Maxon
“TAKE YOU THIS LONG TO think of an answer, or to find me?”
I didn’t look over at her. I didn’t need to. I knew she was there.
I drove around for over half an hour before I headed to our field. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been out here on the hood of her car. Only knew it was long enough for memories of us at this spot to drown out thoughts of why I’d left at all.
“Took this long for anyone to give me their keys.” She slid onto the hood of the car but didn’t lie down next to me. Her back shook with a soft laugh when she said, “After I got chewed out, they all thought you needed time alone. No one thought you would listen to me when you were that upset.”
I didn’t know if they were right or not.
I’d always been the calm one of the two of us. But I’d never been as pissed or as hurt as I was this morning.
“Maxon, I—”
“Just tell me.” My voice was rough and bordered on a plea. “I don’t want to draw this out if you’re gonna tell me that I was just another way to rebel against your family.”
She twisted to look at me, her eyes filled with tears. “Is that really what you think?”
“I don’t know what to think anymore, Libby.” I spread out my arms, then let them fall to my stomach. “I’ve been sure of us and of what I wanted my entire life. I’ve been sure of every step I’ve ever taken—even if it fucking hurt at the time—because I knew where it was leading. And for the first time, I didn’t know where I stood with you. And I felt lost because of it.”
“Can you really look at me and say I was with you to piss off my family?”
No.
I ran a hand over my face, groaning into it before sitting up beside her. “I’ve wanted to marry you since that day you first called yourself a rebel.” I stared at my hands, a small laugh escaping me at the memory. “I didn’t know what love was. I didn’t really know what marriage was. I still thought half the girls in school were gross . . . but not you. Never you. And you never wanted to marry me up until a few weeks ago.”
“Maxon,” she whispered softly. I wasn’t sure if she actually said it or I just imagined it.
“Once you did, I didn’t question it. I was just so damn happy. We’d already lost so much time and been through so much bullshit that I wanted to make everything happen right then. The house, the wedding, the babies. Only reason I waited this long to ask you was because I didn’t want to scare you away again.” I shifted my stare to look at her and asked, “Do you even want to marry me?”
A sob wrenched from her body and she seemed to crumple on herself, dropping her head into her hands. “Maxon—” Another sob tore through her, and for a while, she just sat there shaking and crying.
And I braced myself.
Hardened my shredded heart.
Clenched my jaw and steeled myself when it felt like the slightest breeze would knock me over.
She lifted her head, her face stained with tears, and her lips trembling. “I owe you so many apologies and even more explanations. Marrying you—” A strangled cry worked up her throat, and she took a second to breathe. “Marrying you is all I’ve ever wanted. Being with you—being yours—is all I’ve ever wanted.”
I laughed harshly. “I can think of a dozen or more years where that wasn’t true.”
“It was always true.”
“You wanted me there, Libby. You didn’t want to be with me.” I lifted my hands only to let them fall. “And like I’ve said, I got it. It’s how you were. You needed your freedom. But now . . .”
What if it wasn’t how you were?
I couldn’t get the words past the knot in my throat.
She nodded slowly, as if she didn’t realize she was doing it. “We were fifteen when you first told me that you’d already written your name on my heart, and one day you were gonna make good on that claim.” A faint laugh touched her lips, and she glanced at me. “Do you remember?”
I grunted an affirmation.
Did she think I’d forgotten? She kissed me for the first time that night at this spot.
“There’d always been something about you, Maxon. Just . . . something that felt right. But when you said those words, it was like you stopped time and showed me our future. And I knew right then I was going to marry you someday.” She twisted her hand to look at the ring on her finger, a smile briefly lighting her face before they both fell. “I’d been waiting so long for you to do something. Kiss me. Hold my hand. Something . . . but there was never anything until you went way past handholding and announced you already owned my heart.”
“The thought of kissing you was fucking terrifying.”
“And telling me you were going to claim my heart wasn’t?”
I shrugged. “It was true.” My mouth twitched into a smile when she dropped her head back and laughed. “You were already so unattainable. So far out of reach.”
“You were my best friend. You were my everything—even then.”
“You’ve always been like a wild horse. One wrong move, and you would’ve run. And I would’ve been left there, waiting for you to come back.”
“Never said I was easy to handle,” she whispered, repeating words she’d said to me most our lives.
But she was. I’d understood her so well.
At least, I thought . . .
We fell back into silence for a while before she turned to face me. “My dad was killed two months later.”
“I remember.”
Libby’s head shook quickly, like I wasn’t understanding. “My dad never approved of our friendship.”
“Jesus, this again.” I roughed a hand through my hair and stared at the field ahead as she continued talking.
“He always told me I shouldn’t have friends outside our family. That it would be best to cut ties with you before one or both of us wanted something we couldn’t have. When he realized things were changing between us, he was livid. Told me I wasn’t allowed to see you—told me it would only hurt you in the end.” My eyes flashed to her, and she held up her hands. “I know what you’re thinking, but I wasn’t friends with you because he told me not to be. I didn’t see you because he told me to stay away from you. Maxon . . . I loved you. There was no way they could’ve kept me from you. But they could keep me from being with you.”
