The office buzzed with whispers and sidelong glances as I strode down the hallway, back straight, chin raised. I could feel the weight of rumors trailing in my wake after Jean-Pierre's not-so-discreet exit with me the previous evening. Let them talk - At this point I was used to being the center of idle ofice gossip.

A knot formed in my stomach as I recalled the revealing conversation over too many glasses of wine with the perceptive Frenchman. He had opened up about nearly making it to the altar with his first love Kathrine before a tragic accident altered everything. When he inadvertently mentioned "three lives" being cut short, I pressed for the full truth.

"Three lives, you say?" I had asked, arching one deliberately sculpted brow. "Don't be coy with me now, Jean-Petit."

His panicked look told me he regretted the slip. But I wasn't one to be easily deflected. After a few more rounds of my most disarming questions and eye contact, he confessed all - how Kathrine had been Max's beloved first, their fated meeting, and her ultimate choice of Jean-Pierre over Max.

I damn near drained my glass down Jean-Pierre's too-attractive face for withholding such vital intel.

The thought had barely taken shape before an unmistakable voice cut through the din, that rich timbre raising goosebumps along my skin in a visceral pavlovian response.

"Miss Bennett. A word?"

My spine stiffened incrementally as I turned to face Max sweeping down the hallway, eyes blazing like molten emeralds. His stance was rigid, aggressive even, as he jerked his head toward his office in mute summons.

Lifting my chin, I nodded once and followed without a word. The thrum of whispers and not-so-subtle stares seemed to intensify tenfold around us with every measured step.

Once inside Max's office, the door had barely clicked shut before he rounded on me with an aggressive fury that stole the breath from my lungs. Those burning emerald pools bored into me with an intensity I'd never witnessed, even from this outrageously intense man.

"I'm sure you've heard the rumors circulating about you and Jean-Pierre this morning," he bit out, his tone deceptively even despite the undercurrent of barely leashed fury rolling off him in waves.

Refusing to be cowed, I arched one coolly imperious brow and braced my hands on my hips in a subtly confrontational stance. "Is that what's got your overpriced silk boxers in a twist, Max? Or are you more concerned with how I chose to spend my personal time while you were away?"

His jaw clenched hard enough to grind enamel into dust, those chiseled features taking on an almost feral edge. "You're treading a dangerous line, Miss Bennett. One that calls into question your judgment and commitment to this 'firm' and its endeavors."

I barked out a breathless laugh at that, shaking my head slowly as I met his turbulent gaze head on without an ounce of hesitation. "My commitment? That's rich coming from you lately. One minute you're all fire and brimstone saying you will prove this to me"—I gestured between us—"the next you're avoiding me like the plague for weeks on end without explanation."

His nostrils flared, emerald eyes blazing over me as if chorusing every raw emotion coiled within him, as I continued ruthlessly.

"So which is it, Max? Am I just some reckless dalliance to you? Or is this actually going somewhere? Because I have to tell you, your hot and cold act is getting old fast."

"You think this has been a game for me? That I've been toying with you out of some perverse amusement? You're all I think about, you maddening siren. Every breath, every minute of every godforsaken day, you're seared onto my goddamned psyche."

With each hushed confession, Max seemed to uncoil infinitesimally until he was openly displaying a rawness I had never witnessed. It was humbling, arousing, and just a bit terrifying to behold.

"I'm in agony because you are all I want, but I can't—won't—be the one to ruin you the way I was ruined once before. Don't you see?" His gaze, when it finally met mine, shattered something inside my chest with its blazing sincerity. "I refuse to let you settle for anything less than every uncertainty silenced, every fear quelled. I want the whole of you, without regrets or a single shred of doubt remaining."

So there it was, laid bare...

I felt the air leave my lungs in a shuddering exhale as the weight of Max's impassioned confession settled over me. His words reverberated through my mind, stripping away every cocky retort, every defensive wall I'd instinctively tried to erect.

This wasn't a game to him. This was everything.

"You think I don't know what I want? That I'm just some flighty girl who can't make up her mind?" I shook my head slowly, holding his turbulent gaze. "I'm not Kathrine, Max."

His jaw tensed visibly at the name, realization dawning as he must have put the dots together of how I knew, but I pressed on, laying myself bare in return.

"I've never run from anything in my life because I was afraid of wanting too much. If anything, I've always wanted more than what life gave me..." I exhaled a ragged breath. "More than I probably deserved at times."

Slowly, I closed the distance between us until our bodies were a scant few inches apart. Close enough to feel the thrum of Max's heart thundering against my own ribcage when I reached out to rest my palm over the sculpted plane of his chest.

"This..." I murmured, letting my fingertips splay out possessively. "This is everything I want, Max. You're everything I've been craving with every fiber of my being. But you have to meet me halfway here."

Reaching up, I cupped the taut line of his jaw, marveling at the exquisite tension emanating from his frame as he clearly fought the urge to surge against me.

"No more pushing me away or shutting down. Stop trying to protect me from my own bloody desires and just let me in, you insufferable, infuriating man."

On the last word, I arched up on my tiptoes and brought my lips to within a hairsbreadth of Max's, letting the heated cadence of my words wash over him.

"Just. Let. Me. In."

Max's restraint finally shattered like a cord severing deep inside him. With a low, rumbling groan that reverberated straight through my core, he surged forward and claimed my mouth in a searing, branding kiss.

Every ounce of pent-up longing, every secret fear and uncertainty seemed to detonate between us as passion erupted in an unstoppable conflagration. His large hands cupped my face with a desperation that stole my breath as he poured every drop of ardor and anguish into mapping the contours of my lips with his own.

For long, searing moments, nothing existed but the ardent push and pull of our mouths, tongues warring in a duel for dominance that left us both trembling and breathless. My fingers scored streaks of fire down Max's crisp dress shirt, unable to get enough purchase to sate my own raging need.

When we finally broke apart, gasping and disheveled, neither of us made any move to part. Instead, Max simply rested his forehead against mine, his emerald eyes feverishly bright and blazing into my own.

"Don't leave me..." he rasped in a guttural keen edged with a desperate vulnerability that lanced straight through my heart. "I can't survive losing this way again."

I brought my fingers up to trace the taut lines of torment etching his striking features, marveling at finally seeing past the masks and veneers to the man who had captured me so completely yet remained an enigma.

"You're not going to lose me, Max," I whispered fiercely. "I'm not going anywhere."

And with that solemn vow hanging thick in the air between us, I brought my lips back to his in a slanting, searing kiss of possession and promise.

The world could burn around us for all I cared. In this moment, we were infinite, unbreakable, inevitable.