The Bride Fonseca Needs

by Abby Green

  But he would. Of course he would.

  Max stood up and advanced on her as Darcy fled behind the kitchen island.

  ‘Max, stop—we’re adults, and this isn’t our kitchen.’ She was attempting to sound reasonable, but the breathiness in her voice gave her away.

  He raised a brow. ‘It’s only water, Darcy. Now, come here like a good girl. You can’t tease me and expect to get away with it.’

  Darcy crept around the island as Max followed her and eyed where the door was. When she made her move, feinting left before going towards the door, Max caught her with pathetic ease, grabbing her robe and pulling her into him.

  He captured her hands with one of his and pulled her up against him. She caught fire. He was walking her backwards towards the huge table, and illicit excitement leapt in Darcy’s blood. She didn’t play like this. And she suspected Max didn’t either. It was heady.

  The back of the table hit her buttocks and Max nudged her until she was sitting on it. He still held the full glass of water over her and he said in a rough voice, ‘Open your robe.’

  A sliver of self-consciousness pricked her. ‘Max...’ she said weakly.

  ‘Open it, Darcy, or I’ll open it for you.’

  With far less reluctance than she should have been feeling Darcy undid the tie on her robe and it fell open, exposing her upper body. Max smiled, and it was wicked. His eyes had turned dark and golden.

  Darcy felt so hot she feared bursting into flames there and then. It was hard to breathe.

  Very slowly and deliberately he tipped the glass over her, until a small stream of icy water trickled down over her chest and breasts. She gasped and tensed, and was almost surprised when the water didn’t hiss on contact with her hot skin.

  Her nipples pebbled into tight peaks under Max’s torturously slow administration, and when she was thoroughly drenched, with water running down over her belly and between her legs to where she was hottest of all, he put down the glass and pushed her robe back further, baring her completely.

  He braced himself with his hands either side of her body, holding the robe back, keeping her captive. His gaze devoured her and he bent and dipped his head, his hot tongue a startling contrast to the cold water on her skin as he teased and tormented her breasts, tasting them and sucking each hard tip into his mouth until Darcy cried out and begged him to stop.

  He lifted his head and smiled the smile of a master sorceror. ‘We haven’t even started, dolcezza... Lie back on the table.’

  Unable to stay upright anyway, Darcy sank back and felt Max’s big body push her legs wide, coming between them, baring her to him utterly.

  He pressed kisses down her body, over the soft swell of her belly, and his big hands kept her open to him as his mouth descended between her legs and he found the scorching centre of her being. He stroked and licked her with sinful precision, until her hands were clasped in his hair and she was bucking uncontrollably into his mouth...

  Later, when they’d made it back to the bedroom, they made love again. And again.

  Darcy lifted her head from Max’s chest and asked sleepily, ‘So, will you tell me now?’

  Max huffed a small chuckle. ‘I should have known you wouldn’t forget.’

  Darcy rested her chin on her hand and said, ‘Well...?’

  Max shifted then, and she could tell he was mildly uncomfortable. But he said, ‘I had arranged to take you to Venice... We were going to do a gondola ride and stay the night in a hotel on the Grand Canal.’

  He lifted his head then, and looked at her with an endearingly rueful expression—very unMax-like.

  ‘It would have been the worst kind of cliché, wouldn’t it?’

  Darcy’s heart twisted painfully. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, ‘but it would have been lovely.’

  And then she ducked her head and feigned falling asleep, because she was terrified to admit to herself just how completely Max had seduced her.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING Darcy woke to an insistent prodding that was becoming more and more intimate as a hand smoothed down over her bare backside and squeezed firmly. She smiled and wriggled, hoping to entice the hand into further exploration, but instead it delivered a short, sharp thwack.

  She raised her head from the pillow, blinking in the daylight. Max. Looking thoroughly gorgeous and disreputable with a growth of stubble. And he was dressed.

  ‘What was that for?’

  His hand smoothed where he’d slapped her so playfully. ‘That was to get you up and out of bed... I want to take you out on the lake.’

  At the word lake Darcy went very still. That big body of water that she’d avoided looking at—probably the only person on the planet who didn’t enjoy the splendour of Lake Como.

  She flipped over and held the sheet to her breasts. Max was already leaning back, tugging it out of her hand, but she held on with a death grip and tried to say, as breezily as possible, ‘I’m quite tired, actually... Why don’t you go? You can tell me how it was when you get back.’

  Max stopped and his gaze narrowed on her. Damn.

  ‘Why don’t you want to go on the lake, Darcy? I’ve noticed that you barely look at it.’

  She avoided his eye and sat up, feeling at a disadvantage lying down, and plucked at the sheet. ‘I have issues with water. I can’t swim.’

  Carefully, Max said, ‘You know, some fishermen can’t swim—because they believe that if the sea claims them it’s meant to be. It doesn’t stop them going out on the water.’

