48

“Calm down and ask yourself if you really believe that. Favour, my ass. I couldn’t care less about Marco trying to set me up. I wanted you, but it was you using me. You only cared about what you could get from me.” He shakes his head. “Typical woman using me to get close to my father.”
“I do not want to get close to your father. I want you—I want to go home.” Tears of frustration threaten. How could I think—what do I think?
Did Max tell his father? And if he did, so what? All is fair in business and I would have done the same thing. I came here to get more information.
If that’s the case, why have I not asked him anything?

I’m confident my offer is better, so why do I need Max to make it happen? I can do it on my own. If Moon is worried enough to try to use me—
However I try to spin it, it stinks of betrayal and that hurts. It stings and it throbs and—
Max stares, chest heaving. “What are we doing?”
It’s there, like a line in the sand. If I take a step across it, and meet Max half way, we can figure this out. We can make this go away.
If I take a step, I’ll open my heart to him. I’ll open myself up, I’ll trust him. And he’ll walk in and shatter it all.
I can’t.
It may be cowardly or weak, but I can’t take that step. I have to protect me.
Even as my heart splits loud enough that Max should hear it, I take a step back and leave that line intact.
“You’re going to figure out how I can get home now without stepping foot in your private jet,” I say coldly. Throwing down his shirt, I yank open the closet door, the hangers clanging as I pull down my clothes.
The dress he bought me is still in the hall. I throw the rest on the bed.
“Did Daddy let you use the plane so you can do his dirty work?” I accuse.
Max crosses his arms. “You’re really doing this?”
“I’m packing so I can get out of here, away from you, as quick as I can. If your father thinks he can steal my property—”
“It’s not yours,” Max roars, surprising me with his burst of anger. “This is a business deal. It’s not about us.”
“There is no us,” I say flatly. I manage to get my suitcase onto the bed and start throwing my things in without seeing properly. Breathing in ragged gasps, I keep blinking because something is wrong with my eyes.
“Is this how you deal with setbacks? You run away?”
“I’m running away from you because I don’t want to be with you.”
“You lie.”
“You’re the liar.”
“You’re being childish.”
I whirl and point my finger at him. “I can’t be childish because I’ve never been given the luxury of being a child. Unlike you—always acting like a child trying to make daddy mad because he took away your play toy. You try to try to piss him off, then change gears and suck up to him by throwing me under the bus. Why don’t you be a man and demand respect for once, instead of playing sad little boy?”
Max’s face… He is no longer my Max. His eyes flame and lips tighten like he’s holding back words. “Just say it,” I demand. “Say what you really think of me. I know you want to.”
“What do you know about respect? The only way you’ll get it is if you buy it,” he spits, his words only furthering the flame of anger ready to consume me.
I snatch up his phone and punch in a number. “Tatiana, it’s me. I’m at Moon Resort and I need you to get me a car, and get me on a flight and get me the hell out of here.” I stare accusingly at Max as I speak clearly and calmly. “And Dalton Stonee knows we’re after Tingel, so get on that.”
Max runs his hand through his wet hair. “Should have known you’d be like this,” he says bitterly as I throw his phone onto the bed. “All that money and what do you have to show for it? Nothing. You’ve got nothing, Cadence, and that’s all your fault.”

Maximilian
She leaves soon after, heading to the airport.
I shouldn’t have said that. She’s everything—despite the money, regardless of where she came from or where she’s going. I admire her. I respect her—
I don’t respect her for running away. I’m pissed and I want to shout at her, to bust through her walls, but I know that won’t work.

I’m not sure what will work with Cadence, but I tried. I tried to talk to her, to make her see what she was doing.
Doing to us.
Cadence is running away, putting up walls because that’s what she’s always done. And no one has ever fought for her before.
But she still walks away from me. She doesn’t take the time to shower, and I know she still smells of me.
I was cruel, she was nasty.
She told my father I was a good man after she thought I brought her with me to take her out of the running for the island.
Who does that?
Cadence.
Cadence does all these nice things and I…
I’m falling in love with her.
I slump by the door after she leaves, head in hands, feeling like I’ve been run over by a bus. It’s a far cry from how happy and carefree I felt waking up beside her.
“Dude?” I look up to see Dexter with a concerned expression. He’s holding the dress I bought. The one I couldn’t wait to get her out of. “What’s going on?” He looks pointedly at the door.
“Cadence left,” I tell him hollowly. “She went to the airport. I guess there’s a flight leaving in a couple of hours. She got a seat on that.”
“Ah.” Dexter frowns. “Did she have a good reason not to wait for the private jet to fly her home?”
“I’m honestly not sure. I don’t really know what happened.”
“I heard some shouting,” he offers. “Nick is still out cold.”
“Yeah, that was… She thinks I betrayed her,” I confess. “She thinks I told my father about one of her business deals. It’s a long story; we’re both trying to buy the same property.”
“That doesn’t seem too long a story.” Dexter disappears into the kitchen and I smell the welcome aroma of coffee. Heaving a sigh, I follow him, hoping a jolt of caffeine will make me feel human again. “Does she know how things are with your father?”
I nod as I accept the mug. “She thinks I’m sucking up.”
“Are you? I mean, did you say something to him?”
I rub the back of my neck. “Sort of, I guess. I mean—he already knew. He texted me yesterday, told me to come back because there was another offer in play. He didn’t know it was Cadence, though. It’s under her company name. It wouldn’t have taken him long to figure out.”
“So you told him.”
There’s no accusation in Dexter’s voice, just understanding. We’ve been friends too long for him to know not to bother to berate me, knows I’m doing enough to myself. He’s a teacher—a professor—and always tells me he understands nothing about my business, but he understands about my father.
“I told him Cadence was behind it,” I admit.
“And he knew she was down here with you?”
I nod. “He sent a bunch of texts, but I didn’t read them until this morning. And Cadence saw them first. She read all the horrible things my father said about her, and thought I told him everything about what she’s working for, and she still ripped him a new one. Said all these things about me being a better man than he was.”