LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER NINE

      MAX HAD BARELY said a word to her the next morning, other than to insist they return to London. He had work to do and plans to finalise for Angelina’s party, but she knew it was what she’d said. Why had she spoilt what could have been a perfect few days with those three words that Max couldn’t say, much less be told?

      She’d spent the day resting while Max worked, and as the afternoon had darkened into evening a light dusting of snow had fallen over London. She’d stood by the expanse of floor-to-ceiling windows and looked out over the city as the flakes had twisted downward in a crazy dance, feeling ever more confined, ever more trapped. Finally she couldn’t tolerate it any longer, desperate to slip away for just a short time from the confines of Max’s apartment, from the brooding silence that emanated from him louder than any thunderstorm.

      She crossed the polished wooden floor of the living space toward Max’s study. The desk lamp shone a bright circle of white light over the desk and onto Max. He hadn’t noticed her and she used her brief advantage, taking in the dark hair, now reverted to its natural dark unruly curls. He sighed, dropped his pen onto the papers he’d been poring over and pushed his fingers roughly through those dark curls and her own tingled as she remembered doing the same at the cottage.

      A dart of pain shot through her heart at the memory of the last time she’d looked into this room, of the papers he’d refused to sign to acknowledge the divorce she’d filed for the day of their first anniversary, unknowingly carrying his child. They seemed to be back at the beginning again, but she loved this man and after their special night together she knew she could never love anyone else. But her love wasn’t enough and when she walked out of his life at the end of the year she knew that no other man could ever replace him, that she would be bringing up their child alone. That thought saddened her, not just for their son or daughter, but because something haunted Max, stopped him from caring, from loving. It hurt like hell to know that she hadn’t been able to change that, to reach him.

      ‘I’m going out for a walk.’ That got his attention. He looked up from his desk as she stood in the doorway, not trusting herself to get closer as the need to stand behind him and wrap herself around his shoulders in a loving embrace surged forward.

      ‘It’s snowing.’ The sharpness of his retort only fired the anger within her, but he hadn’t taken his gaze from her. She could feel it burning into her.

      ‘I’m not asking you to come, just telling you I’m going.’ Instantly she became defensive. It was her default protection mode and right now she needed it more than ever. She needed to protect her heart.

      Without another word she turned and left him to his brooding, grabbing her coat as her defensive barrier folded around her, around her heart. He might have a penthouse apartment with views of the Thames, but she needed fresh air and freedom. Was he this controlling with Angelina? As that thought settled in her mind like the tiny flakes of snow drifting in the air, trying hard to be something more than the light dusting of sparkly white on the ground, she burst out of the tall and commanding apartment block he called home and took in a big lungful of cold air.

      ‘Damn you, Lisa, I haven’t got time for this.’ Max’s curse sounded behind her and she turned to see him, buttoning up his coat as he walked toward her, looking anything other than happy to be out in the cold winter evening.

      ‘Then don’t,’ she retorted hotly, adamant this was one thing she was going to get her way with. ‘I grew up in London. I’ll be fine.’

      ‘I am not about to allow my pregnant wife to walk around alone in this weather. In the dark. What kind of husband do you think I am?’

      ‘One who doesn’t love his wife.’ She threw the accusation back at him so quickly she didn’t even have time to think it through first.

      She didn’t wait for a reply and began to walk along the embankment pathway, the trees twinkling with lights and the glow of lights from the city reflected in the water. Beneath her boots the snow was slippery and in her haste she briefly lost her footing and slid but quickly regained her balance.

      Max was beside her in an instant, taking hold of her arm. ‘I suggest you slow down if you must continue with this madness.’

      She walked a few more steps and stopped, looking from the white pathway as it sparkled under the lamplight to Max. ‘And what would that madness be? Taking a walk in my condition?’

      He spoke over her before she had a chance to finish. ‘Of course it would.’

      ‘Or is that madness loving you?’ The words came hurtling out, dragging out all her pain on a cold breath, which seemed to linger in the air between them, waiting for an answer.

      ‘I have told you, Lisa, I can’t love. It’s not you, it’s me.’

      ‘Oh, isn’t that the perfect excuse? One every man who doesn’t want to be with a woman uses.’ Anger sizzled in every word.

      ‘It’s not an excuse,’ he said wearily. ‘It’s the truth.’

      ‘The truth?’ she fumed. Did he even know what that was?

      He moved closer to her, his height towering over her, dominating everything. ‘I don’t want to be the man my father was. I don’t want to risk hurting you—hurting our child.’

      Lisa’s heart thumped in her chest, so loud she was sure it was echoing around London, sure everyone would hear it. She’d found a chink in Max’s tough armour and he’d let her slip through, opened up and was finally on the brink of admitting what his demons were. Demons that made loving impossible for him.

      She moved closer to him. ‘Just because your father did that to you, to your mother, it doesn’t mean you will be like him.’

      * * *

      The softness of Lisa’s voice nearly killed Max as he stood looking at her, vaguely aware of other people walking in the early evening darkness passing with a cursory glance at them but he couldn’t take his eyes from Lisa’s.

      ‘This hasn’t got anything to do with my father.’ Even now when she was making it all so easy for him, he couldn’t truly own his failings, couldn’t admit that unlike Raul, who had found love and happiness, he never would. He was cast from the same mould as his father.

      ‘You have to let the past go, Max. You can’t live within its shadow for ever and I more than most know that. There are plenty of shadows in my past, plenty I’d like to ignore or run from, but I can’t, because I love you.’

      He moved away from her, needing the space to think, to gather the turmoil of emotions that had somehow escaped. He crossed the footpath to lean on the stone wall, looking out over the darkness of the moving water. ‘You can say it as many times as you like,

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