Broken (2 page)

Leave it alone, Max
, his saner side urged.
You’re just now pulling yourself out of the gutter. Don’t let her put you back into it.
The problem was, as always, when it came to Cassidy, Max just couldn’t let go.

Max double-parked in front of his parents’ home to drop Gianna off. She waited expectantly for him to do the polite thing and get out, come around, and open her door. When he simply sat there drumming his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel, she huffed and did it herself.

“You’re not coming in? I can make coffee for you,” she offered with a pout some male somewhere must have told her was cute. He found it annoying. 

“No…thank you,” he belatedly added to soften it. “Go in before Momma wonders what’s keeping you,” he finished as evenly as possible.

She laid a soft hand on his arm. Gianna was always touching him. He resisted, barely, the urge to shrug her away. “Thank you for an enjoyable evening. I only wished it had lasted longer.” In her eyes lay a sultry invitation that made lie to her claims of virginity.

“Goodnight, Gianna,” Max said firmly.

She was beautiful with her sun-kissed skin, large brown eyes, full, kissable lips, and mass of curly brown hair. Her body was lush and her fitted dress displayed the kind of curves that would make any other man think of hot sweaty nights between the sheets. He might have given her the fucking she’d been silently begging for if the price for indulging wasn’t so high.

Gianna swung her legs out of the car, allowing the hem of her skirt to climb dangerously high before stepping out. She leaned inside, giving him a spectacular view of her abundant cleavage revealed by the deep-V of her dress. “You sure you won’t come in and at least say hi?”

Max met her gaze, lest she think her subtle seduction tactics worked on him. “I’m sure.”

With a resigned sigh, she straightened and closed the door. Max waited until she was inside of the house before pulling off. His thoughts raced back to his brief conversation with Cassidy. The more he remembered her words, her reactions, the more troubled he became. Something wasn’t adding up. Max aimed to figure out what.

He’d begin with Phillip’s death. There had to be something on the Internet—a death notice, obituary, something. It would give him a starting point.

Max drove to Nicco’s condo where he’d been staying since his return. Max’s house had renters in it and he was trying to decide whether to kick them out and reclaim his home, or buy something smaller and keep the house as rental property. He needed to make a decision soon, for while he got along better with Nicco than the rest of his siblings, living with his older brother wasn’t to his taste. It cramped both their styles.

He entered the condo, keyed the security code, and found it empty. Nicco had mentioned having a date that looked promising. Looks like his brother had gotten lucky and probably wouldn’t be home until morning.

Max went and changed out of the monkey suit and into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. He settled on the bed with his laptop and went to work. Finding what he was hunting for didn’t take long, but then he’d been an expert researcher in his former life.

The headline jumped out at him:
WRONG WAY DRIVER KILLS LOCAL ATTORNEY, CRITICALLY INJURES PREGNANT WIFE.

Max sat back after reading the article. An elderly man driving a van had entered I-76 going the wrong way. The first two cars managed to avoid him, but Phillip wasn’t so lucky. He swerved to avoid a head-on collision and was hit from in front and behind. The accident had become a massive pile up involving multiple vehicles. He’d died at the scene, having taken the brunt of the impact. Cassidy had to be cut out of the vehicle and life-flighted to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in critical condition. The driver and passenger of the third car came out with serious but non-life threatening injuries. The elderly man who caused the whole thing had been killed on impact. At the time of the article, police were still investigating.

Max’s jaw tightened as he examined the photos of the scene. The damn accident had made the newspapers and been splashed all over the news. Later articles mentioned Phillip and Cassidy by name, as well as the others involved. Why the hell hadn’t anyone in his family told him about this? It had happened less than three months after he’d left town. Everyone knew how he felt about Cassidy and how to contact him.

He continued to search, trying to discover more details. He found a small article a few days later giving an update on the medical status, stating the accident victims that were in serious condition had been released by the hospital. The crash had caused the pregnant wife to go into labor and doctors had performed an emergency C-section. Both mother and child were still in critical condition, the family was quoted as saying, and prayers for their swift recovery were being requested. Max cursed and shoved his hand through his hair as he read the list of injuries to Cassidy, the most serious being her right leg, which had been crushed in the accident. She was listed as having multiple fractures, concussion, and hemorrhaging at the scene. Phillip had apparently bled out before medical help arrived.

