Indiscretion: Volume Four (9 page)

Max gripped my chin, forcing my hands away and I looked at him. “I’m so sorry.” There was nothing but sincerity on his face. Max was always so understanding and compassionate, never judging. Not once had he made me feel less-than. He was a special type of man—one able to balance his money and power with understanding and a kind-hearted nature.

“There’s no need for you to apologize. It’s not your fault he’s a loser who abandoned his family because he couldn’t face his mistakes,” I said with disdain.

“Was he ever caught?”

I shrugged and turned my face away from him again. Admitting you had a felon for a father wasn’t my best moment. “Don’t know. Don’t care. I haven’t seen or heard from him since the day he left.”

Max kissed the side of my head, holding his lips there as if whatever unsaid words he had in him would somehow permeate my consciousness.

I turned to face him, and he kissed me tenderly, barely touching me. He pressed his lips to mine again with a little more force this time and kissed me slowly, passionately, and I did the same, pouring everything that I couldn’t say into that kiss.

Reaching down to the hem of my nightgown, he slowly tugged it over my head, then pushed his underwear off, my own following soon after. Still kissing me tenderly, he moved so he was over me, his hips nestled between my legs. I spread them wider as an invitation, and he pressed himself at my entrance, pushing himself slowly into me until he was fully seated within.

I was lost in the haze of us, knowing he shouldn’t be doing this—that he needed to conserve his energy for healing, but the connection between us was so intense I couldn’t bear to turn him away. I wasn’t thinking rationally. Max was the only one who’d ever held that type of power over me.

He began moving in and out of me at a slow pace, almost leisurely, taking his time. I stroked his muscled back up and down, kissing the smooth expanse of his chest as he rocked into me.

The fullness in my belly and the aching need for release crept up on me. I was so lost in the thread of connection between us in that moment, it built up and wrapped itself around me until my entire body was tingling. Max pushed himself to the hilt and stayed there, rocking his hips in a circular motion against me, and I came undone. The orgasm rocked through my body, darkness edging my vision. I pulsed around his cock, trying to coax his release from him.

He thrust into me again. “Chloe.” My name was like a benediction coming off his tongue, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so full of love. His hot seed poured into me, and I angled my hips so I could take more of him.

I couldn’t get enough of this man.

I loved this man.

Max. My, Max
.

It was a heady realization—one that brought me equal parts pleasure and pain. It didn’t matter any longer that I would end up broken-hearted, didn’t matter that we were from two different worlds. I couldn’t deny the entirety of my feelings by pretending they didn’t exist. I would take what I could get from him, physically and emotionally, and hold nothing back in return. I may never feel like this again in my life, so I was damn well going to enjoy it for the brief time I had it.

Max

I rolled off Chloe and let out a small groan. I felt...sated.

“Are you okay? Did you over do it? How do you feel?” Chloe said like rapid fire.

I chuckled. “I’m fine. Perfect, in fact.” I pulled her into an embrace, and she settled her arm around my waist, her head on my chest. We lay together in a comfortable silence for a while, both basking in the aftermath of our lovemaking.

Without really considering what I was about to do, I decided to just trust my instincts. The more I kept my secret to myself, the more the weight of it bore down on me. Every day that passed it was a heavier and heavier load on my conscience. I needed to get it out in the open.

“I have a confession to make,” I said, my nerves causing my voice to shake just a little. I ran my hand up and down her back, probably more for my own comfort than hers.

Chloe’s body tensed instantly, but she didn’t say a word.

I sucked in a deep breath as I prepared to tell her. It was something I hadn’t spoken of since I was ten. Not to anyone. Even to the only other person in the world who knew. “You asked me before if I had any siblings and I told you no. That was a lie.”

“Okay…” she said, sounding unsure.

“I had a brother,” I said simply.

“Had?” Her voice was so quiet.

“Yes, had,” I confirmed, swallowing past the pain in the back of my throat. “And it’s my fault he’s dead.”

Chloe’s head whipped up off my chest, and she angled her body so she could look down at me. “I’m sure that’s not the case.”

God, how I wished that were true. I tried to blink back the emotion, an automatic response, being that I was unaccustomed to sharing this part of myself with anyone.

“My brother was always the golden child, whereas I was the more difficult one. I never fit into the mold of what it meant to be a Richfield. I did my best to rebel against it, whereas my brother was always more than happy to accommodate my parents. I loved him, but I was jealous of him.” I squeezed my eyes shut at that admission, disgusted with myself for feeling that way in the wake of what had happened. “In my eyes, he always got the praise, and I was left feeling like I couldn’t do anything right. Like who I was wasn’t good enough, and I needed to change.

“He was nine and I was ten. One day when I’d walked past my dad’s office I saw him cleaning his gun. Unbeknownst to him, I spied and when he put it away, I knew where to find it.” Tears pricked the corner of my eyes as I thought back to that day. Nausea rose up and I clenched my teeth, trying to push back the feeling.

“My brother and I were goofing around one day, and I told him about the gun. He didn’t believe me. I guess he thought I was making it up, trying to appear badass or something. I told him I’d prove it to him, so we snuck into my dad’s office. I pulled out the gun. I remember the look on his face—he couldn’t believe it.” I was breathing hard as the images of that day rose to the surface. “I tried to get him to hold it, but he was scared and didn’t want to touch it. I goaded him, called him a baby and stuff.” I paused and swallowed past the lump in my throat, gathering my thoughts for a second. Blinking hard, I willed the wetness gathering in my eyes to stay put.

