16 - MAYBACK

Alexandra hesitated for a second longer before she took a deep breath and slid into the soft leather passenger seat of my Maybach.

I reached out to push the heavy car door shut so she was safely secured inside the luxurious cabin away from the cold air of the underground garage.

I walked around the front grille of the sleek vehicle and climbed into the driver's seat while adjusting my suit jacket to give myself room to breathe.

The quiet interior of the car blocked out the echoing sounds of the concrete parking structure the second I pulled my door closed.

I pressed the ignition button to wake up the silent engine and gripped the smooth leather steering wheel with both of my hands.

Alexandra kept her head turned toward the tinted passenger window while I navigated the large car out of the VIP section and drove up the concrete ramp toward the exit.

We pulled out onto the busy Chicago streets where the gray afternoon sky matched the lingering gloomy tension inside my chest.

I merged into the heavy downtown traffic and stole a quick glance at the beautiful woman sitting next to me.

Seeing her thick curves sinking into the passenger seat of my personal car felt incredibly right to me.

I never let anyone ride up front with me because I always viewed my vehicle as a private sanctuary away from the demanding corporate world.

Having Alexandra share this small space did not feel like an intrusion at all, and I actually wanted her to stay sitting beside me for the rest of my life.

She brought her hands up to her lap and began twisting her fingers together in a nervous, repetitive motion that caught my attention.

I knew the stress of returning to the apartment she shared with her cheating ex-boyfriend was eating away at her fragile nerves.

I also knew that my mother's cruel insult about her eating habits was still echoing loudly in her mind.

I wanted to understand the root of her deep insecurities so I could figure out how to tear them down forever.

"Why did Victoria's words trigger such a massive panic attack in the office?" I asked in a very low, gentle tone so I would not startle her.

Alexandra stopped twisting her fingers and swallowed hard while keeping her gaze firmly locked on the leather dashboard.

"S-she just surprised me, Max, and I wasn't expecting her to yell at me like that," she stuttered out with a weak, unconvincing lie.

I stopped the Maybach at a red traffic light and turned my head so I could look directly at her flushed profile.

"Do not lie to me when we both know you are the smartest person in any room," I rumbled softly while reaching across the wide center console.

I rested my hand over her trembling fingers to stop her anxious fidgeting and rubbed my thumb over her knuckles.

"My mother is a vicious snake, but you handled her financial arguments flawlessly before the adrenaline crash hit you," I reminded her while squeezing her hand.

"You did not break down over the math, so tell me why the insult about your weight hurt you so deeply."

The traffic light turned green above us, so I pulled my hand back to the steering wheel and pressed the gas pedal to keep moving through the crowded city.

Alexandra let out a long, shaky sigh that filled the quiet cabin of the luxury car.

"Victoria sounded exactly like my own mother when she sneered at me," she confessed in a cracked whisper that nearly broke my heart.

I kept my eyes on the road ahead, but I focused all of my attention on the soft, sad voice filling the space between us.

"My mother has always been obsessed with staying thin, and she made sure I knew how much she hated my body every single day," Alexandra explained while hugging her arms tightly around her chest.

"She used to praise my sister Chloe all the time because Chloe has the perfect, skinny model figure that our mother always wanted."

I felt a dark, burning hatred ignite deep inside my chest when I realized her own family had planted the seeds of her severe self-doubt.

Parents are supposed to protect their children from the cruel world instead of tearing them down in their own homes.

"Whenever we sat down for dinner, my mom would give Chloe huge portions of food and then serve me a tiny salad while telling me I needed to watch my waistline," she continued with tears filling her brown eyes again.

"She told me that no man would ever want to marry a heavy girl, so I grew up believing I was disgusting and unworthy of true love."

I gripped the steering wheel so hard that my knuckles turned bone white under the strain.

A lethal, boiling rage surged through my veins at the thought of a mother deliberately destroying her own daughter's confidence just to praise a toxic sister.

"Your mother actively groomed you to accept poor treatment from men," I noted grimly, piecing together the psychological puzzle of her toxic relationship.

"She made you believe that a man like David was the best you could ever get, so you tolerated his emotional abuse just to have someone by your side."

Alexandra dropped her gaze to her lap and nodded slowly because she knew my harsh assessment was absolutely true.

"David used to agree with my mom whenever she came over for the holidays," Alexandra whispered as another painful memory surfaced.

"He would tell my family that he was doing me a favor by staying with me, and they would all laugh at his awful jokes about my thighs."

I ground my back teeth together so hard that my jaw began to ache with the sheer force of my restrained anger.

The fact that her own family sat around a dinner table and laughed while a pathetic loser insulted her beautiful body made me want to burn their houses down.

David had capitalized on that deep childhood wound by calling her fat, and my own mother had just ripped the fresh scabs right off.

I wanted to find her mother and force the awful woman to see how much damage her superficial obsession had caused.

"Your mother is a blind, superficial fool who does not deserve to have a daughter as brilliant as you," I stated with absolute, cold conviction.