Part One: Before

1

Three Months Before Hanna’s Accident

MOM’S EYES water as she hands me the velvet box. “I wish your grandmother were alive for this,” she whispers. “She always loved Hanna, and she would have been so happy to see you with her.”

My hands are shockingly steady as I open the lid to reveal the modest ring my grandmother wore on her left hand until the day she died. Hanna deserves something with a little more flash, but I know she’ll appreciate the sentimental value of this ring more than a giant rock I can’t afford.

I close the box and clasp it in both of my hands, exhaling slowly. I never imagined I’d be anxious to get married. I thought I’d be the guy whose girlfriend would have to guilt him into it. But I’ve never been with anyone like Hanna.

“When are you going to do it?” Mom asks, tucking one leg under herself on the couch. I’m pretty sure I made her night tonight when I came by to ask for Grandma’s ring.

“Next weekend.”

“You don’t need to be nervous. Hanna loves you.”

My phone buzzes with a text alert. Once, twice, three times—a sure sign someone is sending me a long text that has to be delivered in several pieces. I pull it from my pocket and unlock the screen.

At first, I don’t understand what I’m looking at. Mom is saying something, but I can’t make it out over the roaring in my ears. My eyes are glued to my phone. These texts were sent over five months ago, but it feels like eons, and looking at them now makes bile crawl up my throat. I’m not the same man I was then, but leave it to Meredith to never let me forget a screw-up.

Meredith: You’re seriously going out with Hanna Fat Ass Thompson.

Max: You’re seriously going to start this conversation by being a bitch?

Meredith: Just tell me how this happened.

Max: It’s a temporary arrangement. She needs a self-esteem boost.

Meredith: I had no idea you were taking charity cases.

Max: No worries, I still prefer blondes.

Meredith: So what’s it like to f**k a fatty?

Max: Don’t be a bitch.

Meredith: He dodges the question.

Max: Trust me, I’m not going to let this charade go that far. She’s a sweet girl, but she’s not my type.

Meredith: Am I your type?

Max: You know you are. But last I checked you were still hung up on Will Bailey.

Meredith: That was so last month. Come over here and I’ll prove it.

Max: What do you have in mind?

Meredith: You. My mouth. More specifically, your dick and my mouth.

Max: Shit. Don’t say that when you know I can’t.

Meredith: You said yourself that your thing with Hanna is just a charade.

Max: I don’t want her hurt. Period. I’ll have to take a rain check.

Meredith: I can keep a secret. I know when to use my mouth. And where.

Max: This is a bad idea.

Meredith: I’ll see you in fifteen, then?

Max: Make that five.

If I could go back to December, back to those early days of my relationship with Hanna, back when I thought it was all temporary, a favor for a friend. If I could go back there and knock some sense into myself, I would.

At the very least, I’d tell myself to stay away from Meredith. She’s had her claws in me most of my life, and she can’t stand that she doesn’t control me anymore.

It’s not until my eyes skim over the screenshots of these five-month-old texts a second time that I see it—the other number in the recipient field.

Hanna’s number.

And then, just like that, my world falls apart.

“Fuck,” I growl.

Mom hops off the couch and props her hands on her hips. “Maximilian!”

“Sorry, Mom.” I push off the couch. “I have to go.” My chest feels tight. I have to get out of here. I have to get to Hanna.

“What’s going on?” Worry etches lines between her brows.

I’m already halfway out the door and don’t answer her question. Hanna lives a few blocks from Mom, so I don’t bother with my car. I break into a run toward her house, the velvet box holding Grandma’s ring clenched in my fist.

I lost my grandmother my senior year of high school. Before she died, she warned me that Meredith would ruin my life. She was too kind to say it like that, but I remember it so clearly. Grandma was standing in her little kitchen, thin gold bracelets jangling at her wrists as she chopped apples for one of those nasty salads that involved too much mayonnaise.

