As if he were alive, as if he were made of flesh instead of angel dust—no pun intended—and her own imaginings. “You’ll be happy to know he was leaving me the night he died.”
For a moment, she wished for the light, wished she could see the play of thought on Witt’s face. For now, all she had was his voice, his next words said in even, unreadable tones. “Occurred to me when I read you’d both driven your cars, and he had a bag of clothes in the trunk.”
She could hardly think, hardly breathe. Thank God she was already on the floor. Her legs might not have held her up. Men. Bastards. All of them. “Why didn’t you ask me about it then?”
“Wasn’t my business.”
He couldn’t have known that Max remembered none of it. She’d give him that, but no more.
He shifted to his other leg and went back to the original accusation she’d flung at him. “Why would I be happy he was leaving?” he asked, with careful enunciation and a voice devoid of expression or emotion.
God, she needed to see his face, and God, she was terrified to. “It proves how right you are. I don’t know how to love. I don’t know how to make love. I only know how to fuck. I use sex to get what I want as if it’s a club.”
Cameron’s accusation echoed in her head. She wasn’t like Bud. She wasn’t that far gone. But she was pissed as hell at them all, especially Witt. “Isn’t that why you’re always telling me to kiss you or touch you or make love to you?” She mimicked his entreaties with a sneer. “You’re testing me to see if I can do it of my own free will. To see how far you can push.”
He took two steps into the room, his tall form nothing more than a dark blob. “I don’t want anything you don’t give willingly and without hidden motives.”
She slammed her fists down on the floor, irritated the rug muffled the sound. “Well, let me tell you, it ain’t gonna happen. Cameron knew that; that’s why he left. I don’t make love. I use. I fuck. You’ll find out that’s never going to change, no matter what I tell you in the heat of the moment. So why don’t you make it a helluva lot easier on all of us and get out now?”
His voice came dangerously soft, ominously calm. “That what you really want? To be left alone?”
What she really wanted. She closed her eyes and let her head fall back. A trace of moisture came to her eyes, her nose, and her throat. A headache was brewing. A doozy. “I’m seeking to end the pain now before it gets worse.”
“For me, it’s as bad as it gets, Max. It’s not gonna hurt any less than it will a week or a month or a year from now. I’m already in love with you.”
She laughed, couldn’t help it as she looked at his dim hulk. He couldn’t know the meaning of love if he believed that. “All I’ve done is give you a rash of shit since the day we met.” She threw up her hands. “So how can you say you love me?”
He reached to the wall and flipped on the overhead light, the glow washing over his face. To make sure she didn’t miss a thing, he squatted in front of her. The blue of his T-shirt and jeans made his eyes blaze like the sky.
“It’s true.”
“Seems sort of like you’re degrading and humiliating yourself.” Cruel words and tone, but she said them anyway.
His eyes narrowed, his lips whitened. She’d hurt him or angered him, but he persevered. “You’re salvageable, Max. I’ll hang on till you see that, too.”
She thought of his cases, how he always cleared them, never gave up. A bulldog on the job. He made her heart ache for what wasn’t going to happen between them.
“What if I never do?”
He held her chin steady. “You will. You’re not a coward.”
She sniffed. Her clenched fingers ached. “I don’t know why you keep believing there’s something good in me. I am a coward. I even pick fights with you so that you’ll walk out, and I can blame you for ending the relationship.”
A shadow crossed Witt’s face. His glance passed over the litter of Cameron’s life, scattered across the floor and the rug, flowing out of the box, surrounding her, covering her. “Is that what you tried to get your husband to do?”
The ache revived, stabbing anew at her heart. “He left me. I hate him. He’s a traitor.”
“Liar.” Witt took the words out her dead husband’s mouth, and with the next, took the breath from her chest. “I admire your commitment to him. I envy it. I want the same from you.”
God. She crossed her arms over her stomach. “What if I can’t give you that? Are you going to leave like Cameron?”
“Your husband didn’t leave you. He died.” He pointed a finger at himself. “I don’t intend to let that happen to me for years.”
“No, you’ll walk out the door because I ask you to sit when you take a leak.”
“You’re holding it against me.” He shifted, his knees creaking in the uncomfortable squat. “There’s one reason I’d leave.”
Her body was suddenly weighted to the floor, and she couldn’t have found a pithy answer if it’d been written in chalk in front of her. Some kernel of courage made her ask, “What?”