He glanced down at the divorce agreement in my hand and didn't take it.

Instead he lifted his head and looked at me. "A deal? Shirley, after all this time, you still think we were only ever a deal?"

The question caught me off guard.

"What else would it be? If not a deal, then what? We agreed when we married—once Gilbert was stable, we'd part on good terms. You went along with it."

He watched me standing there, lost, and gave a quiet little laugh.

There was something helpless in it, and an ache underneath I couldn't read.

"Five years ago you told me to keep clean lines between us. Polite, distant, an easy parting when it came. I agreed, because I was afraid that if I pushed too hard you'd just run. You said no interfering, so I didn't interfere. I was afraid you'd grow sick of me, so I lived under the same roof with you every day and never once let myself cross the line."

I was completely thrown, standing there, listening to him, my mind unable to turn the corner.

"Do you remember our high school prom?" he asked suddenly.

I blinked. The high school prom?

That was more than a decade ago. How could I remember.

I shook my head. "No."

"I remember." He looked at me, his eyes soft as water.

"You wore a pale moonlight-blue dress that night, and you sang a little love song on the stage. That was when I fell for you." Max took another step closer.

"Later, when the Hensons wanted the marriage alliance, I was so worked up I didn't sleep all night, because I knew it was the one chance I'd ever get in this life to bring you home as my wife."

There was a faint tremor in his voice he couldn't quite hide, five years of restraint and swallowed feeling surging up all at once.

I opened my mouth, my throat tight, and not a single word would come.

So all those things I'd taken for coincidence, those offhand kindnesses—none of them had ever been coincidence.

They had been Max, walking toward me on purpose, every step planned.

"That day the press photographed me with that actress, I rushed to explain it to you, and you said you weren't interested. Do you know what that felt like for me?" His voice dropped lower, carrying a hurt he couldn't quite mask.

"I thought you'd at least care a little. Instead you couldn't even be bothered to ask. Shirley, I waited five years. All this time, waiting for you to turn around and look at me…"

Outside, the thunder grew louder, the rain hammering against the glass.

I looked at the damp ends of Max's hair, at the heat he'd hidden in his eyes for five years.

And suddenly I remembered, from long ago, that there really had been someone like that, always trailing not far behind me.

I just never thought…

That someone had been Max.

"Why…" I finally forced out, my voice gone badly hoarse. "Why didn't you say something sooner?"

"If I had, would you still have married me?" He smiled, and the ache in it finally spilled over. "Back then your eyes were only on the company. All you wanted was someone to marry to escape the pressure to wed, and then a clean parting. If I'd told you I liked you, that I wanted to spend my whole life with you, you might have backed out on the spot… I didn't dare gamble on it… I really didn't dare…"

He raised his hand and brushed his fingertips lightly against mine.

Then, afraid I'd recoil, he pulled them back just as quickly.

"I know things are hard for you right now. I'm not trying to force an answer out of you. I'm only telling you—five years ago you pulled the Gilberts up, and now it's my turn to pull you up. Whether or not you still want to divorce me later, this injection is happening!"

Then he added, "And the divorce agreement you drew up—I won't be signing it. Not unless the day comes when you truly can't stand the sight of me. Only then will I go."

I looked at him, and all at once my eyes burned.

For half a month now I'd taken it all without crying once—the debt collectors and their insults, the friends and relatives who'd vanished. Not a single tear.

But a few words from him, and the tears nearly spilled over.

I sniffed and turned my face away, brushing at the corner of my eye.

Just then a warm hand settled gently on my shoulder, and he drew me softly into an embrace that smelled of cedar.

His arms were wide and warm, damp from the rain, and impossibly steady.

"Cry. It's all right." He patted my back gently, his low voice close to my ear.

"You don't have to hold yourself together anymore, Shirley. I'm here, watching over you."

I leaned into him, and half a month of swallowed grief finally rose up, the tears soaking down into the fabric of his suit.

I cried for a long while before I could breathe again.

Sniffling, I looked up at him. "Max, how can you be so sure eight billion won't just go down the drain? What if Henson really can't be saved—what then?"

He looked down at me, his fingertip gently wiping the tear tracks from my face.

He smiled, that same tender, faintly helpless smile. "Worst case, Gilbert and Henson go under together, and I live under a bridge with you. As long as I've got the person, that's enough for me."

He'd made me laugh, tears still on my face, the laugh coming out a little ugly.

I picked up the dark-blue capital-injection agreement off the table, then looked down at the divorce papers I'd been clutching all this time, and tore them in two.

Max's eyes lit up all at once, stars seeming to fall into those black eyes.

"I want the eight billion." I tipped my head back to look at him, my voice still a little unsteady.

"And I want you too! Max, before this I was blind—I never saw you. So… do you still want to stand behind me now?"

The moment the words left me, the thunder outside the window happened to stop.

Max stared at me for a long while, as if he couldn't believe what he'd heard.

His dark pupils slowly widened, and even the hand on my shoulder trembled faintly.

"Shirley, what did you… say?"

I sniffed, rubbed my cry-reddened eyes against his shirt, deliberately burying my face in his chest to wipe away the last of the damp, then lifted my head and said it again. "I said, I want the eight billion, and I want you. Max, before this I was blind—I never saw that you've been standing behind me for five years. Now… do you still want me?"

This time, he didn't freeze.

Almost the instant I finished, he tightened his arms and crushed me against him.

He held me so tightly I could barely breathe.

But I couldn't bring myself to push him away. I just leaned into him, obedient.

"Want you. How could I not." His voice was buried in my hair, thick with damp, and I could even hear the catch in it.

"I've waited for this day for almost ten years, Shirley. You've finally turned around to look at me."

The rain fell for three solid hours that day. Max stayed to help me sort through the rest of the documents, then made calls to arrange the team that would liaise with us.

When his executive assistant picked up, he probably never imagined his boss would skip the summit in Chicago to come back and dig his wife out of a hole.

He was stunned for a while before hurrying to agree, saying he'd bring the team over first thing in the morning.

By the time we'd packed up and headed out, the rain had eased to a thin drizzle. Max took off his suit jacket and draped it over my shoulders, holding the umbrella and keeping me sheltered at his side as we walked toward the parking lot.

The umbrella stayed tilted toward me the whole way, leaving half his shoulder soaked.

I edged closer to his side, but he pushed the umbrella back over me. "The rain won't hurt me. You just finished crying—don't catch a cold."

Once I was in the car, the warm air blowing over me, I slowly came back to myself.

Watching him start the engine, his fingertips still trembling slightly, I couldn't help but smile. "Mr. Gilbert gets nervous too?"

He turned his head and glanced at me, the corner of his mouth tugging up so high he couldn't hide it. "Mm. Nervous. Afraid you'll change your mind."

I leaned back in the passenger seat, watching the streetscape rush past the window.

For the first time in all these years, I realized that sitting in the car of someone you loved, watching the rainy streets go by, could feel this safe.