by Abby Green
Max had been true to his word. She’d found herself working late plenty of evenings and on some Saturdays for half the day. His work ethic was intimidating, to say the least.
He rapped out now, ‘What was Montgomery’s response?’
Darcy didn’t have to consult her notes. ‘He wants you to meet him for dinner when he’s here with his wife next week.’
Max’s face hardened. ‘Damn him. I’d bet money that the wily old man is enjoying every moment of drawing this out for as long as possible.’
Watching his hands, splayed on his slim hips, Darcy found it hard to focus for a second, but she forced her gaze back up and had to acknowledge that this was unusual. Most people Max dealt with knew better than to refuse him what he wanted.
His mouth was tight as he spoke almost to himself. ‘Montgomery doesn’t think I’m suitable to take control of his hedge fund. I’m an unknown, I don’t come with a blue-blooded background, but worst of all, in his eyes, I’m not respectably married.’
No, you certainly are not, Darcy observed frigidly to herself, thinking of the recent weekend Max had spent in the Middle East, visiting his exotically beautiful lover, a high-profile supermodel. A little churlishly Darcy imagined them having lots of exotically beautiful babies together, with tawny eyes, dark hair and long legs.
‘Darcy.’
She flushed, caught out. Surely working with someone every day should inure you to his presence? Not make it worse?
‘It’s just dinner, Max, not a test,’ she pointed out calmly.
He paced back and forth, which threatened Darcy’s focus again, but she kept her eyeline resolutely up.
‘Of course it’s a test,’ he said now, irritably. ‘Why do you think he wants me to meet his wife?’
‘Maybe he just wants to get to know you better? After all, he’s potentially asking you to manage one of the oldest and most illustrious fortunes in Europe and his family’s legacy.’
Max snorted. ‘Montgomery will have already deemed me suitable or unsuitable—a man like that has nothing left to do in life except amuse himself and play people off each other like pawns.’
He raked a hand through unruly hair, a familiar gesture by now, and Darcy felt slightly breathless for a moment. And then, angry at her reaction to him, she said with not a little exasperation, ‘So take...’ She stopped for a moment, wondering how best to describe his mistress and settled for the most diplomatic option. ‘Take Noor to dinner and persuade Montgomery that you’re in a settled relationship.’
Max’s expression turned horrified. ‘Take Noor al-Fasari to dinner with Montgomery? Are you mad?’
Darcy frowned, and didn’t like the way something inside her jumped a little at seeing Max’s reaction to her suggestion. ‘Why not? She’s your lover, and she’s beautiful, accomplished—’
Max waved a hand, cutting Darcy off. ‘She’s spoilt, petulant, avaricious—and in any case she’s no longer my lover.’
Darcy had to battle to keep her face expressionless as this little bombshell hit. Evidently the papers hadn’t yet picked up on this nugget of information, and he certainly didn’t confide his innermost secrets to her.
She looked at Max as guilelessly as she could. ‘That’s a pity. She sounds positively delightful.’
He made that dismissive snorting sound again and said, with a distinct edge to his voice, ‘I choose my lovers for myriad reasons, Darcy, not one of which I’ve ever considered is because they’re delightful.’
No, he chose them because they were the most beautiful women in the world, and because he could have whoever he wanted.
For a moment Darcy couldn’t look away from Max’s gaze, caught by something inexplicable, and she felt heat start to climb up her body. And then his phone rang. She broke the intense, unsettling eye contact and stretched across to answer it, then pressed the ‘hold’ button.
‘It’s the Sultan of Al-Omar.’
Max reached for the phone. ‘I’ll take it.’
Darcy stood up with not a little sense of relief and walked out, aware of Max’s deep voice as he greeted his friend and one of his most important clients.
When she closed the door behind her she leaned back against it for a moment. What had that look been about? She’d caught Max staring at her a few times lately, with something unreadable in his expression, and each time it had made her silly pulse speed up.
She gritted her jaw as she sat down behind her desk and cursed herself for a fool if she thought for a second that Max ever looked at her with anything more than professional interest.
It wasn’t as if she even wanted him to look at her with anything more than professional interest. She was not about to jeopardise the best job of her career by mooning about after him like she had at school, when she’d been in the throes of a very embarrassing pubescent crush.
* * *
Max finished his call with his friend and stood up to look out of his office window, feeling restless. The window framed an impressive view of Rome’s ancient ruins—something that usually soothed him with its timelessness. But not right now.
Sultan Sadiq of Al-Omar was just one of Max’s very small inner circle of friends who had given up the heady days of being a bachelor to settle down. He’d broken off their conversation just now when his wife had come into his office with their toddler son, whom Max had heard gabbling happily in the background. Sadiq had confided just before that they were expecting baby number two in a few months, and happiness had been evident in his friend’s voice.
Max might have ribbed him before. But something about that almost tangible contentment and his absorption in his family had made him feel uncharacteristically hollow.
