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Allegra looked at Max. He wore a darkly flowered button-down shirt with a striped tie that clashed and yet complemented the colours perfectly. Trousers and jacket were beautifully cut, shoes discreet. If it hadn’t been for the mutinous expression, he would have looked super-cool.
‘I love it,’ she said. ‘He’s really rocking that flowered shirt.’
Max hunched a shoulder. ‘I feel like a prat.’
‘Well, you don’t look like one for once,’ she said.
‘He needs an ’aircut of course,’ said Dickie, eyeing Max critically.
Allegra checked her list. ‘That’s booked in next.’
‘And a manicure.’
‘Oh, no,’ said Max, backing away. ‘No, no, no, no, no!’
‘Yes, indeed.’ Allegra smiled blandly at him. ‘Now don’t make a fuss. It won’t hurt at all.’ She pretended to consult her list again. ‘Although I’m not sure I can say the same for the back, sack and crack wax we’ve got you booked in for after the manicure...’
‘Back, sack...?’ Aghast, Max opened and closed his mouth before obviously spotting the dent in her cheek where she was desperately trying not to laugh. ‘Why, you...’ Grinning with relief, he playfully shoved at her arm.
Allegra was giggling, but tailed off when she realised everyone was standing around staring at them. How uncool of her.
She cleared her throat. ‘Yes, well, take that outfit off for now. Let’s do something about that hair.’
* * *
Max ran his finger around his collar. His flowery collar. He felt ridiculous. His hair had been washed and conditioned and cut and it was just as well it hadn’t been any longer or that fool of a barber—excuse him, hairstylist—would have had it flopping all over his face. He had been shaved too, swathed in hot towels. Actually that hadn’t been too bad—until they had slapped on some cologne without his say-so. His eyes were still watering.
If any of his mates saw him now, or caught him stinking like a tart’s boudoir, he would never hear the end of it. Thank God this was the last place he would meet anyone he knew. The dimly lit bar was crowded, but if anyone else in there was an engineer, they weren’t like any civil engineers Max had ever met. Everyone seemed to be at least ten years younger than him and half of them were outrageously dressed. Unbelievably, his own absurd shirt didn’t stand out at all compared to what everyone else was wearing. He might have to forgive Allegra for it after all. He’d been so certain that she’d deliberately manoeuvred Dickie into choosing the flowery shirt as a joke.
‘Isn’t this place fab?’ Across the table, Allegra was bright-eyed as she surveyed the crowd. Dom, the photographer, was sitting next to her and together they were keeping up a running commentary on celebrities they had spotted and what everyone was wearing. Max had tuned out after a while. He hoped Darcy King would turn up soon and make this purgatory worthwhile.
‘Don’t look now...’ Allegra leant forward with a little squeal of excitement ‘...but that’s Chris O’Donnell sitting behind you!’
‘No! Not Chris! Squeeeee!’
She looked at him. ‘You don’t know who Chris O’Donnell is, do you?’ Without waiting for his reply, she turned to Dom. ‘He doesn’t know who Chris O’Donnell is.’
Dom stared at Max. ‘You just jetted in from Mars or something, man?’
‘Chris O’Donnell is the ultimate bad boy rocker,’ said Allegra, apparently shocked to her core by the depths of Max’s ignorance. ‘He just got voted sexiest man in the country, and he’d certainly have had my vote...’ She sighed wistfully.
Max raised his brows. ‘I didn’t know you had a taste for bad boy rockers, Legs. Not your usual type, surely? I don’t see your mother approving.’
Allegra flushed. ‘I wouldn’t want him as a boyfriend or anything, but you’ve got to admit he’s smokin’ hot...’
‘So have you told Flick about your major new assignment?’ Max said, not wanting to get into a discussion about which men Allegra thought were hot. He was fairly sure the list wouldn’t include a civil engineer, flowery shirt or not.
Not that he cared about that. It was just uncomfortable to talk about that kind of stuff with someone he’d known for so long. It would be like discussing sex with his sister.
‘I rang her last night.’ Allegra’s brightness dimmed slightly.
‘Was she pleased to hear about your big break?’
‘Well, you know Flick.’ Her smile was painful to watch and Max cursed himself for asking. He should have known Flick would disappoint her. ‘She did say “Well done” when I explained that it might mean a promotion if the article was a success. But she’s writing about the political implications of the economic crisis; you can’t blame her for not being impressed by my piece on whether it’s possible to create the perfect boyfriend. I suspect she thinks it’s a bit silly.’
