A WEEK LATER Darcy was still mulling over the prospect of going to the Montgomery dinner the following evening with Max. She assured herself again that she was being ridiculous to feel so reluctant. Lots of PAs accompanied their bosses on social occasions that blurred into work.
So why was it that her pulse seemed to step up a gear when she thought about being out in public with Max, in a social environment?
Because she was an idiot. She scowled at herself and almost jumped out of her skin when Max yelled her name from inside his office. If anything, his curtness over the last week should have eased her concerns. He certainly wasn’t giving her the remotest indication that there was anything but business on his mind.
She got up and hurried into his office, schooling her face into a neutral expression. As always, though, as soon as she laid eyes on him her insides clenched in reaction.
He was pacing back and forth, angry energy sparking. She sighed inwardly. This protracted deal was starting to wear on her nerves too.
She sat down and waited patiently, and then Max rounded on her and glared at her so fiercely her eyes widened with reproach. ‘What did I do?’
He snapped his gaze away and bit out, ‘Nothing. It’s not you. It’s—’
‘Montgomery,’ Darcy said flatly.
He looked at her again and his silence told her succintly that that was exactly what it was.
‘I’ll need you to work late this evening. I want to make sure that when we meet him tomorrow I’m not giving him one single reason to doubt my ability.’
Darcy shrugged. ‘Sure thing.’
Max put his hands on his hips, a look of determination stamped on his gorgeous features. ‘Okay, clear the schedule of anything else today and let’s take out everything to do with this deal. I want to go through it all with a fine-tooth comb.’
Darcy got up and mentally braced herself for a gruelling day ahead.
* * *
Much later that evening Darcy sat back on her heels in Max’s office and arched her spine, with her hands on the small of her back. Her shoes had come off hours ago and they’d eaten take-out.
It had to be close to midnight when Max finally said wearily, ‘That’s it, isn’t it? We’ve been through every file, memo and e-mail. Checked into the man’s entire history and all his business endeavours.’
Darcy smiled wryly and reached up to tuck some escaping hair back into her chignon. ‘I think it’s safe to say that we could write an authorised biography on Cecil Montgomery now.’
The dark night outside made Max’s office feel like a cocoon. They were surrounded by the soft glow of numerous lights. He didn’t respond and she looked up at him where he stood behind his desk, shirt open at the throat and sleeves rolled up. In spite of that he barely looked rumpled—whereas she felt as if she’d been dragged through a hedge backwards and was in dire need of a long, relaxing bath.
He was looking at her with a strange expression, as if caught for a moment, and it made Darcy’s pulse skip. She felt self-conscious, aware of how she’d just been stretching like a cat. But then the moment passed and he moved and went over to the bar, his loose-limbed grace evident even after the day’s hard slog. Darcy envied him. As she stood up her bones and joints protested. She told herself she was being ridiculous to imagine that Max was looking at her any kind of which way.
He came back and handed her a tumbler of dark golden liquid. Her first thought was that it was like his eyes, and then he said with a wry smile, ‘Scottish whisky—I feel it’s appropriate.’ He was referring to Montgomery’s nationality.
Darcy smiled too and clinked her glass off Max’s. ‘Sláinte.’
Their eyes held as they took a sip of their drinks and it was like liquid fire going down her throat. Aware that they were most likely alone in the vast building, and feeling self-consciousness again, Darcy broke the contact and moved away to sit on the edge of a couch near Max’s desk.
She watched as he came and stood at the window near her, saw the scar on the his face snaking down from his temple to his jaw.
She found herself asking impulsively, ‘The scar—how did you get it?’
Max tensed, and there was an almost imperceptible tightening of his fingers around his glass. His mouth thinned and he didn’t look at her. ‘Amazing how a scar fascinates so many people—especially women.’
Immediately Darcy tensed, feeling acutely exposed. She said stiffly, ‘Sorry, it’s none of my business.’
He looked at her. ‘No, it’s not.’
Max took in Darcy’s wide eyes and a memory rushed back at him with such force that it almost felled him: a much younger Darcy, but with the same pale heart-shaped face. Concerned. Pushing between him and the boys who had been punching the breath out of him with brute force.
He’d been gasping like a grounded fish, eyes streaming, familiar humiliation and impotent anger burning in his belly, and she’d stood there like a tiny fierce virago. When they’d left and he’d got his breath back she’d turned to him, worried.
Without even thinking about what he was doing, still dizzy, Max had straightened and reached out to touch her jaw. He’d said, almost to himself, ‘“Though she be but little, she is fierce.”’
She’d blushed and whirled around and left. He’d still been reeling from the attack—reeling from whatever impulse had led him to quote Shakespeare.
Darcy was reaching across to put her glass on the table now, standing up, clearly intending to leave. And why wouldn’t she after he’d just shut her down?
An impulse rose up within Max and he heard himself say gruffly, ‘It happened on the streets. Here in Rome, when I was homeless.’
Darcy stopped. She lifted her hand from the glass and looked at him warily. ‘Homeless?’
Max leaned his shoulder against the solid glass window, careful to keep his face expressionless. Curiously, he didn’t feel any sense of regret for letting that slip out. He nodded. ‘I was homeless for a couple of years after I was kicked out of Boissy.’
Darcy said, ‘I remember the blood on the snow.’
Max felt slightly sick. He still remembered the vivid stain of blood on the snow, and woke sometimes at night sweating. He’d vowed ever since then not to allow anyone to make him lose control again. He would beat them at their own game, in their own rareified world.
‘A boy went to hospital unconscious because of me.’
She shook her head faintly. ‘Why did they torment you so much?’
Max’s mouth twisted. ‘Because one of their fathers was my mother’s current lover and he was paying my fees. They didn’t take kindly to that.’
Darcy had one very vague memory of an incredibly beautiful and glamorous woman arriving at the school one year with Max, in a chauffeur-driven car.
She found herself resting against the edge of the desk, not leaving as she’d intended to moments ago. ‘Why were you homeless?’
Max’s face was harsh in the low light. ‘My mother failed to inform me that she’d decided to move to the States with a new lover and left no forwarding details. Let’s just say she wasn’t exactly at the nurturing end on the scale of motherhood.’
Darcy frowned. ‘You must have had other family... Your father?’
Max’s face was so expressionless that Darcy had to repress a shiver.
‘I