The full impact of what she’d done might not hit her until Max left her alone in her apartment, surrounded by the disarray of her wedding preparations and honeymoon packing. But he didn’t need to sound self-righteous about it. It wasn’t for Max Conway to sit in judgement against her. Grateful though she was for his help.
Anger flooded through her. ‘There’s one more thing you don’t know about your friend Alan. After his twins, he had a vasectomy so he couldn’t have more children. The man who used to toss names for our future kids around with me. Spent hours discussing what colour eyes they might have. Was he ever going to tell me he was shooting blanks? Or let me go through fertility treatment when I didn’t fall pregnant?’
‘I have no words,’ Max said, tight-lipped. No criticism of his friend, of course. Not when the famous tennis player himself had cheated and lied.
‘I’ll never regret walking out on that despicable excuse for a man. But letting my family and friends down? Not doing due diligence on the man before I agreed to marry him? I suspect I’ll always regret my lapse in judgement. I wouldn’t have done a minor business deal without all the facts, yet I was prepared to commit my life to a person I didn’t really know. I wanted that life so much...the husband and kids.’
‘I can only wish you good luck in whatever you end up doing,’ he said. Looking serious suited him and it struck her again how good-looking he was. No wonder the public was so fascinated by him.
‘What I don’t regret is putting my trust in you to help me,’ she said. Max might be pond scum in his personal life and be friend to a cheating, lying fraud. But he had come through for her. That was all that counted.
On impulse she leaned up and kissed him on his smooth, tanned cheek. She was stunned by the sensation that shot through her at the contact, brief as it was. He didn’t kiss her back. Why would he? She’d just run out on his friend. ‘I won’t say I’ll return the favour for you some day because it’s not the kind of favour you want to call on, is it?’
He half smiled at that and turned to leave. She watched him as he strode back to his car, broad-shouldered and athletic. Unless she glimpsed him on television, slamming a tennis ball at his opponent in some top-level tournament, she would never see Max Conway again.