Max had thought precisely the same thing but now, perversely, he was outraged at Flick’s dismissal of Allegra’s assignment. ‘Did you tell her all that stuff you told me, about how these were the kind of issues that really matter to a lot of young women?’
Allegra sighed. ‘I don’t think boyfriend trouble quite ranks with the global downturn in the economy in my mother’s scheme of things.’ She squared her shoulders, sat up straighter. ‘And she’s right, of course. I should take more interest in political issues.’
She was nothing if not loyal to her mother, Max thought, still irrationally annoyed by Flick’s response. Would it have killed her to have encouraged her daughter for once? Poor Allegra tried so hard to get her mother’s approval. She had to want it bad to feign an interest in politics, given that he’d never heard her or Libby utter a word on the subject.
And she was going to find it hard, as demonstrated by the fact that barely had her resolve to be more politically aware fallen from her lips than her attention was caught by a girl teetering past in ludicrously high shoes. ‘Omigod, I am totally stealing that vampire chic look!’
Max was obscurely pleased to see her revert to her frivolous self. ‘Vampire chic?’ he echoed, knowing the disbelief in his voice would annoy her, and sure enough, she gave him the flat-eyed look she and Libby had perfected when they were twelve.
Back to normal. Good.
‘You just don’t get it, do you?’ she said. ‘Look at you! We bring you to the hottest place in town, and you sit there like you were wishing you were in some grotty pub!’
‘There’s no “like” about it. I am wishing I was in a pub.’
‘Here, have a drink.’ Allegra passed him the drinks list. ‘Maybe that’ll cheer you up—and no, you can’t have a pint.’
Morosely, Max scanned the list and choked when he saw the prices. ‘They want how much for a cocktail?’
‘Don’t panic, you’re not paying for the drinks,’ she said. ‘But, in all other respects, this is a real date, so start looking as if you’re looking forward to meeting Darcy, not as if you’re waiting to have your eyes poked out with a sharp stick.’
She shook her head as Max tried to ease the tightness around his neck. Dickie had a throttling way with a tie. ‘Relax!’ she said, leaning across the table to slap his hand away from his throat, and the scent of her perfume momentarily clouded Max’s brain.
‘You’re so repressed,’ she told him as he blinked the disturbing awareness away. ‘Now listen, you’re going to meet Darcy any minute and you’re going to have to make an effort. This is your first task. You need to make sure she likes you enough to accept your invitation to dinner cooked by you, which is your second task.’
‘You’ve explained all this,’ said Max grouchily.
‘And, just in case you were thinking of falling at the first hurdle so that you don’t have to carry on, I’ll just remind you that we haven’t had that dinner with your boss yet.’
Why had he ever put the idea of blackmail into her head? She had taken to it like a natural. He’d created a monster.
‘Remember, you’re interested in Darcy, not in a lingerie model,’ Allegra carried on bossily. ‘Ask her questions but don’t interrogate her—and don’t expect her to take all the burden of the conversation either.’
‘I’ve been on dates before, you know.’
Allegra ignored that. ‘She’ll be hoping to meet someone interesting and interested, someone charming and witty who can make her laugh, but who’s got some old-fashioned manners—don’t forget to stand up when she arrives—and who can make her feel safe but sexy and desirable at the same time.’
‘And I’m going to be doing all of this with you listening in and Dom here taking pictures?’
‘You’ll hardly notice us after a while,’ she assured him, then straightened as Dom nudged her. ‘And here she comes! Good luck,’ she mouthed to Max as he adjusted his tie and slid out of the banquette to greet Darcy.
He couldn’t help staring. Spectacular was the only word. Of course he’d seen photos before, blown up across billboards or plastered across magazines, but in the flesh Darcy was breathtaking. She glowed with sex appeal, from her artfully tumbled blonde hair to the bee-stung mouth and the voluptuous body.
‘Your tongue’s hanging out,’ Allegra said in his ear, and Max shut his mouth with a snap.
‘You must be Max,’ said Darcy in the famously husky voice and Max unscrambled his mind.
‘I am. It’s good to meet you, Darcy,’ he said and stuck out his hand, but she only laughed and brushed it aside as she moved forward to kiss him on the cheek, enveloping him in a haze of perfume and allure.
