by Abby Green
Darcy smiled as she picked up the plates and said wryly, as she hid the dart of inevitable pain, ‘Is it that obvious?’
John took a sip of wine, his eyes following Darcy as she went into the kitchen. ‘Hate to say it, love, but yes. You’ve got that unmistakable Eeyore droop to your lovely mouth and eyes.’
Darcy laughed just as a knock came to her door. She looked at John and he shrugged. ‘Must be another neighbour?’
She went over to open it and swung it wide to reveal a very tall, very beautifully disheveled man with dark blond hair, olive skin and tawny eyes. And a distinctive scar. Dressed all in black.
She could almost hear John’s jaw drop behind her. And she was belatedly and bizarrely aware that she was still smiling after his comment.
The smile slid off her face as shock and disbelief set in. ‘Max.’
‘Darcy.’
Her name on his tongue curled through her like warm honey, oozing over the ice packed around her heart.
‘Can I come in?’
It was shock that made her act like an automaton, standing back, opening the door wider so that Max could step in, bringing with him the cool tang of autumn.
Darcy saw him clock John and the way his face tightened and darkened. His jaw was shadowed with stubble, adding to his general air of effortless disrepute.
‘I’m interrupting?’ He sounded stiff. Not at all like his usual insouciant self. Fazed by nothing.
Darcy tore her eyes off Max, almost afraid that he might disappear, to see that John had somehow picked his jaw back up off the ground and was standing up.
‘No, I was just leaving.’
She was glad he’d spoken, because she wasn’t sure she could speak.
She felt a quick supportive squeeze of her hand and then her neighbour was gone, closing the door behind him.
Darcy realised how close she was standing to Max and how huge he seemed in her small flat. Had he always been so huge?
She moved away, towards the table that still held the dinner detritus.
‘You’ve lost weight.’ Max’s tone was almost accusing.
Darcy turned around. Of all the things she’d expected to hear from him it hadn’t been that. And for someone who’d spent much of her lifetime lamenting her fuller figure it was ironic that in the past few months she’d managed to drop the guts of a stone without even trying.
She crossed her arms, suddenly angry that Max was here. Invading her space. Invading her mind. Being angry with him was easier than analysing other, far more dangerous emotions.
‘You’ve hardly come all this way to comment on my weight, Max.’ Her insides tightened. ‘Is it something to do with the divorce?’ She hadn’t received the papers yet, but had been expecting something soon.
Max shook his head and ran a hand through his hair, mussing it up. The gesture was so familiar that Darcy had to bite her lip for fear of emitting some sound.
‘No, it’s not about the divorce...it’s something else.’ Max started to prowl around the flat, as if inspecting it, looking into the kitchen. He turned to face her, frowning. ‘Why didn’t you buy a bigger place?’
Darcy felt defensive. ‘I didn’t want a mortgage and I like this—it suits me.’
‘I would have given you more money for somewhere bigger.’
She dropped her arms, hands spread out. ‘Max...why are you here?’
He looked at her so intently that she began to sweat, becoming self-conscious in her roll-neck top and jeans. It had been ‘Casual Friday’ at her new job that day. Working as PA to the CEO of a dynamic software company was sufficiently new and different to give her the illusion that she could avoid thinking about Max during the day. That illusion was now well and truly shattered.
‘I wanted to make sure you had your place...that you were settled. I owe you that.’
Darcy’s insides fluttered. ‘I have it, Max. And I wouldn’t have had it without you.’
He looked at her. ‘You also wouldn’t have had the media speculation and the intense scrutiny afforded to our marriage.’
Darcy almost winced. After she’d left him the papers had been consumed by what had happened to her. Luckily she’d been able to return to London and disappear into the crowds, unassuming enough that no one recognised her. They’d been married for such a short amount of time it had really only registered as a story in Italy.
‘At least it didn’t affect your deal with Montgomery.’
Max’s mouth tightened. ‘Your assessment of him was right. He’d always intended giving me the fund—he just enjoyed making me work for it.’
Darcy sat down heavily onto the chair behind her. ‘So we never had to go through with the wedding?’
Max shook his head.
He came forward and touched the back of the chair next to hers and said, ‘Do you mind if I sit?’
Darcy waved a hand vaguely, barely aware of Max’s uncharacteristic reticence or solicitude. Or the starkness of his features.
‘The man who was just here...he is your boyfriend?’
Darcy came back into the room from imagining what might have happened, or not happened, if they hadn’t married. She didn’t like to admit that she preferred the version where they’d married. In spite of the pain.
Not really thinking, she said, ‘No, John’s my neighbour. And he’s gay.’
Max sucked in a breath and Darcy looked at him sharply. He looked gaunt. The flutters got stronger and she hated it.
Sharply, she said, ‘Not that it’s any business of yours. You’ve hardly been wasting any time proving that our marriage was a farce. I’ve seen those pictures of you with women.’
Max stood up then and shrugged off his jacket, revealing a long-sleeved top that clung almost indecently to his hard torso. For a second Darcy didn’t hear what he was saying...she was too hot and distracted.