My brow furrowed. “I don’t understand.”
She swallowed, the motion seeming difficult. “About a week after he died, I came home and there were these strange men at our house. They were talking with Dare, Johnny, Mom, and my dad’s advisor. As soon as I walked into the room they were in, the old one pointed at me and everyone started yelling at each other. Dare told me to go to my room, but our mom demanded I stay. I left,” she said with a shrug. “Dare and Mom came to my room about an hour later, just screaming at each other about me and those men.”
“Who were they?”
“The old one was Vince Moretti—Boss of a gang in Chicago. The other guy was his advisor. They were there to make sure a former arrangement would still be honored with Dare as our boss. The arrangement was the only thing holding our alliance together.” Her jaw trembled and she gave me a pleading look, like she was begging me to understand. “An alliance that was desperately needed. We were already at war with Holloway.”
My gut twisted and chest constricted. “What was the arrangement, Libby?”
“My dad gave me to the Moretti family when I was thirteen. I had to marry Vince’s grandson by my twenty-first birthday.”
My mind raced in the seconds before she started talking again.
Thinking about how she’d always kept me close, but at a distance—until just recently.
Thinking of how I’d left . . . but not until after she should’ve gotten married.
I would’ve known. She didn’t want a wedding.
“Dare found a way to take care of it,” she hurried to explain. “Vince died when I was twenty, and Dare threw everything he had at the Moretti family. Weapons, information we had on other families and political parties. Anything he could get them, he gave it freely as long as they altered the arrangement.”
My head shook as I tried to process what she was giving me. “But that . . . Libby, that was eleven years ago. That doesn’t explain why you continued to keep us in the same place we’d always been.”
“I told you, my family couldn’t keep me from you, but they could keep me from being with you. You were in danger for loving me when I belonged to the Moretti family. I put you in even more by loving you, and I’m sorry for that. But by the time I found out about the arrangement, I couldn’t . . . I didn’t know how to live without you, even then.” Her dark eyes found and searched mine. “Dare knew . . . he knew how much you meant to me. That’s why he fought so hard to free me from the contract. But my mom lost it, said I was destroying an alliance. Said in their eyes, I would always belong to them. And one day they’d come to take what was theirs.”
“You believed her.”
“I was scared,” she whispered. “I was terrified of what they’d do to you. So I didn’t let myself have you. Then years continued to pass, and I started doubting they were coming.” A strained laugh sounded in her throat and her wrecked eyes met mine. “By then you were living your dream, and my life would continue putting yours at risk. I knew you needed to find someone and forget about me, but I couldn’t let you go. You’re mine, Maxon.”
My chest lurched when her voice cracked over the claim.
I wanted to grab her. I wanted to hold her. But I couldn’t move as I listened.
“That was what made these months so much worse. For years, that was what I wanted for you, but agonized over. Then I finally got to a point where I stopped worrying that the Moretti family would come, and I had to accept that I might’ve kept you at a distance for too long. Then everything surfaced about you and Ava expecting a baby, and it just—it destroyed me. I knew I’d finally lost you and had no one else to blame but myself. Well . . .” She huffed. “I liked trying to blame you. Especially when I thought she was a groupie.”
Despite the heaviness, I laughed.
Some of the tension between us eased when Libby joined in, but soon we quieted again.
The silence that surrounded us then wasn’t uncomfortable like before. It was calm, the way it usually was between us.
I had a dozen questions begging to be voiced, but I knew Libby wasn’t done.
When tears filled her eyes, I grabbed her hand and waited until she was ready.
“What happened between us today . . . what you thought. Maxon.” Tears slipped down her cheeks when she slowly shook her head. “It kills me that you would ever think that. What makes it worse is knowing I’ve given you every reason to have those thoughts and doubts. But I was keeping you safe the only way I knew how. This wasn’t something I could tell you before. Honestly, if you hadn’t told me that you’d figured out what we were on your own, I still wouldn’t be able to tell you.”
“Even though it’s over?”
She didn’t respond and her hand tensed in mine.
“Is this why you wouldn’t go to California with me?”
“No.” She hesitated, then amended, “I guess it’s part of it. I could’ve been followed there to you, but leaving was never an option. Up until a year ago, my family was in the middle of a big situation. One that involved clearing out the Holloway Estate.” She shot me a wry smile. “I needed to be here to help even though Dare knew I wanted to stay out of it as much as possible. But he’d already done so much for me. And despite everything, this is where I want to be. And I want to be here with you . . .”
I looked at her curiously. “But . . .”
“Only if that’s what you want.” Before I could respond, she said, “I love you and want to marry you because you’re my home. You’re my calm. I would do anything to be with you—even if it meant keeping us apart.”
