Page 50 of Contracted and Claimed By The Boss

It was like staring into murky water. He couldn’t see a damned thing and didn’t even know what he was looking for, but he knew he wanted the water to clear; he wanted to understand.

He drove himself half crazy that night, memorising the letter and listening to it in his mind, hearing it as though Paige were reading it, and as he fell asleep he imagined that the letter had been written to him, and not Amanda. It was a stupid, indulgent form of torture and he should have known better.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

PAIGE HAD ENOUGH savings to take some time off. Not a lot, and she couldn’t live luxuriously, but she could buy herself a bit of breathing room, rack up her credit card a little if necessary. She could take a break.

And that was exactly what she needed—something to stave off the constant sense of weariness. Only, in not working, Paige lacked occupation and purpose and, rather than having a reason to get out of bed each morning and face the long, lonely day, she found herself dithering, the days blending into each other, all as pointless as the next, everything lacking importance and urgency.

At least Sydney was a beautiful place to wait out her heartbreak—she could acknowledge freely that, yes, her heart was indeed splitting apart. Leaving Max and Amanda had been much, much harder than leaving her parents, than facing their betrayal. That had taken years and she’d had so many examples to look at to justify why she had to get out.

With Max, everything had been so perfect, except for how she’d fallen in love with him.

But then, there’d been that last day, and the way he’d acted, and the things he’d said, and she couldn’t remember that fight without feeling as if she was going to fall over. It had been so awful. For his face to contort with anger and that anger to be directed at her!

Ten days after leaving the farm, she had no idea if she’d ever be able to put him from her mind, if she’d ever wake up without wanting to reach for him, without wanting to run to the kitchen to wait for him to appear. Without wanting to hug Amanda and cook dinner with her. Without feeling she’d briefly belonged to a family, even if that was just a fantasy in her head and heart. It had been the closest thing to a family she’d ever known.

Paige didn’t realise she was crying until the tears splashed onto the backs of her hands, clasped in her lap. She stared at them, not surprised, not reacting, not bothering to wipe away the tears. They were par for the course these days. They would pass, just like the storm on that last day in Wattle Bay. But the feeling of loss would always be a part of Paige. At least it was something to hold onto, a reminder that yes, one time, she had loved, so deeply, she had known for certain that she was changed.

She’d been brought back to life—no matter how painful it was.

He hated himself for it, but in the end he bought her parents’ damned tell-all book. He bought it because, after two weeks of missing Paige like a limb, he was desperate for anything remotely connected to her, and too proud to use the number she’d left Amanda and just call her.

Besides, what would he say? What had changed since she left? Nothing.

She’d run away. He didn’t know why, but she’d left. He couldn’t have changed her mind: he’d tried. Okay, admittedly not very well, but he’d made it obvious he wanted her to stay. She’d wanted to leave, more than she’d been willing to listen, and so he’d made her leave.

But just remembering the way her shoulders had sagged and her face had fallen when he’d shouted at her to go made shame swirl through him.

With a glass of earthy red wine on the table and Amanda asleep for the night, he began the gruesome job of reading the book written by her parents. Page by page, story by story, year by year of young Paige’s life, he read about the woman he’d come to know, and it was like having the gaps of his understanding filled in. Not by the stories in the book. He wasn’t sure they were accurate, nor was he sure they had any merit in the telling, but in the way her parents wrote about her, in what wasn’t on the page, he came to understand more about Paige than he had before.

He came to understand what she’d been through, what it must have been like to be raised—no, not raised, so much as exploited—by people like this. People who were still trying to exploit her. In their stories, cynically told to paint Paige in the least flattering light possible, he saw through that, all the way to the heart of a warrior, of a girl who’d been rendered so vulnerable by her life’s circumstances, but who’d fought back. How she’d fought back! That she was so strong and wise and capable was completely beyond belief. That she was capable of love, as she professed to love Amanda?

Remarkable.

He read the book through the night, until the dawn light filtered through the kitchen and the day awakened, fresh and golden, right as a different kind of awakening moved through Max. A fresh perspective.

An understanding, finally.

Now as he replayed their time together, and particularly that last day, his comprehension was less certain, his own anger far less justifiable. His selfish stupidity completely unforgivable. But that didn’t mean he was above asking for forgiveness.

If he knew anything now, it was that miracles were possible—you just had to be smart enough not to screw them up.

Paige didn’t move when the knock came at the door.

She didn’t know anyone in Sydney, and she didn’t want any room service or any other kind of interruption. She wanted the world to go away.

She shifted on the sofa, lifting her feet up and pressing her chin to her knees, watching the daytime television without really seeing what was on. Some medical drama with far too much angst for Paige to enjoy it, but then again, she was hardly paying attention. It was just background noise as she tried to thaw out from the numbing of all her feelings and senses.

The knock came again, more imperative and demanding, an open-palmed punch almost. She flinched, turned the TV down.

‘Go away, please,’ she called out. Then muttered, under her breath, ‘I’m not interested.’

‘I need to talk to you, Paige.’

She froze, her heart in her throat, as the voice she’d been hearing in her dreams flooded her mind, made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, made everything hum as if with electricity.

It couldn’t be Max.

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