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Zack still had enough self-control to wait until Max was gone before allowing a sigh of frustration to escape his tightly pressed lips. He stared at the greying skyline, acutely aware of Max's progress down the fire-escape despite his seeming indifference. The perfect soldier: spine rigid, shoulders squared, arms precisely angled at his sides, and Zack despised the weakness of character that had led him to this place, this moment.
"Why did it have to be *you?*" He flinched at the sound of his own voice--too loud, too bitter, too *desperate*--but Max hadn't heard him. Of course she hadn't, because Max didn't *want* to hear him, didn't want to accept what he couldn't--quite--bring himself to offer her.
Love was for fools. That fact had been proven again, and again, and again: Krit and Syl, driving themselves and each other crazy with their could-have-beens and should-have-beens; Tinga, tying herself down, making her family a target, making *herself* a target out of *love.* He'd warned them, and not a one of them would spare him their mockery should they find out that he'd fallen into the very same trap.
He could have played the part of the devoted lover to any number of the women he'd encountered over the years. He could have fallen into an easy routine of sex and companionship with any one of his fellow X5s. He could have managed any of those relationships, could have kept his thoughts clear and his heart intact with anyone other than Max.
He'd known women as beautiful as her, as charming and stubborn and strong as her, and yet, as often as he tried to tell himself that Max nothing special, he couldn't stop wanting her. Zack didn't have any of the answers--the how, and when, or why--but sometime, somehow, she had become so much more than she should be.
Loving Max was a danger to everything Zack had worked for. These feelings were a weakness to be exploited by Manticore, a weakness that put the lives of his family at risk. She clouded his judgment, made him rash, and if Zack was as strong as he'd once thought himself to be, he would leave Max to her make-believe life. To her *boyfriend.*
He wasn't that strong, though. He was a fool, just like any other.