Trust Me (25 page)

“Hey!” Max yelled, and she skidded to a stop, turning to look quizzically back at him. “Wait for me.”

She did, more or less. He found his rhythm quickly, and they started down the beach together, Max on the firmly packed surface
of the wet sand, Lola bounding through the ankle-deep water. She liked to speed forward to scatter the flocks of birds, then
loop back around to regain her place just in front of him, glancing at him as if she wondered why he was so slow.

He discovered that she would respond to a two-note whistle, and practiced calling her to him as they ran. The fog was thinner
than usual, and he could see traces of the evening sun shining weakly through the drifting mist. He lifted his face to the
sky and took deep breaths of the ocean air. It was the shortest five miles that he had ever run.

C
arly was curled up on the couch in her apartment, wearing her favorite peach bathrobe and reading a mystery novel, when the
doorbell rang. It was 8
P.M.
, and she had gotten back from pet duties at Henry’s house only half an hour earlier. She had jumped in and out of the shower,
and immediately settled down to relax. She was warm, clean, comfortable, and absorbed in her book, and moving was the last
thing that she felt like doing.

The bell sounded again and was accompanied this time by an authoritative rapping. Carly groaned and got slowly to her feet,
cinching the belt of her robe more modestly around her. She opened the door and stopped short when she saw who was standing
outside. “Max,” she said, surprised. “What are you doing here?”

“I was in the neighborhood,” he said. He looked warily into her apartment. “Where’s Nero?”

“Gone.”

“You took him back to the park? Good.”

“No,” Carly said. “I found him a home.”

“Not possible. What did you really do?”

“It’s true. There is the nicest little old lady three doors down the street, and she met him yesterday morning when I had
him out for a walk. The two of them fell in love, can you believe it? He lets her rub his tummy. It just proves what I’ve
always believed, that there’s someone out there for everyone.” Max’s expression made her laugh. “We should all be so lucky,”
she added.

“Maybe so,” Max said. “But if my someone turned out to be a fat, psychotic little dog, I’d want to have a few words with the
man upstairs.” He brushed past her in the doorway. His hair was damp and windblown, and he was wearing black nylon running
clothes and sneakers. The jacket was unzipped, showing a white T-shirt underneath, and she could smell the salt of the ocean
on him.

“Where have you been?” she asked. It was dark outside, and the fog was blowing past the streetlights in curling white wisps.
His car was parked on the street, and she saw a furry form in the backseat. “Pauline told me that you took Lola and drove
off into the sunset.”

“We went running at the beach.” Max stripped off his windbreaker and tossed it on a chair.

“All this time? It’s been dark for an hour!”

“We went out for cheeseburgers afterward.”

“Let me get this straight,” Carly said. “You allowed a wet and sandy dog to get into the backseat of your Jaguar? And then
you took her to a restaurant and fed her a cheeseburger?”

“Three cheeseburgers.” Max said. “She was hungry. And what was I supposed to do, make her walk home?”

Carly didn’t bother to argue. If someone had offered to bet her, three weeks ago, that Max Giordano—of the immaculate suits
and frosty manners—would shortly be chauffeuring a Great Dane around in his luxury sedan, she would have lost a fortune.

“You’d better bring her inside,” she said. “She’s steaming up your windows.”

Lola, exhausted from the excitement of the day, came in and collapsed under Carly’s kitchen table and began to snore. Max
didn’t show any signs of weariness. He moved around the apartment, touching things. He picked up a photo of her family and
set it down again, crooked. He examined the book she had been reading. He ran his hands over the blanket on the back of the
couch.

Carly stood, watching him pace, wondering what had prompted his visit. She had the feeling, as she did every time he was in
her apartment, that she was caught with a too-big animal in a too-small cage. He gave no indication of what he wanted, so
she finally just sat down, and waited.

“Long day at work?” he asked. He did not appear to notice that she was wearing a bathrobe.

Carly shrugged. “Richard had one of his tantrums and tried to send our new technician home. I had to juggle the schedule to
keep the poor guy out of Rich’s way, so he was stuck in the back cleaning cages for part of the afternoon. Not exactly the
work he signed on for, I think.” She sighed. “I don’t know what’s going on with Rich. I swear that he’s changed over this
past year.”

“Don’t tell me that he used to be sweet and charming.”

“When we were a couple, he had a sense of humor. Well, sort of. He’s never been able to laugh at himself, but we had jokes
together. Now, I can hardly imagine him laughing, in a genuine way.”

“How sad,” Max said coldly.

“It is sad. It makes me wish that there was something I could do to help him—”

“
Help
him? That makes a lot of sense.” He was standing behind the couch, and his hands were clenched into the crocheted blanket
that she had draped over it to hide the worn upholstery.

“What’s the matter with you?” Carly asked, exasperated. “Stop it, Max. My mother made that blanket, and you’re going to ruin
it.” She stood up and reached forward, across the couch, and took his hands in an attempt to disengage them physically. He
abruptly let go of the blanket, and his fingers snapped around her wrists like manacles. “Ouch,” she said, stumbling forward
against the cushions. He let go, and she recovered her balance, looking up at him with wide, surprised eyes.

“Did it ever occur to you to be more discriminating about whom you spend your kindness on?” he asked. “Not to be so damn quick
to defend every idiot who starts whining about having had a rough life?”

“I don’t do that,” Carly said.

He looked coolly at her. “No? I heard an interesting story about a Cuban exchange student. What was his name?”

“Luis. How do you know about him? No, let me guess. My family told you. What did they say, exactly?”

“That he almost persuaded you to marry him when he told you that he needed US citizenship to keep from being sent home, where
Castro wanted to have him killed because of his pro-democratic beliefs.”

“I was
nineteen
! I felt sorry for him.”

