The Gamble

Even now, standing across from me, having lost me, he didn’t try to win me. He was trying to buy off Max.

“You got nothin’?” Max prompted Niles and my attention went from what was now screamingly obvious back to him.

“If you think you can goad me into getting physical then think again,” Niles snapped back, his face had changed again to another look I’d never seen on him. Contemptuous, even scornful, and that hideous look shook me from my scalp straight to my boots.

“I just told you I f**ked what you consider your woman, f**ked her five times, and you got nothin’?” Max asked, disbelieving.

“This is hardly gentlemanly behavior.” My father entered the discussion.

Max straightened and turned to Dad. “Not one f**kin’ thing gentlemanly about protecting what’s yours. Looks like you’re gonna lose it, you do everything you can to stop that from happening.” Max looked back to Niles. “And you didn’t do that. She was a week away from me, she walked into a room I was in holdin’ another man’s hand, I’d lose my f**kin’ mind. Not at her. Wonderin’ where I lost my way and I’d talk to her about how to find my way back.” I heard my mother make a noise from behind us but I was too busy staring at Max’s profile, letting his words sink in and noting, as they were doing that, how good they felt. When Niles didn’t respond, Max finished, “Christ, you stand there, starin’ down your nose at me and you don’t even get it’s you who doesn’t deserve her.”

Moments passed and I continued to stare at Max’s profile, his words rocking me in a good way but also wondering how rude it would be if I made out with him in front of Niles.

“Nina,” Niles called and I started, my eyes, with effort, leaving Max and going to him. “Perhaps we can speak alone,” he suggested tardily.

“Too late, ass**le,” Max muttered, turned from the table and dragged me out of the restaurant.

This was because things had gotten ugly and therefore, as Max promised, we were out of there.

We exited the restaurant, Mom and Steve on our heels, and I was still trying to come to terms with all that was said and all I’d discovered inside. Max, however, had already come to terms with it and the terms he’d come to was him being annoyed at me.

“Said it yesterday, babe, you didn’t listen,” he muttered, dragging me down the wooden plank sidewalk with Mom and Steve following.

“Sorry?” I asked, walking swiftly to keep up.

“Said you ain’t goin’ to that showdown, them f**kin’ with your head. Did you listen? Nope. Said you wanted to go. Jesus,” Max explained tersely and I tugged on his hand to stop him which he did, right outside The Mark.

“Are you insinuating that was my fault?” I asked.

Max looked down at me and replied, “Babe, we were all there because you wanted us to be.”

“Oh my God,” I snapped and tried to yank my hand from his but this effort failed so I gave up and went on. “Are you serious?”

“You were gonna marry him, Nina, did that scene surprise you?” Max asked.

“Yes!” I shot back. “Yes, it did. I’d never seen Niles like that in my life.”

Max’s brows went up. “Honest to God?”

“Honest to God!” I cried. “I’d never marry that.” I looked at Mom who was staring at me with a mixture of anger, shock and distress and carried on, “I can’t even… I don’t even…” I stopped, the entirety of what just happened hit me, I tilted my head back then I shouted, “I almost married that man!”

“Honey –” Max murmured, pulling at my hand but I yanked it away, successfully this time, and took a step back.

“I almost married my father,” I whispered aghast as I fully processed this monstrous realization.

“Duchess, baby –”

“He offered you money,” I told Max.

“So did your father,” Mom put in informatively.

“Nellie,” Steve said low.

“I mean, who acts like that?” I screeched.

“It doesn’t matter, it’s over. You returned the ring. Done,” Max stated, no longer annoyed, apparently now in control-another-one-of-Nina’s-wild-hairs mode. He knew me enough by now to know, he didn’t control me, I’d march back to that restaurant and wring Niles’s neck and my father’s, for that matter.

But Nina was not to be controlled.

“Two years, two years I wasted on him. Oh. My. God.” I threw my hands out. “What a fool! I’ll never get that time back!”

Max looked over my shoulder then at me and said quietly, “Babe, calm down, let’s go in, get food –”

I interrupted him, still ranting, “All that time I kept thinking and thinking, was I doing the right thing? Would I hurt him? How could I hurt him? He’s a good man. Wondering, worried, my head filled with rubbish. I swear, I made myself sick with it. I did!” I shouted. “You were there! I actually made myself sick with it!”

Max caught my h*ps and pulled me closer to him. “Nina, it’s done.”

“I spent two hours writing an e-mail to him, Max, making certain it didn’t hurt too much and he didn’t even read it.”

Max’s hands gripped my h*ps harder and he said softly, “This isn’t anything to be angry about.”

My eyes grew wide and I yelled, “You didn’t waste two years of your life on him.”

“And you realized it was a mistake. You did the right thing, the smart thing. You made the right decision and now you’re free to move on with your life.”

I glared at Max because he was right and I wanted to be loud and angry for at least a little while longer.

I mean, my God, I nearly married my father. And I hated my father!

“You know what’s annoying?” I asked Max and his hands slid around my h*ps to the small of my back, pulling me closer.

“What’s annoying?” he asked back but I saw he was no longer in Control Nina Mode, now he looked amused.

“When you’re right and I want to be angry and you being right means I can’t be angry anymore,” I informed him.

“Baby,” he muttered through his grin.

Yes, amused. My eyes narrowed on his grin and my stomach growled. I decided I could be annoyed at Max while I ate.

Therefore I demanded, “Feed me.”

“I’m guessin’ about now if I told you that you’re cute, you’d get pissed.”