Funny how everything had turned without me realizing.
“And you would do the same,” she whispered. “You would let me go to give me freedom. You would let me go in the hopes that I would come back to you. The first thing you’ve ever done for yourself was leave with the guys. I can’t expect or ask you to relocate—to change your life—because of me.”
“I told you . . . everything I’ve done has been because I knew we’d be here one day. It doesn’t matter where here is. As long as it’s you and me.”
“Even if it’s you and me in a mob-style wedding?” she asked hopefully.
My chest heaved with the beginnings of a laugh but stopped suddenly when everything finally made sense.
Libby’s insistence on the secret wedding.
Einstein’s anticipation of Libby’s blowup over the idea of a real wedding.
Einstein knowing something I didn’t . . .
“You’re still afraid. That’s why you don’t want a wedding.”
“No.” Even though she answered immediately, her voice was unsure and her stare seemed far away.
“Libby, you’re allowed to be afraid. Especially if it’s of fucking mobsters.”
The corners of her mouth twitched up into a brief, pained smile. “Who knew I could be afraid of so much, huh? But that’s not, uh, that’s not why I don’t want the wedding.” She tried to speak before finally exhaling roughly. “I want that—I do. But whenever I think of a wedding, I get lightheaded and nauseous. I was supposed to have an extravagant wedding, and I had no control over the outcome. Moretti sent someone to the house to size me for a custom dress. And then they sent me these dresses—these gorgeous dresses—and told me to choose. Then bouquets of flowers showed up one day, and they told me to choose.”
“Did you?”
Her head shook subtly. “I couldn’t. That wedding meant losing you, and every reminder and every year that brought me closer to it ruined something inside me. After spending five years getting physically sick and devastated every time I thought of a wedding . . . it’s hard to change that reaction. Even if the person I’m marrying is you.”
I nodded and tried to relax my hands.
But I’d never once known Libby was going through this. For five years she thought she was going to be forced to marry someone else, and I hadn’t had a damn clue.
“Did you ever meet him? The guy you were supposed to marry?”
“No, I don’t even know his name.” When my brows pulled tight, she said, “Really. Don’t you think he would’ve disappeared if we had known his name?”
I would’ve laughed. Except I knew she was serious.
“Vince ran his family . . . different than other families. His wife was kept secret, and no one knew her name. No one even knew they had children until he and my dad made this arrangement. Even then, he only told Dare it was his oldest child’s son I would marry. No one knew names until one of them became their new boss. We still don’t know how many there are or the rest of their names. But secret family or not, everyone knows the Moretti family owns Chicago. They’re merciless. And they aren’t someone you want as an enemy.”
“And your mom thinks by not going through with the wedding . . . you are,” I assumed.
“More or less. She’s still terrified. We fight over it—over you—nearly every time we see each other. She thinks I should go to Chicago and offer myself to them to prevent whatever fallout she’s sure is coming.”
“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.” I blew out a heavy breath and reached for her left hand, running my thumb over the ring a few times before looking at her. “Okay, Rebel. No big wedding.”
The corners of her mouth twitched into a sad smile. “I’m sorry.”
“All I want is you.” I forced out a laugh. “I wanted to hold off for at least a week so I could get some things together and surprise you—cake, flowers, a dress . . .” A fuller laugh left me when she made a face. “Now that I won’t be doing that, just tell me when and where so I can mob-marry you.”
“Even if it’s tonight?”
“Even if it’s right now.” I gripped her chin in my fingers and dipped my head toward hers, but stopped just before our lips met. “Promise me one thing first.”
“Anything,” she whispered, her breath washing over me.
“No more secrets between us. No more hiding anything.”
Her eyes flashed with something dark as they searched mine. “What if it keeps you safe?”
“Keeping me safe kept us apart for too long. No more.” I pressed my mouth firmly to hers when she echoed my last words.
“I hate champagne and white cakes,” she said against my lips. “And getting flowers.”
I smiled and kissed her harder. “Noted.”
“And dresses. I hate them all, but especially if they’re white.”
I pulled back to study her flushed face. “Tell me everything Moretti sent you so I can know what not to give you.”
“That was it. I threw it all away as it came.” Her lips twitched into a coy smile. “Einstein and I burned the dresses when Dare worked out the new deal with them.”
“Jesus,” I said on a laugh and leaned in to kiss her again, but paused. “Did they send you rings?”
Her smile grew. “Nope.”
“Thank God.” My lips had just brushed hers when I stopped again. “When you say disappeared . . .”
She let her head fall back, her smile wide and not matching the groan sliding up her throat. “He would’ve found himself not . . . around . . . anymore. In Chicago. Or the United States. Possibly the world.”
Again, I wanted to laugh because her tone was so carefree. But I knew she was serious.
“I feel like I should actually be afraid of you and your family.”
Instead of laughing or brushing off my comment, she wrapped her arms loosely around my neck and pulled me close. “You haven’t seen or heard anything yet.”