55. Love - useless illusion
The three of them walked toward the black luxury Bugatti La Voiture Noire
Circe wiggled confidently on her heels, chest puffed, sunglasses on — as if the world revolved around her.
Maximilian opened the car door for her out of courtesy only because of President David.
Circe swooned.
"Aah~ Max, you're such a gentleman… it's almost embarrassing how PERFECT you are…"
Kyron rolled his eyes so hard it could've broken the windshield.
Max ignored her entirely and walked around to his seat.
Circe got inside with exaggerated grace, pretending her peach dress was haute couture royalty.
Kyron sat in the front passenger seat, already smirking like a demon.
And then…
The ride began.
---
Circe leaned toward Max, batting her eyelashes dramatically.
"Maxi~ are you tired? You must be, waiting for me."
Max kept his eyes on the road.
Kyron glanced back.
"Sir didn't wait. We arrived exactly 57 seconds before your plane touched down."
Circe's eye twitched.
"Oh… well… still! He must be exhausted from thinking about me~"
Max: "…No."
Flat. Emotionless. Blunt.
Kyron choked on air trying not to laugh.
Circe puffed her cheeks cutely (she thought it was cute — Max thought she was suffocating).
Then she tried leaning closer.
"Max… I missed you soooo much. Didn't you miss me?"
Max: "No."
Kyron: WHEEZE—
He had to turn his face to the window so she wouldn't see him dying.
Circe's cheeks flushed with embarrassment, but she pushed through.
Very dramatic, very fake, very badly.
---
She flipped her hair back, exposing her neck like a seductive swan.
Even arranged her collar to show a little more skin.
"Max… don't you think I look… prettier than before~?"
Maximilian didn't answer.
Kyron did.
"Oh yes, very pretty."
Circe brightened—
Kyron continued:
"For a 25-year-old trying very hard to look 18."
Circe nearly strangled him.
"WHAT IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?!"
Kyron shrugged.
"No offense, my lady, but if you keep scrunching your face like that while flirting, your foundation will crack."
Max's lips twitched.
Just a little.
But he was amused.
And nothing annoyed Circe more than seeing Max amused because of someone ELSE.
She tried one last time.
---
She placed her perfectly manicured hand lightly on Maximilian's arm.
"Max… darling… you're driving so strong… so capable… it's very—"
Max removed her hand.
Not harshly.
But CLEARLY.
And said:
"Don't touch me."
Silence.
Kyron almost cheered.
Circe froze, humiliated, then tried to salvage her dignity.
"W-well, you're just tired. It's fine! I understand!"
But her voice cracked.
Kyron leaned back, whispering with fake sympathy:
"Maybe you should rest, my lady. You've had a long flight."
Circe glared at him.
Max said nothing.
---
BUT MAX'S MIND WAS SOMEWHERE ELSE ...
He kept replaying the airport whispers.
Goddess.
Unreal beauty.
Divine aura.
Rose petals lips.
Goddess Gracefull walk.
But Then suddenly...Maximilian mind shifted...
While Circe argued with Kyron and pretended to fix her imaginary crown, Maximilian's fingers tightened into tight fist .
His jaw was locked.
His eyes—cold, distant, unreadable.
But inside?
A storm.
For a second, it tugged at something buried in him.
A curiosity.
A spark.
A pull he immediately crushed.
Maximilian exhaled sharply through his nose and brushed the thought aside like dust.
Beauty. Love. Women. Attraction.
He despised all of it.
They ruin people.
They soften them.
They destroy them slowly from inside.
He had seen it.
He had lived it.
MAXIMILIAN REMEMBERS HIS PARENTS — THE WOUND THAT NEVER HEALED...
His mother's soft laugh, his father's hand brushing her cheek…
They were inseparable.
Pathetically in love.
Pathetically happy.
He once admired it.
Once.
Until his father died.
Maximilian swallowed hard, the muscles in his throat tensing.
He remembered Eleanor—
the strongest woman he knew—
crumbling piece by piece after that day.
Her smiles faded first.
Then her voice.
Then her will to live.
Grief hollowed her out.
Love ripped her open and left her bleeding for years.
And now?
Now she lay on a hospital bed, pale as death itself.
Her mind slipping.
Her soul already halfway gone.
One leg in the grave, the doctors whispered.
But Max didn't need doctors.
He saw it in her eyes—the vacancy, the exhaustion, the surrender.
Love had destroyed her.
Love had taken his mother before death ever touched her.
And people… idiots… still talked about beauty and romance like it mattered.
Max's heart tightened painfully.
He would never be weak like that.
Never allow any woman to reach that deep.
Never give anyone the power to break him the way love broke his mother.
---
SO WHEN THE AIRPORT WHISPERS RETURNED… HE SHUT THEM DOWN HARD
"Goddess beauty…"
"Like a divine being…"
"Her eyes… her presence… unforgettable…"
Max's fist tightened until his knuckles whitened.
Pathetic.
That's what he told himself.
Pathetic obsession over a face.
Pathetic weakness disguised as admiration.
He spoke in his mind coldly:
"Beauty means nothing.
Love means nothing.
It destroys. It weakens.
Only fools chase it."
So he forced the image—
that half-imagined silhouette of a woman strangers called goddess—
out of his mind.
Or tried to.
But tiny embers of curiosity flickered at the back of his consciousness.
Who was she?
Why did everyone sound entranced?
Why did he…
care?
He crushed the thought immediately.
He couldn't afford to care.
Not when his mother was dying in pieces.
Not when he still had nightmares of her calling his father's name in delirium.
Not when love was the sharpest knife he had ever known.
---
KYRON SAW HIS DARKNESS… AND STILL TEASED..
Kyron glanced subtly at Max's stiff shoulders, his silent breathing, his eyes fixed on the road like it was the only stable thing left in his universe.
Kyron knew.
He always knew.
So he leaned a little closer and murmured just loud enough:
"Sir… you're thinking about her, aren't you?
That goddess everyone described…"
Max didn't answer.
Didn't blink.
Didn't move.
But he didn't deny it either.
Kyron smirked.
Circe fumed.
And Max stared ahead as though the road could erase all the memories he spent years burying.
---