She waved a hand. “Fine. Let’s move on then. You fought because she’d left her husband for you, and you didn’t want her.”
His gaze narrowed, but he went on. Perhaps telling her was his penance. “We fought. Then I got out of the car. Another bus came. I took it. I left her alone.”
He looked at her. If he expected sympathy, he wouldn’t get it. If he expected expiation, she couldn’t give it. “Was she alive when you left her?”
She couldn’t see his eyes, but she felt them, and suddenly she knew she’d given him exactly what he was looking for. Blame. Righteous anger. Max was the hair shirt he wanted to wrap around himself like a cloak.
“No, she wasn’t dead. But you left her alone to die, didn’t you, Nickie? You ran away before she started to cry because you knew you couldn’t handle it if she did.”
“I didn’t see her car leave the lot, and when the bus went back around, it was still there.”
“You knew you should have gone back, but you didn’t.”
“I thought about it. It was late.”
“You left her there. She counted on you, and you let her die.”
Max closed her eyes. It felt like she’d been transported to the dark, lonely lot. The roar of the jet engines thundered in her chest. The pain of his leaving ripped a hole in her heart and soul. He’d been her last chance. Her only hope.
Wendy had wanted to die. She’d looked into the face of her killer, and she’d wanted death. She hadn’t even put up a struggle when the time came. Not until instinct took over.
“Please don’t cry.” Nick’s voice was a whisper, an agony.
Her eyes snapped open. “I don’t cry.” She swiped at her cheeks. “You did love her, even if it was just a little.”
“I needed her.”
“Because she needed you.” Cameron’s words echoed. Need. It was what had bound him to her. Need. “For you, that just might be the same thing as love.”
It was as true for Nick as it had been for Cameron. For Wendy. Carla. And especially herself.
Nick ran a hand down one side of his face. “I remember the first moment it hit me. Remy had trashed her about something, I can’t even remember what anymore. He trashed her a lot. Remy’s a picker. Drove me crazy with it. But Remy seemed to terrorize Wendy. She didn’t know how to take it.”
“You were always there to help pull her back up when Remy smashed her down.”
“Yeah. That’s the best thing I did for her. That day, she was in her office, and I walked by. I wanted to hear her laugh.”
Max jerked back. “Wendy never laughed.”
“She was always laughing. I’d never quite met anyone who seemed quite so...full of joy.”
“Wendy?” She would have sworn Wendy didn’t even know what joy meant. Not with a father like Bud, a husband like Hal, and a boss like Remy. Maybe Nick only saw what he wanted to see.
Maybe Max only felt what Wendy wanted her to feel.
“She was so different from my wife, so undemanding. I felt...peaceful around her.”
God. Wendy the chameleon. She’d known exactly what Nick had wanted. Who had fallen into whose trap?
“But not that day,” Nick said. He moved to sit two steps below her. Max felt his heat. “She was crying. I think I would have done anything right then to make her stop. And just like that,” he snapped his fingers, “I was hooked. She needed me.”
He shrugged his shoulders. It had been that simple, that important, that transparent.
She hated him for falling so easily. Hated Wendy for being so weak.
Mostly she hated herself for driving Cameron away.
Nick was the closest person to take it out on.
“So, when did you start fucking her?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Max thought he’d get pissed. Instead, Nick leaned his head back against the wall and gaped up at her with those pale blue eyes, a mixture of guilt and pain swirling in their depths.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I could smell her as soon as I walked in the door, she wore this perfume. It just seemed to lead me to her no matter where she was. And she had the sexiest laugh, the sexiest voice, especially on the phone.”
“You called her at home?” Damn, he was an idiot.
“Just interoffice. If she needed something in the back, she’d call. And I’d say something so she’d laugh for me.”
Max smiled slightly. “God, you were sickening.”
“That was only the beginning. I told her things about my life. She told me things about hers, about her husband, their sex life. Why she married him.”
“And why did she?” Max curled her arms around her knees, leaned closer to him, avid for the information, the confirmation.
“Her father. The law firm. He made Hal a partner when he married Wendy. The guy was secure, dependable.”
“Dictatorial.”
“Wendy didn’t mind. It kept her from drifting off course.” Yet another point of view. Maybe they all had some validity where Wendy was concerned.
“Her father’s course?” She tasted something sour just thinking about the man.
“Yes, Hal’s and her father’s.”