Abby Green - The Bride Fonseca Needs

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 have a brother, but my father died some years ago. I couldn’t go to them, in any case. My father had made it clear I was my mother’s responsibillty when they divorced and he wanted nothing to do with me. They lived in Brazil.’

Darcy tried not to look too shocked. ‘But you must have been just—’

‘Seventeen,’ Max offered grimly.

‘And the scar...?’ It seemed to stand out even more lividly now, and Darcy had to curb the urge to reach out and touch it.

Max looked down at his drink, swirling it in his glass. ‘I saw a man being robbed and chased after the guy.’ He looked up again. ‘I didn’t realise he was a junkie with a knife until he turned around and lunged at me, cutting my face. I managed to take the briefcase from him. I won’t lie—there was a moment when I almost ran with it myself... But I didn’t.’

Max shrugged, as if chasing junkies and staying on the right side of his conscience was nothing.

‘The owner was so grateful when I returned it that he insisted on taking me to the hospital. He talked to me, figured out a little of my story. It turned out that he was CEO of a private equity finance firm, and as a gesture of goodwill for returning his property he offered me a position as an intern. I knew this was a chance and I vowed not to mess it up...’

Darcy said, a little wryly, ‘I think it’s safe to say you didn’t waste the opportunity. He must have been a special man to do that.’

‘He was,’ Max said with uncharacteristic softness. ‘One of the few people I trusted completely. He died a couple of years ago.’

There was only the faintest low hum of traffic coming from the streets far below. Isolated siren calls that faded into the distance. Everything around them was dark and golden. Darcy felt as if she were suspended in a dream. She’d never in a million years thought she might have a conversation like this with Max, who was unreadable on the best of days and never spoke of his personal life.

‘You don’t trust easily, then?’

Max grimaced slightly. ‘I learnt early to take care of myself. Trust someone and you make yourself weak.’

‘That’s so cynical,’ Darcy said, but it came out flat, not with the mocking edge she’d aimed for.

Max straightened up from the window and was suddenly much closer to Darcy. She could smell him—a light tangy musk, with undertones of something much more earthy and masculine.

He looked at her assessingly. ‘What about you, Darcy? Are you telling me you’re not cynical after your parents’ divorce?’

She immediately avoided that incisive gaze and looked out at the glittering cityscape beyond Max. A part of her had broken when her world had been upended and she’d been split between her parents. But as a rule it wasn’t something she liked to dwell on. She was reluctant to explore the fact that it had a lot to do with her subsequent avoidance of relationships.

She finally looked back to Max, forcing her voice to sound light. ‘I prefer to say realistic. Not cynical.’

The corner of Max’s mouth twitched. Had he moved even closer? He felt very close to Darcy.

He drawled now, ‘Let’s agree to call it realistic cynicism, then. So—no dreams of a picturesque house and a white picket fence with two point two kids to repair the damage your parents did to you?’

Darcy sucked in a breath at Max’s unwitting perspicacity. Damn him for once again effortlessly honing in on her weak spot: her desire to have a base. A home of her own. Not the cynical picture he painted, but her own oasis in a life that she knew well could be upended without any warning, leaving her reeling with no sense of a safe centre.

Her career had become her centre, but Darcy knew she needed something more tangibly rooted.

She tried to sound as if he hadn’t hit a raw nerve. ‘Do I really strike you as someone who is yearning for the domestic idyll?’

He shook his head and took a step closer, reaching past Darcy to put his glass on the table behind her. She knew this should feel a little weird—after all they’d never been so physically close before, beyond their handshake when she’d taken the job. But after the intensity of their day spent cocooned in this office, with the darkness outside now, and after Max had revealed the origin of his scar, a dangerous sense of familiarity suppressed Darcy’s normal impulse to observe the proper boundaries.

She told herself it was their shared experience in Boissy that made things a little different than the usual normal boss/PA relationship. But really the truth was that she didn’t want to move as Max’s arm lightly brushed against hers when he straightened again. The sip of whisky she’d taken seemed to be spreading throughout her body, oozing warmth and a sense of delicious lethargy.

Max looked at her. He was so close now that she could see how his eyelashes were dark gold, lighter at the tips.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t think you are looking for the domestic idyll. You strike me as someone who is very focused on her career. A bit of a loner, perhaps?’

That stung. Darcy had friends, but she’d been working away so much that she only saw them if she went back to the UK. He was right, though, and that was why it stung. The revelation that she might be avoiding platonic as well as romantic relationships was not welcome.

She cursed herself. She was allowing fatigue, a sip of whisky and some unexpected revelations from Max to seriously impair her judgement. There was no intimacy here. They were both exhausted.

She straightened up, not liking the way that put her even closer to Max. She looked anywhere but at him. ‘It’s late. I should get going if you want me to be awake enough to pay attention at dinner tomorrow evening.’

‘Yes,’ Max said. ‘That’s probably wise.’

Her feet seemed to be welded to the floor, but Darcy forced herself to move and turned to walk away—bumping straight into the corner of the desk, jarring her hip bone. She gave a pained gasp.

Max’s hand came to her arm. ‘Are you okay?’

Darcy could feel the imprint of Max’s fingers, strong and firm, and just like that she was breathless. He turned her towards him and she couldn’t evade his gaze.

‘I... Thanks. It was nothing.’ Any pain was fast being eclipsed by the look in Max’s eyes. Darcy’s insides swooped and flipped. The air between them was suddenly charged in a way that made her think of running in the opposite direction. Curiously, though, she didn’t want to obey this impulse.

And then something resolute crossed his face and he pulled her towards him.

Darcy was vaguely aware that Max’s grip on her arm wasn’t so tight that she couldn’t pull free. But a sense of shock mixed with intense excitement gripped her.

‘What are you doing?’ she half whispered.