was what he thought. So, where to start? “I sort of have to go...well, way back. Be patient, okay?”
“I’m all ears.”
“When I was eighteen, I thought I was in love.”
Expression arrested, he repeated, “Eighteen?”
“Yeah.” She shrugged. “Seven years ago, but it matters.”
“Okay.”
“Anyway, I was dating this older guy and I thought I was in love. My family didn’t like him. They thought he was trouble.”
Miles waited.
“And he was. Big trouble. It’s a long, hideous story, but the shortened version is that one night, while we were all on vacation, he and his friends came in uninvited. They robbed us, did a lot of damage to irreplaceable heirlooms, destroyed and vandalized just for the fun of it.” She looked down at her hands, now clasped together. Shame closed her throat, but she forced herself to finish. “He’d gotten the entry code from me.”
Without censure, Miles asked, “You gave it to him?”
“No. But he watched when I punched it in.”
“How do you know it was him?”
“Security cameras. They...did disgusting things on my sister’s bed. Even on my mother’s bed.”
“On your bed?” he asked quietly.
“Yes.” But as her family had said, she’d brought that on herself. They, however, hadn’t. “You can imagine how my family reacted. They’d told me not to see him, told me he was no good, and I didn’t listen. I argued, dramatically claimed we were in love, and then he proved them right and I was so ashamed, I didn’t even know what to say.”
Miles reached over one long arm to tweak her braid. “You were eighteen, Maxi. No one listens at eighteen. Sometimes we have to learn things the hard way.”
“Well, I thought I had learned. I went a long time avoiding guys after that. Romance and guilt didn’t mix so great.” She drew a deep breath. “And then I met another guy a year ago.”
“Wait.” Miles shifted. “You went how long without getting serious?”
“Five years.”
“So only casual dating—”
“You don’t understand. My first boyfriend destroyed an antique my mother had inherited from her great-grandmother. My sister, who is fanatical about everything, wouldn’t even go back in her room because of what he did in there. She moved out.”
“Your dad?”
“He died when I was younger. It was just my mom, sister and me. My brother, who’s eight years older, had already gone out on his own.”
“Well, maybe your sis was just ready to move on, too.”
“No, she rightly blamed me.”
“Bullshit. There’s nothing right about that.”
“They would disagree.”
“You were a victim, same as them.”
“No, I’d set that fire. Getting burned was my own fault. Unfortunately, they got burned, too, and that’s unforgivable.”
Miles shook his head. “Let’s get back to this new guy you’re involved with.”
“Used to be involved with,” she corrected. “It fell apart when I caught him cheating.” She gave him a stern frown. “I despise cheaters.”
“Any intelligent, moral person would.”
Mollified, she explained, “He didn’t want it to end and continually made a pest of himself.”
“If he didn’t want it to end, he should have kept it in his pants.”
Maxi snorted. “Yeah, that’s basically what I told him. But while I was trying to deal with that, my mother passed away during a procedure.”
“You said that once before. What type of procedure?”
Lord, she hated explaining it. “Mom was beautiful. She didn’t need cosmetic surgery, but she liked it all the same. Seemed like every six months she was having something else done, always tweaking this and tightening that. She got it in her head that she wanted this extreme makeover, and I guess it was just too much. She died of cardiac arrest under anesthesia.”
“Damn. So unnecessary.”
She nodded. Very unnecessary. “My mom and I weren’t really close, not since...well, since I was eighteen and everything happened.”
A disapproving frown creased his brow. “Was she close with your sister?”
“Yes.”
The frown darkened more. “That has to be tough.”
“Not really. I mean, I’m used to it.”
One fingertip brushed her cheek. “No one gets used to that.”
That rough whisper teased over her senses. “There’s so much you don’t know about me.” Things she needed to confess. “Even though that’s the way I wanted it, at least with you, it wasn’t the norm. Usually I’m an open book.” She hadn’t hidden from her failings. No, like a fool, she flaunted them.
“So flip a few pages for me.”
She smiled with his jest. “I’ll start with family.” He needed to understand the many ways she’d disappointed them. “My sister is a fitness buff. She owns her own boutique gym for trendy people. Very exclusive, and very pricey. Harlow is one of those hard bodies...well, I guess like you.” Maxi turned her head to stare out the window at the kids playing. That made it easier than looking at Miles. “I already told you about my brother. He was one of those ‘top of the class’ guys his whole life. Mom is a dynamo. There was no challenge that seemed too big to her.” And then there was Maxi. A disappointment.
Miles waited, occasionally drifting his fingers over her bare shoulder in a way that felt comforting more than seductive.
“You should probably know,” she finally said, “I’m the odd duck in my family. I love them and they love me, but we don’t really fit together. I’m the underachiever. I was never super motivated about anything.” Except the farmhouse, and that had turned into a living nightmare.
“You had a good job,” Miles said. “That is, if you were really a personal shopper?”
God, it hurt, knowing he didn’t believe anything about her. Not that she blamed him after she’d been deliberately elusive. But now...now she needed him to believe, to trust her as much as she trusted him. “I never lied to you about anything, I promise. I just didn’t share much.”
“Want to tell me why?”
“Gary—my