‘...doing everything I could to try and pretend things can go back to normal.’
Darcy blinked. Max was pacing, talking as if to himself. She swivelled in the chair so she could watch him. He was like a glorious caged lion in the confines of her flat.
He turned to her. ‘The evening Montgomery announced that he was giving me the fund to manage I was so overcome with emotion that I couldn’t bear for you to see it. In case you’d see that the front I’d put up after Como was just that: a stupid, pathetic front to hide behind.’
‘Max, what are you talking about?’
But he wasn’t listening to her. He was pacing again, becoming increasingly angry. At himself.
‘When I went upstairs and saw you packing I felt panic. Panic! I’ve never panicked in my life—not even when I realised I had no option but to live on the streets.’
Darcy stood up, but Max continued.
‘And then you were standing there, so cool and collected, asking me what else I wanted now that I had achieved my goal.’
Max stopped and turned to face her again.
‘You were asking me to step out into an abyss and I was too much of a coward to do it. I told myself that I had everything I needed, that I didn’t need you. I told myself that the hunger I felt every time I looked at you, which got worse if I wasn’t near you, would fade in time. So I let you go, and I went back down to that function, and I told people you’d had to leave for a family emergency. I told myself I was fine. That I would be fine.’
He shook his head.
‘But I wasn’t. I’m not. The day my parents split my brother and I up I showed my emotions. I cried because I wanted to stay with my mother.’
His mouth twisted.
‘I couldn’t believe that she was going to leave me behind with my father... I had no thought for my brother, only myself. But he was the stoic one. I was the one falling apart. And so she took me, and I spent my life paying for
it. When you were leaving me I wanted to slam the door shut and lock it to prevent you going. I didn’t. Because I was afraid of what might happen if I just let all that emotion out. I was afraid my world would turn on its axis again and I’d lose it all just when I’d finally got it. I was afraid I’d lose myself again.’
Darcy’s breathing was erratic. ‘What are you saying, Max?’
‘I wanted you to be settled, to find the home you wanted so badly. I wanted you to know that you have a choice.’
‘A choice for what?’
Max took a deep breath. ‘I want you to come back to me. I want you to stay being my wife. But if you don’t want that I’ll leave you alone.’
Darcy shook her head as if trying to clear it. ‘You want me back...because it’s convenient? Because—?’
Max held up a hand. ‘No.’ And then he sliced into the heart of her with all the precision of a master surgeon. ‘I want you to come back because you’ve broken me in two. I finally have everything I’ve always wanted—everything I’ve always thought I wanted. But it means nothing any more because you’re not with me. I love you, Darcy.’
Darcy blinked. I love you? This was a Max she’d never seen before. Humbled. Broken. Real. For a second she couldn’t believe it, but the depth of pain in his eyes scored at her own heart—because she knew what it felt like.
She whispered through the lump in her throat. ‘There’s never been a choice, Max. Not since the day we met again.’ She waved a hand, indicating the flat. ‘I finally have everything I thought I wanted too—a home of my own, a base—but it’s meaningless because you’re my centre.’
Max’s face leached of colour. ‘What are you saying?’
Darcy’s vision blurred with tears and she could feel her heart knitting back together. ‘I’m saying I love you too, you big idiot.’
She wasn’t sure who moved, but suddenly she was in his arms with hers wrapped around him so tightly she could hardly breathe. They staggered back until Max fell onto the couch, taking Darcy with him so she was sitting on his lap.
She wasn’t even aware she was crying until she felt Max’s hand moving up and down her back rhythmically, heard him soothing her with words in Italian...dolcezza mia...amore...
Darcy finally lifted her head and looked up at Max, who smoothed some hair off her forehead. She manoeuvred herself so that she was straddling his lap and both her hands were on his shoulders. She saw the way his eyes flared and colour came back into his cheeks and moved experimentally, exulting when she could feel the evidence of his arousal.
She moved her hips against him subtly, but pulled back when he tried to kiss her. ‘Who were the women?’
His eyes flashed with a hint of the old Max. ‘They were my attempt to be normal again. And none of them was you. Which was very annoying.’
He attempted to kiss her again but Darcy arched away, making Max scowl.
‘Did you kiss any of them?’
Max’s scowl deepened. ‘I tried.’
Darcy went still as a hot skewer of jealousy ripped through her.
‘But I couldn’t do it. For one thing they were too tall, too skinny, too chatty about stupid things. Not you.’
Darcy smiled. ‘Good.’
‘What about Jack, are you sure he’s gay?’
Now Max looked as if he wanted to skewer someone with a hot poker.
Darcy rolled her eyes. ‘It’s John. And yes, he’s gay, Max. I can practically hear him drooling from here.’
Max looked smug. ‘Good.’
Darcy brought her hands up to Max’s face, cupping it. And then she bent her head to kiss her husband, showing him with everything in her just how much she loved him. The emotion was almost painful. Max’s hands moved all over her, undoing her hair, lifting her top up and off so that she was just in her bra.
She rested her forehead against his, wondering if this was a dream. ‘I thought I’d never see you again.’