Memories of his brother’s recent wedding in Rio de Janeiro came back to him. He and his brother weren’t close. Not after a lifetime spent living apart—the legacy of warring parents who’d lived on different continents. But Max had gone to the wedding—more because of the shared business concerns he had with his brother than any great need to ‘connect’.
If he had ever had anything in common with his brother apart from blood it had been a very ingrained sense of cynicism. But that cynicism had all but disappeared from his brother’s eyes as he’d looked adoringly at his new wife.
Max sighed volubly, forcibly wiping the memory from his mind. Damn this introspection. Since when did he feel hollow and give his brother and his new wife a moment’s consideration?
He frowned and brooded over the view. He was a loner, and he’d been a loner since he’d taken responsibility for his actions as a young boy and realised that he had no one to turn to but himself.
And yet he had to concede, with some amount of irritation, that watching his peers fall by the wayside into domesticity was beginning to make him stand out by comparison. The prospect of going to dinner with Montgomery and his wife was becoming more and more unappealing, and Max was certain that the old man was determined to use it as an opportunity to demonstrate his unsuitability.
At that moment Max thought of Darcy’s suggestion that he take his ex-lover to dinner. For some reason he found himself thinking not so much of Noor but of Darcy’s huge blue eyes. And the way colour had flared in her cheeks when he’d told her what he thought of that suggestion.
He found himself comparing the two women and surmised with some level of grim humour that they couldn’t be more different.
Noor al-Fasari was without a doubt one of the most beautiful women in the world. And yet when Max tried to visualise her face now he found that it was amorphous—hard to recall.
And Darcy... Max frowned. He’d been about to assert that she wasn’t beautiful, but it surprised him to realise that, while she certainly didn’t share Noor’s show-stopping, almost outlandish looks, Darcy was more than just pretty or attractive.
And, in fairness, her job was not to pro
mote what beauty she did possess. Suddenly Max found himself wondering what she would be like dressed more enticingly, and with subtle make-up to enhance those huge eyes and soft rosebud lips.
Much to his growing sense of horror, he found that her voluptuous figure came to mind as easily as if she was still walking out of his office, as she’d done only minutes before. He might have fooled himself that he’d been engrossed in the conversation with his friend, but in reality his eyes had been glued to the provocative way Darcy’s pencil skirt clung to her full hips, and how the shiny leather belt drew the eye to a waist so small he fancied he might span it with one hand.
His skin prickled. It was almost as if an awareness of her had been growing stealthily in his subconscious for the past few months. And as if to compound this unsettling revelation he found the blood in his body growing heated and flowing south, to a part of his anatomy that was behaving in a manner that was way out of his usual sense of control.
Almost in shock, Max sat down, afraid that Darcy might walk in and catch him in this moment of confusion and not a little irritation at his wayward responses.
It was the memory of his ex-lover that had precipitated this random lapse in control. It had to be. But when he tried to conjure up Noor’s face again, with a sense of desperation, all he could recall were the shrill shrieks she’d hurled his way—along with an expensive vase or two—after he’d told her their affair was over.
A brief knock came to his door and Darcy didn’t wait before opening it to step inside. ‘I’m heading home now, in case you want anything else?’
And just like that Max’s blood sizzled in earnest. A floodgate had been opened and now all he could see was her glossy dark brown hair, neatly tied back. Along with her provocative curves. Full breasts thrust against her silk shirt. The tiny waist. Womanly hips, firm thighs and shapely calves. Small ankles. And this was all in a package a couple of inches over five feet. When Max had never before found petite women particularly attractive.
She wasn’t even dressed to seduce. She was the epitome of classic style.
He couldn’t fault her—not for one thing. Yet all he could think about doing right now was walking over to her and hauling her up against his hot and aching body. And, for a man who wasn’t used to denying his urges when it came to women, he found himself floundering.
What the hell...? Was he going crazy?
Darcy frowned. ‘Is there something wrong, Max?’
‘Wrong?’ he barked, feeling slightly desperate. ‘Nothing is wrong.’
‘Oh,’ said Darcy. ‘Well, then, why are you scowling at me?’
Max thought of the upcoming dinner date with Montgomery and his wife and imagined sitting between them like a reluctant gooseberry. He made a split-second decision. ‘I was just thinking about the dinner with Montgomery...’
Darcy raised a brow. ‘Yes?’
Feeling grim, Max said, ‘You’re coming with me.’
She straightened up at the door. ‘Oh.’ She looked nonplussed for a moment, and then said, ‘Is that really appropriate?’
Max finally felt as if he had his recalcitrant body under some kind of control and stood up, putting his hands in his pockets. ‘Yes, it’s highly appropriate. You’ve been working on this deal with me and I’ll need you there to keep track of the conversation and make nice with Montgomery’s wife.’
Darcy was clearly reluctant. ‘Don’t you think that perhaps someone else might be more—?’
Max took one hand out of his pocket and held it up. ‘I don’t want any further discussion about this matter. You’re coming with me—that’s it.’
Darcy looked at him with those huge blue eyes and for a dizzying moment Max felt as if she could see all the way down into the depths of his being. And then the moment broke when she shrugged lightly and said, ‘Okay, fine. Anything else you need this evening?’
