by Jessica Hart
‘She did,’ said Max, remembering how long it had taken him to understand what Emma was saying. Her timing hadn’t been good, to say the least. His mind had been too full of Allegra, standing on the doorstep, watching as he drove away. ‘She said she wanted to try again, that she’d realised that friendship was a better foundation for marriage than passion.’
‘Which was what you’d said all along.’
‘I did say that and I believed it, but I’ve changed my mind,’ Max said. ‘Friendship isn’t enough on its own, nor is passion. You need both. I told Emma that I’d like to be friends, but I knew that I’d never be happy unless I could be with you.’
‘With me...’ she echoed incredulously, but a smile lit her eyes, and he took hold of her hands.
‘I love being with you, Legs. I don’t care what we’re doing. Even when you were making me dress up and make a fool of myself, it was fun. I missed being able to talk to you and hear you laugh, I missed you nagging about my clothes. God, I even found myself rolling my cuffs up!’ he said, and Allegra laughed unsteadily.
Tears were trembling on the end of her lashes and Max tightened his grasp on her fingers, desperate to tell her how he felt before she cried. ‘I missed you as more than a friend, though. I wanted to be able to touch you and feel you...I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that night. It’s never been like that for me before,’ he said honestly. ‘It was as if everything else had been a practice and suddenly with you it was the real thing. Like I’d never understood before that was how it was supposed to be. I can’t explain it. With you, it just felt right...’ He trailed off, seeing the tears spilling down her cheeks. ‘Don’t cry, Legs, please. I just wanted to tell you how I felt.’
‘I’m crying because I’m happy,’ she said, trying in vain to blink back the tears. ‘Oh, Max, that was how it was for me too.’
The tight band around Max’s chest unlocked and he released her hands to take her face between his palms.
‘Allegra,’ he said unevenly, ‘I know I’m stuffy and I can’t dance and I’ve got no dress sense but I love you. That’s why I came back. I had to tell you.’
Incredibly, she was smiling still. ‘I love you too,’ she said, sliding her arms around his waist. ‘I’ve missed you so much.’
A smile dawned in Max’s eyes as his heart swelled. Tenderly, he grazed her jaw with his thumbs. ‘You love me?’ he repeated, dazed at the wonder of it.
‘I do,’ she said and her voice broke. ‘Oh, Max, I do.’ And she clung to him as he kissed her at last, the way he had dreamt of kissing her for so many long and lonely nights, so many bleak days.
She kissed him back, a long, sweet kiss edged with the same giddy relief at having been pulled back from an abyss at the last moment. They ran their hands hungrily over each other, a remembered inventory of pleasure. Heedless of the drizzle that was rapidly turning to rain, they forgot the ball, forgot the cold, forgot everything but the dazzling joy of being able to touch each other again, feel each other again.
Max was rucking up Allegra’s skirt with an urgent hand before a splatter of rain right down his neck brought him reluctantly back to reality. Grumbling at the weather, he pulled Allegra into the shelter of an overhanging balcony and rested his forehead against hers.
‘I wish you’d said something before you left,’ she said, softening her criticism by clinging closer. ‘I’ve been so wretched without you.’
‘I couldn’t. You made it pretty clear that night was just a one-off as far as you were concerned,’ he pointed out. ‘We’ve got different lives, you said, and you were right. I could see that. God, Legs, I only had to look at you. You were having so much fun in London. You’ve got a great life, doing what you want to do. You’re so bright and warm and funny and gorgeous. How could I possibly imagine you wanting to be with a boring civil engineer?’
Allegra couldn’t help laughing. ‘Nobody looking at you dressed up as Prince Charming could possibly describe you as boring, Max!’ For the first time she took in the full glory of his costume. His jacket was made of plum-coloured velvet, and he wore tight breeches and silk socks held up with garters. The satin waistcoat was the same colour as the jacket, and an intricately arranged necktie frothed at his throat. ‘Where on earth did you find your outfit?’
‘Dickie got it for me.’
‘Dickie!’ She gaped at him. ‘He didn’t tell me that you’d been in touch!’
‘I asked him not to and, anyway,’ said Max, drawing her back into him and putting on a superior air, ‘I’m not Prince Charming, I’m a duke.’
‘Are you?’ Allegra tucked in the corners of her mouth to stop herself laughing.
He pretended to be hurt. ‘I thought you’d have recognised a Regency duke when you saw one!’
‘Hmm, I think you and Dickie might have slipped a century,’ said Allegra. ‘My Regency duke didn’t wear a powdered wig.’
‘Thank God for that!’ Max snatched off his wig and cast it aside, before taking Allegra back in his arms. ‘I couldn’t find a time travel machine, so this was the closest I could get to your fantasy,’ he confessed. ‘I had this great plan. I was going to recreate it for you exactly,’ he told her as her eyes widened. ‘I was going to waltz you out onto the terrace, just the way you told me about, and then I was going to tell you how passionately I loved you and beg you to marry me, and bowl you over with the romance of it all. I wanted you to have the perfect proposal.
