“Honest to God!” I cried. “I’d never marry that.” I looked at Mom who was staring at me with a mixture of anger, shock and distress and carried on, “I can’t even… I don’t even…” I stopped, the entirety of what just happened hit me, I tilted my head back then I shouted, “I almost married that man!”
“Honey –” Max murmured, pulling at my hand but I yanked it away, successfully this time, and took a step back.
“I almost married my father,” I whispered aghast as I fully processed this monstrous realization.
“Duchess, baby –”
“He offered you money,” I told Max.
“So did your father,” Mom put in informatively.
“Nellie,” Steve said low.
“I mean, who acts like that?” I screeched.
“It doesn’t matter, it’s over. You returned the ring. Done,” Max stated, no longer annoyed, apparently now in control-another-one-of-Nina’s-wild-hairs mode. He knew me enough by now to know, he didn’t control me, I’d march back to that restaurant and wring Niles’s neck and my father’s, for that matter.
But Nina was not to be controlled.
“Two years, two years I wasted on him. Oh. My. God.” I threw my hands out. “What a fool! I’ll never get that time back!”
Max looked over my shoulder then at me and said quietly, “Babe, calm down, let’s go in, get food –”
I interrupted him, still ranting, “All that time I kept thinking and thinking, was I doing the right thing? Would I hurt him? How could I hurt him? He’s a good man. Wondering, worried, my head filled with rubbish. I swear, I made myself sick with it. I did!” I shouted. “You were there! I actually made myself sick with it!”
Max caught my h*ps and pulled me closer to him. “Nina, it’s done.”
“I spent two hours writing an e-mail to him, Max, making certain it didn’t hurt too much and he didn’t even read it.”
Max’s hands gripped my h*ps harder and he said softly, “This isn’t anything to be angry about.”
My eyes grew wide and I yelled, “You didn’t waste two years of your life on him.”
“And you realized it was a mistake. You did the right thing, the smart thing. You made the right decision and now you’re free to move on with your life.”
I glared at Max because he was right and I wanted to be loud and angry for at least a little while longer.
I mean, my God, I nearly married my father. And I hated my father!
“You know what’s annoying?” I asked Max and his hands slid around my h*ps to the small of my back, pulling me closer.
“What’s annoying?” he asked back but I saw he was no longer in Control Nina Mode, now he looked amused.
“When you’re right and I want to be angry and you being right means I can’t be angry anymore,” I informed him.
“Baby,” he muttered through his grin.
Yes, amused. My eyes narrowed on his grin and my stomach growled. I decided I could be annoyed at Max while I ate.
Therefore I demanded, “Feed me.”
“I’m guessin’ about now if I told you that you’re cute, you’d get pissed.”
“Absolutely,” I snapped.
“Then I won’t tell you you’re cute.”
I put my hand on his chest, gave an ineffectual push and demanded again, “Feed me, Max. I need homemade granola and you better hope they have yogurt or all hell’s going to break loose.”