  Sensing that Max had no intention of going anywhere until she explained herself, she sighed deeply and said, ‘I nearly drowned as a child. We had a pool at our house and my father was teaching me how to swim. My mother appeared and they started having a row. He got out to argue with her, forgetting about me... I don’t know what happened... One minute I was okay and the next I couldn’t feel the bottom any more and I’d started to drop like a stone. I must have drifted from the shallow end. They were so busy arguing, and I couldn’t get their attention. All I could see was their arms gesticulating and then everything went black, there was a pain in my chest—’

  Darcy hadn’t even realised that she was bordering on hyperventilation until Max put a hand over hers, his fingers twining around hers to make her loosen her grip on the sheet.

  ‘Darcy, it’s okay—just breathe...’

  She took a deep breath and looked at Max. ‘That’s why I don’t want to go on the lake.’

  He looked as if he was considering something, and then he said, ‘Do you trust me?’

  ‘Of course not,’ she said facetiously.

  Max rolled his eyes. ‘I mean, would you trust me not to let any harm come to you?’

  Physically...yes. Emotionally...no.

  Damn. Darcy realised it as the heavy weight of inevitability hit her. She was falling for him. She was a disgrace to womankind. One hot air balloon ride and even hotter sex and she was—

  ‘Okay?’

  She blinked at Max, not having heard a word he’d said over the revelation banging around in her head like a warning klaxon going off after the fire had started and the horse had bolted.

  ‘What?’

  He said, with extreme patience, ‘I want to take you somewhere and I promise you won’t have to do anything you don’t want to—okay?’

  Right now even a lake was preferable to sitting alone with this new knowledge. ‘Okay...’

  And that was how she found herself, a few hours later, in a swimsuit, shivering with fear by the side of a kiddies’ pool at a local adventure centre that Max said was owned by Dante D’Aquanni. A child ran past her and cannonballed into the pool.

  Max was standing waist-deep in the water and saying, ‘Look, I promise you’ll be able to touch the bottom. Come on.’

&nb
sp; Not even his body was helping to distract her right now.

  ‘Sit on the edge and come in bit by bit.’

  More because she didn’t want to look like a total fool in front of Max than anything else, she gingerly sat down on the edge and put her legs in the water. Immediately she started shaking, remembering how the water had sucked her down.

  But Max had his hands on her waist and she gripped his arms.

  Slowly, and with far more patience than she would have ever credited him with having, Max gently coaxed Darcy until she was standing in the water. Once she knew she could touch the bottom, he persuaded her to let him pull her along while she kicked her legs.

  At one point she saw Max send a glower in the direction of some sniggering kids, but she didn’t care.

  And then he turned her on her back, which she only agreed to because he kept his arms underneath her. He was talking to her, telling her something, instructing her to kick her feet, and she was just getting comfortable with the feeling of floating when he said, ‘Darcy?’

  ‘Hmm?’ It was nice, floating like this.

  ‘Look.’

  She lifted her head and saw Max with his hands in the air. It took a second for the fact that she was floating unaided to compute, and when it did she started to sink. But just as her head was about to go under she was caught, standing with her feet firmly on the bottom and Max holding her.

  She was breathing rapidly and he was making soothing noises.

  ‘I can’t...can’t be—believe you just let me go.’

  ‘You were totally fine—you’ll be swimming in no time.’

  Darcy looked up at Max and her heart turned over. The pool was empty now, and she moved closer to him until their bodies were touching.

  ‘I know one way of taking my mind off things...’

  She reached up and wrapped her arms around Max’s neck, moaning her satisfaction when his mouth came down on hers. Then he was lifting her, and she was wrapping her legs around his waist as he sat her down on the side of the pool and proceeded to do very adult things—until the discreet coughing of a staff member forced them apart like guilty teenagers.

  * * *

  Much later that night, after Darcy had shown Max her gratitude for helping her to start overcoming her fear of water in a very imaginative way, using her mouth to drive him over the edge of his control, Max couldn’t sleep.

  His body was still humming with pleasure...but not yet with the full sense of satisfaction that he usually felt after he’d bedded a woman. The sense of satisfaction that led to a feeling of restlessness and usually preceded his moving on.

  Okay, so he knew he couldn’t move on because he and Darcy were married—whether for real or not, they’d gone way over the boundaries of pretence now. But was that it? No. He’d be feeling this way if he and Darcy had started an affair anyway...and that revelation was disturbing.

  No woman kept a hold over Max beyond the initial conquest. If he continued a liaison it was usually because it served some purpose not remotely romantic.

  But things had escalated with Darcy so fast that his head felt as if it was spinning. She’d made him work for it, but it hadn’t really been game-playing. And the final capitulation... It hadn’t been sweet—it had been fast and furious and intense.

  Even now he knew that if she was to turn to him he’d be ready to take her again and again. And tomorrow all over again.

  He cursed softly and got out of bed and went downstairs, raiding Dante’s drinks cabinet for some of his fine whisky. He went out to the terrace, where the sound of the lake lapping against the shore should have been calming, but instead Max was remembering the look of stark terror on Darcy’s face as he’d had to coax her into the pool.

  Inferno. Since when did he mess about in paddling pools, teaching someone to swim? Yet he couldn’t deny the sheer pleasure he’d taken from seeing her face lose its dread in the pool.

