“But she drifted with you.”
“She drifted because of Remy. In ways, he was worse than Hal, always pushing, always finding fault. I listened to her, tried to tell her she wasn’t to blame. Remy was born a dickhead.”
Yes. Hadn’t she used the same expression herself. “Did she believe you?”
He gave a snort of laughter. “Her father and Hal did way too good a job on her.” He paused, scraped at his chin with blunt fingers. “I helped for a very short period of time.”
“Maybe you helped her finally find the courage to leave Hal.”
“All I did was get her killed. If we hadn’t...if I had...”
The debate wasn’t worth it. Hairshirts weren’t removed as easily as they were donned. “So neither Hal nor her father listened to how bad it was with Remy?”
“If they’d said she could quit, she would have. As it was, they both told her she needed to buck up.”
Max laughed, shook her head. “Jesus, I can hear Bud saying it. Buck up, girl.” She did a fine imitation. “She could have quit without their approval.”
He looked at her oddly. “Sometimes you seem to know her like a sister, and other times, you’re so off, it isn’t even funny.”
“You’re right. Wendy wouldn’t have quit with them against her.” She rested her chin on her hand. “What did you tell her in return for all her confessions?”
“I told her about my wife, that I loved her no matter what she’d done, that she never let me prove it, that she didn’t need what I could give. That all I’d wanted was to help her.”
Max wondered if that was the very thing Cameron had needed from her. The very thing she couldn’t seem to give. Unconditional acceptance of his help.
“You gave and you gave,” she whispered, knowing she’d never really learned the things Cameron had tried to teach. Not even how to make love.
Nick cocked his head, regarded her with unfathomable eyes. “That’s what Wendy said.”
She closed her eyes, savoring a vestige of Cameron’s voice inside her, then erasing it. “What else did Wendy tell you?”
Nick didn’t answer directly. “I’d dream about her at night. Then one day she came back to the warehouse. A problem shipment...something, hell, I can’t remember what. I just remember the guys were out to lunch. The place was deserted. Empty except for Wendy and me.”
He swallowed. Max figured he’d forgotten she was even there. Her throat tightened. Her pulse rate rose a notch. She felt like a voyeur, and yet she didn’t make a sound to stop him. Wendy wanted to hear. Badly.
“I told her I’d daydream on the drive home. About her. And she asked me what I’d been thinking. She didn’t look at me, but I had her crowded up against the worktable. I could hear her breath, it was fast, and her skin was flushed.”
He looked up then. He hadn’t forgotten Max, after all. Her breath came harsh, too, her skin felt like he’d scorched her with a blow torch, and the neckline of her robe had fallen open. A cool draft of air fingered across her breasts. She couldn’t move.
“I told her I’d been dreaming about going down on her.”
Ripples of desire and alarm ran across her breasts. She should have been horrified. She wasn’t. Neither was Wendy. The woman needed to hear it all again, and she dragged Max along for the ride.
“I shouldn’t have said anything. We could have gone on with longing looks and sexual innuendo. Everything would have been fine. But I asked her to meet me early the next morning.”
“At five,” Max whispered.
“No one else got to Hackett’s until six.”
“And her husband didn’t even wonder.”
“Hal wouldn’t have figured out a thing, because he thought he’d wound Wendy around his finger so tightly she couldn’t wriggle loose.”
“What about your wife?”
“She thought I was doing overtime.” He gave a quick, derisive laugh. He put a boot up one step, draped his arm over his knee, stared at her. “I went down on Wendy on a swivel chair in the warehouse. She was real quiet when she came, and then I made her stand up and took her against the table. I would have made her come again if I could, but she thought she heard a noise up front.”
Max leaned forward against her thighs, her head almost on her knees. “Why are you telling me this? You want to see some reaction? It’s some sort of test?”
The rain had dried in his hair, on his face, and his shirt no longer stuck to his chest. He was close enough to raise one hand from his knee and stroke her shin with the back of a finger, his flesh cold from the rain. Hers was hot. Fire shot up her leg.
She wanted to think of Witt touching her, even of Cameron taking her in the dark with her fingers wrapped tightly around the headboard as he pressed tightly behind her. But Wendy controlled her now, and Wendy wanted only the things Nick could give them.