Max didn't think he'd ever cried in front of Siobhan, and he wasn't going to start now. This was his fault, not hers, and Max had learned from an early age that no matter how much you might want to cry and be held and comforted, what you actually had to do was pull yourself together. Still, when she didn't reach for him it felt like ice between them, not empty air. "Marrying you was never an obligation," he told her stiffly. Oh, he was expected to get married generally, and he supposed he would have tried to find someone, if he wasn't married by 35 or so, but that wasn't why he'd stayed with Siobhan. "You're my favourite person. Without question." Couldn't it just be as simple as that? His attraction had only - mostly - been based on sex, on the physical. Max had proved to himself he could live without that. He didn't even feel like he was missing out.
He felt as if the world had emptied out over the last - how long had it been? an hour? less? "You don't have to marry me." Max didn't know what he'd do if she didn't, but he wouldn't trap her in a marriage that couldn't make her happy. "You deserve - more."