Wished

Chapter 35

35

I used to describe Max as austere, stark, a fortress of a man who only showed his true self to a lucky few. I thought he smiled sparingly, but when he did it was glorious. I thought he was fair-minded, levelheaded, a good man. I made this judgment after knowing him for three years, and then I amended my opinion after my wish.

It doesn’t matter if the wish wasn’t real—it still tinged my feelings for him and my view of him. After my wish, I thought of him as a man who thought deeply, laughed often, and loved wholeheartedly. A good man.

Right now Max looks like neither of those men. Not the one I knew before, and not the one I thought I knew.

His grip is tight around my wrist and there’s a tension emanating from him. The cold, fluorescent lights shine over him, and while they should illuminate him in a bright, golden light, instead the lights highlight the roughness of his features.

In Saint-Tropez he was rested and sun-brown, a delirious smile constantly lifting at the corners of his mouth. Here in the chill of the market, he’s the opposite of that picture.

I look up into his face and study the changes three weeks have wrought. The last time I saw him in real life was in his library. He was angry then, but still Max.

He doesn’t look like himself anymore.

He’s unshaven, with at least three days’ growth. There are dark hollows under his eyes, his skin is pale, and he looks ...

He looks how I feel.

When he sees my face, he takes in a sharp breath and his hand loosens on my wrist. Even so, a second later I can feel the tension rocketing through the rest of him.

A white-hot flare of emotion sparks between us. It’s so overwhelming, so overpowering, that I’m surprised the circuits don’t break and plunge the market into darkness.

I stand, my legs unsteady. Only a few seconds have passed. I’m waiting, my stomach rolling, my heart pounding.

What does he want?

What could he possibly want?

It’s been three weeks. There was no letter. There was no wish. Yet the way he’s dragging his gaze over me strikes a match in every cell of my body, and I’m ready to combust.

But he’s not looking at me with love or happiness or relief or even confusion.

No—it’s anger. He’s angry.

“You.” His voice scrapes over me like fingers rubbing over bare skin. “You work here? Here? ”

His question is accusing. His eyes are dark and his mouth is tight. And I realize this isn’t a reunion of love, or even a reunion of former employee and employer. This is a man unexpectedly finding a woman he dislikes in a place he frequents. It’s like finding a thumb in a can of beans. It’s revolting. You want to throw the can away and never eat beans again.

I yank my arm away and Max lets me go, his expression shifting from anger to surprise.

Then the little girl from earlier runs between us and tugs on Max’s arm.

“Max! Mummy says to tell you that if you can’t find chocolate, then?—”

I don’t wait to hear more.

As soon as Max looks down at the little girl I run down the aisle, turn the corner, run down another aisle, and then slam my way into the back room. My supervisor is there, scanning a new shipment of olive oil.

“I have to go,” I say, out of breath and trying very, very hard not to cry. “It’s an emergency. I’m sorry. I have to?—”

I don’t say anymore. I grab my purse out of my locker and hurry out the back door.

The door slams behind me as I rush into the back parking lot. The air is warmer than the market, humid and filled with the scent of warm concrete and the exhaust of delivery trucks.

The loading area is empty and the streetlights shine in dim pools over the pavement. I blindly turn to the left, walking toward a concrete retaining wall that runs along the parking lot until hitting the busy street at the front of the store.

I don’t have a destination in mind; I just have to escape. I need to get away from the overwhelming need to run back to Max and ask him to love me. I need to get away from the way he was looking at me—not with love, but with anger. I need to get away from how much it hurts.

I round the corner, hurrying toward the narrow alley between the retaining wall and the market. It’s dark. The setting sun is near the horizon and its rays can’t reach beyond the wall. Instead a long shadow encompasses the alley. I’m about to step out of the light when I hear my name.

“Anna.”

I stop, standing still.

I’m afraid to turn around.

“Anna?” Max asks again.

I clutch my hands, pressing my nails into my palms. “Are you here to yell at me?”

“No. That’s not what I had in mind,” he says, his voice raw.

“Because when you said you never wanted to see me again, you can’t have expected I wouldn’t work. I have to work, you know. It’s not as if I invited you to shop here.”

I turn around, fully prepared to shove past him. But then what he said sinks in. He isn’t here to yell at me. In fact, he doesn’t look angry anymore. Instead he’s regarding me with a cautious, careful expression.

Out front, the sound of traffic passing fills the air in a quick, whooshing hum. But here in the back lot, there’s only the buzzing of an overhead light and the sound of crickets singing from the tall grasses, and wildflowers in the retaining wall.

I stare at him, unable to walk away, but unable to walk into his arms.

He stares back, and behind the cautious exterior I can feel a million emotions and a million questions swirling.

What does it mean?

I take a deep breath, breathing in the concrete and the subtle hint of grass and wildflower. The sun is almost down, the shadows on the parking lot lengthening, almost swallowing us.

Max takes a step closer to me.

“I have a question,” he says, and the way he says it makes my chest clench.

“Yes?”

The edge of his mouth lifts into a small smile. He no longer looks exhausted, haggard, and worn; instead he looks hopeful.

Hopeful like the Eiffel Tower lit up in the depths of night. Hopeful like a bookmark, keeping your place, waiting for you to come back. Hopeful like reaching out in the dark, waiting for someone to take your hand.

“Did you make a wish?” he asks. Then stepping closer, he looks down at me, his eyes searching. “Do you remember making a wish?”

Is he ...?

Does he ...?

Slowly, I nod. And when I do, Max closes his eyes and his shoulders sag with relief.

When he opens his eyes, his expression is full of love and need and, yes, passion .

“Come to Paris,” he says, his voice breaking. “Anna? Will you come to Paris with me?”

He waits for my answer, his breath held, all his focus on me. It’s a test. I know it immediately. Max is asking if I experienced my wish too.

