“I know. It’s like a whole room. But it would always be difficult for us. You know that as well as I do.”
“I don’t.”
“You do!” I laughed again and jumped down from the vanity. “We both have trust issues, we don’t agree on much, we live two very different lifestyles in very different places—”
“I like Nashville.” He shrugged. “It’s not that hard.”
I scoffed at his attempt to make it easy. It could never be easy. “It is hard. And even if we sorted that out, we will both always want to win—especially against each other, I think.”
“Nothing wrong with a little friendly competition.”
“But can you really see yourself dating someone who is as busy as you are? Maybe even as successful as you are, eventually?” I sighed. “I’ve tried to make it work in my head, Max. I have.”
He crossed his arms and shook his head. “No, you haven’t. It sounds to me like you’ve just worked out a lot of excuses. You’ve even worked quite a few out for me, and while I appreciate you trying to save me the trouble of thinking it through myself, I really think you should stop now.”
I swallowed hard and darted my eyes away from his. “I don’t want to lose you. As a friend, I mean.”
“Why would you?” he asked, taking a step toward me. I told my feet to step back in response, but I think they must have been too busy admiring Max’s folded arms—as I was trying not to—because they ignored the snot out of me.
“What happens when we date for a little while and then it all goes horribly wrong—as, let’s face it, it probably will? We had to get past a whole lot to become friends. Do we really want to add a breakup to that?”
“See, that’s the problem. Right there! You’ve already played it out in your mind. You’re so convinced there can’t be a happy ending that you don’t even want to keep reading to find out. But it hasn’t even occurred to you that we get to write this story, Hadley.”
“No, I do understand that. It’s just that—”
“Oh, good grief, woman,” he muttered as he looped one arm around my waist and pulled me against him before hooking his other arm around my neck. Then he bent me back and kissed me in a manner worthy of Rhett Butler. His lips were unrelenting until I finally threw my arms around him and started giving as good as I took. It was then that he brought me back to a self-supporting posture (though my knees took a little longer to catch up) and kissed me one more time, briefly and gently, before taking a couple steps back, leaving my lips numb and my arms missing him.
Well, fiddle-dee-dee.
“Would you please just listen? Just for a minute?” he asked, and since my brain was incapable of forming words anyway, I just nodded silently. “Okay. Thank you.” He took a deep breath and another small step back from me. “You think you don’t want any of this.”
“Any of what?” I asked quickly, before he could stop me.
His hands gestured back and forth wildly between the two of us. “This, Hadley. The pain and struggle and heartbreak that goes along with loving somebody. And I get that. All you’ve ever seen is the pain and struggle and the heartbreak, so of course you’re scared.” He ran his fingers across his chin and scratched his cheek. “And me? Well, I’ve never even seen the love. I’ve never even seen anything to make me believe that it can ever work. To make me think it’s ever worthwhile. That there’s any point to any of it.” He took a deep breath and his eyes locked with mine. “But in spite of that, in spite of having no idea what’s happening or what to do about it, I know you and I’ve got a pretty good shot at making this work. Because I get it now.”
“What?” I whispered. “What do you get?”
He smiled and took a step toward me. “I get that it’s not about having it all figured out. It’s just about knowing there isn’t anyone else on earth I want to be standing beside while we figure it out together. It’s about believing in something that . . . Hadley . . .” He bit his lip. “I believe you and I can be something so good. And I know that maybe I’m supposed to make all these promises to you. Promises to never let you down, and to be the man you need me to be. All of that. But the thing is, I don’t feel like I have any chance at all of not disappointing you if I make those promises. Because I’m going to let you down. And, sure, I’ll try to be the man you need me to be. Always. But I don’t think life together really works that way. I’m not even sure it’s supposed to. So, I can’t make those promises. But I can promise I’ll do all I can to protect you. And that I’ll always respect you. And I can promise I don’t want anyone but you. I can promise to be honest with you—whether that’s admitting when I make a mistake or saving your poor patrons from coronaries by making sure you know when you’ve used too much salt.”
I laughed with him and, as much as I didn’t want to stop looking at him as he said the most beautiful words I’d ever heard, I couldn’t resist the offer of his open arms. He pulled me against him—I never would have imagined we would fit together so well—and I rested against his chest. He kissed the top of my head and leaned his cheek against my hair.
“In sickness, poorer, and worse, right?” he said softly. Gently. “Just give me the chance to love you through all the worse that life can throw at us, Hadley. I can promise I’m not going to get scared off by any of that. Because I’m not willing to miss the better that I know is going to be there.”
I lifted my head from his chest and reached up to run my fingers through his hair, then I wrapped my arms around his neck and tilted my chin toward him.
His finger slowly traced the outline of my mouth. “So what do you say?”
I sighed as nonchalantly as I could as my hands made their way to the back of his head and began to pull his lips toward mine. “I guess we can give it a try.”
Max’s eyes sparkled as he seemed to take in everything about the moment—everything about me—and he was finally close enough for his lips to brush against mine. Briefly. Perfectly. Frustratingly.
“I love you, Chef Beckett,” he whispered.
I pulled out my tried and true method of listing things found in the kitchen to help me remain calm and focused—Max. Max. Max.—but it just wasn’t getting me very far.
“I love you too, Chef Cavanagh.”
I expected a smile, but the emotion that danced across his face wasn’t playful in the least. It was raw and intense, and carried with it the promise of a love I never thought I wanted.
“Well . . .” he said, and then the smile appeared—and it was everything. “Just remember who said it first.”
He pulled me to him, in a style that was perfectly all his own, and I realized that if this was what losing to Max Cavanagh looked like, I had no desire to ever win again.
Epilogue
HADLEY
Six Years Later
“I don’t at all understand the concept of this show,” Stuart said as he looked around the new house.
I took his jacket from him and hung it on the coatrack by the door. “It’s not that hard, Stu! It’s just life, you know?”