Free Broken by Zena Wynn Page A

room and stood watching Cassidy closely. “What about us?”
    He saw it, the way she stiffened. “There is no us.”
    Max stilled, absorbing the pain of her words. “Last night—”
    “Was a mistake,” she interrupted firmly. “I want Zoe to know you and for you to be a part of her life, but I’m not a part of the equation.”
    The hell you aren’t . Bullshit. This whole thing was just bullshit. How could she look him in the face and say—?
    But she wasn’t, he suddenly realized. Not once had Cassidy at looked at him as she’d spouted that nonsense about there being no us. What the hell is going on in that head of yours, lady ?
    Tamping down his instinctive anger, Max forced himself to think. Last night she’d clung to him as though her world were ending and only he could hold it together. It was more than pent up passion. She’d cried and allowed him to comfort her. Cassidy didn’t let down her guard with just anyone, yet she’d done so with him. But now she was trying to throw up walls between them.
    Feeling his way, he asked, “What did you mean when you said we could only go forward?”
    Cassidy kept her face averted as she changed Zoe’s diaper and dressed her for the day. “Just what I said. We can’t change the past. What’s done is done. We can only go from here.”
    “But not you and I together,” he said to be certain he was clear.
    She shook her head. “We had our chance. It didn’t work out. Maybe it simply wasn’t meant to be.”
    Max stared hard at Cassidy. When the hell had she become a defeatist? Did she really believe what she was saying? He noticed the fine trembling in her hands and how careful she was not to peer at him directly. He decided not to keep pushing, but he’d damn sure find out what she was keeping from him.
    He’d told Cassidy once that he not only wanted his unborn child but his child’s mother too, in the beginning when she’d first discovered she was pregnant. Max hadn’t changed his mind. If she thought he’d give her up now that he’d been granted a second chance…? Well, it proved Cassidy didn’t know him half as well as she thought she did.
    He’d been through hell and was still trying to find his way back. Cassidy was his compass, his light. He’d been cheated out of paradise once. No devil in hell was going to keep him from it again.
    Max determined then and there to bide his time. She didn’t want to be rushed? He wouldn’t but at the end of the day when all was said and done, they would be together. The way they were always meant to be.

Chapter Eight
    Cassidy could feel Max’s heavy gaze like an anvil on the nape of her neck. It made her want to fidget, to move out from under its weight. However, the words had to be said. Max needed to know they couldn’t simply pick up where they’d left off. She wasn’t the woman she’d been two years ago. She’d changed and so had Max. All they had between them now was Zoe.
    And a sexual attraction strong enough to turn you inside out , her libido whispered.
    “I am more than my sex drive,” she muttered under her breath. A sex drive that had lain dormant until Max arrived on the scene.
    “Did you say something?” Max asked.
    “I was speaking to Zoe,” she said, flushing at the thought he might have heard her.
    Previously Max had, intentionally or not, turned her life upside down. She didn’t plan to give him the opportunity to do so again. She wasn’t interested in falling in love. Love hurt and she was tired of being a member of the walking wounded. Between Phillip and Max, it had taken years, but her heart was finally hers again and she planned on keeping it. No more giving it away.
    She had Zoe. Her child was enough. Their little family of two was more than enough. She’d learned the hard way men let you down. She would never let herself depend on one again.
    “ I’ll wait for you forever, if that’s what it takes ,” Max had promised, and she’d believed him. Had held his promise