Page 32 of The Ruthless and the Strong

Max

I didn’t sleepthe entire night, my mind playing the moment of our kiss over and over.

She’d asked if I thought about her in the six years of her marriage, and the answer was more than I should have.

I had tried to forget about her. Tried to move on to someone else, reminding myself over and over that she was someone else’s wife. That there was no future between us.

Yet any time I tried to date someone else, to build a future with anyone who wasn’t Lizzie, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It had felt wrong, and I knew it wouldn’t have been fair to either me or the woman when Lizzie was still in my heart.

I hated that, and shamefully, for a brief time, I had resented Lizzie for owning so much of my heart, even if she had done it without knowing it. The fact that she even had to ask if I had thought about her showed how insignificant she thought her place in my life was. Perhaps I had done too good of a job keeping my distance.

I didn’t know, and when the lock on my front door turned early in the morning, I knew I didn’t have any time to think about it either.

Olivia walked in with a bright smile on her face and Emma holding onto her hand.

I smiled at my girls.

Emma let out an excited squeal when she caught sight of me in the kitchen, and she pulled away from her mother’s hand before clumsily running to me. I moved over to her so she wouldn’t fall in her haste, and caught her just in time for that little body to slam against me, her incoherent babble filling up the room.

Emma was pretty vocal for a two-year-old, but she was still learning to talk, so most of the time we were treated to her babble that made no sense at all.

She could say my name though, so that was something. “Uncle Maxie.”

“Hey, kiddo 2. How’s my favorite girl?” I asked, taking in her short hair tied in two pigtails with a pink bow on each, and her red fluffy dress with black tights underneath. She was going to lose one or both of the bows by the end of the day, and her dress would be nothing more than a rumpled mess from all the running and playing, but right now she looked absolutely precious, and so much like Olivia when she was a baby, my heart pinched from the sight. If I looked around, I was sure I could find a picture of Olivia when she was Emma’s age, with her hair put in pigtails with bows.

Emma babbled something about “Mommy” and “Daddy” that I didn’t quite catch, but I nodded my head along. Olivia was grinning from where she stood at the threshold. I stood up with Emma in one arm and held out the other for her. Like I knew she would, she moved close to me, and I held both my girls in my arms.

“Hey, kiddo.”

She grinned, her brown eyes shining. “Hi, Max.”

“Ready?”

She nodded, excitement dancing around in her face. Always so expressive. I was glad to see that hadn’t gone away, even after she married and gave birth to her daughter. “Ready.”

I had taken the week off just in case Lizzie might need a ride somewhere and Olivia and Mason couldn’t take her. I told everyone I did it because I needed a break from work, though I thought everyone knew the reason behind it. Everyone except for Lizzie.

I didn’t know when I had become so pathetic.

Shaking away the errant thought, I led Olivia toward the garage door to my car. Lizzie was borrowing Olivia’s car today for any errand she might need to do, like taking Hunter to school on his first day, while Olivia and Emma spent the day with me, a day that was long overdue.

Olivia got into the passenger seat while I buckled Emma in her car seat. She wasn’t always happy being confined to anything, and she showed me a bit of her grumpy side, putting up a fight.

“Behave,” I admonished. I didn’t think she understood me. Her reply was a frustrated sigh and a slight scowl shot my way. I shook my head. I wondered how I would ever win any battles with her once she entered her moody teen phase. I might just let her burn down the world and protect her from any and all repercussions. Emma Kade would be a very dangerous woman. I had to grin at the thought.

Olivia looked back at us with amused eyes. I held a finger in front of her. “Don’t look like that, kiddo, or I’ll let you strap her in on our way back.”

That wiped the smile off her face. “I can’t. She only listens to her Uncle Maxie and her Daddy.”

“Uh-huh. I’m sure you said that to Mason so he would take over the job of strapping her in her car seat.”

I knew I guessed right when Olivia let out a soft laugh. I shook my head, but there was a smile on my face. I quickly shut the door and moved to the driver’s side.

Before Lizzie moved back, Olivia and I usually did something together once every two weeks or so, and I would sometimes end up having dinner at their house every other day. Mostly because I knew Olivia needed it, but hell, I needed it too.

I had trouble in the past leaving her out of my sight for long. Mostly because I knew she needed me. Everyone always said she had formed an unhealthy attachment to me because both her parents left, but I wondered if they saw how much I had enabled that because I didn’t want her to be far away from me either. I wanted to protect her from everything, and I never discouraged her dependency. Perhaps that was where I’d messed up.

“What’s wrong?” Olivia asked when I got in the car.

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