‘Let’s not be formal,’ she said while every man in the room watched him enviously. ‘I hear we’re going to be great friends!’
Dry-mouthed, Max stood back to usher her into the banquette. ‘It sounds like you know more than I do,’ he said with an accusing glance at Allegra, who was greeting Darcy cheerfully. What else hadn’t she told him?
‘Don’t worry, darling,’ said Darcy, patting his hand. ‘It’s going to be fun.’
* * *
Darcy and Max were getting on like the proverbial fire in a match factory. Allegra told herself she should be pleased that it was going so well. She took a gulp of the sparkling water she’d ordered as she was supposed to be working.
Darcy was obviously enjoying herself. She threw her head back and laughed her glorious laugh. She propped her chin on her hands and leant forwards, as if the famous cleavage needed attention drawn to it. She flirted with those impossibly long lashes and ran her fingers up and down Max’s arm. Max, unsurprisingly, wasn’t complaining.
He was doing much better than she had expected, Allegra had to admit. After that stunned moment—and she couldn’t honestly blame him for that—he had recovered quickly and, while he wasn’t exactly charming, he had a certain assurance that came from not caring what anybody else thought of him, and a kind of dry humour that seemed to be going down well with Darcy anyway.
Which Allegra was delighted about, naturally.
No, really, she was. Personally, she didn’t think it was necessary for Darcy to touch him quite so often, but Darcy was obviously the tactile type. Not her fault that Allegra’s fingers were twitching with the longing to reach across the table and slap her hand from Max’s arm.
Who would have thought Max would brush up so well too? She’d thought he would dig in his heels at the flowery shirt but, apart from a few fulminating glances sent her way he’d clearly decided to honour his part of the agreement. Unlikely as it was, the shirt suited him beautifully. Something about the fabrics and the exquisite cut of the garments gave him a style he had certainly never possessed before.
It would take more than a shirt to turn him into an über hunk, of course, but Allegra had to allow that he didn’t look as ordinary as he usually did.
It was amazing what a difference a good haircut made, too. She found herself noticing all sorts of things about him that she had never noticed before: the line of his jaw, the crease in his cheek, the uncompromising brows.
Vaguely disturbed, Allegra bent her head over her notebook. She was listening to the conversation between Max and Darcy as unobtrusively as possible and scribbling notes for the article she would write up when the final task was completed.
The article that could change her career and put her in a position to apply for jobs on magazines with a little more gravitas. If she got it right.
So why was she letting herself be distracted by the way Max’s smile had suddenly started catching at the corner of her eye, the way it had suddenly started making her pulse kick as if it had startled her?
He was only smiling, for God’s sake. She wanted him to be smiling at Darcy. She was supposed to be pleased with the way it was going, not feeling cross.
Darcy was telling Max a long story about the house she was having built, and he was offering advice about foundations and geological surveys. He’d obviously forgotten her advice about being witty and charming, but Darcy was hanging on his every word.
Disgruntled, Allegra gave up listening after a while. She wasn’t going to fill her article with engineering talk, however fascinating Darcy might find it. Dom had taken his pictures and left some time before, and she let her pen drift: Derek the Dog dancing on his hind legs, Mrs G tipsy on cocktails, Flick smiling proudly—Allegra had to imagine that one.
Then she sketched Darcy leaning forward, lips parted breathlessly, and Max himself. But somehow she found herself drawing the Max she knew, the Max who wore a crummy polo shirt buttoned too high at the neck and lay on the absurdly feminine sofa, king of the remote, and she felt a pang of something she chose not to identify.
‘Hey, those are great!’ Darcy leant across the table and plucked the notebook away before Allegra had a chance to react.
She studied the drawings, chuckling. ‘Who’s the cute dog? Look, Max, that’s you...’ Her smile faltered as she took in the polo shirt. ‘At least...?’
Max peered at the sketch. ‘Yep, looks like me.’
Allegra was blushing furiously. ‘They’re just doodles...’
‘No, really, they’re very good,’ said Darcy. ‘You clever thing.’ She tapped a finger on the picture of her. ‘You’ve caught me exactly, hasn’t she, Max?’
‘It’s unmistakably you, but a drawing can’t really capture your charm,’ he said and Darcy laughed her trademark husky laugh, delighted, while Allegra concentrated on not throwing up.