“Maximilian,” she said, her voice creaking like the hinges on an old door, “you see someone drowning and you’re gonna be the first to jump into the lake without a life preserver. I know this about you, but you can’t save them all. Meredith is drowning, Max, and jumping in to save her is only going to destroy you both. Don’t let her pull you under.”

At the time, I wrote off her comments as those of an overprotective grandmother. She’d seen Meredith use me and drop me again and again, and she hated it. But she was right, and now Meredith is destroying the most important thing in my life—and me right along with it.

The house Hanna shares with her sister is dark, and when I pound on the door, no one answers. I use my key to let myself in. “Hanna?” I call. God, the fear is right there in my voice, making it tremble. How can I fix this? How can I stop her from seeing the screenshots of those old texts?

I sense Hanna before I hear her feet hit the steps behind me. When I turn, the truth is all over her face. She saw the texts. I’m too late.

“It’s not what it looks like.”

She steps into the house and nods carefully. “Good. Because it looks like you’re a lying asshole.”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I shove the ring box in my pocket. Panic tightens a hot fist around my heart. “Hanna, don’t. Okay?” I just need a chance to explain, but my chest is so tight and it’s hard to think. Hard to breathe. “You weren’t supposed to see those texts.”

“Oh my God. Seriously?” Her voice is hard. Distant. I want my soft, open girl back. “That’s the best you’ve got? I wasn’t supposed to see that our relationship is a total sham? That it’s pretend? That you—” Then her brittleness shatters and she sobs. All I want to do is pull her into my arms. And I know I can’t.

“But it’s not,” I plead. She tries to step around me, but I grab her hand and hold her fast. “This is real. Nothing about what I feel for you is pretend.”

“But it was. At one point, it was.” Tears leak out the corners of her dark eyes, and each one is a punch in the gut. Each one a nightmare come to life. I’m supposed to be the one to kiss away her tears, not the one who makes her cry.

“I was an idiot.” It’s a pathetic defense. The truth usually is. “Such an idiot.”

She lifts her chin, and some part of me is proud of her for standing up to me. “You don’t understand what it’s like to feel like shit about the way you look. You don’t understand what a leap of faith it was for me to believe you wanted to be with me when you could have had any woman you wanted in this town.”

“Meredith and I have a long, screwed-up history, and until things were serious with Will and Cally—”

Her eyes flash, a wave of anger crashing over the hurt. “Leave.” She points to the door.

“Don’t do this, Hanna. Those texts were from December. That was months ago. You and I hadn’t even kissed yet. I had no idea I was going to fall in love with you.”

“Stop.” She wraps her arms around herself and backs away as if I’m some as**ole she needs to protect herself from. Maybe I am. “I can’t do this. I have spent too many years of my life hating myself. I can’t be with you anymore. I can’t—” A new sob cuts off the rest of her sentence. “Please leave.”

“I’ll give you time, but please—”

“It’s over, Max. Leave.” She lifts her eyes to my face and winces as if looking at me causes her physical pain, and there’s nothing I want more than to take that pain away.

So I do what she asks and leave.

I walk numbly through the darkness and back to my house, and I’m not even surprised when Meredith is waiting for me by the door.

Her lips curl into a smile when my feet hit the landing. “Why so glum, Max?”

“Get the f**k off my property,” I growl. I swear to Christ I’ve never felt a single violent impulse toward a woman before. I’m not my father. But damn if I’m not feeling one hell of an impulse now.

“You don’t really mean that.” She steps forward and slips her hand under my shirt, scraping her fingernails across my abs.

The only thing keeping me from physically removing her hand from my body is the fear that, if I let myself touch her, I’ll hurt her. When I back up a step, she follows.

“It’s going to be okay,” she whispers. She looks up at me through her lashes and goes for the button on my jeans.

I grab both of her wrists. “Don’t f**king touch me.”

Those calculating blue eyes turn sad and fill with tears. “You used to love me.”

