“Funny thing, though…” he started and then trailed off, looking like he was contemplating something.
“What?” she asked curiously.
Max gently moved her from his lap to sit beside him. He turned his back to her and simply said, “This. I got it a few months after you disappeared.”
Mia saw it immediately and gasped. There, on his left upper shoulder, was a tattoo that shocked her into silence. She reached up a hand and let her fingers trace the marking, her mind flabbergasted. The marking wasn’t huge, but it was beautiful. It was a stylized heart with a treble clef symbol, entwined together beautifully. Attached to the heart were two rings, wedding bands. The design was totally inked in black and Mia was scrolled above it. Below the design were the words Real Love Never Dies.
It was beautiful, and she understood now what his music and his heart were communicating, how the emotions expressed in his playing were connected to her.
Tears sprang to her eyes as she continued to stroke her finger lovingly over the mark. Max had marked himself with her name, too—a testament of his love for her. “But what if you had met someone else? What if—”
Max turned back to her again, picked her up and placed her back on his lap. “There is no one else for me, sweetheart. Even Kade didn’t protest when I did it. I guess he got the fact that I needed to do it. He took me to someone he knew who had done a few tattoos for him in the past. He said he already wore a tribute to you every day, but I don’t know where he put the tat.”
Mia started to laugh. “It’s not a tattoo,” she informed him cheerfully.
Max looked perplexed. “Then how does he wear a tribute to you?”
“His shirts. He wears those awful shirts,” she answered happily. “When I was a kid, he used to always wear black. I told him it was depressing and he should wear something happy. He started picking up outrageous shirts, ones that I’m sure he probably got teased about at school. But he wore them because I liked them, and I told him they were happy shirts. When we grew up, he never stopped. So he does wear something for me. And he never quit wearing them, even when he grew up and I started teasing him about them.”
Max frowned. “I always thought he did that to irritate Travis.”
Mia laughed. “That’s only a side benefit and it might be the reason he does it now. But he started it because of me. I loved them when I was a kid. They were always happy shirts with the most outrageous characters or colors. Honestly, even though I joke around with him, I still love them.” She swung around and straddled Max, laying her head on his shoulder. “Tell me why you used to run away. Was it really because of something I did? The way I was acting?”
“No,” Max answered quickly, stroking her hair as he responded. “From the time I understood what it meant to be adopted, I was grateful to my mother and father. I knew I’d been thrown away by my real parents, and I was appreciative every day that I had parents who wanted me, who provided all of the things I needed and other things that I didn’t need. I was luckier than most of the kids at school, and it wasn’t because I was born to them. They chose me. I guess I never wanted them to have a reason to regret it. So I became the perfect child. Or I tried to anyway. I didn’t want them to ever have a reason to regret adopting me. When I was really young, I think I was afraid they would give me back or reject me like my natural parents had done.”
Mia stroked his neck and back lovingly, imagining the perfect little boy Max had been. Really, it wasn’t that hard. The sweet boy had grown into the perfect man. “Didn’t you ever want to rebel?” she questioned curiously, wanting to know the real Max instead of the façade.
Max shrugged. “Not really. Even after my parents died, I still wanted to please them. I graduated from college at the top of my class, did everything that was expected of me when I took over my father’s business. I even thought of getting into politics because I knew it would make them proud. The only time I wanted to rebel from my normal behavior was when I met you.”
“So I was a bad influence?” she asked in a teasing tone.
“Never,” he denied, running his hand down her back and wrapping his arms around her waist, holding her closer. “But it made me realize that I wasn’t happy before I met you. I was living my life for two people I loved, but I wasn’t them. I’d tried to replicate their behavior because I thought being any other way would be a betrayal. I thought I needed to be like them because they were the parents who had wanted me. I was lifted out of a life of poverty because they adopted me. I wanted to be in the same class as my parents, even if I wasn’t born into it.”
His admission made Mia’s heart break. “Just because you’re different doesn’t mean you aren’t still good.” Max was the most wonderful man she’d ever known, and she hated that he’d believed he couldn’t be perfect if he wasn’t exactly like his parents. “I don’t think they even expected that.”
“I don’t think they did either. They would have loved me regardless, because they were good parents,” Max answered, his words muffled against her neck. “I expected it of myself.”
“And when you met me? I know you had relationships before we met.”
“Not like you and me. Before we met, I did the expected things. I dated. I f**ked. But I didn’t feel the same way. You made me crazy from day one. It knocked me on my ass. I lost my control with you. I’d conditioned myself for years to be a calm, controlled, reasonable businessman like my father, but you blew that persona all to hell, and I was worried about losing you if I wasn’t the man you wanted. I knew about your parents, and I knew you needed stability, someone rational and sane,” Max admitted gruffly.
“Oh, Max,” Mia whispered softly, loving him all the more for being able to talk to her now. “I’ve never met a saner man, and I kind of like the man you are now.” Okay…that was the understatement of the year. His dominant, protective love made her feel safe and adored. “What changed?”
“You died,” he answered, his voice tormented. “When I had to start admitting that I’d probably never see you again, hold you again, talk to you again…I hated myself for never letting you know how much you meant to me, that you were my entire world. I f**king regretted every moment I had spent running away when I could have spent that time with you.” He released a masculine sigh before continuing, “Now I hate myself for never seeing you, never noticing that you really needed me. I was a selfish prick. Had I stopped worrying about my image, I might have really known you—you might have told me about Danny.” He took her head between his hands, his expression tortured. “Believe me, the last thing I wanted was for you to tie yourself in knots trying to please me. Hell, you please me just by breathing. You didn’t need to try to be anyone other than who you are.”