Invincible (21 page)

“When you put it that way, wooing her makes sense,” Max mused. “But K's no dummy. If I start making calf's eyes at her now, she's going to suspect my motives.”

“So what if she does? Convince her you care. Convince her you'll take care of her
and
Flick. That you want to be a father
and
a husband.”

His lip curled in a sneer. “What makes you think I want to be a husband? That I'm willing to give my heart to any woman, let alone one who's crushed it before?”

Bella's heart ached for her son. Her hands were trembling with fatigue. But she couldn't rest until she'd convinced Max to give love one more try.

“I've never spoken about the mistakes I made that caused your father to leave me,” she began.

Max lurched to his feet. “I don't want to know—”

“I'm not going to do so now,” she continued over his interruption. She met his anxious gaze and said, “I think it's important for you to know that the happiest days of my life were the ones I spent loving Bull—and being loved by him. You don't have to make the mistakes we made. You and Kristin can have a long, loving life together.”

“Why are you so determined to see us together?” he demanded.

“I only want to see you happy, Max.”
Before I die.

“I was a lot happier before I found out my daughter has lived the first nine years of her life without a father. Something you could have remedied, if you'd only taken the time to speak.”

“I've told you why I made the choice I did. There's no going back, Max. We can only move forward. Are you going to let Kristin take Flick and walk out of your life?”

“When you put it that way, Mother, the answer seems obvious.” He glanced at his watch, then smirked. “Time to go. I have to pick up my girlfriend at Heathrow.”

Bella sat where she was until after Max had left the room. She wondered if her arguments had held any sway at all with him. A girlfriend? Oh, yes, the reporter from the
Times
. Their relationship wasn't serious. Yet. Kristin had arrived in England in the nick of time. She had the added enticement of being the mother of Max's child.

Bella was simply going to have to wait and see if Max picked up the gauntlet she'd thrown down.

M
ax was halfway back to London, fighting to see the road in the pouring rain, glad he was in his road-hugging Porsche, when he realized he hadn't questioned his mother about her invitation to The Seasons. She'd distracted him with the suggestion he ought to pursue Kristin in earnest.

He still couldn't quite believe he'd offered to marry K. Once the words were out of his mouth, it had seemed like a brilliant solution to their problem. He'd been shocked when she refused him. And, if he were honest, a little insulted. Or perhaps mortified was a better description of how he was feeling. It was humbling to be rejected out of hand.

With an arrogance that arose from being born into a wealthy and titled family, he'd believed any woman would consider herself lucky to get a catch like him. His wealth alone was a narcotic to most women, and thanks to two attractive parents, he'd been born with good looks. His mother had pointed out exactly how unthinking his proposal had been.

Kristin had wanted more than an easy solution to a custody dilemma. She'd wanted love.

He'd figured sex and fidelity and friendship, and the chance to be parents to Flick, would make a pretty good marriage. Love had never crossed his mind.

I want to care for the man I marry. I want to love him and I want him to love me and my daughter.

Loving Flick was no problem. Loving Kristin was another matter altogether. Max shook his head. Enduring love was a fairy tale. Ten years ago, he'd enjoyed one night of love before love had ended. Recently, his fairy tale had lasted an entire week. He snickered. At this rate, lifelong happiness was an unattainable dream.

Max thought back to the night he and K had created their daughter. Who would have thought a child so precious—and precocious—could have come from that awkward encounter?

He remembered lying beside K in the hotel room she'd booked in London while on the tour and thinking how beautiful her face was in the moonlight. He could still hear her voice in his ear, soft and hesitant, as she lay naked in his embrace for the first time.

“I've never felt this way about anyone before, Max. And what you're doing to me feels so good it hurts.”

“Is this where it hurts?” he'd asked, brushing his knuckles across her breast near her heart. “Shall I kiss it better?” He'd leaned down and kissed the slope of her ivory breast, then turned his head to listen to her racing heartbeat. He'd felt so much love for her, he'd thought his chest might burst from the force of it.

He didn't know exactly when friendship had turned to love. He'd simply realized one day that the sex he had with other women was simply that—sex. The relationship he had with K was something special. She understood him. She liked him. She tolerated his moods. She made him feel good about himself. She listened to him and commiserated with him. She cared. She made him feel loved—and lovable, something he'd doubted all his life.

He'd raised his head so he could look into her eyes and said, “I like you, too, Princess. A lot.” He'd meant to say
love.
But the word had stuck on his tongue. It was too scary to be that vulnerable. What if she didn't love him back? After all, she hadn't admitted to loving him, just to loving the time she spent with him.