With a deep breath, I continued. “I started twirling the gun around on my finger—showing off. Trying to be cool and make him feel small. Then the gun went off…” My voice broke. “The bullet hit him in the neck,” I whispered, the vile feeling I knew so well taking hold of me.

Chloe took my face in her hands. “Oh, Max. I’m so sorry.”

Hesitantly, I looked up at her, afraid to see the disgusted expression I was sure must be on her face. But that wasn’t what I found. No, she was looking down on me with sorrow and understanding in her eyes. How was that even possible?

I cleared my throat and continued. “He bled out all over my father’s priceless antique rug. And I just stood there in shock, staring down at him as the hole in his neck oozed blood everywhere. I watched the life drain out of him.” I stared up at the ceiling, remembering vividly everything that had happened. Bile rose into my throat and I swallowed it back.

Chloe choked back a sob and lay her head on my chest, wrapping her arms around me and hugging me tight.

“There was so much blood, Chlo,” I whispered, choking back a sob. I shook my head, trying in vain to dislodge the images that were seared into my brain, the images that had formed a part of me so long ago. Tears began to slide down my face, and I thought how odd that was. I hadn’t let myself cry about it in over a decade. I never felt deserving of the mild relief one felt afterward.

After a few minutes of laying in each other’s arms, both of us crying silently, I exhaled. I’d never told that story to anyone before in my life. It’d been cleansing—cathartic.

“Max, you were just a kid. It wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known the gun was loaded,” Chloe said, her voice thick as she raised her head up off my chest.

“I was the older brother,” my voice cracked around those words. “I knew better. I knew we weren’t supposed to go poking around my father’s office. He looked up to me, always trying to be like me. Following me around, wanting to do what I did. He didn’t want to touch the gun, and I was taunting him with it, twirling it around on my finger when it went off. The gun was in my hands when it killed him.” My voice was flat, dead. As dead as my poor brother.

Chloe was looking down at me with wide eyes full of concern. She touched her fingers tenderly to my face and it felt good. It felt so good to have someone comfort me, whether I deserved it or not.

“There’s no way you could’ve known what would happen. Your parents must’ve told you that.”

And there it was—my biggest source of shame all laid out for her to discover. “My father heard the gun shot and discovered us. He made it look like Peyton accidentally shot himself. I’m sure he had to pay off someone at the coroner’s office, maybe even the police. He said it would cause problems for me if people knew what had actually happened, and that he couldn’t have that for his only remaining son. My mother doesn’t even know I’m the reason she lost her youngest son.” A guttural sob escaped my throat.

“My God, Max,” she breathed. “You’ve been carrying around this guilt for more than twenty years?” She sounded astonished and...compassionate. How could she feel any compassion for me? She should be appalled that she’d been sharing her bed with a man who could kill his brother, and then go on to live his life like nothing had ever happened.

“I deserve the guilt. I killed him,” I said with a bitter edge to my voice. “I’ve lied to everyone in my life about it while I live a privileged existence and want for nothing.”

“Max, I’m not trying to be insensitive, but it was an accident,” she insisted, willing me to believe it. “You were just a kid, there was no way that you could’ve known the outcome. We’ve all done things as kids we’d never do as adults.”

She looked at me then, with such trust and understanding in her eyes that a small part of me actually had hope that maybe someday I could believe what she said to be true. Chloe wrapped her arms around me and lay her head back down on my chest, tracing her fingertips over top of the homage to my brother I’d had inked onto my skin.

“Your tattoo…is that for your brother?” she asked softly.

“Yeah,” I replied simply. The picture was of two birds sitting on a branch, tattooed on my upper arm, representing me and my brother. The name Makya Peyton was underneath, surrounded by an angel’s wings.

“Makya is an unusual name.”

“Most people called him Peyton or Pey, but my mother has some Native American in her, and it was my great grandfather’s name. She told me once that she wanted both our names to start with the same letter, too.”

“I like it. It’s a lovely tribute to your brother,” she said with a smile in her voice.

“It’s also a reminder to me so I never forget,” I said, my voice serious. “I deserve to live with the fact that he’s no longer here because of me, every day of my life.”

Chloe inhaled sharply. “Oh, Max. I can’t even imagine what carrying all that guilt around for so many years does to a person. More than twenty years…that’s such a long time. It must’ve changed you in some way.”

I took a deep breath in and held it for a moment before exhaling. “It did change me. I started trying to be someone I wasn’t from that point on. My brother was the perfect son, so after he was gone I tried to fill that role. It was a conscious decision at first, but somewhere along the way it became second nature.”

The arms Chloe had wrapped around me squeezed me tighter with that admission. “Things like what you did in that newspaper article about me?”

I sighed. “Things exactly like that.”

“That couldn’t have been easy,” she noted. How was it possible that she was viewing me with any kind of empathy right now? Her voice drew me from my thoughts. “Have you ever considered telling your parents all this?”

I shook my head. “I can’t tell my mother…it would be like taking another son away from her. My father…it was clear the day it happened and shortly afterward that he’d never forgive me.” Shame crashed over me, making me want to tuck myself into a ball and turn away from Chloe. I fought the urge.

She was silent for a moment, thinking I could tell, then she said softly, “You can’t keep going on like this.” She paused. “What Max have I been getting to know? The real one or the one you think everyone wants to see?”