“So that gives you the right to f**k up my relationship with Hanna? To f**k up my life?”

“You don’t even look at me anymore. You hardly reply when I text you.” Her bottom lip trembles. “Why? You once told me I was the only one for you.”

“I’m in love with Hanna. You can’t change that by being a world-class bitch.”

“Let me make this up to you.” She steps closer, pressing her body to mine, and for the first time in my post-pubescent life, the feel of Meredith’s body does nothing for me. “I know how you like it, Max. Let me make you feel good.”

“Get the f**k away from me.”

2. Hanna

LOVE IS a manipulative bitch.

Love is what had me believing that a guy like Max could actually want a girl like me. Love had me walking on clouds for the last five months. And love is the reason I’m knocking on Max Hallowell’s door at six a.m. the morning after he broke my heart.

“Hanna.” He steps back and opens the door wider to let me in. His dark hair is tousled from sleep and his chest is bare. My gaze is instantly drawn to the soft trail of hair that disappears into the waistband of his sleep pants. His blue eyes are bloodshot. Like maybe he drank too much before climbing in bed last night. Or like he didn’t sleep much at all.

Good.

I follow him inside, and my heart aches as I look at the stacks of boxes ready for the move. What did Meredith say to me after sending the screenshots of those texts? “Everyone knows your family is loaded. Max’s little health club isn’t going to get him very far if he doesn’t have a sugar mama to bail him out.”

Suddenly, it’s so obvious. Max’s financial situation sucks. He sold his house and is moving into the tiny apartment above the gym. He let go of a couple of his employees, picking up their hours himself to help with cash flow.

I’m the one who suggested he try to get the Healthy Tomorrow Grant, and I’m the one who talked my mom into pushing Max’s application to the committee members over the other applicants.

Right now, it literally hurts to be near him, but the manipulative bitch that is love has me standing here anyway because I don’t want him to lose his health club.

“Can we talk?” he asks softly. His voice still has that early morning rumble that makes me weak at the knees. He turns toward the little kitchen. “I’ll make some coffee.”

I follow him but try my best to keep my distance. Every second I’m here costs me. I need to keep this brief. “I can’t be with you anymore,” I say, repeating the words I rehearsed in my head on the way over. “But I don’t want you to lose your grant, and you know how political those decisions are. I think we shouldn’t tell anyone about our breakup until you’re awarded the money.”

He freezes, drops the coffee carafe in the sink, and turns to me, his hard jaw ticking. “You think I’m going to pretend you’re my girlfriend just so I can get some stupid grant money?”

“It’s not stupid and you know it.” I close my eyes. He’s so close, and all I really want to do is take a few steps forward and curl into him. I know how warm he’d be and how good it would feel to have his arms wrapped around me.

“Nothing happened with Meredith,” he says softly. “I want you to know that.”

“You went to her,” I whisper.

He nods, and it hurts. Maybe I wanted him to deny it. To say that she fabricated the whole thing somehow. Instead, he says, “That’s true.”

“And you meant it when you said I wasn’t your type.”

“I…” He takes two long strides so he’s standing in front of me. He tilts my chin up until my gaze meets his, and I can feel his warmth. So tempting.

I squeeze my eyes shut. It hurts too much to look at his beautiful face, to see those eyes that studied me as he touched me, played with my breasts, found me wet between my legs.

Suddenly, his arms are around me and he’s pulling me against his chest, holding me against his heat like he has so many times. And because I’m weak, I let him. I let him hold me and I take in his scent, memorize it. Because I have to end this.

“I never meant to hurt you,” he whispers. “I was trying to help, and—”

Even weakness has its limits. I shove him away and swipe at the tears on my cheeks. “Don’t.”

“I fell in love with you,” he growls. “Don’t you get that?”

“What? When? While you were making me into some kind of experiment? Seeing if you could cheer up the fat chick by taking her on a few dates?”