Page 167 of House of Lilith

And I don’t say anything, but that only makes him more determined. “You’ll get well again, and I’ll do whatever it is in my power to help you. You only need to say yes, what you already did before all this happened. Didn’t you?”

I keep looking into his eyes, feeling a sob coming on and fighting it off before I say, “I did.”

“Before you broke it off,” he continues, frowning a little, “just like that, for no reason whatsoever. And how was it without me? Did you have fun, Anastasya?”

For a second, I stay silent, my eyes welling with tears and all my desperation threatening to rise from the depths to which I’ve pushed it.

“We’d be in it together, Max?” I ask in a fervent, choked-up voice. “You’d give me the respect that I deserve? You’d treat me as your partner?”

“Absolutely,” he replies with a determined nod. “We’d be equals, we’d rule side by side, and the money I’d spend on the land, we’d just use it to make your vision of it come true.”

And he gives me a smile and now I have to really struggle not to start crying, my heart swelling in my chest.

There’s a second of silence before he urges, “Come on, just say yes.”

First, my own words flash through my mind. The words I said to a certain someone.I’m never getting back with him.

But I keep looking into his eyes, the past year flashing through my mind, mistake after mistake after mistake made by a girl so lost, she didn’t even know it. Max,myMax. Why did I ever think there’d be anyone better for me than my Max? I don’t even care about the sex anymore. As ifthat’ssomething you build your future around.

And if he doesn’t hate me, even after all I’ve done… “You really still love me?” I ask in a shaky whisper.

“I do. So much.”

“And we really can forget…” I shake my head, not wanting to keep going.

“Everything,” he finishes my sentence with such determination in his voice. “Forget everything and just move on.”

I hesitate before I ask, this tightness in my throat making me sound breathless, “And you don’t think I’m too much? You don’t think I’m a lot?”

He frowns at me, making my heart sink. “Of course not,” he says matter-of-factly. “Why would you even ask that?”

It makes relief flood my body, his reaction. Maybe, for everything to be okay again, I really only have to come back to him.

And I let out a pent-up breath and I pull my hand out of his grip only to throw myself into his arms, squeezing my eyes shut to stop tears from falling down my cheeks.

He laughs and squeezes me tight.

He’s right, my Max. He was right all along. And soon, I think to myself, in a little more than two weeks, I’ll stop feeling everything I’m feeling right now — all this anxiousness and sadness and desperation — and I’ll be able to start looking forward to our future together.

Everything will be exactly the way it wassupposedto be in the first place.

It’s then that it pops into my head, making my muscles stiffen and my stomach twist.

“I only have one condition,” I tell him as I pull away a little.

“Anything.”

“Let’s not tell people until after the school year is over.”

He raises his eyebrows at me.

“Not the family,” I explain, albeit hesitantly. “The family can know. Just not… people at the Academy.”

At that, raised eyebrows turn into a frown, so I rush to say, “I don’t want the pomp, Max. I’m tired and I just want the Games and the school year to be over.”

For a second, he just looks at me. Then he throws me a warm smile and says, “Sure. You got it, cupcake.”

I smile back, for the first time in forever, and I pull away to hold my hand out for him.

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