackmailer, gotten her out of an apartment building that might not be safe, and all he’d asked in return was the truth.
She’d refused to give it to him, instead, clinging to her lie. It was a lie, wasn’t it?
“You’re thinking about her again.”
Max jolted out of his thoughts and shifted a hard look to Alex, sitting across the linen-draped table from him. Their weekly lunch was over, the servers had cleared the dishes, leaving only two steaming cups of black coffee behind. Max didn’t answer, just picked up his coffee and took a swallow, the hot liquid searing his esophagus.
“I did some checking,” Alex was saying, idly turning his coffee cup in its saucer, the china making a low singing scrape as it moved on itself.
“Into what?” Max set his cup down with a click of sound.
“Into Julia’s ex-boyfriend. You know he’s an attorney at my firm.”
Max scowled at him.
Alex ignored it. “Turns out, Julia and he were nothing more than good friends the last few months they were together. No sex. No chance that he’s the father of her baby.” Alex lifted his coffee cup to take a sip, but paused long enough to say, “Seems the only man she slept with was you.”
The tension in Max’s body tightened perceptibly, but he shrugged off Alex’s words. “Doesn’t matter what that guy says. Camille showed me the fertility reports.”
“Right.” Alex set his cup down, braced his forearms on the table and glared at Max. “In case you’ve forgotten, let me be the first to remind you that Camille was a bitch.”
Max sighed. “Agreed.”
“So why is it you’re willing to take Camille’s word over Julia’s for anything?”
“Good point.” Max took a breath, gritted his teeth and asked himself if he’d been a complete ass. He’d turned away from Julia, refusing to listen to her, believe her, because Camille had turned him inside out. What if his ex was the one lying to him? What if Julia was right and Camille had somehow forged the results of that test? What if he’d had everything he’d ever really wanted and let it slip through his fingers because he’d been too arrogant to admit he might have been wrong?
“Judging by the look in your eyes,” Alex mused, “I think you’ve just had an epiphany.”
“Maybe I have,” Max admitted, lifting one hand to signal the waiter.
“Never mind,” Alex told him. “I’ll get lunch.”
“Thanks.” He slid out of the leather booth. “I’ve got to check something out.”
“’Bout time.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Max shot his friend a tight smile as he felt the first stirrings of hope.
“Hey, before you go…”
Max looked at him.
“How about giving me Julia’s friend Amanda’s phone number?”
Max grinned. “Get your own girl. I’ve got problems of my own to worry about.”
“You’ve got to get out of the apartment,” Amanda said.
“I know, don’t worry.” Julia snuggled deeper into the armchair in Amanda’s living room. She hadn’t wanted to crash back at her old apartment with her best friend, but she’d had nowhere else to go when she left Max’s place. She certainly couldn’t go to her parents’. And she hadn’t wanted to be alone in an impersonal hotel room.
Amanda had been great, welcoming her back, staying up late every night to listen to Julia, torn between misery and fury, ramble on about Max. But she was right. Julia had to move out. She couldn’t stay here. She’d have to find her own place.
“I’ll see a Realtor tomorrow,” she said. “Promise. I’ll move out as soon as I can.”
“You dope,” Amanda said, dropping down onto the arm of the chair. “I didn’t mean you had to move out. I meant you had to get out. Walk outside. Get some air.”
“Oh.” Feeling like an idiot, Julia smiled up at her friend. “You’ve been so nice, Amanda. Letting me stay. Letting me rant.”
“What’s a best friend for?” The tall, pretty blonde smiled. “But, Jules, honey, you’ve been locked away inside the apartment for four days. That’s not healthy. Your skin’s already pale. Much more sunlight deprivation, you’re going to fade away completely.”
“I just don’t feel like seeing anybody,” Julia said quietly, looking around the familiar and yet different apartment. Amanda had put her own stamp on the place in just a week or so. There were feminine touches everywhere. “I feel like I want to crawl into a hole and pull the hole in after me.”
“Shame on you.”
“What?” She looked up into Amanda’s steady gray eyes.
“You’re hiding, honey. And you didn’t do anything wrong.” She paused to scowl a little. “Well, except for falling in love with a man who clearly doesn’t deserve you.”
“I’m not hiding, I’m…regrouping.” Just until she got over Max. Shouldn’t take her more than ten or twenty years.
Reaching out, Amanda patted her hand. “You know you’re welcome to stay here however long you want.”
“Thanks.”
“But…”
“What?”
Amanda gave her a sad smile. “The truth is, you’ll never be happy without Max. You’re a one-man woman, sweetie, and he’s yours.”
When Amanda got up and walked to the kitchen, Julia sighed and fought the sting of tears in her eyes. Amanda was wrong. She had to be. Because Max didn’t want her and Julia really didn’t want to spend the rest of her life miserable.
“I need to see my test results,” Max demanded, leaning against the edge of the doctor’s desk. The office was cluttered, the air was cool and the older man smiling up at him seemed completely unperturbed by Max’s presence.
“Of course, Mr. Rolland. There was really no need to bully my secretary.”
“I’m in a hurry.” God, was he in a hurry. If he was right and Camille had lied to him, he had a hell of a lot to make up for.
The doctor walked to a bank of file cabinets, opened one and flipped through the files until he found the one he wanted. Pulling it free, he handed it over. “As you’ll see, the results are just as I told you two years ago.”
Max stopped listening. There was a roaring in his ears as his blood rushed and pumped in a fury. He stared down at the test results and felt rage and relief tangle so tightly in his chest he could hardly draw a breath.
He wasn’t infertile.
Camille had lied.
Julia was telling the truth.
And he was the biggest damn fool in the city.
Lifting his gaze to the doctor, he handed the file back, muttered, “Thank you,” and left.
