Jessica Hart - British Bachelors - Perfect and Available - Mr

It was true, he thought. She would be so much happier illustrating rather than running around meeting the crazy deadlines at Glitz, but she wouldn’t change because for some reason Flick had a bee in her bonnet about Allegra’s drawing. She was always putting it down, so of course Allegra thought it wasn’t good enough, but Max was convinced her illustrations had something special about them.

Karen made Allegra tell her all about the book she was going to write and, in spite of the vengeful looks Allegra was sending his way, Max noticed that she had plenty of ideas. She might say that she was dedicated to journalism but she had obviously thought about the stories starring the infamous Derek the Dog. Max wished she would write the book and forget about Flick’s opinion for once. Perhaps she never would in real life, but at least she could pretend to have the perfect career for this evening.

Because this evening was all they had. After tonight, the pretence was over. He had better not forget that.

Beside Max, Allegra was wishing Karen wouldn’t ask quite so many interested questions about a book she had no intention of writing. They were just silly little stories she had made up, not even a real book, but Karen certainly seemed thrilled by the idea and claimed her grandchildren would love Derek the Dog. If she wasn’t careful she would find herself writing the pesky thing, Allegra thought with an inner sigh. She could just imagine what Flick would think of that!

Perhaps she could use a pseudonym?

Aware of a flicker of excitement at the thought, Allegra pushed it firmly out of sight. She had enough going on in her head right now, what with thinking about a non-existent book and trying not to think about the way Max had kissed her.

And especially not about the way she had kissed him back.

There was a disquieting prickle still at the nape of her neck where his hand had rested. Her lips felt tender, as if his had seared hers, and she kept running the tip of her tongue over them, as surreptitiously as she could, checking that they hadn’t swollen.

The jolt of sensation when their mouths met had shaken her. Kissing Max wasn’t supposed to feel like that. It was supposed to be a meaningless peck of the lips, the kind of kiss she gave out every day to her colleagues at Glitz.

It was hard to tell what Max thought about it. For one breathless moment afterwards they had stared at each other, but then his eyes had shuttered and now he was immersed in a technical discussion with Bob. He was talking about concrete. It wasn’t fair. He shouldn’t be able to kiss her and then calmly carry on discussing road building!

Karen and Bob were entertaining company and the meal was delicious, but Allegra couldn’t enjoy it. She was too aware of Max, who was his usual taciturn self, and who, having kissed her and dropped her in it with Karen, had proceeded to ignore her for the rest of the evening.

It wasn’t good enough, Allegra thought crossly, tapping her Jimmy Choos under the table. She had done everything he’d asked of her. She’d been charming, but Max hadn’t even tried. If it wasn’t for her, he wouldn’t even have his rotten job, Allegra decided, but now he’d got what he wanted he had obviously decided he didn’t need to bother with her any more.

Her smile was brittle by the time they said goodbye to Bob and Karen outside the restaurant. The Laskovskis were walking back to their hotel and, after one glance at Allegra’s shoes, Max didn’t even bother to suggest the Tube. Instead he put his fingers in his mouth and whistled at a passing taxi. If it had been Allegra, the taxi would have sailed on past in the other direction and she didn’t know whether to be relieved or put-out that it responded instantly to Max’s whistle, turning across the traffic and drawing up exactly in front of them.

Her feet were definitely relieved.

Haughtily, she got in and made a big performance of putting on her seat belt. Max told the taxi driver the address and settled beside her, apparently unperturbed by the taut silence. Allegra folded her lips together. She wasn’t going to break it. She had made enough small talk for one night, thank you very much! She turned her head away and looked pointedly out of the window, but she was so aware of him sitting just a matter of inches away across the seat that she might as well have turned and stared right at him.

It wasn’t even as if he was doing anything. He was just sitting still, his face in shadow, his eyes fixed on the ticking taxi meter. He could at least jiggle his leg or do something annoying so that she had an excuse to snap at him. As it was, she was just getting crosser and crosser, and more and more frustrated.

Why, why, why had he had to kiss her like that? It had been all right up to then. The pretence had been fun and she had been able to dismiss her bizarre awareness of him as a temporary aberration, a passing symptom of sexual frustration. Nothing that meant anything, anyway. She’d been able to think of him as just Max.

He’d spoiled everything by kissing her. It had been so perfect, as if her whole life had just been about getting her to that place, that moment, where everything else had fallen away and there had just been her and Max and a longing for it never to end gusting through her.

How could she think of him as just Max now?

She wished he’d never kissed her.

She wished he’d kiss her again.

The realisation of just how much she wanted it made Allegra suck in her breath. This was mad. She was furious with Max. She couldn’t want to kiss him at the same time. She couldn’t want him to reach across and pull her towards him, couldn’t want his hands on her, his mouth on her, not when he’d ignored her all night and clearly had no interest in kissing her again.

But she did.

The silence lengthened, stretched agonizingly. Just when Allegra opened her mouth to break it, unable to bear it any longer, Max let out a sigh.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said simply.

At least it gave her the excuse to turn and look at him. ‘Sorry?’ she echoed, unable to stop the pent-up frustration from tumbling out. ‘I should think so! Do you have any idea how hard I worked all evening to suck up to the Laskovskis? I got you your bloody job all by myself!’

‘I know,’ Max began, but Allegra wasn’t stopping now that she had started.

‘You hardly said a word all evening—oh, except to embarrass me by telling Karen I was going to write a book! What did you do that for?’

‘I think you should write one. I think it would be brilliant.’

Allegra wasn’t going to be mollified. ‘It would not be! It would be stupid! I had to sit there and pretend that I was all excited about it and now Karen’s expecting me to send her a copy when it’s published! It’s not funny,’ she added furiously, spotting the ghost of a smile hovering around Max’s mouth. ‘I felt an absolute fool. As if it wasn’t bad enough pretending to be in love with you!’

‘You did it really well,’ said Max. ‘You were brilliant at that too, and you’re right, you got me the job. Thank you,’ he said quietly. ‘Really, Allegra: thank you.’

Perversely, his gratitude just made her feel worse. She hunched a shoulder. ‘I only did it so that you’d do the article.’ She sounded petulant, but that was how she felt.

‘I know.’

‘But you could have helped,’ she grumbled. ‘You were useless! I can’t believe the Laskovskis were taken in. A real fiancé would have looked at me, maybe smiled occasionally, taken every opportunity to get close to me, but not you! It was like you couldn’t bear to touch me.’

‘That’s not true,’ said Max tautly. ‘I kissed you.’

As if she could have forgotten!

‘Only when I threw myself into your arms! Pretending to be a loving fiancée, thrilled for her future husband’s promotion,’ Allegra added quickly, just in case he had misinterpreted her instinctive reaction. She had been so pleased for him too, she remembered bitterly. ‘Although I don’t know why I bothered. You gave the impression you’d rather have been picking up slugs!’