“Why?”
I shook my head. “I’ve never admitted this out loud to anyone except Max the other night—not even Jada. So please, don’t say anything. I’ll tell her, but not until later. Until she’s feeling better. It won’t do any good now, anyway.”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“I don’t want to sort through all of that, okay?”
He released a breath. “I’m glad you told Max.”
“Yeah, thanks to Sam. She somehow started dating my ex and brought him to dinner a couple of nights ago.”
Cane stood and walked back in front of the fireplace, his jaw working back and forth. “Do you think that’s a coincidence?”
“How could it not be?” I asked, dumbfounded.
“It’s Samantha. I put nothing past her. Where’s Max now?”
“Home, I guess.”
We watched the flames dance in the fireplace for a while. “If Jada told me she couldn’t have a baby, it wouldn’t matter to me.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Really?”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and turned to look at me. “I love your sister. And yeah, the fact that we are having a baby—a human half me and half her—is beyond unbelievable. But really it’s just icing on the cake. Because with or without a baby, it’s Jada that I want to spend my life with. I can’t live without her.”
“I’m so glad you found each other.”
“Yeah, me, too,” he laughed. “But the point is this, this . . . condition of yours, or whatever you want to call it, it isn’t a deal breaker. I see why you would feel like you are holding Max back. I get it. But looking at it from his perspective, it’s his call, Kari. And I know Max better than Max knows Max and he doesn’t give a shit.”
“You think?” My breath caught in my throat at the tiny bit of hope creeping into my chest.
“I know. I’m always right, you know,” he winked.
“Sure you are.” I leaned back against the couch, mulling over Cane’s words. “You really think I’m not being selfish by being involved with him, knowing what you know now?”
Cane gave me the smile that, if he could, he should patent. It was cocky and thoughtful, juvenile, yet wise beyond his years. It was just Cane. “It would be selfish for you to keep your love from him. He needs it, Kari. He needs you.”
“I need him, too. That’s the problem. I need him so much that if he ever left me like Blaine . . .”
“Whoa, back up. He left you when he found out you were pregnant? You’re joking right?”
I shook my head, a little wary at Cane’s tone.
“And he’s in the Valley?”
“Stop it,” I warned him.
He laughed angrily. “Who the fuck does that? Did he know about your medical issues?”
“Yeah and that’s another problem with Max. He doesn’t get why I told Blaine and I didn’t tell him.”
Cane turned and faced me, his face solemn. “So, why didn’t you?”
I blew out a breath, trying to find the words to explain it. “It’s a lot easier to tell someone when they don’t want kids and you’re both kids yourself. The weight of ‘family’ and ‘children’ isn’t the same.” I played with the tassels on the edge of the blanket. “And I didn’t love him like I love Max,” I said softly. “Max is a man. He means so much to me. I didn’t want him looking at me like I was diseased or flawed or half the woman that other women are.”
“You’re serious right now?”
“Of course I am.”
He stroked his chin. “I guess I see your point. If I couldn’t have kids, I don’t know how that would feel, as a man. But I can tell you how it feels from this side of the coin—it doesn’t fucking matter.”
“Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. But now that he knows the truth, I want to give him the chance to walk if he’s going to. If you’re wrong and this is a deal breaker for him, I want to give him the opportunity to walk away now before things get messier. That’s why I left tonight. We were having a disagreement anyway. It gives him a chance to walk scot free.”
“He won’t walk. Mark my words.”
MAX
“Can you walk?” Sam asked me after opening the passenger side door.
“Yeah,” I said, stumbling out of my truck. I fumbled for my keys in my pocket and handed them to her. “I’m sure you know which one since you came in here once already,” I slurred.
“Oh, hush, Max.” She wrapped one arm around my waist and let me lean onto her. We stumbled to the door. I leaned against the doorway and nodded off while she unlocked it. She elbowed me in the ribs. “Wakey, wakey.”
I pulled my eyelids up and stumbled through the doorway and headed straight for the couch. Sam flipped a light on, the brightness giving me a headache. I half lay, half fell onto the sofa.
I heard a set of keys clamor onto a table and Sam’s heels click across the tile floor. I dozed off again, but woke up to her laugh.
“What are we gonna do with ya, Maxie?”
“What?” I shook my head and sat up, my stomach feeling the weight of the Crown.