  It had given him a kind of satisfaction that he usually reserved for each pinnacle he conquered on his way to the ultimate acceptance and respect in business. Which he still hadn’t attained.

  A shiver of something cold crawled up Max’s spine—a memory...crying, feeling as though his guts were going to fall out of his body, his legs shaking...his mother gripping him. ‘Stop snivelling. I’m taking you with me.’

  He’d told Darcy practically everything. More than he’d ever told anyone else.

  He went even colder and realised that he wasn’t even sure he recognised himself any more. Who was this person who made impromptu wedding proposals? Who chased a woman around a kitchen with a glass of water?

  The memory made Max cringe now.

  He’d let emotion get in the way once before and had paid the price.

  Another more pertinent memory came back: the day he’d seen his old nemesis while he’d been foraging in that bin in Paris. It was one of those moments in life when the fates had literally laughed in his face just to torture him.

  One of them had come back and handed Max a five-euro note. Max had taken it and ripped it up, before letting it drop to the ground and spitting on it.

  He hadn’t needed anyone then, and he didn’t need anyone now. He knew better than anybody how life could be as fickle and as random as a pair of dice rolling to a stop, dictating the future.

  But he’d changed that. The power to dictate everything lay with him.

  He’d fought for this control over his destiny and he was damned if he was going to let it slip out of his grasp now just because he was forgetting where his priorities lay. Anger licked through his blood at the knowledge of just how far off course he was in danger of straying.

  Darcy was distracting him.

  And he was fogetting the most important thing: She was just a means to an end.

  * * *

  The following morning, on the plane ride home, Darcy didn’t need to be psychic to know that something had changed during the night. Max was back in ruthless boss mode. Brusque. Abrupt.

  He’d already been up when she’d woken, dressed and packed.

  She’d felt flustered. ‘You should have woken me.’

  He’d been cool. ‘I have some work to catch up on in Dante’s study. We’ll leave in half an hour.’

  She couldn’t fault Max for wanting to jump straight back into things—after all Montgomery’s party was right around the corner, sealing the deal... But it was almost as if he had just carved out these few days to seduce Darcy and now it was mission accomplished and he was moving on.

  She’d expected this. But she hadn’t expected it to be quite so brutally obvious.

  Was it a dream or had this man gripped her hips so hard last night that she still bore the marks of his fingers on her flesh? Had she imagined that he’d held her ruthlessly still so that he could thrust up into her body over and over again, until she’d been begging for mercy, and only then finally tipped them both over the edge?

  No, because she’d seen the marks in the mirror in the bathroom and her muscles still ached pleasurably.

  Darcy felt a little shattered—as if the pieces that Max had rent asunder deep inside her would never come back together again.

  Maybe he was regretting the weekend...realising that it had all been a huge mistake. Realising that she hadn’t been worth all that effort...the shopping, the hot air balloon... But even if he was, she wasn’t going to regret it. She’d made her choice.

  ‘Darcy?’

  She looked at Max, who was frowning impatiently. ‘I need you to take some notes—we’ll be going straight to the office from the airport.’

  Ignoring the voices screaming at her to leave it alone, Darcy turned to him and said, ‘So that’s it, then? Honeymoon over. Back to work.’

  Max looked at her and she shivered.

  ‘What did you expect?’ />
  ‘All that seduction...the hot air balloon...’

  Max shrugged. ‘You knew I wanted you in my bed—whatever it took.’

  Incredible pain lanced her. ‘I see.’

  For a moment Darcy thought she might be sick, but she forced it down. She had to get away from Max. She hated it that she wasn’t strong enough to weather the evidence of his ruthlessness in front of him.

  She unbuckled her belt quickly and stood up, muttering something about the bathroom. Once locked inside the small space she saw her face in the mirror, leached of colour.

  Stupid, stupid Darcy. How could she have forgotten that this man’s two main traits were being ruthless and being more ruthless. He must have been laughing himself silly when Darcy had all but begged him to go to bed after his piéce de résistance: the balloon ride. It would be tainted in her head for ever now.

  She thought of the pool then, of Max’s patience and gentle coaxing, and this time she couldn’t stop the contents of her stomach from lurching up.

  When she’d composed herself she looked at herself in the mirror again. She had to get a grip. She’d lost herself for a moment and she’d done it willingly—her hands held tightly onto the sink—but it had only been for a moment. A weekend. She was okay. She could put this momentary weakness behind her and get on with things, and as soon as the ink was dry on the deal with Montgomery she’d be gone.

  * * *

  When they returned to Max’s apartment after going into the office Max disappeared into his study to do some more work. Darcy took herself out for a long walk around the centre of Rome, coming back with no sense of peace in her head or her heart.

  She was feeling increasingly angry with herself for giving in to his smooth seduction, having known what it was likely to do to her.

  He was still working when she returned, so she ate alone and went to bed, telling herself that the ache she felt was just her pathetic imagination.

  After midnight, just when she was hovering on the edge of sleep, Max came into her room.

  ‘This isn’t my room.’

  Darcy came up on one elbow, anger rising. ‘No, it’s my room.’