Fall to You (Here and Now 2)

Her lips curl into a smile when my feet hit the landing. “Why so glum, Max?”

“Get the fuck off my property,” I growl. I swear to Christ I’ve never felt a single violent impulse toward a woman before. I’m not my father. But damn if I’m not feeling one hell of an impulse now.

“You don’t really mean that.” She steps forward and slips her hand under my shirt, scraping her fingernails across my abs.

The only thing keeping me from physically removing her hand from my body is the fear that, if I let myself touch her, I’ll hurt her. When I back up a step, she follows.

“It’s going to be okay,” she whispers. She looks up at me through her lashes and goes for the button on my jeans.

I grab both of her wrists. “Don’t fucking touch me.”

Those calculating blue eyes turn sad and fill with tears. “You used to love me.”

“So that gives you the right to fuck up my relationship with Hanna? To fuck up my life?”

“You don’t even look at me anymore. You hardly reply when I text you.” Her bottom lip trembles. “Why? You once told me I was the only one for you.”

“I’m in love with Hanna. You can’t change that by being a world-class bitch.”

“Let me make this up to you.” She steps closer, pressing her body to mine, and for the first time in my post-pubescent life, the feel of Meredith’s body does nothing for me. “I know how you like it, Max. Let me make you feel good.”

“Get the fuck away from me.”

LOVE IS a manipulative bitch.

Love is what had me believing that a guy like Max could actually want a girl like me. Love had me walking on clouds for the last five months. And love is the reason I’m knocking on Max Hallowell’s door at six a.m. the morning after he broke my heart.

“Hanna.” He steps back and opens the door wider to let me in. His dark hair is tousled from sleep and his chest is bare. My gaze is instantly drawn to the soft trail of hair that disappears into the waistband of his sleep pants. His blue eyes are bloodshot. Like maybe he drank too much before climbing in bed last night. Or like he didn’t sleep much at all.

Good.

I follow him inside, and my heart aches as I look at the stacks of boxes ready for the move. What did Meredith say to me after sending the screenshots of those texts? “Everyone knows your family is loaded. Max’s little health club isn’t going to get him very far if he doesn’t have a sugar mama to bail him out.”

Suddenly, it’s so obvious. Max’s financial situation sucks. He sold his house and is moving into the tiny apartment above the gym. He let go of a couple of his employees, picking up their hours himself to help with cash flow.

I’m the one who suggested he try to get the Healthy Tomorrow Grant, and I’m the one who talked my mom into pushing Max’s application to the committee members over the other applicants.

Right now, it literally hurts to be near him, but the manipulative bitch that is love has me standing here anyway because I don’t want him to lose his health club.

“Can we talk?” he asks softly. His voice still has that early morning rumble that makes me weak at the knees. He turns toward the little kitchen. “I’ll make some coffee.”

I follow him but try my best to keep my distance. Every second I’m here costs me. I need to keep this brief. “I can’t be with you anymore,” I say, repeating the words I rehearsed in my head on the way over. “But I don’t want you to lose your grant, and you know how political those decisions are. I think we shouldn’t tell anyone about our breakup until you’re awarded the money.”

He freezes, drops the coffee carafe in the sink, and turns to me, his hard jaw ticking. “You think I’m going to pretend you’re my girlfriend just so I can get some stupid grant money?”

“It’s not stupid and you know it.” I close my eyes. He’s so close, and all I really want to do is take a few steps forward and curl into him. I know how warm he’d be and how good it would feel to have his arms wrapped around me.

“Nothing happened with Meredith,” he says softly. “I want you to know that.”

“You went to her,” I whisper.

He nods, and it hurts. Maybe I wanted him to deny it. To say that she fabricated the whole thing somehow. Instead, he says, “That’s true.”

“And you meant it when you said I wasn’t your type.”

“I…” He takes two long strides so he’s standing in front of me. He tilts my chin up until my gaze meets his, and I can feel his warmth. So tempting.

I squeeze my eyes shut. It hurts too much to look at his beautiful face, to see those eyes that studied me as he touched me, played with my breasts, found me wet between my legs.