He'd kept his feelings close to his vest all his life. Which made it all the more difficult to speak of them when it meant the most. He only knew he wanted to hold her and love her. And be loved by her.

He'd watched the tears well in her eyes as she smiled up at him and said, “Oh, Max. I'm so glad—”

He'd kissed her because his throat had swollen closed and it was no longer possible to profess his love in words. He took possession of her mouth, sliding his tongue inside. He felt a surge of arousal when she returned the favor with enthusiasm.

He twined two fistfuls of her long blond curls in his hands and arched her head back on the pillow so he could kiss her throat. Her hands roamed his back, tracing his shoulder blades, the crease down the center of his back,
the rise of his buttocks, then returned to settle around his neck, playing in the hair at his nape.

“Max,” she whispered, kissing his ear. “Max. I feel so much. It feels so good.”

Her words, and the whispery kisses, created an inferno of desire, a fire that couldn't be quenched with mere kisses or touches. He needed to be inside her. Couldn't wait another moment to be inside her, to be joined with her as close as two souls could possibly be.

He released her hair and rose to his knees. He caught her legs behind her thighs, spreading them wide around his own thighs as he yanked her farther down the bed toward him.

“Max?”

He heard the hesitation in her voice, but he was too focused on his great need to consider what it might mean. She offered no resistance as he slid his hands beneath her and lifted her. He was almost mindless with desire when he thrust himself inside her.

Almost mindless. From a deep erotic well he heard her cry, “Max! I'm—” He cut off her protest with a deep kiss.

Max checked the speedometer in his Porsche and saw it had sneaked up to a hundred and fifty-five. Even if he translated kilometers into miles, ninety-five was too fast. He brushed a hand across a forehead that was dotted with sweat from remembering what he'd done. Stupid, thoughtless teenage boy.

In hindsight he knew Kristin had been nowhere near
ready to be entered. At the time, he'd only been aware of her willingness. And her great desire to please him.

And she had pleased him greatly. She'd been so tight. Once he was inside her, there had been blood to lubricate the way. His satisfaction had been immense. He'd heard her making noise, but he was too far gone—his eyes closed and his head thrown back—to identify the sounds.

He'd quickly climaxed. Faster than he'd wanted. A brash kid who couldn't control himself.

Max focused on the narrow, curving road in front of him when what he wanted to do was close his eyes. He would give a great deal to erase the image that rose in his mind's eye of K's face when he'd looked down at her after he'd taken his pleasure.

He would never forget the tear tracks that had stained her cheeks. Or the first sound she'd made. That whimper of pain had created a knot in his gut.

Too late he'd been full of concern for her. But the damage had been done. He'd seen the blood on the sheets and frantically asked, “What's wrong? What happened?”

“I've never done this before,” she said, her eyes lowered in embarrassment. “You hurt me.”

He'd been too chagrined to ask anything else. Too humiliated even to apologize. He'd just wanted to get away.

He remembered rising from the bed and crossing into the bathroom. He'd grabbed a towel and wiped the blood off himself, then grabbed a towel for Kristin. He'd
decided a warm washcloth was a good idea and remembered it had taken forever for the water to get hot.

When he'd returned to the bedroom, she was sitting hunched over in bed with her knees pulled to her chest and the covers pulled up all the way up to her neck.

He'd sat down beside her and met her shy gaze and said, “Let's get you cleaned up, Princess.”

She'd taken the warm washcloth from him and slid it under the covers. She'd closed her eyes and he'd seen the relief on her face as the warm cloth soothed the pain he'd caused. He'd handed her the towel next, and she'd slid that under the covers, too. He'd watched her lift her bottom and slide it under her. The washcloth never came back out, and he presumed she'd left it where it would do the most good.

“I'm sorry, baby,” he'd said, tucking handfuls of curls behind both her ears so he could see her face better. “I didn't mean to hurt you.”

“I know,” she said. “I should have warned you sooner that I hadn't done this before.”

“Yeah,” he mumbled. “About that…”

“It's all right, Max,” she said, reaching out a hand to touch his cheek. “I wanted you to be the first.”

Max swiped at his blurry eyes and grabbed the wheel with both hands when the Porsche slid on the dirt at the side of the road. He'd never thought about birth control, because the girls he had sex with took care of that sort of thing. He'd only used condoms when the girl suggested it.

The possibility that he'd gotten K pregnant had been
no part of his thoughts when he'd put his hand over hers and said, “I'm sorry, Princess.”

“Don't be sorry,” she'd said. “I'm not.”

