Page 25 of Maximum Risk (The Andrades 3)
“You bought four homes?” Tara couldn’t help making a mental leap from four homes to four brothers and the stories Maddy had told her of how, as children, they had all visited an island off the coast of Italy.
“Yes.”
“And now you don’t know if you want to tear them down.”
He nodded. “That sums it up.”
“What would you do with them if you kept them?”
He rolled onto his back and pulled her to his side. “I don’t know. That’s why I brought you here. I don’t understand what’s stopping me from moving forward on the project. I’ve demolished older, grander homes. I don’t even own a house of my own; I’ve never needed one. I definitely don’t need four of them. You’re not invested in this project one way or the other, so tell me what’s here that has me stalling a project I’ve poured considerable money into.”
Tara traced Max’s collarbone as she chose her next words. “Have you considered that this place may remind you of a place you might miss?” When Max looked at her blankly, Tara continued, “Maddy told me you and your brothers used to spend time on Isola Santos with her family. She said it was a happy time for all of you.”
Max’s jaw clenched. “We have different memories of those summers.”
Tara put a hand lightly on one side of his face and moved so she was looking down into his eyes. “So tell me your version.”
He looked away. “I don’t talk about my childhood.”
Very gently, Tara turned his face back toward hers. “Maybe you should. Denying something doesn’t make it go away. Sometimes the best way to take the power away from a memory is to talk about it.”
At first Tara thought he wouldn’t, his eyes remained guarded and held that sad, angry look she was beginning to attribute to his family. When he started talking, his tone was as impersonal, as if he were telling someone else’s story. “My father owned Isola Santos. The island has been in the Andrade family for many generations. It has always been passed down from oldest son to oldest son. My father said it was in his name, but belonged to every Andrade. I used to believe it, but that was a lie—one of many my father told us.”
Tara held her silence, fearing if she said a word she would jolt Max back to the present, and he would close the past off from both himself and her.
“We were raised with the knowledge that Uncle Victor and Uncle Alessandro had never wanted our father to marry our mother. Our mother told us they would never consider any of us good enough for them. Whatever they felt for us paled in comparison to the disgust Mother felt for that whole side of the family. Still, Father insisted we spend summers with his family on the island.”
Tara’s heart broke for him. “That couldn’t have been easy.”
Max pressed his lips together in a tense line, then continued in an unemotional tone. “It was a joke. We’d visit, pretend to be one close family, then not speak the rest of the year. Things changed temporarily when my father passed away. I was still in my teens. My uncles insisted we all go to the island for a summer. Of course Mother didn’t join us. I can’t explain what was different, but that summer all the walls were down. It felt so real I began to doubt everything my mother had ever said about my uncles. I remember being happy and feeling guilty about it. I shouldn’t have wasted time worrying; it didn’t last anyway. My uncles did something that enraged Gio and my mother, and all hell broke loose. Once again I was supposed to hate my cousins, like it was a switch I could flip on and off. Gio swore Uncle Victor swindled him out of his inheritance by taking the island and selling it to Dominic Corisi. Back then my cousin, Stephan, considered Dominic an enemy, but now I see Dominic at all of Stephan’s family functions so apparently that wasn’t true either. The island is back in the family. I don’t care how or why. Like some afternoon soap opera, Gio recently disclosed my father had a whole other family in Venice we knew nothing about. Seems we have a half-sister who hates us. Which is not a surprise—the hating part, anyway. Still, her existence was a surprise. I knew my parents didn’t have a loving relationship, but I never thought Father could betray all of us that way. To top it off, we’re all supposed to love our uncles again because Gio says they never wronged him or any of us. In my family, there is no absolute truth. There are layers and layers of lies. Gio tries to hide them. Nick drank because of them. Luke denies them.”
Tara’s vision blurred as her eyes filled with tears. “And you separate yourself from them.”
“Yes.”
Not knowing what else to do, Tara wrapped her arms around Max and hugged him with all her might. “I wish I knew what to say.”