If she wasn’t much mistaken, Max was flirting. He must really like Darcy. Perhaps it was time to leave them alone. Ignoring the sinking feeling in her stomach, she took her notebook back from Darcy. ‘I should go.’
‘Don’t go yet.’ To her surprise, rather than wanting to get rid of her, Max handed her the drinks list. ‘If you’ve finished working, you might as well have a proper drink.’
‘Absolutely,’ said Darcy with a sunny smile. ‘You deserve it for setting up this article. I just know we’re going to have a good time.’ Her fingers teased Max’s shoulder and Allegra’s fingers tightened around the menu. ‘I can’t believe Max here hasn’t been snapped up already, can you?’
‘It’s beyond comprehension,’ Allegra agreed, but then made the mistake of glancing at Max. A smile hovered around his mouth and, for no reason she could name, her mouth dried.
‘Try something with a ridiculous name,’ he said, deadpan, and nodded at the drinks list. ‘I’m longing to make a fool of myself ordering for you.’
Allegra swallowed and wrenched her gaze away to concentrate fiercely on the drinks list. Could she be coming down with something? She felt feverish and twitchy, and a nerve was jumping under her eye.
The list kept swimming in front of her eyes and she frowned in an effort to focus, but whenever she did the only cocktails that jumped out at her were called things like Screaming Orgasm or Wet Kiss. This was supposed to be fun. She should take Max up on his challenge and make him order something silly.
Why couldn’t she grin and say: I’d like a Sloe Screw Against the Wall, please, Max? Could I have Sex on the Beach?
But all at once her throat was thick and she was having trouble swallowing. She handed the list back without meeting his eyes. ‘I’ll...er...have a martini, please.’
‘Chicken,’ said Max, beckoning over a waitress.
Darcy started to tell Allegra about a shoot she’d been on the day before. She knew Dickie and Stella and a host of other people at Glitz, and she was so friendly that it was impossible to dislike her, in spite of the way she kept flirting with Max, little touches on his arm, his shoulder, his hair. Every now and then her hand would disappear under the table and Allegra didn’t want to think about what she was touching down there.
Allegra kept her attention firmly focused on Darcy’s face, which was easier than being stupidly conscious of Max sitting next to Darcy and not looking nearly as out of place as he should have done. More and more, Allegra was convinced that she was sickening for something. She didn’t feel herself at all. She was glad when the drinks arrived, but she drank hers a little too quickly and, before she knew what had happened, Darcy was beckoning for another one.
‘You’re one behind us,’ she said gaily.
FOUR
So Allegra had another and then she and Darcy agreed to have another. Why had she been so uptight earlier? She was having a great time now, exchanging disastrous date stories with Darcy while Max sat back, folded his arms and watched them indulgently.
‘Like you’ve never had a disastrous date,’ Allegra accused him, enunciating carefully so as not to slur her words.
‘What about this one?’ said Max.
‘We’re talking about real dates,’ she said indignantly.
Darcy nodded along. ‘When your heart sinks five minutes in and you spend the rest of the evening trying to think of an excuse to leave early.’
‘Or, worse, when you really like someone and you realise they’re just not that into you,’ said Allegra glumly.
A funny look swept across Max’s face. ‘I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about,’ he said.
Darcy had already moved on. ‘I blame my father,’ she said. ‘He’s spoilt me for other men. None of my boyfriends has ever been able to live up to him.’
‘You’re lucky to have a father,’ Allegra said wistfully.
Her birth certificate just showed her mother’s name. Flick refused to talk about Allegra’s father. ‘He was a mistake,’ was all she would ever say and turn the subject.
When she was a little girl, Allegra had dreamed that her father would turn up one day and claim his daughter. She could never decide if she’d rather he was a movie star or the prince of some obscure European principality. Usually she opted for the latter; she thought she would make a good princess.
But no father ever came for her.
Thinking about fathers always made Allegra feel unloved and unwanted. If she wasn’t careful, she’d start blubbing, so she smiled instead and lifted her glass. ‘Oh,’ she said, peering owlishly into it when she discovered it was empty, ‘let’s have another round.’
‘I think you’ve had enough,’ said Max, signalling for the bill instead. ‘It’s time to go home.’
‘I don’t want to go home. I want another martini.’
Max ignored her and put a surprisingly strong hand under her elbow to lift her, still protesting, to her feet. ‘Can I get you a taxi, Darcy?’
