Page 26 of The Ruthless and the Strong

Max was only a month away from his fortieth birthday, and still, he looked gorgeous. If anything, I thought getting older suited him well. The only physical change from the last six years, as far as I could see, was a few strands of gray that were barely noticeable, even in his dark hair. That and a few wrinkles around his bright blue eyes when he smiled that I found to be absolutely endearing.

Otherwise, he still looked the same.

“Something feels different,” he said, bringing my gaze over to his lips. He was clean shaven this morning, but there was still a slight stubble surrounding his defined jawline.

I shook my head. “I’m fine.”

“What do you feel like having?” he asked me. I hadn’t even looked at the menu. Though I had been hungry in the car, food was the furthest thing from my mind.

I looked down briefly at the menu. “Uh, grilled salmon. You?”

He nodded and smiled. “Steaks.”

I smiled at that. “Rare, right?”

He seemed pleased that I remembered, and I didn’t want to seem pleased that I had been able to please him so easily, but I was.

I remembered everything about him. We hadn’t talked the way we used to before I married Sam, but I still remember every little thing. My teenage years had been spent trying to collect every single piece of information about him that I could gather. I looked away from him now when Hunter pulled on my arms, showing off the maze he had done on the back of his kid menu with the crayon.

“Wow,” I said, pretending to be excited. “This is great, sweetie. I bet you must have worked really hard for this, huh?”

My little boy’s chest puffed up in pride, and I couldn’t help but ruffle his hair. He shot Max a shy smile and pushed his maze toward him. I watched as Max smiled, taking in the drawing. “Your mom is right,” he said. “This looks amazing.”

“Thanks, Maxie,” he said, smiling, showing us his teeth.

I looked down, not wanting Max to see the emotion in my eyes. I didn’t know when I had become so emotional. Olivia had been the emotional one out of the two of us. Now I was tearing up because the man I had always loved was being nice to my son.

Ridiculous.

The waitress came back with our drink orders. I avoided looking at her for too long. I didn’t want to see another woman flirt with Max, and more so than that, I didn’t want to see another woman flirt with Max when I had no right to say otherwise.

We quickly put in our orders, with Hunter ordering chicken tenders with a side of mac n’ cheese.

There was a lull in the conversation as neither of us said anything, and Hunter was currently occupied with his menu, which had a picture of an octopus he was now coloring purple.

I shifted a bit in my seat.

I had thought I’d grown out of the awkward phase. But I was regressing, and I both hated and loved the feelings Max was able to bring out of me just merely by being in my presence.

It was like I was twelve again, meeting Max for the first time. As much as I hated the things that had happened between us, loving Max during my teenage years had been a blessing. I had been safe in my crush on him. Perhaps it was because they happened at the start of my adolescence, but those feelings had been the most intense of my entire life.

It was no wonder I had always compared Max to every man I had ever been with. It wasn’t a lot, a measly two, with the first being my high school boyfriend.

I lost my virginity to him in an attempt to forget about Max. Obviously, that hadn’t happened, and then I met Sam, and as horrible as it sounded, I compared Sam to Max for the entirety of our marriage.

I knew I was mostly to blame for the end of our marriage, and I couldn’t fault Sam for wanting the divorce.

He had been the second man in our marriage bed. The terrible thing was, he knew it.

I took a big sip of my tea and looked out the window. I didn’t want to think about my failed marriage anymore. The regret of it always weighed me down.

“Tell me about California,” Max said suddenly, startling me. I looked up at him, the teacup shaking a bit in my hand, the tea dripping. Max held out some napkins for me. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

I shook my head. “You didn’t. Just surprised me a bit,” I said, quickly wiping my hand.

“You want to know about California?” I asked. Of all the things for him to ask me, I wasn’t expecting him to ask about California. I looked at Hunter. He had been born in Chicago during the summertime, only a couple of months before our move to California.

California had been Hunter’s home, and even Sam—born and raised in Chicago—had made California his home too. And how he loved that home. A part of me thought he loved California so much because it provided a distance between me and Chicago.

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