Page 42 of Be My Baby
Max straightened, his gut tightening almost past endurance. “What about her?”
“I know you have a thing for her, and have had for a while.”
Max shrugged, resigned to the fact that she knew. Lucy saw everything, noticed everything. And if it was something you didn’t want anyone to know about? She knew that, too.
“What I feel for Millie has nothing to do with this, with what I offered. Millie and me would never happen in a million years and I’m okay with that. How about we cut through the crap, here? She’s nuts about Ryan. And even if she weren’t, she’s never once looked at me like that. I’m smart enough to put two and two together.”
Lucy sat up straighter, as if steeling herself. “You have to have realised that I… that I care for you more than…” She picked at the bar runner that sat beneath her coaster and swallowed noticeably. “That I love you.”
Max tried to stop the words hitting him square in the heart but didn’t quite manage it. He’d known she had a bit of a crush, but…
She seemed to brace herself, not able to look at him.
“Luce?”
She turned his way but still wouldn’t meet his eyes.
He waited.
When the silence had gone on too long to be comfortable, she looked up. Worry and fear stared back at him.
The last thing he would ever do would be to hurt her.
“Would it be enough to know I want to be there with you, that you mean so very much to me and I want to do anything I can to help? I will never leave you, and I promise to never hurt you. Does that one distinction matter? Knowing this, wouldIbe enough foryou?”
Wonder lit her eyes, replacing the sad wariness. “You’ve always been enough.”
Relief flooded him. He took her hand and sank to one knee beside her chair. “Lucy Jones, will you do me the honour of marrying me?”
Tears filled her eyes again, disbelieving, happy tears. “You’d do that—for me? You’d give up—”
“There’s nothing to give up. I’m offering me, to you.”
She swung to face him fully. Her fingers gripped his, hard. “B-but what about… like…” Her cheeks flooded with colour. “Like sex, and stuff. Would it be platonic, only for show? Wouldn’t you regret it?”
Max let out a huffed breath. “Luce, if you accept this, I’m yours. In every way. If you wanted me, that is. Only whatyouwant. I’d be whatever you needed from me,giveyou whatever you needed. And no, I could never regret being there for you when you needed me most. You’ll never be alone again.”
That lost, lonely waif with the haunted eyes who had latched on to Ryan at such a young age seemed to waver in the background, flickering in and out of view, a ghost of a friendless past.
A brilliant smile widened her mouth. She slid down to kneel in front of him. “Then yes, Max Jameson. I accept.”
She threw her arms around his neck. He pulled her close and buried his face into her shoulder. He’d do his damnedest to be what she needed, for as long as she needed him.
Regardless of the inevitable, or perhaps in spite of it.
“Luce? You and me? We’re gonna kick this cancer’s ass.”
Chapter Fourteen
Max placed theempty tray down on Millie’s kitchen bench and went looking down the hallway for her. She had disappeared a few minutes before and was nowhere to be found. He’d find out when she wanted the BBQ started, let the rabble out in her entertainment area know, then go for a swim in her fabulous heated pool, one of the few private ones in town.
Somehow Simon had talked her into hosting this week’s BBQ. She’d agreed much faster than he’d thought, not needing any cajoling to host his ratbag family.
His gaze lit on her bedroom door. It stood half closed. He pushed it open and stepped through.
“Hey, Mil? When…”
Millie squeaked and spun to face him, both hands over her breasts.