He hadn't believed her. The tears and the blood and the winces when she'd slid that washcloth under the sheet made a liar out of her. But he'd asked, “Really? Are you sure you're okay?”

“I'm sure. You should go. I need to get some sleep before my match tomorrow. Besides, my dad's liable to check on me before he goes to bed. I don't want him to find you here.”

“Lord, no!” he'd said, jumping up from the bed. He'd looked down at her and felt a wave of love wash over him. She'd looked so beautiful. And vulnerable. He'd vowed never, ever to hurt her again.

Of course, he was the one who'd ended up getting hurt. Her tender feelings hadn't lasted beyond a single night. If she'd really loved him, if she'd really cared, she should have trusted him. She should have given him a chance to explain that kiss he'd given Elena. She shouldn't have run away.

In hindsight, he should have persisted until she let him explain. He should have followed up to make sure she wasn't pregnant. He'd assumed she must be on the pill, since she hadn't said a word about protection. Most of the girls on the tour were, because they wanted to control their periods. It was a pretty big assumption, he realized now.

It wasn't just his experience with Kristin that had convinced him love was fleeting. His parents had supposedly
been in love. Not at first, of course. He knew about their tumultuous courtship and their even more turbulent marriage. But there wouldn't have been so much hate between them after they'd separated if there hadn't been so much love between them somewhere along the way.

So when Kristin had said this afternoon that she wanted love as a prerequisite to marriage, he was naturally a little sour on the subject.

It was fortunate he and Kristin had to work together both on court and off. Otherwise, he was sure she would have packed up their daughter and headed back to the States. He didn't have much time to bond with his daughter, so he planned to make good use of it.

It occurred to him that he might make equal use of the time to convince K that she ought to marry him—love be damned. He still believed living together was the easiest way to co-parent Flick.

The attraction he'd always felt to K was still there. He loved making love to her. He loved talking to her. He loved the way she listened to him. He mentally compared his one-week relationship with K with what he'd felt over the past month with Veronica. It wasn't a comfortable comparison to make. He and K had a history together that he thought might be coloring his feelings toward her—making them brighter, more sensual.

It was more than a little disconcerting to think he'd completely forgotten about Veronica when he'd proposed to K a couple of hours ago. He shuddered to imagine how he would have explained his sudden engagement
when he picked up the girl he'd been dating for the past month at Heathrow.

So was he going to stick with Veronica? Or pursue K?

He wasn't in love with Veronica, but he was halfway to being there with K. He hadn't allowed himself to fall for her further than that. He tried to imagine what marriage to K might be like. And remembered all the problems that had to be solved before they could even think of heading to the altar.

Where would they live? Should K keep her job? Was there something else she could do in England? Would Harry be willing to stay in England if they ended up living here? If he asked Kristin to quit her job, should he keep spying for living?

His job wasn't always dangerous, but at least once in the past he'd been a breath away from being shot dead. He'd talked his way out of it, but he knew he was lucky to be alive.

Max rotated his shoulders against the Porsche seat to ease the tension gathering there. All he knew for sure was that he wanted his daughter to become a part of his life. Getting along with K was important to that result. He wasn't sure himself whether he could—or even wanted to—fall in love with her again.

At least he had horseback riding in Hyde Park with Flick to look forward to tomorrow. It felt good to be able to do one thing for his child that her mother hadn't already done. He wondered for a moment why K hadn't wanted Flick to go riding. There were hazards, but it was
a great sport. He'd have to ask her. If they were going to be parenting together, he needed to know what K was thinking.

Parenting together.
The idea was mind-boggling. He tried to imagine the response he would get when he told his brothers and sister that he was a father. He grinned when he envisioned Lydia's smile and lilting laughter. And grimaced when he thought of what snide comment Oliver might make. He raised a rueful brow when he imagined Payne and Riley's joking ripostes.

In the end, he didn't contact any of them, because he knew they'd all have questions for which he had no answers. It would be better to wait until after he'd resolved his differences with K. The tennis court would be a good place to talk with her. Because he didn't want to discuss custody around Flick.

It dawned on him that neither Kristin nor Flick were likely to have brought proper riding attire with them. He would have to do something about that.

Max's cell phone rang and when he answered it, Veronica was on the line.

“I'm back, Max.”

“I thought you were getting home later tonight,” he said. “Where are you?”

“I managed to get a ride back on someone's private jet.”

He wondered who the someone was, but he didn't ask. “I was visiting at the Abbey and I'm still an hour from the airport. You might want to catch a cab to your place. I can meet you there.”