Free What a Hero Dares by Kasey Michaels Page B

nearly succeeded. But Talleyrand ruined his plans. I don’t blame you, Max, you know that, I hope. I had a choice to make and I made it, knowing you couldn’t help but believe I’d turned traitor if I could be convincing enough, all while praying you’d see through Anton’s lies in time to save yourself—but not immediately, or else he’d have no choice but to dispose of you. He didn’t dictate my closing lines, scoff at the idea of being a country wife. Those were my own invention. I needed you wild with anger, not questioning.”
    “And I reacted just as you thought I would, curse me.” He placed his hands on her shoulders once more. “You saved me, and I’ve spent these last long months hating you, and hating myself for being so besotted as to think you ever loved me.”
    She refused to look at him. “Yes, you made that clear, earlier. I believed you’d gone to your grave hating me. I would have done anything to be free of that cell after that, wanting nothing but to find Anton.”
    She sensed he was barely listening anymore.
    “I didn’t question. I didn’t trust you or your love enough. If anyone should be shot, Zoé, it’s me. I should have done something . Anything. I’m so, so sorry.”
    She put her palms against his cheeks and looked at him intently. “We both are, Max. But we’re no longer the same two people we were. I can thank you for believing me now, but there’s no going back. We’ve already lost whatever it was we thought we had. There’s no room in my heart now for anything but hate. My business was and is with Anton. I want to help you, Max, in whatever Anton is involved with that concerns your family, but then the man is mine.”
    Max rubbed at his forehead, his lips pinched tightly together, avoiding Zoé’s gaze.
    “I already understand that. You want to kill him.”
    “I’m going to kill him.”
    “And now I know why. Because of Georges.”
    “Because of so many things.”
    “All right, we’re agreed.” But then he hedged, just as she knew he would. “If you still feel the same way when this is over, Anton’s all yours. Otherwise, he belongs to both of us,” Max said at last, and turned toward the door. He had his hand on the handle before abruptly stopping, his shoulders rising and lowering on a sigh. “Zoé?”
    “Just go, Max. Please.”
    But he was already on his way back to her and she was in his arms, their mouths crushed almost painfully together, his fingers knifing through her still damp hair. Her mouth opened on a quick, involuntary sob, and he was inside her, his tongue searching, dueling with hers, his body pressed closely against her softness even as she clung to him with all of her strength.
    The fire she couldn’t douse threatened to become a conflagration.
    He kissed her face, her hair, her tear-wet cheeks...and then he let her go.
    Had he felt the same fire? Recognized the same pitfalls, the same danger? Fire hadn’t helped them in the past, had it?
    “I’m sorry. I’m so damned sorry.”
    “I know,” she said quietly. “So am I. Telle est la vie. ”
    “Yes, such is life. But does it really have to be that way? We still feel something for each other, you have to admit that at least. I realize it won’t be easy, but if we can’t change the past, there’s always the future. You have every right to hate me. I couldn’t have loved you enough, known you well enough, or I wouldn’t have believed Anton’s lies, even with Georges lying dead on the ground in front of me. You suffered, and that’s my fault. You suffered to save me .”
    “I’m no martyr, Max. Remember, I was also saving myself, or at least believed so at the time. Anton proved one thing, though, didn’t he? What we had, what we thought we had, wasn’t enough, and shattered into pieces at the first hammer strike. Both of us are too familiar with distrust to even believe in ourselves. As long as we were dancing on the edge of the knife, we could tell ourselves what we felt