Heartbreaker: A Filthy Dirty Love Novel

The coldness in her voice tightened his jaw. She didn’t sound like herself, and he didn’t realize how fond he’d grown of the warmth she exuded until it was gone. “Then what’s upset you?”

“The husband,” she replied, still staring at her wineglass.

“The man you saved?” he asked, not understanding.

She nodded, eyes glossing over, obviously lost in a memory. “When I arrived and found him, he was holding his dead wife in his arms.” She shut her eyes, closing out the world, a haunted look crossing her face. “When I moved to him, he told me that she was already gone and there was nothing I could do to help her.”

“You can’t control whether someone lives or dies,” Maddox added gently, hoping to pull her out of the darkness. “I’m sure you did what you could to help them.”

“I’m not upset that I couldn’t help them.” Her eyes stayed shut, but a single tear slid down her cheek. “What upsets me is what he said to me.”

Maddox stared at the tear that slowly but surely gutted him, a coldness sliding alongside the blood in his veins. “What did he say?”

“‘She was my everything.’” She paused. Then she opened her eyes, and emotion hit Maddox straight in the chest as she added, “But it was how he said it. The connection I had to him in those seconds where he realized that his happy life as he knew it had ended.”

Maddox’s throat tightened, and he folded his arms, fighting against himself not to move to her and take her into his arms. She might have told him to stay away, but all he wanted to do was go to her.

She drew in a long, deep breath before speaking again. “A stranger that I don’t know changed me today.” Her green eyes held his blue gaze, so much being said without saying anything at all. “And as I’ve sat here since I came home, I can’t help but wonder what we’re doing.”

His lips parted to answer her, but his reply never came. It would have been easy to say that maybe, just maybe, he could try a relationship with her and see how it worked out, but she was right. It was one complication after another with them. A relationship with her was never in the cards. Their jobs were a hefty barrier between them and couldn’t be ignored.

She sighed at his silence and slowly shook her head. “I mean, we’re not dating, but kinda-sorta dating. We’re not committed to each other, but you’re not okay with another guy getting close to me. I know this was all supposed to be fun, but is it only fun, or are we fooling ourselves?”

Beneath his folded arms, his fists clenched, his chest rising and falling quickly with his heavy breaths while she continued. “Tomorrow, you’ll still be my superior, and I’ll still be your subordinate. You could get suspended for starting a relationship with me, and that’s drama I don’t need at the beginning of my career.” Her eyes glazed over; obviously, her thoughts running rampant. “Nothing will change these truths. Nothing we can do will change the outcome of what’s standing in our way.”

I want to keep you was what he wanted to say. Again, words failed him. Not because he couldn’t say them but because it was unfair of him to put her in that situation. Just sex made sense. Anything more would complicate everything. Those were truths he couldn’t ignore.

As if reading his mind, she added, “Before, I guess you were right when you said I was the kind of girl who wants love. Maybe I forgot. Maybe it’s because I’d been hurt before, I don’t know. But I am that girl, and nothing I do will change that.” She hesitated and sighed deeply before she went on. “I don’t know when things got so messy or complicated, but they have, haven’t they? And pretending they haven’t is only going to take us down a road that can’t lead anywhere good.”

He glanced at the floor and shut his eyes, wanting to rewind time to before he’d touched her. Because she was leaving him. He knew it, and the life slowly began to squeeze out of him, seemingly all too familiar.

Obviously unable to see the torture within him, she added, “Just because I didn’t find the kind of love I saw today with Nick, and I can’t have that with you, it will never change the fact that I want a man to look at me that way. I want to be his everything.”

Maddox could barely breathe, but he managed, “I never wanted to hurt you.”

“I know you didn’t, and as of right now, you haven’t.” She gave him the softest, sweetest smile. “But we’ve changed, haven’t we? This is no longer just sex. Somewhere along the way, we complicated things. I know you care about me. I don’t even question that. But can you ever do what a man needs to do to love a woman? To pick her over everyone else? To stop having her be a secret and make a statement to the world that she belongs to him? To stop thinking she’s like your mother and going to leave you? I honestly don’t know.”