Page 74 of All I Want for Christmas

‘I don’t want you to hate me.’

‘...I don’t hate you,’ she said, baffled.

‘No?’

‘Max, you’re the most frustrating man I’ve ever met, but that doesn’t mean I hate you. This isn’t necessary. You’ve already apologized for the kiss.’

‘It’s not about that.’

She frowned. ‘Then what?’

He stared at her and she could see conflict in his face – thoughts he wouldn’t express, whole conversations she would never hear, running behind his eyes – even as she felt the pull between them again, tugging...

The vendor cleared his throat, intruding, and Max looked away to take the bag from him.

‘We should start heading back,’ he said, checking his watch again. ‘Shit, now we’re going to be late,’ he said brusquely, and for the first time he walked ahead of her in the crowd, setting such a brisk pace that she had to fall into a trot to keep up. They wove through the bodies with a haste that had been missing earlier, until the car came into sight, parked illegally on the kerb.

‘Here.’ He got to the car first and reached back with the bag for her, but she made no attempt to take it from him and he looked back in puzzlement.

‘Tell me what you’re apologizing for, if not the kiss.’ She willed him to say Natalia’s name.

‘Why don’t we just say it’s for everything I’ve got wrong with you?’ he shrugged.

‘Because that’s not an answer.’

‘It’s the best I can give.’

She rolled her eyes. He made her want to scream! ‘Then I don’t want it.’

‘What?’

‘You heard.’

They glowered at one another, fighting over she didn’t even know what.

‘Unbelievable.’ He gave a small snort as he opened the car door for her, resting one arm on the car roof, waiting for her to get in. ‘You know, you’re the first and only woman I’ve ever known who’snotwanted a gift by way of apology.’

‘A dubious distinction. Perhaps you should reconsider the kind of women you know,’ she clapped back.

He cracked a half-smile. ‘No.’

‘No?’

‘They’re predictable.’

‘And that’s what you want, is it? Predictable women?’

‘Absolutely.’ His gaze was steady. ‘I like known entities and managed outcomes.’

‘Wow. Life lived by spreadsheet.’ She rolled her eyes as she went to slide in past him. ‘Do you even have a pulse?’

He caught her wrist and stopped her with a look. They both knew the answer to that.

A moment beat between them as he stared at her the way he had on Sunday night. But instead of kissing her, he held out the bag for her instead. ‘Just take it, Darcy. It can be a Christmas present, an apology – whatever you want it to be.’

She just couldn’t be whathewanted.

Predictable.

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