Max’s hands closed tight around her hips. He shook his head. ‘I would have come sooner, but I was a coward, and then when I heard you’d bought a place already I thought you were moving on.’
Darcy’s heart clenched. She looked into Max’s eyes. ‘You’re not a coward, Max...anything but.’
She ran a finger lightly down over his scar and he caught her hand and pressed a kiss to the centre of her palm. He looked at her. ‘The night we met Montgomery for dinner...?’
Darcy nodded.
‘I think that on some subconscious level I knew I wanted you badly enough to tie you to me by any means necessary. The thing is, I wouldn’t have made that impetuous decision if you had been anyone else... It’s because it was you, and I had to have you no matter what.’
Max’s confession eased some tiny last piece of doubt inside Darcy. She smiled and shifted against him again, putting her hands on the couch behind him, pushing her breasts wantonly towards Max’s mouth.
‘I think we’ve said all that needs to be said for now.’
Max smiled at her, long and slow and with a cocksure Maxness that told Darcy it wouldn’t be long before he was back to his arrogant self again.
‘I love you, Signora Fonseca Roselli. These last three months have been a torture I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. You’re never leaving my side again.’
She brought her hand around to the back of his head, gripping his hair, tugging at it. ‘I love you, Signor Fonseca Roselli, and I have no intention of ever leaving your side again.’
And then she bent her head and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth.
Max growled his frustration, cupping her jaw and angling her head so that within seconds they were kissing so deeply that there was no need for any more words for quite a while.
EPILOGUE
FOR TWO AND a half years Darcy and Max lived an idyllic existence, locked happily in a bubble of love and sensuality. She continued to work for him—but only when he travelled abroad and they didn’t want to be separated.
Meanwhile, Darcy set up a business as a freelance business interpreter and frequently travelled all over Europe for different assignments—which Max invariably grumbled about. Darcy ignored him. He liked to use them as an excuse to surprise her, anyway—like the time he’d appeared in Paris when she’d walked out of a meeting and whisked her off on his private jet to the romantic and windswept west coast of Ireland. They’d ended up staying in Dromoland Castle for a week...
They bought a house in Rome’s leafy exclusive Monteverde district and together made it a true home, keeping on her place in London as a pied-à-terre. Max still hadn’t taken the plunge and bought a football club, but he spent lots of time at matches, investigating various teams.
One of the things Darcy was happiest about, though, was the rebuilding of Max’s relationship with his brother Luca. It had been slow at first, but with the help of Luca’s wife Serena, whom Darcy now counted as a firm friend, the two men were now in regular contact and needed no encouragement to spend time together. Which suited Darcy and Serena fine, especially when they wanted to catch up, without their husbands doing that annoying attention-seeking thing they did.
Max’s relationship with his mother stayed strained, but he’d finally come to terms with the way she was and, together with Darcy, had managed to learn how to support her without taking on her addictions as his responsibility.
As for Darcy with her parents, she had learnt to tolerate their various love catastrophes with much more humour and less of a feeling of impending doom.
And then, two and a half years into their marriage, Darcy had walked white-faced into their bedroom one morning, holding a small plastic stick.
Max had looked at her and immediately frowned, concerned. ‘Ché cosa?’
She’d felt a very ominous tightening of her chest at the thought of his reaction and wha
t it might to do them. This was the one thing they’d never really talked about, and when Serena had fallen pregnant Darcy had seen how Max had reacted in private—by shutting it out. So she knew this was a potential minefield for him—for the young boy who had been so hurt by his own parents.
Silently she’d handed him the plastic and watched as comprehension dawned.
He’d gone a little green and looked at her. ‘But...how?’
She’d shrugged, feeling slightly sick herself at his reaction. ‘I don’t know. I’ve never missed a pill... But I had that flu a while back...’
They’d never spoken about Darcy coming off the pill. She’d hoped with time that they would discuss it...but now it was beyond discussion. She was pregnant.
She’d watched Max absorb the news, much in the same way she was, but whereas she felt a tiny burgeoning excitement starting to grow, she feared Max might feel the opposite.
After a long moment he’d looked at her resolutely and had come to sit on the end of the bed, the sheets tangled around his naked body. He’d reached for her and pulled her down onto his lap.
Her heart had clenched to see the clear battle going on in the golden depths of those amazing eyes but she’d waited for him to speak, and eventually he’d said gruffly, ‘You know that this was never going to be easy for me...but I love you...and I can’t imagine not loving any baby of ours even if I am scared to death of hurting it as Luca and I were hurt...’
Overcome with emotion at the extent of his willingness not to run scared from this, which he might have done before, Darcy had felt tears prickle behind her eyes as she’d cupped Max’s jaw and pressed her mouth to his, kissing him gently.
‘I trust in you, Max. You who overcame adversity time and again and who survived your own parents’ woeful lack of care. You aren’t capable of giving anything less than one hundred per cent commitment and love to any baby of ours. They’ll be the luckiest child in the world to have you as a father.’
He’d looked at her, his eyes suspiciously bright. ‘And you as their mother. I wouldn’t want to do this with anyone else.’
