Page 27 of Max Bannon

I nodded, throat tight. “Yeah. I did.”

He ran a hand through his hair and stepped back like I’d shoved him. “Tess… that wasn’t what I meant. I—I panicked. Frasier was giving me hell, and I didn’t know how to explain what I was feeling. It was too soon. Too fast. I didn’t want to scare you off.”

“By pretending you didn’t want me at all?” I snapped.

He opened his mouth, then shut it again. I could see the war in his eyes. The guilt. The regret.

“It’s not like that. It’s just… after Olly, I—”

I held up my hand. “No. Don’t. I don’t want to hear about Olly. I’ve heard enough.”

“Tessa—”

“I mean it,” I said, swallowing the knot in my throat. “If you’re still hung up on her, you need to say it. Just be honest. I’m not her. And I’m not waiting around to be your second choice.”

Silence fell heavy between us.

He looked like he’d been punched.

“I didn’t mean to make you feel like that,” he said quietly. “You’re not a backup plan. You never were.”

“Then stop treating me like one.”

I turned away, walking to the other side of the room before I said something I’d regret. I stood there for a long moment, arms folded tight across my chest.

When I finally looked back, he hadn’t moved.

“I don’t want games, Max. I don’t want someone who’s half in. I’ve been through enough to know I deserve more than that.”

His jaw flexed. “You do.”

“Then figure out what you want,” I said. “Because I’m not standing in this doorway again, wondering why the hell I’m hurting over someone who said I wasjust some girl.”

Max didn’t move at first. Just stood there with his fists clenched at his sides like he was holding back a thousand things he wanted to say. I could practically see the storm in his chest.

Then, quietly—almost like he was afraid to break something—he said, “Tessa… the feelings I have for you… they’re more than anything I ever felt for Olivia.”

I looked up, heart thudding. He wasn’t blinking. His eyes were locked on mine like he needed me to believe every single word.

“That’s what scared the hell out of me,” he said. “Not that you were staying in my house. Not that things were moving fast. But that I was starting to feel more for you in the last four weeks than I ever did in two years with her.”

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

“I wasn’t prepared for you,” he continued. “You walk into a room, and everything shifts. You lose your keys, leave your shoes everywhere, talk to Junior like he’s your personal Walmart greeter—and I can’t stop thinking about you. It’s not just attraction. It’s everything.”

My chest ached. My head spun. I stood frozen, lips parted, heart torn wide open.

He stepped closer, slow and deliberate, like giving me the chance to stop him.

I didn’t.

His hands cupped my face gently. His thumbs brushed my cheekbones like I was something breakable.

Then he kissed me.

God.

It wasn’t desperate or rushed—it was deep and warm and full of all the things he couldn’t put into words. Like he was giving me the truth, finally, the only way he knew how.

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