In fact, she didn’t see much of him. Max left for work early in the morning, and she was out most evenings. When they did coincide, like now, Max grumbled about her untidiness and Allegra criticised his clothes. They fought over the remote and shared the occasional takeaway. It was all perfectly comfortable.
And why wouldn’t it be? Allegra asked herself as she opened the fridge and studied its contents without enthusiasm. This was Max, after all. Libby’s brother. Allegra was fond of him, when she wasn’t being irritated by his wardrobe and that way he had of making her feel like an idiot a lot of the time. Max wasn’t ugly, but he wasn’t exactly a hunk either. Certainly not a man to set your heart pattering.
Apart from that one night, of course. Don’t forget that.
Allegra sighed as she picked out a low-fat yoghurt. Did everyone have an irritating voice in their head that would pop up at the least convenient times to remind them of precisely the things they most wanted to forget?
And it wasn’t a night, she felt compelled to argue with herself, rummaging for a teaspoon. It had been an odd little incident, that was all. Not even an incident, really. A moment. And so long ago, really she had almost forgotten it.
Or she would have done if that pesky voice would let her.
No, it was all very comfortable. It was fine. Allegra was glad Max wasn’t gorgeous or sexy. It made it easy to be relaxed with him. Which wasn’t to say he couldn’t make more of an effort on the clothes front. He didn’t seem to care what he looked like, Allegra thought critically. That shirt was appalling and he would fasten it almost to the neck, no matter how often she told him to undo another button. He had no idea at all. If he smartened himself up a bit...
And that was when it hit her. Allegra froze with the teaspoon in her mouth.
Max. He was perfect! Why on earth hadn’t she thought of him before?
She’d pitched the ‘create a perfect boyfriend’ idea to Stella at an editorial meeting the previous week. It was the first of her ideas that she’d been given the go-ahead to follow up, and Allegra had been fired with enthusiasm at first. But she had begun to wonder if she could make it work without the right man.
And now she had found him, lying in her own sitting room!
Already Allegra’s mind was leaping forward, all her excitement about the project refuelled. She would write the best article ever. It would be fun, it would be interesting, it would tap into every woman’s fantasy of making her man perfect. It would win awards, be syndicated worldwide. Stella would gasp with admiration.
At this point Allegra’s imagination, vivid as it was, faltered. Stella, gasping? But a little strategic tweaking and the fantasy still worked. All right, Stella would look as enigmatic as ever but her words would be sweet. Allegra, she would say, you’re our new star writer. Have a massive salary.
I’d love to, Stella, Allegra imagined herself saying in reply, super casual. But the Financial Times has made me an offer I can’t refuse.
Surely her mother would be impressed by the FT?
Sucking yoghurt thoughtfully from her spoon, Allegra went to the kitchen doorway from where she could study Max without being observed.
He was still on the sofa, still flicking through channels in search of the news or sport, which was all he ever watched. Definitely not the kind of guy you would check out in a bar. Brown hair, ordinary features, steady blue-grey eyes: there was nothing wrong with him, but nothing special either.
Yep, he was perfect.
Max played rugby so he was pretty fit, but he didn’t make anything of himself. Allegra mentally trimmed his hair and got rid of the polo shirt only to stop, unnerved, when she realised that the image of him lying on the sofa bare-chested was quite...startling.
Hastily, she put the shirt back on in her imagination. Whatever, the man was ripe for a makeover.
All she had to do was get Max to agree. Scraping out the yoghurt pot, Allegra tossed it in the bin with a clatter and squared her shoulders. Only last week she’d written an article on the benefits of thinking positive and getting what you wanted. It was time to put all that useful research into practice.
Back in the sitting room, she batted at Max’s knees until he shifted his legs and she could plonk herself down on the sofa next to him. ‘Max,’ she began carefully.
‘No.’ Max settled his legs back across her lap and crossed his ankles on the arm of the sofa, all without taking his eyes off the television.
‘What do you mean, no?’ Forgetting her determination to stay cool and focused, as per her own advice in the article, Allegra scowled at him. ‘You don’t know what I’m going to say yet!’
‘I know that wheedling tone of old,’ said Max. ‘You only use it when you want me to do something I’m not going to want to do.’
‘Like what?’ she said, affronted.
‘Like waste an entire hot bank holiday Monday sitting in traffic because you and Libby wanted to go to the sea.’
‘That was Libby’s idea, not mine.’
‘Same wheedle,’ said Max, still flicking channels. ‘And it was definitely your idea to have a New Year’s Eve party that time.’
‘It was a great party.’
‘And who had to help you clear up afterwards before my parents came home?’
‘You did, because you’re a really, really kind brother who likes to help his sister and his sister’s best mate out when they get into trouble.’
Max lowered the remote and looked at Allegra in alarm.
‘Uh-oh. You’re being nice. That’s a bad sign.’
‘How can you say that? I’m often nice to you. Didn’t I make you a delicious curry last weekend?’
‘Only because you wanted some and didn’t want to admit that you’d broken your diet.’
Sadly, too true.
‘And I said I’d go to that dinner and pretend to be your fiancée,’ she said. ‘How much nicer can I get?’
Max pulled himself up to look at Allegra with suddenly narrowed eyes. ‘You’re not going to back out, are you? Is that what this is about? Now that Emma’s not around, I really need you.’
‘Aw, Max, that’s sweet!’
‘I’m serious, Legs. My career depends on this.’
‘I do think the whole thing is mad.’ Allegra wriggled into a more comfortable position, not entirely sorry to let the conversation drift while she worked out exactly how to persuade Max to agree to take part. ‘I mean, who cares nowadays if you’re married or not?’
‘Bob Laskovski does,’ said Max gloomily.
At first he had welcomed the news that the specialist firm of consulting engineers he worked for was to be taken over by a large American company. An injection of capital, jobs secured, a new CEO with fantastic contacts with the Sultan of Shofrar and some major projects being developed there and elsewhere in the Middle East: it was all good news.
The bad news was that the new CEO in question was a nut. Bob Laskovski allegedly had a bee in his bonnet about the steadying influence of women, of all things. If ever there was going to be unsettling going on, there was bound to be a female involved, in Max’s opinion. But Bob liked his project managers to be in settled relationships and, given the strict laws of Shofrar, that effectively meant that, male or female, they had to be married.
‘God knows what he thinks we’ll do if we don’t have a wife to come home to every night,’ Max had grumbled to Allegra. ‘Run amok