“Obviously. When he turned out to be a con artist from the Philippines, you still helped him with the immigration forms.”

“He wasn’t a bad guy, just desperate for a visa. There’s not a lot of work in Manila.”

“That’s not how your family tells it.”

“My family,” Carly said hotly, “talks too much. What else did they tell you?”

“Enough to give me the impression that you have a regular habit of bringing home charity cases. I found it very enlightening,
considering where I was at the time. So, tell me, Carly. Why did you take me to Davis?”

Carly looked at him, dismayed.
Great
, she thought.
Thanks, everyone.
Her family, having been told that Max was just a friend, had probably thought that he would be amused by tales of her past
misadventures. Instead, he had drawn the obvious conclusion.

“I took you to Davis because I thought that my family would like you,” she said carefully. “And I thought that you would like
them. That’s all. I told you, we always have guests for Sunday dinner.”

Max raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

Carly sighed. “Max, how could anyone think of you as a charity case? You’re handsome, and smart, and successful, and rich.”

“Damn right,” he said.

“But,” Carly continued, “like I told you before, I don’t think it’s good to be alone in the world. When I made you the offer
of family, it wasn’t because I felt sorry for you—”

“No? Why was it, then?”

“It was because I thought that you might… that we could… uh…” She faltered, trying to find a way to explain the difference
between pity and compassion.

Max nodded grimly. “That’s what I thought,” he said, moving toward her. “Let me be very clear about this, Carly. My grandfather
can pick up abandoned animals, pet them and feed them, and make their little lives happy. But I am no goddamned stray cat.”

“I know that,” Carly said. “But—”

“So don’t insult my intelligence by telling me that if I just start coming to dinner with your big, happy family, I’ll suddenly
become one of you. I won’t. That’s not the way life works.”

“Max, I understand if you don’t want—”

“What I
want
has nothing to do with it,” he said fiercely. “You just don’t get it, do you? It isn’t a matter of choice. You didn’t choose
your life any more than I chose mine. That’s just the way the cards fell, and I’m fine with it. You may have been born lucky,
but I made my own luck, and I’m nobody’s damn charity case anymore.”

He stopped, waiting as if he was daring her to disagree, and then he seemed to hear the echo of his own words in the silence.
His mouth tightened. “Unbelievable,” he muttered, more to himself than to her.

“What?” Carly asked.

“This doesn’t happen to me,” Max said darkly. “Ever. Except with you. I don’t know what it is about you, Carly, that pushes
me over the edge.”

His eyes moved over her, and something in his expression made her breath catch in her throat. He looked like a stranger, she
thought, something that shouldn’t have surprised her. In many ways, he still was a stranger. It wasn’t that she had been taking
him for granted—it would be impossible to take a man like Max for granted—but she had begun to assume that she knew him. Or
at least, that she understood him. Who he was, what he needed, how she could help him—it had been clear to her. But, looking
at him now, Carly wondered if she had been overconfident. He was right, she thought warily. He was not a stray cat. He suddenly
looked much more like a prowling leopard.

“Max…” she began, and then stopped as he reached out and put one finger firmly over her mouth. It was a small gesture, but
she hadn’t expected it, and it sent a jolt through her. She stared at him, her lips parting under his touch. His eyes were
shadowed by dark lashes, and she could read nothing in them.

“What do
you
want?” he asked. His hand slid around to the nape of her neck, and her heart quickened.

“What do you mean?” she whispered.

His mouth curved, but it was not humor that she saw on his face. “You and your charmed life,” he said. “There must be something
that you want and can’t have. What is it?”

You
, she thought. Her skin was shimmering under his touch like the surface of a pool in the rain. She bit her lip. “I don’t know,”
she said, her eyes meeting his. “Max, please…”

His arm tightened, pulling her toward him. “There is a very fine line between wanting and needing,” he said, his mouth only
inches from hers. “And I’m defining it. I’m going to push you over the edge this time, Carly. Let’s see how you like it.”

She had no time to question this before he kissed her. It was a slow, hot kiss, demanding but perfectly controlled, and it
went on, and on, until her body was taut and her breath was fast and ragged. She slid her hands under his shirt and ran them
up his chest, feeling the curves of the firm muscles under his skin. He was hot and damp with sweat, and he felt incredible
to her, hard and soft all at once. She brushed her palms over the pebbles of his nipples, then brought them down over the
ridges of his stomach to the waistband of his pants.

He sucked in a sharp breath and caught her wrists, stopping her. “My terms,” he said, roughly, against her mouth. “Not yours.”

He reached for her belt and pulled it loose with one abrupt motion. The edges of the robe fell open around her, letting in
a rush of cool air that shocked Carly’s flushed skin. Underneath, she was wearing only white cotton panties, and she felt
a shiver of purely primal excitement as Max held her by the shoulders, his eyes moving over her body.

Impatiently, she knotted her fingers into the front of his shirt and tugged. “Take this off.”

“I have a better idea,” he said, and pushed her robe off her shoulders. It slumped around her feet in a soft heap, and before
she realized what he intended to do, he had picked her up as easily as if she were a child. She gasped, tensing against him,
and heard him laugh, low in his throat.

“What are you doing?” she asked, breathlessly.

“What I should have done last week,” he said, and carried her toward the bedroom.

Carly had one brief moment to remember, somewhere in the back of her mind, that she had not made the bed that morning. And
then Max put her down in the middle of the rumpled blankets and began to kiss her in a way that obliterated all other thought.

He took his time with her, moving slowly, exploring her with his hands and mouth, until her nerve endings were crackling,
and she was tossing restlessly under him. She gripped his shoulders, feeling the muscles flex as his mouth trailed a line
of heat down, over her breasts and stomach, to linger on the sensitive skin just under her navel.