Crazy for Love

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that you’ve left a trail of beautiful, wild women behind you, and all of them still love you. That’s not normal, man. My ex-wife hates my guts, and she left me.”

Max stared at the freeze-frame of Chloe, the hair on his arms rising as if he were seeing a ghost. “Your wife left because she was missing something,” he murmured. “I give women something they need. Then they’re done with me.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” Max read the accompanying story, then cruised around to a few more sites. They were all the same. Him. The video of Chloe. The video of him and Chloe scrambling up the stairs. Pictures of him with Genevieve. Pictures of Chloe when she was engaged. And lots and lots of editorials sympathizing with poor Thomas DeLorn, engaged to a psycho control-freak like crazy Chloe Turner.

His hands shook as he rubbed them over his face. “We got into a fight,” he said, the words echoing off his palms and back into his head. “About what?”

“Oh, Christ, Elliott. It was my fault. I’ve been…”

He hesitated, half hoping that Elliott would give him some space and walk away, but Elliott took the opposite approach and sat down on the desk to face him.

Okay. This was it, then. “I’m trying to change my life. I can’t maintain these crazed relationships anymore. I can’t keep dating w

omen because they need someone.”

Elliott’s brow creased with obvious confusion. “But you date wild women. Party girls. Popular girls.”

“Yeah.” Max sighed. He dug his fingertips into his forehead. “Yeah. I have an image…” An image that attracted fun, glamorous women, and a personality that left him holding on to the damaged ones. “It’s complicated.”

“How?”

“I’m not as laid-back as you think.”

Elliott’s mouth flattened with skepticism.

“I tend to get involved with women out of a misguided desire to help them.”

“Help them do what?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Get their lives together. Learn to protect themselves. Whatever it is, it’s dishonest and it’s not right. I’m trying to change it.”

“You’re saying that’s why you like Chloe? Because she’s vulnerable?”

Max winced. “You make it sound like I’m preying on weak women or something. And Chloe isn’t…She’s not like that, or I didn’t know she was. I like her because she sees the truth in me. No one else ever has.”

“What truth?”

Max stared at Elliott, telling himself that his little brother wasn’t a kid anymore. They could talk as adults. They could be honest. “I… I have some, uh, control issues.”

“Well, I know you like to take charge, but—”

“No, it’s kind of a problem. I worry. A lot. I need to take care of people.”

“Like who?”

“Like everyone.” His brother’s frown was creasing deeper into his forehead, and Max had had enough honesty for now, so he changed the subject. “Anyway, I liked Chloe because I thought she was calm and normal, so this is all freaking me out. We argued because I thought I should leave. And then I left. She seemed okay.”

His brother glanced toward the computer.

“Obviously, I was wrong.” Max reached for the phone and dialed Chloe’s number. It went immediately to a message that said her voice-mail folder was full. “Her phone’s off.” He tried the landline and found it busy.

“I could try Jenn,” Elliott offered.

Max cleared his throat, wondering what he should say about Jenn. “There’s a little strain between them right now. Jenn’s been acting odd.”