He had discarded his jacket but was still wearing a shirt and tie. The shirt was a very dull pale blue and the tie totally uninteresting, but Allegra had to admit that he smelt nice, of clean cotton and clean male. It was surprisingly reassuring being able to lean into his solid strength and feel that he wouldn’t shift or topple over.
It had been another frenetic day at Glitz and Allegra had spent most of it galloping up and down the corridors and being screamed at. They were putting the next issue to bed and tension was running higher than usual, which made it stratospheric. It was as if the whole office was suffering from PMT.
But now she was being forced to rest against Max for a minute or two. In spite of herself, Allegra let out a little sigh and relaxed. It was weird, but being held by him like this felt...safe.
‘Good,’ said Cathy. ‘Now squeeze each other tighter.’
Obediently, Allegra tightened her arms around Max’s back as he pulled her closer, and suddenly it didn’t feel safe at all.
Suddenly it felt dangerous, as if the floor had dropped away beneath her feet and left her teetering on the edge of a dizzying drop. The urge to turn into Max and cling to him was so strong that Allegra couldn’t breathe with it. Her chest was tight, her pulse booming with an alarmed awareness of him. He held her rigidly and his body was hard—and when Allegra shifted uneasily against him she realised that—oh?—it wasn’t just his chest that was hard.
Oh.
Before she had a chance to work out what she felt about that, Cathy was clapping her hands.
‘Right, let’s try again,’ she said briskly and Max practically shoved Allegra away from him. His body might have been enjoying being pressed up against her, but his mind obviously hadn’t. He scowled as Cathy ordered them back into position.
‘Remember what I told you about the box step?’ she said as Max and Allegra took hold of each other awkwardly, careful to keep a gap between them. ‘Step to the top of the box, slide your feet together, step back, slide together... Off you go!’
It was easier without the distraction of being pressed right against him, Allegra told herself. That flood of heat had just been a physical reaction, exactly as Max’s had been. It was what happened when you squashed a man and a woman together. It didn’t mean anything.
‘No, no!’ Cathy threw up her hands. ‘Max, you go forward, Allegra you’re stepping back! Now, try again, and this time try and concentrate on what you’re doing.’
Right, concentrate. Allegra stifled a nervous giggle as she fluffed it again, and Max muttered under his breath.
Cathy sighed.
They set off again, and managed two sides of the box before Max trod heavily on Allegra’s foot, making her yelp, at which point they both started laughing. It was partly embarrassment, partly relief that the awful awareness had dissipated.
Cathy was less amused. ‘You’re both hopeless,’ she said when their time was up. ‘If you want Max to impress Darcy at the ball, you’re going to have to practice. At least master the basic steps and we can try and add some turns next week.’
‘Turns?’ Max grumbled as they slunk out. ‘You mean we have to go round and round as well as backwards and forwards?’
‘It’s a lot harder than it looks,’ Allegra agreed, winding her scarf around her throat. ‘I’ve waltzed so often in my fantasies that I thought I’d be quite good at it. I can’t believe I was so crap,’ she said despondently.
‘In your fantasy you don’t dance with me, that’s why,’ said Max, feeling obscurely guilty about spoiling the waltz for her.
‘True.’ She perked up a little as they headed down the street. ‘I’d be much better with my Regency duke.’
‘Your what?’
‘The duke who waltzes me out on the terrace, begs me to become his duchess and ravishes me,’ said Allegra as if it was the most normal thing in the world. ‘I told you about my fantasy.’
‘You didn’t mention any dukes.’
‘I think he probably is a duke,’ she said, having considered the matter. ‘He’s got a dreadful reputation as a rake, of course, but underneath he’s deeply honourable.’
‘He’s not very honourable if he ravishes you right outside a crowded ballroom,’ Max pointed out.
‘You’re such a nitpicker,’ she said without heat.
Max shook his head. ‘I can’t figure you out, Legs. One minute you’re obsessed with fashion or celebrity gossip, the next you’re fantasising about dancing with dead aristocrats.’
And that was before you took into account the sweet and funny Allegra who drew cute cartoon animals, or the one who tried so hard and so unsuccessfully to be cool and high-minded so that she could please her demanding mother. The one who fretted constantly about her weight or the one who sat on the floor and ate pizza with relish.
It was only since moving into the house that Max had come to realise that there was more to Allegra than he had thought. If he’d been asked to describe her before then he would have said sweet, a bit scatty, a bit screwed up by her mother.
And now...now he was learning new things about her every day. Like the way she left the bathroom a tip, the way her face lit up when she smiled. Like the smell of her perfume. The way she tilted her chin.
The way she felt. Max’s mouth dried at the memory of that ridiculous hug Cathy had insisted on. After a couple of false starts, Allegra had fitted into him as if she belonged there, and his senses had reeled alarmingly at the feel of her slenderness pressed against him.
And it wasn’t just his senses that had reacted. Max shifted his shoulders uncomfortably in his jacket, remembering how aroused he had been. Hold her tighter, that fool Cathy had said. What was he supposed to do when a soft, warm woman was melting into him and her perfume filled his head and it was all he could do to stop his hands sliding under that silky top, rucking up that sexy skirt so that he could run them hungrily over her long thighs?
This was all Emma’s fault. If they’d still been together, he wouldn’t have been sex-starved, and he certainly wouldn’t have been thinking about Allegra like some kind of pervert.
She was lucky that treading on her toes was all he had done.
At least it had been easier once they’d started laughing. It was a relief to know that Allegra couldn’t dance for toffee either. When he wasn’t wanting to rip her clothes off, he and Allegra got on much better than he had expected.
She’d been teaching him how to cook so that he could impress Darcy, and kept coming back from Glitz laden with ingredients and advice from the food editor. Max wasn’t learning much, but he enjoyed leaning against the worktop and watching her face as she chopped enthusiastically, throwing weird ingredients together in ridiculously complicated meals. Emma was a great cook, Max remembered loyally. Meat and two veg, exactly what you wanted to eat, perfectly cooked. None of Allegra’s nonsense.
Although there was something oddly endearing about the nonsense all the same. Even if it did taste rubbish.
‘You say you want to be a serious journalist, but I’ve only ever seen you talk seriously about cosmetics or the latest soap,’ he said, still puzzling over her.
A brisk wind was swirling dead leaves along the gutter and Allegra pulled her coat closer around her. ‘People are more than one thing,’ she said loftily. ‘Talking of which, what did you do to Dickie?’
‘I didn’t do anything,’ said Max in surprise.
‘He was so fragile this morning that the entire office had to whisper! Stella’s assistant told the intern who