He hit the crowded Manhattan street and came to a dead stop as his brain raced. The summer sun beat down on the city and the humidity was so high a man could sweat to death standing still. But Max felt cold to the bone.
He’d had a chance at something real. Something lasting, with Julia and his child.
His child.
He closed his eyes, shook his head and cursed himself for being so stubborn, so arrogant. As pedestrians bumped into him as they passed, he remembered every moment he’d had with Julia. The ups, the downs, the lovemaking, the laughter and arguments, and he knew, with a certainty that reverberated in his soul, that she was the only woman in the world for him.
Now he had to find a way to convince her that he was a changed man. That he loved her. Opening his eyes, he stalked down the sidewalk like a man possessed and people scrambled to get out of his way.
When the doorbell rang, Amanda went to answer it. Max wasn’t sure what her response to him would be, but it only took a second for her to grin at him. Well, why wouldn’t she? He was standing in the hallway, holding a bouquet of flowers as big as a small child and no doubt had a haunted expression on his face.
“Who is it?” Julia shouted in the distance and Max’s gaze shot in that direction.
“It’s for you,” Amanda called back, reaching out to grab her purse and sling it over her shoulder. “I’m running out for a latte. Be back in a bit.” When she stepped past Max, she paused long enough to whisper, “Good luck.”
He’d need it. Max closed the door after her and stood where he was until Julia walked into the room. One look at her and everything in him shifted, eased, as if an unseen chain around his heart and lungs had been released. She was more beautiful than ever, though her eyes looked wounded and wary. If he could have, he would have kicked his own ass for putting those emotions in her beautiful eyes, and he wondered if it was too late for him to fix this. But she hadn’t turned away from him. Hadn’t left the room. Surely that meant something.
“Julia…” He took a step and she moved backward.
“What do you want, Max?” She twisted her hands in front of her waist.
“You,” he said simply. “I want you. Tell me I’m not too late. Tell me you still love me.”
Her blue eyes widened and surprise flickered in their depths, overshadowing the pain. When she didn’t speak, didn’t back farther away, Max walked closer, moving slowly, cautiously. He’d made his fortune by knowing which move to make when. What to say and who to say it to. Now, though, when he needed that instinctive sense of rightness, it had deserted him.
This was too important to screw up.
This conversation would set the course of his life. So he started at the top.
“I was wrong, Julia. So wrong about so many things. I should have believed you. Believed in you.” In the reflected sunlight, he saw a sheen of tears on her eyes and it nearly killed him. “I’m so sorry, Julia. For everything.”
Still she didn’t speak and a panic like he’d never known before jolted him so hard he almost hit his knees. God, what he’d come to! He laughed shortly and the sound was a raw scrape of pain. “I never apologize. Ask anyone. So I’m not very good at it, but I’m trying, because you’re too important to me.”
“Since when?” she asked, her voice a hush of sound almost lost in the silent room. “Since when am I important to you, Max?”
“You always have been,” he said, glancing at the flowers in his hands and wondering why he’d been stupid enough to think they would sway her. Tossing them onto the closest chair, he took another step toward her. Toward salvation. “From that first night. The first time I saw you. Touched you. I knew it. On a bone-deep level, I knew that you were the one for me. I just couldn’t bring myself to admit it, I guess.”
“Until now?” She shook her head and her soft blond hair moved over her shoulders like a caress. “Why now, Max?”
He told her everything. About Camille’s lies. About the truth in the fertility reports. “You’re carrying my baby, Julia, and I should have believed you. I’ll never be able to make that up to you, I know. But I want to be with you. Want to love you. And our baby.”
She moved to the side, inching a bit farther out of his reach and shook her head again. Her eyes gleamed at him like shards of broken turquoise. “I’d like to believe you, Max, you don’t know how much. But I know now I’ll never be satisfied being with you just because of our baby. I want your heart, Max. I want it all. Or I want nothing.”
“You have it,” he said, moving so fast, it surprised even him. He took hold of her shoulders, pulled her close to him and looked down into the blue eyes that had haunted him from the moment he’d first seen them. “You have my love. You have me. I’m no damn prize, Julia. I know that. But I guarantee you no man will ever love you as much as I do.”
A single tear escaped her right eye and disappeared into the soft blond hair at her temple. “Max…”
“Julia,” he said softly, stroking her face, her hair, “there’s only one person in the world who could bring Max Rolland to his knees. The woman I love.”
“What?”
Keeping his gaze locked with hers, Max dropped to one knee in front of her. Picking up her left hand, he kissed the wedding ring he’d placed on her finger only days before, then looked up into her shining eyes.
“Give me another chance, Julia. Let me love you as you should be loved. Let me be a part of your life. Let me help you raise our children.” His thumb smoothed over her knuckles. “Let me inside you, Julia. And never let me go.”
She bit her bottom lip as tears began to rain down her face. Then she laughed a little and Max took his first easy breath in days. She hadn’t turned her back on him. She was smiling at him.
“Get up, Max.”
He did, and taking those tears and her smile to heart, he pulled her against him again, relishing the warm softness of her. The strength in her. She was everything he’d always wanted and so much more.
She was, quite simply, everything.
“Will you come home with me?” he asked, kissing her forehead, her cheeks. “Now?”
“Answer one question first,” she said, pulling back to look up at him.
Uneasiness whipped through him, then dissolved as he saw the gleam of happiness in her eyes. “Anything.”
Her hand cupped his cheek. “You said you wanted me to let you help raise our children. How many did you have in mind?”
He laughed for the first time in what felt like forever and peace showered down on him like a warm summer rain. Holding on to her as if it meant his life, he whispered, “As many as we want, my love. As many as we want.”
Then he kissed her and felt his life, his world, come right again.