“There is nothing to say. Nothing can fix what’s wrong with my family. Do you know what my mother said to me the last time I saw her? I had come home because Luke wanted us all to celebrate Nick doing well at Cogent. I stopped by to visit with my mother, and she was in rare form. She said feeling her own mortality was freeing in a sense. She was tired of hiding how she was sickened by my face and the sound of my voice. She said the biggest favor I could do for her was to never visit her again. I always knew she felt differently about me than she did the others, but I never thought she’d admit it.”
Tears fell freely down Tara’s cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Max. I don’t understand how any mother could say that to her son.”
Max tightened his arms around Tara and kissed her lightly on the forehead. “Don’t cry for me. I don’t feel anything for her anymore. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve lost the ability to feel anything for anyone.”
Tara laid her head on Max’s chest. The rapid beat of his heart betrayed his words. He wasn’t nearly as emotionless as he tried to convince himself he was. As she lay there a slow panic began to build within her. Lies had driven him from his family. She couldn’t keep the truth from him anymore. How would he react to the news she wasn’t who she’d told everyone she was?
Denying the existence of a problem never made it go away. She’d seen that a hundred times over in her job. The truth was always best revealed and dealt with. She took a deep breath, sat up, and said, “Max, there’s something I need to tell you.”
He moved back in the bed so he was sitting up against the headboard of it. “You’re married.”
She smiled without humor. “No, that would be simple. Will you promise to hear the whole story before you react to it?”
“Worse than being married. Now I’m intrigued.”
Tara wrapped a sheet around herself, gathering her courage as she gathered the material. “I didn’t know you and I would . . . well, that we’d do whatever it is we’re doing. I’m a private investigator and Maddy hired me to find out what was stopping you from attending Gio’s wedding. She thinks there is one big family secret that keeps tearing you all apart. She wanted me to uncover it.”
“So, you’re not actually Maddy’s friend.” The man who had opened himself to her moments ago was gone. Max’s eyes were cold and guarded.
“I wasn’t. I am now, sort of.” Tara leaned forward earnestly. “It’s complicated.”
“You never went to school with her. She’s not trying to cheer you up after a breakup. That was all lies.”
“Yes,” Tara said. There was so much she wanted to say, but the words jumbled in her head, and she didn’t know where to start.
Max shook his head in cold amusement. “Of course.”
“After what you said about your fami
ly, I didn’t want this to be between us. I thought you should know I was working for Maddy when I first met you. I’m not now. I gave her back the money. I couldn’t help her.”
He nodded slowly as he processed what she’d said. “Come here.”
Tara hesitated. “You’re not upset?”
His dark eyes held no emotion at all when he answered, “Why would I be? You’re nothing to me.”
His words cut Tara so deeply she reacted without thinking. She slapped him full across the face. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her forward so she fell across his lap. Despite how angry he looked, he was excited by the exchange. Tara had to admit she was, too. She told herself she shouldn’t be, but she felt herself getting wet, and her anger fueled her desire. The sheet had fallen away, and his dick came to glorious life between Tara’s bare breasts. She wanted to rub herself against it, but instead used her free arm to lift herself away from him. This wasn’t right. “I told you the truth because I care about you.”
He took her other hand in his and yanked her up onto him, until her face was close to his, and she was seated astride him. His fully erect cock slid lengthwise between her spread lower lips. “Don’t, Tara, because this is all I care about. Just this.”
He rolled his hips back and forth so his length stroked her intimately. Tara ground her hips downward even as she told herself to stop. He leaned forward and took one of her puckered nipples between his teeth. The gentleness of their earlier lovemaking was gone, but the slight pain sent waves of fire through Tara. He kept a rhythm with his hips that drove her wild. He played her body against her, expertly kissing and caressing her breasts until she was beyond caring what he said as long as he didn’t stop.
He took both her hands and held them in one of his behind her back. He dug his other hand into the hair on the back of her neck and pulled her mouth to his. It was a rough kiss, one that was meant to prove something, but it affected him as much as it did her. When Tara sensed that, she gave herself over to the experience and opened her mouth wider for him. He was angry, but so was she, and this was as good a way as any to work through it.
