Insider (Exodus End #1)(67)
Author: Olivia Cunning

Her next question was supposed to be: Where do you see yourself in five years? She could only imagine how he’d twist his response to that one. But she didn’t want to lead his responses by having her questions be too precise. She wanted her questions to be open-ended. And she wanted his answers to be insightful. She just had to figure out how to keep him talking freely.

So instead of asking Susan’s questions, Toni set the legal pad aside.

“You come across as a man who likes to have things all planned out,” she said.

Max stared at her discarded pad for a long moment. “I do?” he asked, still looking at the bright yellow paper.

“Pretty much Logan’s exact opposite,” she said, grinning indulgently. “If you prefer, I’ll give you the list of questions and you can plan your answers. We can reschedule the rest of this interview for a later time.”

Max released a sigh. “You’d do that?”

“Why not? I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“I’d appreciate it,” he said, his shoulders sagging for the first time since he’d sat down beside her. She’d thought he just had really good posture.

Max leaned forward to rise, but Toni placed a hand on his knee. “Could you help me figure out what to ask your bandmates? I’m afraid I botched my first interview pretty badly.”

“Nah, you did fine. It isn’t you, Toni. It’s me.”

She chuckled and pushed her glasses up her nose. “That’s what they all say.”

He sat back against the sofa cushions, making every posture-stickler mama on Earth proud once again.

“I’m interviewing Steve next,” she said, consulting her notepad. “Is there a reason no one calls him Stevie? He seems like a Stevie to me.”

“You should ask him,” Max said.

“Do you think he’ll answer questions about his ex-wife?”

“Which one?”

Toni shifted her gaze to his. “He has more than one?” She hadn’t run across that in any of her research. Maybe Max was messing with her. But if he wasn’t, what a scoop that would be.

“You’ll have to ask him.”

Oh, she definitely would. “After Steve, I’m supposed to interview Dare.”

“Good luck with that,” Max said.

“Please don’t tell me he’s even more tight-lipped than you are.”

“Okay, I won’t tell you.”

Crap. “Did you really get his girlfriend pregnant?” She wasn’t sure where that question had come from. It popped out of her mouth as if she had some sort of journalist Tourette’s syndrome.

Max’s normally tan complexion went pale. “Who told you that?”

“So it’s true?”

“Has Logan been flapping his lips? I’ll beat his fucking teeth in. See how well he talks after that.” Max shot to his feet and stormed toward the door. His expression showed his anger, but it was the tangible look of loss that crumpled his strong features into a mask of desperate longing that had Toni’s heart in a vice.

Whoa. She’d never seen the man display that much passion offstage. She hurried after him and grabbed his arm, thinking Logan looked good with teeth. She wouldn’t want him to get them beaten in just because she’d asked Max the wrong question.

“I won’t tell anyone,” she said. “I should have never asked you that in an interview setting. I should have never asked you period.”

Max stood with his palm flat on the door. His breathing was deep and irregular, but at least he was willing to hear her out.

“I apologize,” she continued. “Don’t make Logan pay for my mistakes.”

“You’re not really sorry,” he said. “You just want to save your boyfriend’s teeth.”

“That’s not true. I am sorry. I’m sorry when anyone feels pain. And I don’t know if you loved her or only shared one night of passion, but her losing your baby, her taking her life, it had to hurt you. There’s no way such losses couldn’t have hurt.” Her heart was twisting so hard in her chest, she could scarcely breathe.

“I did love her,” he said flatly. “And instead of breaking it off with Dare, she convinced me to keep our affair secret so she could spare his feelings. When she got pregnant, she told him I raped her.”

“What? If she was going to lie, why didn’t she just tell Dare the baby was his?”

“Because the two of them weren’t having sex. He thought she was a virgin and wanted her to stay that way until they got married.”

“Did he believe that you raped her?”

“Of course he believed her. Vic meant everything to him. They’d been dating since they were in the ninth grade. When Dare found out about us, he tried to tear me to pieces. Almost killed me. And then he quit the band. He was still going to marry her, because he thought she was the helpless victim and I was a villain. And then a couple of weeks later, Vic lost the baby. She blew her brains out on a rainy Thursday in her old bedroom at her parents’ house. In her suicide note, she told Dare the truth. After several months, Dare and I made amends as best we could, but he’s never been the same since then. We’ve never been the same. So do I hurt?” He took a deep shuddering breath. “What do you think, Miss Journalist?”

Toni didn’t bother trying to stop the tears from streaking down her face. She pressed her forehead into the center of his broad back and slid her arms around his waist to hug him from behind. He covered her hands with his, squeezing her right with one strong hand, his wrist brace—reminder of something else he’d lost—pressing against her left.

After a moment, he said, “You’re the first person who doesn’t think I’m a giant ass for sleeping with Vic.”

“You’re mistaken,” she said. “You are a giant ass for sleeping with Vic. You should have waited to have sex with her until after she broke it off with Dare.”

He released a breathy laugh. “Fair enough. Then you’re the first person who hasn’t sided with Dare.”

“I’m not siding with either of you. This is really about me,” she said, sniffling. “I can’t stand to see anyone hurting. Please tell me that look on your face is gone.”

“What look?”

“The one that screamed your world had just ended.”

He squeezed her hand even tighter. “You really are a sweetheart.”