An Ounce of Hope (A Pound of Flesh #2)(104)

Carter’s PA, Martha, smiled as he approached her desk. “Max?” Max nodded and Martha waved toward a door. “He’s waiting for you.”

He pushed the large wooden door open to find Carter standing at a window that boasted a hell of a view over the financial district. It was a gorgeous summer day in the city, and Max was somewhat relieved that he didn’t suffer from vertigo. Shit looked a long way down from up here. Carter turned when he heard the door click shut; his face was nervous. He tried to smile past it, but, after twenty years of friendship, Max could see through that shit like crystal.

“You’re going to see her,” Carter said, as Max opened his mouth.

Apparently Max was just as transparent. He pushed his hands into the pockets of his running shorts. “I don’t think I have another choice here, man.”

Carter rubbed a palm over his chin. “You do, Max. You do. But I know you’ll beat yourself up if you don’t go.”

Max lifted his shoulders. “I have to know,” he confessed quietly. “I have to know . . . why.”

“I know.” Carter moved closer.

Max sensed his friend’s disappointment, but he couldn’t let that sway him. He’d made a decision and he would stick with it, for his own peace of mind.

“So what’s the plan?” Carter asked, guiding Max toward a brown leather corner sofa. “How do you wanna do this?” He unfastened the single button on his navy blue suit jacket and sat down.

Max sat with him and pulled his cell out. “I’m gonna text her. I thought about calling but . . . I don’t know what hearing her voice will do to me.”

Carter was silent for so long, Max looked up from the phone in his hand. Carter sat back, his gaze on the carpet, pressing the backs of his fingers to his lips, looking for all the world as scared as Max felt. “You’re sure?” he asked quietly.

Max nodded and pulled from his pocket the battered letter that held Lizzie’s phone number. He took a deep breath and began typing. His text message was short and to the point: I can meet you. Tomorrow. Max.

Once done, his thumb hovered indecisively over the send button. He paused, his head suddenly echoing with Grace’s words: Tell me you didn’t feel something last night. Tell me it meant nothing to you . . . along with the image of her face as it collapsed when he’d fired back, so irate and stubborn.

He ground his teeth, hating how the memory made him feel, hating how what she’d asked him poked at parts of himself that scared Max to death, knowing what he’d said to her was unforgivable and categorically untrue. He growled deep in his chest and shook off the guilt.

He slapped the pad of his thumb down on the screen defiantly and pressed send.

Because f*ck it, that’s why.

He breathed through the thundering pulse in his ears while Carter sat stock-still at his side, seemingly without words. Both men stared at the phone, apprehension pulsing between them.

Lizzie’s reply came within a minute: I’m staying at the Hilton in Midtown. One o’clock in the lobby?

That was no good. Familiar ground was important if this was going to work.

One o’clock. Sam’s Diner across the street from the Hilton.

Okay. Thank you, Max.

Max pressed a button to quickly black out his cell phone screen and Lizzie’s gratitude, and slumped back into the sofa, eyes closed, nausea rippling through him as though Lizzie’s text was a big-ass stone thrown into his relatively peaceful little world. He couldn’t figure it. Surely, he should have felt some sort of satisfaction, some sort of revelation with contacting her after so long.

But, no; all he felt was distracted. Pressure on his chest transported him back to their old apartment, to the day Lizzie left, Max on his knees, frantically calling everyone he knew in an effort to find her. The memories trickled through before the levees broke and they slammed into him, thick and fast, like white-tipped rapids, pulling him under, swirling him around, with no pause for him to catch his breath.

“You’re okay,” Carter murmured at his side. “Breathe.”

Bizarrely, with Carter’s words, an image of Grace dancing by the moonlit lake on Fourth of July weekend slipped between the chaos. Along with the echo of her laugh, her arms above her head as she twirled, and the memory of her skin under his fingers, Carter’s hand on Max’s shoulder was the only thing keeping his ass securely on the sofa and not bolting out the door to find the nearest dealer.





Max stood outside the diner the following day, wondering whether it was at all possible for his heart to break his ribs. It pounded so hard, it almost hurt, and every time he attempted to move forward, to enter the place, it stuttered and squeezed. He was bone tired, having not slept a wink the entire night, worrying and hypothesizing about what the hell Lizzie could have to say, what he would say.

Dragging his feet, he pushed the door open. The smell of coffee and pancakes accosted him immediately, causing his stomach to roil. He glanced around the place, sweat dripping down his neck. She hadn’t arrived. Relieved that he had more time to collect himself, Max commandeered an empty booth and slid into it, fisting his hands together on the tabletop. A waitress approached with a wide smile and a name badge that read “Grace.” Max blew out a disbelieving breath. Wasn’t that just the last thing he needed to see?

“Fuck’s sake,” he mumbled into his hand before he swallowed and ordered a coffee, wishing to God it could arrive loaded with alcohol to help calm his nerves and extinguish the memory of Grace and the look of concentration on her face when she took her damned photographs, that same look that had been plaguing him since he’d awoken that morning.