‘But I made a mess of it,’ he said. ‘The fact is, I’m not a duke, I can’t dance, I look like an idiot and it’s raining. Where’s the romance in that?’
‘It’s the most romantic thing I could imagine,’ said Allegra, her voice tight with emotion. ‘The duke’s just a fantasy, but you’re real.’ She kissed him softly. ‘Maybe you can’t dance, and no, you’re not the sharpest dresser, but you’re perfect for me and I love you just as you are.’
‘What, even buttoned up to my collar?’
‘Even then.’
Max grinned, pleased. ‘Hey, you really must love me,’ he said and she laughed.
‘I really do,’ she said, and he kissed her again, pressing her against the wall until they were both breathless and shaky with desire.
‘We’ve wasted so much time,’ Max grumbled against her throat. ‘I wish I’d known how you felt before I left.’
‘I couldn’t tell you,’ Allegra protested, snuggling closer. ‘You told me yourself you needed someone sensible like Emma.’
‘I thought that too,’ he said, as his hands slid possessively over her curves. ‘But it turns out that I need fun and frivolity instead. I’ve asked Bob if I can transfer back to the London office. I thought even if my Regency duke impersonation didn’t work, it would be easier to be in the same city. At least then I’d get to see you.’
Allegra pressed closer, loving the hard demand of his hands. ‘Ask him if you can stay in Shofrar after all,’ she said. ‘It turns out that I don’t have any fun if I’m not with you, so why don’t I come with you?’
‘But what about your job at Glitz?’
‘Well, I’ve made some decisions since you left.’ She told him what the agent had said about her drawings. ‘It’s a long shot but who knows? It might come off and I can always try my hand at other illustrations. I’m sure I’ll be able to keep myself busy during the day, anyway,’ she said. ‘And you can keep me busy at night,’ she added with a wicked smile.
‘I’ll do my best.’ Max kissed her again, and that was the last they spoke for some time. Careless of the rain puddling on the terrace around them, oblivious to the music spilling out from the ballroom, they lost themselves in the heady wonder of touch and taste.
‘You know we’ll have to get married?’ said Max eventually, resting his cheek against her hair.
Allegra tipped back her head to smile at him. ‘I’m counting on it,’
she said.
Max felt his heart swell until it was jammed almost painfully against his ribs. ‘Allegra...’ he said, shaken by the rush of emotion. ‘I don’t want to be apart from you again. How soon do you think we can arrange a wedding?’
‘As soon as possible.’ Allegra looked demure. ‘I’m sure Dickie will be happy to find a flowery waistcoat for you to wear.’
‘I don’t mind what I wear as long as you’re standing there saying “I do”,’ he said.
‘You might regret saying that!’
‘The only thing I’ll regret is not telling you I loved you earlier,’ he said seriously, and her lips curved under his as he kissed her once more.
Inside, the orchestra struck up another waltz, and they smiled at each other as they moved into the dance. Max’s arm was around her, his fingers warm and firm around hers as they danced through the puddles, heedless of the rain.
Allegra’s heart was floating. ‘This is perfect,’ she said, as Max twirled her around. ‘Waltzing on the terrace, a proposal of marriage... What more could I want?’
‘I seem to remember something about being ravished against a balustrade,’ said Max, and his eyes gleamed in the dim light as he danced her over to it. Turning so that she was pressed against the balustrade, he smiled lovingly down into her face. ‘You, my darling, are about to have your dream come true.’
Allegra heaved a contented sigh and wound her arms around his neck to pull him closer. ‘It already has,’ she said.
* * *
MAKING MR PERFECT by Allegra Fielding
Can you create the perfect boyfriend? We set one guy a modern-day quest, a series of challenges he had to complete successfully in order to win the love of today’s demanding damsels who want their man to be everything: socially skilled, emotionally intelligent, well-dressed, practical, artistic; a cook, a dancer, a handyman...
We took an uptight, conventionally dressed bloke with zero interest in the arts and a horror of the dance floor, and we asked him if he could change. Could he learn to dress stylishly and navigate a cocktail menu without cringing? Was he prepared to throw away the takeaway menu and go to the effort of cooking a meal from scratch? Could he talk knowledgeably about modern art? Could he learn how to waltz?
If you’ve been following Max’s progress over the past few weeks, you’ll know that he sailed through some of the ‘tests’ but crashed and burned on others, notably the exhibition of contemporary art installations. In spite of his grumbling, Max claims to have learnt something from the process. ‘I learnt to make an effort,’ he says. ‘I learnt to think about what women really want and—more importantly, I gather—not to button my collar quite so tightly.’
But the truth is that Max didn’t learn nearly as much as I did. Whether he succeeded or failed, he remained resolutely himself. Yes, he made an effort, but he didn’t change. He’s never going to be a snappy dresser. He’s always going to prefer a beer to a fancy drink, and he’s still going to have to be dragged kicking and screaming to anything remotely smacking of the arts. The tests were pointless: anyone can pretend, but what’s the point of pretending? Nobody wants to fall in love with a fake.