‘You’re sweet,’ Darcy said, ‘but I might stay for a while.’ She waved at someone behind them, and Allegra turned to follow her gaze. ‘I’m just going to say hello to Chris.’
‘Omigod, you know Chris O’Donnell? Allegra squeaked, but Max had already said a brisk goodbye and was propelling her towards the exit while she gawked over her shoulder in a really uncool way.
‘What are you doing?’ she complained. ‘I was this close to meeting Chris O’Donnell.’
‘You’re completely sozzled,’ said Max, pushing her through the doors. ‘You wouldn’t even remember him tomorrow.’
‘I so would,’ she said sulkily, and then reeled when the cold hit her. It was September still but there was an unmistakable snap of autumn in the air. If it hadn’t been for his firm grip on her arm, she might have keeled right over.
Max looked down at her shoes—they were adorable peep-toes in a dusty pink suede with vertiginous heels—but he didn’t look impressed. ‘We’d better get a taxi,’ he sighed.
Allegra’s head was spinning alarmingly and she blinked in a vain attempt to focus. ‘You’ll never get a taxi round here,’ she said but Max just propped her against a wall while he put his fingers in his mouth and whistled for a taxi. Annoyingly, one screeched to a halt straight away.
Having taken up position by the wall, it was harder than Allegra had anticipated to get over to the taxi. In the end Max had to manoeuvre her inside, where she collapsed over the seat in an undignified sprawl. She managed to struggle upright in a brave attempt to recover her dignity, but then she couldn’t find her seat belt.
Her fumbling was interrupted by Max, muttering under his breath, who reached across her to locate the belt and clip it into place. His head was bent as he fiddled with the clip, and Allegra’s spinning head jarred to a halt with the horrifyingly clear urge to touch his hair.
Clenching her fists into her skirt to stop her hands lifting of their own accord, she sucked in a breath and pressed her spine away from him into the seat, desperate to put as much space between them as she could.
‘I think it all went well tonight,’ she said. The idea was to sound cool and formal, to show Max that she wasn’t nearly as sloshed as he seemed to think, but perfectly capable of carrying on a rational conversation. Unfortunately her voice came out wheezy, as if she had missed out on her share of oxygen.
Allegra cleared her throat and tried again. ‘Darcy’s lovely, isn’t she?’
Yes, she was. Max had to agree. Darcy was a fantasy come to life, in fact. She was gorgeous and sexy and friendly and sweet-natured. So why hadn’t he been able to relax and enjoy himself?
Max scowled at the back of the taxi driver’s head as he fastened his own seat belt. Beside him, Allegra was still burbling on about what a great evening it had been, and how nice Darcy was. She obviously hadn’t spent the entire evening being distracted.
Darcy was very touchy-feely, that was for sure. Max had been aware of her fingers trailing up and down his arm and over his thigh, but how could he enjoy it when Allegra was sitting opposite, scribbling notes in her book as if he were some kind of experiment she was observing?
It was mad. He, Max Warriner, had Darcy King right beside him, Darcy King flirting with him, and he couldn’t concentrate. He was too aware of Allegra, eyeing him critically, her mouth pursed consideringly while she watched Darcy paw him. It obviously didn’t bother her in the least.
It wasn’t even as if there was any comparison between the two women. Darcy was lush, flirty, sex personified, while Allegra was slender, too thin really. So why did he keep remembering how it had felt when she hugged him? She’d been so soft and so warm, and her fragrance had enveloped him, and every bit of blood had drained from his head.
‘And you were brilliant too,’ said Allegra indistinctly. Her head kept lolling forward and Max had a sudden and very weird compulsion to unclip her seat belt again and ease her down so that she could lie with her head in his lap and sleep all the way home.
The taxi turned a corner and Allegra leant right over towards him before the car straightened and he caught the tantalising scent of her hair before she was thrown upright again. ‘I feel a bit strange,’ she said in a small voice.
‘You’ll be fine when you’ve had something to eat,’ said Max bracingly, and she made a face.
‘Ugh...I couldn’t face eating anything.’
‘Of course you could. We’ll pick up a pizza on the way home.’
‘Pizza? Are you mad?’ Allegra demanded, roused out of her dopey state. ‘Do you know how many calories there are in every slice?’
‘You’ve just been guzzling cocktails,’ he pointed out. ‘A bit of pizza isn’t going to make much difference after that. Besides, you’re skinny enough. You could do with putting on a bit of weight, if you ask me.’