I shake my head no. “I’ve been to Paris recently.”

He lets out his held breath and gives me a disbelieving look.

“And Saint-Tropez,” I say, and when I do, he understands.

He takes another step forward so the both of us are bathed in the last sliver of sunlight. The sky is deep indigo-blue and we’re covered in gold.

“You left me,” he growls. “I asked you not to, and you left me. And you didn’t come back. Anna, you didn’t come back.”

The force of his words rolls over me and I take a step toward him. Then another.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t want you trapped in a wish where I made you love me. I wanted to give you a choice.”

Max grips my arms, pulls me close, and then says, “That last wish, it wasn’t yours. It was mine. I wished on the parure. I wanted to know what it was like to love without reservation. To fling myself off a cliff into open air?—”

“You ...” I stare at him, uncomprehending. “You wished ... That was your wish?”

When he was desperately in love with me? When his love for me was as wide and as deep as the ocean? That was his wish?

Max smiles at me. “It turns out loving without reservation didn’t feel any different than how I already felt. I just made myself forget this other life for a bit.”

“I thought you’d hate me,” I say, shaking my head. “I thought you forgot me. I thought...”

“I’ve been looking for you since the second I woke up and you weren’t there. I called your boss—no answer for weeks now. I sat outside your building for days like some crazed stalker ... I’ve been going out of my mind. You disappeared.”

He pulls me against him and I take in his heat. The air around us shimmers, and I feel warm and delicious. I rest my cheek against his chest and he lets out a shuddering sigh, then he rubs his hands down my back, along my arms, touching me everywhere as if he’s reassuring himself I’m real.

“I looked for the letter. It wasn’t there. I knocked on your door?—”

“After a week of waiting I dug it up. I burned the damn thing myself.” He stares down at me, his eyes as dark as a starry night.

I reach up and run my hand over the thick stubble on his jaw.

“I’m glad,” I say.

He smiles. “I wish you’d knocked on my door again. It would’ve saved me three weeks of believing I’d lost my mind, but wishing desperately that you’d come back and try to steal my necklace again?—”

“I never—” My words are cut off by Max’s grin.

“I know,” he says. “That doesn’t mean I couldn’t wish it.”

“But Madame Blinken said you told her to call the police?—”

“No.” He closes his eyes then opens them, realizing. “That was before. I told her before. I forgot. If I’d known you were knocking on my door, I would’ve run to answer it. Anna ... I wished for you.”

I shake my head, suddenly worried we’re two people who don’t know anything about each other at all.

“How much of it was real?” I ask him.

The feeling between us is still there. The rightness, the resonance. But what was real, and what wasn’t?

Max reaches out and brushes his hand over my cheek. A warm tingle rushes over my skin.

“We’re not married,” I say. “We don’t have seven years behind us. We don’t have a history. We just have ...”

“Love?” Max asks.

“Remember I told you I fell in love with you at first sight?”

Max nods, his hand brushing over me comfortingly. “And I said I’d give up anything to spend even a single night with you.”

“But how do we know it’s real?”

“I suppose we could try it and see,” Max says, watching me with that happy, hopeful expression. He rubs his thumb over my lips, leaving a shimmery tingling in its wake. “Did that feel real?”

I nod, darting my tongue over my lips.

The evening is shifting to night and the air is cooling. I tuck myself closer into Max’s heat, breathing in the soft leather of his jacket.

He smiles. Lifts my chin and sets his mouth to mine.

His lips brush across mine, familiar yet new. His hands cup my jaw and he tilts my face so he can tease my mouth open. Then he slips inside, tasting me and drawing me to him. His hands curl in my hair and he makes a small, thankful noise. He tastes like chocolate and hazelnut, wine and passion. His mouth moves erotically over mine, sparking fires in me everywhere.

I press myself into him, trying to bury myself in him. I touch him everywhere, lifting his shirt so I can run my hands over the heat of his skin. Finally, he tears his mouth from mine.

He's breathing heavily, his chest heaving and his heart rocketing. I’m floaty, my blood throbbing with a needy heat, and all I want to do is wrap my legs around Max’s waist and keep kissing.

“That,” Max says, taking another taste of my lips, “was real.”

“Yes,” I say, gripping his shoulders.

He drops his forehead to mine, and I reach around him and hold him close. I can feel every breath, every heartbeat, every place we meet.

“I love you,” he says, looking into my eyes. “That feels more real than anything. I want to love you for the rest of my life. You said your love was exponential. I know how you feel. I want to experience every possible variation of love. I want to know what it is to love you in every possible way. When you’re happy, when you’re not, when you’re still young, when you’re old, when you’ve changed from who you are today and are someone new and the only thing I recognize is that I still love you. I want to be there for it all. In quiet love and passionate love and the kind of love that holds on even when everyone else would let go. I love you without reservation.” He kisses me again, pressing his love into me. “Do you feel it?”

“Yes,” I say, washing on the waves of his love.

I was wrong—there weren’t two choices in love, one side a calm turquoise expanse and the other a tumultuous sea. There are infinite choices in love. It’s a river of light, sparkling in millions of different variations, and we get to experience each and every one of them.

“I feel it,” I tell Max, reaching up and wrapping my arms around his shoulders. “I feel your love.”

He smiles—that happy, wicked smile I love. “We should make sure,” he says, “that you really feel it. That it’s really real. Just to be certain. We should go home and make sure.”

I laugh, feeling light and buoyant.

“I love you,” I tell him. “I love you so much.”

And then he kisses me again. The sliver of sunlight is gone, night is here, but I barely notice, because Max and I are making our own light.

Then he picks me up and carries me to his car, not taking his mouth from mine until he’s strapped me in and made sure I’m really, really, really real.