There’s no formula for a perfect man, unless it’s for a man who doesn’t need to pretend, a man who’s happy to be himself. A man who might not be able to dance, but who makes you laugh and holds you when you cry, who makes you feel safe and gives you the strength to be the best you can be. Who will stay by your side, through good times and bad. A man who makes you feel the most beautiful and desirable woman in the world when he kisses you.
A man who sees you for what you really are, and who loves you anyway.
So let’s not ask our men to be everything. Let’s love them with all their imperfections, because those are what make them who they are. Max doesn’t have a single one of the qualities I once thought necessary in my perfect man, and yet somehow that’s exactly what he is: my very own Mr Perfect.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from AFTER THE PARTY by Jackie Braun.
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PROLOGUE
“I see a handsome man in your future.”
Ella Sanborn fought the urge to roll her eyes at the older woman reading her palm. Ella could be naive at times. She was too trusting for her own good, or so she had been told on more than one occasion. And she was superstitious, hence today’s visit to a fortune-teller. But she wasn’t a complete fool. She was pretty sure Madame Maroushka told every young, unattached woman who darkened her door the very same thing.
But finding a man wasn’t what had brought Ella here. She leaned over the table and studied the lines that crisscrossed her opened hand, wishing she could make sense of them herself.
“What about a job? Do you see anything on there about a job? Preferably one with decent hours, paid holidays and medical benefits.”
Madame Maroushka’s scarf-wrapped head jerked up. In her heavily accented English, she asked, “You are single, no?”
“Yes.”
“But you are not interested in a man?”
“I’m not.” She said it resolutely, thinking of her ex-boyfriend, Bradley Farmington.
He’d been as loyal as a prostitute, dumping her right after her father’s legal troubles began. So much for true love. After the insider-trading charges leveled against Oscar were dropped, Bradley had sent her a note of apology. He felt bad about the way he’d handled things and claimed that he’d never really believed her father was guilty of anything. He’d been overly worried about his pending membership into an elite Manhattan social club. Ella forgave Bradley for bailing on her. She figured he’d done her a favor. He’d shown his true colors. A lot of her so-called friends had.
But Ella hadn’t dated anyone seriously since.
“He is very good-looking, this one,” the older woman crooned.
Ella shook her head. “I have more pressing problems than my social life right now.”
“But he is rich.” Madame Maroushka’s wily smile revealed a gold front tooth. Hmm, Ella thought, the fortune-telling business must pay pretty well, which reminded her...
“I’d rather have a job.”
“Land a wealthy husband, my dear girl, and you would not have to work ever again.”
“Yeah. So I’ve heard,” Ella replied dryly, thinking of her former stepmother’s snarky advice.
Camilla Sanborn would know a thing or two about landing wealthy husbands. She’d married Ella’s father at the height of his success and then left him to marry another billionaire when Oscar’s fortunes changed. No, thank you, Ella thought. She would pay her own bills, starting with those that were past due, just as soon as she had a job.
She nodded toward her palm again and asked Madame Maroushka, “Are you getting any vibes about the sales position at La Chanteuse on Thirty-Third?”
She’d submitted her résumé more than a week ago and, even though the manager had said the post needed to be filled immediately, Ella had heard nothing. Working in retail wasn’t where she saw herself employed indefinitely, but in the interim, she would take what she could get. Bes
ides, one of the perks of working at the ladies apparel store was a 20 percent discount on merchandise, and there was a leather handbag that was calling Ella’s name.
It was hell being a fashionista on a thrift-store budget.
“My gift does not work that way. It tells me what it tells me while I study your palm. I see a man,” the woman insisted a second time. “He is tall—”
“Dark and handsome,” Ella finished impatiently.
“Hey, you want me to continue or you gonna read your own palm?”
Ella blinked in surprise. Just that quickly, the woman’s accent had relocated from East Europe to North Jersey.
“Uh, sorry. Go on.”
“Very well.” With her accent now back in the Baltic, Madame Maroushka continued. “He is lonely, this man. And not dark, at least not how you meant. I see fair hair and light eyes. He is searching for...someone.”
In spite of the pressing nature of her visit, Ella couldn’t help but be intrigued. “But is he single?”
Jersey made another appearance in Madame Maroushka’s speech. “Whaddaya think? I just said the guy was lonely and searching.”
“Yes, but the two conditions are not mutually exclusive,” Ella felt the need to point out. “Last month, I went on a date with a guy who claimed to be lonely and looking for love. He also happened to be married.”
A detail he’d failed to mention until his wife showed up at the restaurant where they were dining, wielding a set of knitting needles and threatening to pluck out Ella’s eyes.
The corners of the palm reader’s mouth turned down in consideration before she nodded. “Okay. Point taken. But this one is single.” She traced a finger over one of the creases on Ella’s palm again.
“So, is this handsome stranger looking to hire a woman?” Ella asked.
When Madame Maroushka’s eyebrows shot up, Ella squeaked, “Not for that! I’m talking about a legitimate job. I can cook reasonably well, and I know how to scrub a toilet.”
