Page 30 of Heartache & Playdates
“You don’t know my father. He has connections. He would have made sure that you were behind bars. He would have trumped up some charges. Or planted drugs on you. He would have destroyed your life. I knew that. I knew that he would have hurt you.” I sighed. “The reason he came and took me was because he knew aboutyou. Do you remember that security detail I had the week before I left? They told him about you. That’s why he showed up. Because he didn’t want us to be together.”
He was quiet for a few beats. I could see that he was processing the information that I was telling him.
“That’s why I couldn’t tell you that I was leaving. You would have talked me into running,” I repeated. “And my father would have destroyed you, your entire life.”
His chest rose and then fell in a deep exhale. “Okay, I guess I understand that. But why didn’t you call me? Why didn’t you ever try and reach out to me?”
“I was in Germany.”
It was a lame excuse and his leveled stare called me on it.
“They have phones in Germany,” he stated flatly.
My palms dampened as I calculated how much I should tell him. “I did try to call you. In July, I tried. They said you were gone.”
“I was. I got emancipated.”
I nodded. I’d read that in his bio.
“But what about when you came back to the States? When you were at college? You could have tried to find me.”
“I was scared it was too late. That you would have forgotten about me.” That was partially true. It was too late, and I had been scared that he had forgotten about me, but that wasn’t the reason that I hadn’t tried to contact him.
I would take the reason for that to my grave.
His brow creased. “How could you think I would forget you?”
“We were young, Maddox. You were fifteen when we started dating. Sixteen when I left. We were together a few months.”
“Yeah, but…you knew…it was more than that. Itismore than that.”
I could feel the tears in my eyes starting to swell, but there was no way I was going to give into them. If I did, I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop.
“I know, I know it was more than that. But, back then, with each day, each week, each month that passed, I wondered if I had made it into something that it wasn’t. That maybe I’d romanticized our connection.”
“What about now? Do you still think you romanticized it?”
“No.” I shook my head.
I could see the flames of desire flickering in his eyes, and I was sure that they mirrored my own. Maddox might be sitting in a chair three feet away from me, but I could feel his stare like a physical touch. “I wanted to kiss you tonight. At the bar. On the dance floor. Now.”
“I wanted that, want that, too,” I admitted.
Maddox inhaled slowly through his nose as he flexed his fingers. I watched, captivated as his fingers opened and then closed in a fist. Those hands that had been on my body on the dance floor were addictive.
He was addictive. His voice. His stare. His touch. His kiss.
I hadn’t been prepared last time I’d had to go cold turkey. But this time, if anything happened between us, I knew what it would take from me.
Was one night together worth it?
He stood and my stomach dropped out from under me like the time we’d gone to Great America on the Drop Zone. That’s what I felt like I was doing. I felt like I was freefalling from hundreds of feet in the air.
I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, couldn’t think as he closed the distance between us in one wide stride.
“Peyton?” he whispered my name in pain and desperation.
I knew what he was asking. He wanted to know if I was sure. If I really wanted to do this.
