“Max, I … We’re just too different. I can’t change you, and you can’t change me, either. I have been thinking this through—I should have listened to that voice in my head every time I agreed to go out with you, or to date you, or to go public with you, or to go to Hawaii with you. Or to …” Her voice caught. “Fall in love with you, though that one isn’t your fault. I kept slowly giving in to you, because I loved you, but if I keep doing that I’m going to lose parts of myself. We can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry.”

She walked around him, and opened the front door.

“You should go.”

He tried to think of something else he could say. Some way to change her mind, some way to convince her he belonged to her, and she belonged to him, forever. This had always been his strength, one of the reasons why he’d always been such a good politician. He’d always been able to change minds; he’d always been able to think of the right thing to say, even to people who hated him. And Olivia loved him; she’d said so. He knew her; he should be able to do this.

But somehow the words wouldn’t come.

So he walked out the door.

Chapter Twenty

Olivia fell into an exhausted sleep shortly after Max left. Miraculously, she slept well, but when she woke up the next morning, all she could think about was that frozen, devastated, empty look on his face before he’d walked out the door. And then she hated herself for breaking up with Max. No, she hated herself for falling in love with Max in the first place. She should have headed this off at the pass months ago—she knew this would never work! Why did she even let herself, and him, think it might?

Had she done the right thing? Had Max been right, that she should have thought this through more, that she shouldn’t have given up on them? But no, she’d thought about it for that hour between when she got home and Max showed up. She’d thought about how different they were, and how she’d have to keep conforming to him if she stayed with him. She thought about how determined she’d been at the beginning to not get in too deep, to not get too attached, because if she did, she knew bad things would happen. She should have trusted her instincts.

She loved him so damn much. She never should have let herself get to this place. What a nightmare love was.