He had a sudden vivid image of ripping her shirt open, to see her lush breasts encased in silk and satin, and got out a strangled-sounding, ‘No, you can go.’
To his blessed relief, she did go. He ran both hands through his hair with frustration. Ordinarily Max would have taken this rogue reaction as a clear sign that he should go out and seek a new lover, but he knew that the last thing he needed right now in the run-up to the final negotiations with Montgomery was for him to be at the centre of headlines speculating about his colourful love-life.
So for now he was stuck in the throes of lusting after his very capable PA—an impossible situation that Max felt some god somewhere had engineered just for his own amusement.
CHAPTER TWO
A WEEK LATER Darcy was still mulling over the prospect of going to the Montgomery dinner the following evening with Max. She assured herself again that she was being ridiculous to feel so reluctant. Lots of PAs accompanied their bosses on social occasions that blurred into work.
So why was it that her pulse seemed to step up a gear when she thought about being out in public with Max, in a social environment?
Because she was an idiot. She scowled at herself and almost jumped out of her skin when Max yelled her name from inside his office. If anything, his curtness over the last week should have eased her concerns. He certainly wasn’t giving her the remotest indication that there was anything but business on his mind.
She got up and hurried into his office, schooling her face into a neutral expression. As always, though, as soon as she laid eyes on him her insides clenched in reaction.
He was pacing back and forth, angry energy sparking. She sighed inwardly. This protracted deal was starting to wear on her nerves too.
She sat down and waited patiently, and then Max rounded on her and glared at her so fiercely her eyes widened with reproach. ‘What did I do?’
He snapped his gaze away and bit out, ‘Nothing. It’s not you. It’s—’
‘Montgomery,’ Darcy said flatly.
He looked at her again and his silence told her succintly that that was exactly what it was.
‘I’ll need you to work late this evening. I want to make sure that when we meet him tomorrow I’m not giving him one single reason to doubt my ability.’
Darcy shrugged. ‘Sure thing.’
Max put his hands on his hips, a look of determination stamped on his gorgeous features. ‘Okay, clear the schedule of anything else today and let’s take out everything to do with this deal. I want to go through it all with a fine-tooth comb.’
Darcy got up and mentally braced herself for a gruelling day ahead.
* * *
Much later that evening Darcy sat back on her heels in Max’s office and arched her spine, with her hands on the small of her back. Her shoes had come off hours ago and they’d eaten take-out.
It had to be close to midnight when Max finally said wearily, ‘That’s it, isn’t it? We’ve been through every file, memo and e-mail. Checked into the man’s entire history and all his business endeavours.’
Darcy smiled wryly and reached up to tuck some escaping hair back into her chignon. ‘I think it’s safe to say that we could write an authorised biography on Cecil Montgomery now.’
The dark night outside made Max’s office feel like a cocoon. They were surrounded by the soft glow of numerous lights. He didn’t respond and she looked up at him where he stood behind his desk, shirt open at the throat and sleeves rolled up. In spite of that he barely looked rumpled—whereas she felt as if she’d been dragged through a hedge backwards and was in dire need of a long, relaxing bath.
He was looking at her with a strange expression, as if caught for a moment, and it made Darcy’s pulse skip. She felt self-conscious, aware of how she’d just been stretching like a cat. But then the moment passed and he moved and went over to the bar, his loose-limbed grace evident even after the day’s hard slog. Darcy envied him. As she stood up her bones and joints pro
tested. She told herself she was being ridiculous to imagine that Max was looking at her any kind of which way.
He came back and handed her a tumbler of dark golden liquid. Her first thought was that it was like his eyes, and then he said with a wry smile, ‘Scottish whisky—I feel it’s appropriate.’ He was referring to Montgomery’s nationality.
Darcy smiled too and clinked her glass off Max’s. ‘Sláinte.’
Their eyes held as they took a sip of their drinks and it was like liquid fire going down her throat. Aware that they were most likely alone in the vast building, and feeling self-consciousness again, Darcy broke the contact and moved away to sit on the edge of a couch near Max’s desk.
She watched as he came and stood at the window near her, saw the scar on the his face snaking down from his temple to his jaw.
She found herself asking impulsively, ‘The scar—how did you get it?’
Max tensed, and there was an almost imperceptible tightening of his fingers around his glass. His mouth thinned and he didn’t look at her. ‘Amazing how a scar fascinates so many people—especially women.’
Immediately Darcy tensed, feeling acutely exposed. She said stiffly, ‘Sorry, it’s none of my business.’
He looked at her. ‘No, it’s not.’
Max took in Darcy’s wide eyes and a memory rushed back at him with such force that it almost felled him: a much younger Darcy, but with the same pale heart-shaped face. Concerned. Pushing between him and the boys who had been punching the breath out of him with brute force.
He’d been gasping like a grounded fish, eyes streaming, familiar humiliation and impotent anger burning in his belly, and she’d stood there like a tiny fierce virago. When they’d left and he’d got his breath back she’d turned to him, worried.
