CHAPTER 22

          He lowered his dark eyebrows and rubbed a hand over his jaw, his skin rasping against the black stubble that was starting to grow.

“Oh… Your father didn’t pay child support?”

“We didn’t even know where he was. He walked out the door one day and never came back. I haven’t heard from him in fifteen years.”

“That must have been hard.”

“Yes, it was. But it was harder for my mother. She just kind of self-destructed after he left. Anne Marie was already… gone, and then my father was, too… Well, she just didn’t seem to have it in her to keep going. So, she somehow chose to sink instead. She… nearly took me with her.”

          Maxim sat in the chair next to hers and leaned close, the musky scent of him teasing her senses.

“Now I see… I mean, why you are so independent.”

“I had to be. No one isn’t going to take care of you… People are go