A legal notice months later announced the family of the late Phillip Brannon had filed a lawsuit with the city concerning their response time and the lack of adequate emergency responders to the scene. After diligent searching, he found a small blurb almost a year later stating they’d settled out of court. He took off his reading glasses and ran tired hands over his face. Cassidy had almost been killed…and he was just now finding out.

What had Erika said? “
She needed you and you weren’t here
.”

He had a sudden flash of memory. He and Cassidy had been sitting on his couch when he’d made her a promise.
“I’ll always be here for you.”

Cassidy had captured his face between her hands saying,
“Max, don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

He remembered staring into her anxious brown eyes.
“As long as you want me, I’ll be here.”
It was a promise he’d meant to the depths of soul.

So why hadn’t she called for him? Cassidy knew he’d drop everything and come running, no matter the cost to his heart. Max rose and went to the closet where he’d stashed a bottle of bourbon, opened it, and took a swig. As he drank, he brooded. There was only one logical answer. She hadn’t wanted him with her.

Cassidy Brannon sat in her vehicle and shook violently. Max was home. Coming face-to-face with him had been a shock. She’d wanted to fling herself into his arms, so happy had she been to see him. Reality had slapped her in the face and she’d remembered his betrayal.

She hated that he was still so devastatingly handsome. Of Italian descent, Max had the right combination of charm, intelligence, and brawn to be nearly irresistible. Add in mesmerizing blue eyes with the power to hold a woman captive in its gaze, dark wavy hair she’d love to run her fingers through, and lickable honey-toned skin that spoke of hours spent under a hot Italian sun, and he was her every fantasy. In the tuxedo which fit his body like it had been custom made for him, he looked more like a
GQ
model than the lawyer she knew him to be.

Why couldn’t he have stayed out of the country? Not only was Max here, he’d brought his wife with him.

Of course he did
, she chastised herself.
Did you expect him to leave the woman he loved in Italy
?

He’d loved her once, or so he’d said, his deep blue eyes staring intently into hers.
“I’ll wait for you forever.”
Cassidy laughed bitterly. He’d barely waited four months before realizing he’d made a mistake.

Max, her husband Phillip’s best friend until Phillip had betrayed both of them with Max’s live-in lover, Amber, the woman Max had been preparing to ask to marry him. After catching Phillip literally with his pants around his ankles, Cassidy and Max had spent one drunken, passionate night with each other.

The next morning they’d come to their senses, decided the night before was best forgotten, and determinedly moved on as friends who’d bonded over the betrayal of those closest to them. Max helped her deal with Phillip’s infidelity, and she’d been a sounding board for him about Amber’s.

Only things quickly became complicated. Cassidy discovered she was pregnant and didn’t know who’d fathered her child. Max had deemed the fetus his and stated he didn’t just want his child, he wanted its mother too. As a result, Max had become not only her friend, her rock, but eventually her lover as well.

Their affair had been short but intense. She and Max couldn’t be in the same room without touching each other, the sexual attraction between them explosive. In the three months they’d been lovers, Max had won her heart.

Things between them had escalated so fast. Max urged her to move in with him while they waited for the dissolution of her marriage to be final. She’d been hesitant. Phillip fought the divorce, and her mother sided with him instead of supporting her. Max’s family, particularly his mother, was very vocal in their dislike of her and Max’s growing relationship. Between Max, Phillip, and her pregnancy, there was simply too much going on for her to feel comfortable making that kind of commitment.

Still, Cassidy had been considering it when she’d received notification from her attorney that the judge had dismissed her case for lack of grounds. She’d known there was a possibility, but the reality was overwhelming. When informed she’d have to wait two years before filing again, she’d lost it. It was Max who’d pulled her from the edge and comforted her while she’d cried at the injustice of it all.

Then Phillip had offered her a deal. Agree to marriage counseling for a specified length of time and if, at the end of it, she still wanted a divorce, he’d sign off on it. Cassidy had talked it over with Max. He’d been against it, but she’d been resolved. She desperately wanted out of her marriage and didn’t want to wait two years or more years to be free. After some serious negotiating, she’d agreed.

One of Phillip’s terms was that she couldn’t see or have any contact with Max. Unable to speak with each other directly, Max had arranged to use his brother Nicco as a conduit. In the beginning, Cassidy had called Nicco once a week to assure Max everything was going as planned. Her messages had been short and to the point: I love you. I miss you. I can’t wait until we can finally be together again.