gritted her jaw as she sat down behind her desk and cursed herself for a fool if she thought for a second that Max ever looked at her with anything more than professional interest.
It wasn’t as if she even wanted him to look at her with anything more than professional interest. She was not about to jeopardise the best job of her career by mooning about after him like she had at school, when she’d been in the throes of a very embarrassing pubescent crush.
* * *
Max finished his call with his friend and stood up to look out of his office window, feeling restless. The window framed an impressive view of Rome’s ancient ruins—something that usually soothed him with its timelessness. But not right now.
Sultan Sadiq of Al-Omar was just one of Max’s very small inner circle of friends who had given up the heady days of being a bachelor to settle down. He’d broken off their conversation just now when his wife had come into his office with their toddler son, whom Max had heard gabbling happily in the background. Sadiq had confided just before that they were expecting baby number two in a few months, and happiness had been evident in his friend’s voice.
Max might have ribbed him before. But something about that almost tangible contentment and his absorption in his family had made him feel uncharacteristically hollow.
Memories of his brother’s recent wedding in Rio de Janeiro came back to him. He and his brother weren’t close. Not after a lifetime spent living apart—the legacy of warring parents who’d lived on different continents. But Max had gone to the wedding—more because of the shared business concerns he had with his brother than any great need to ‘connect’.
If he had ever had anything in common with his brother apart from blood it had been a very ingrained sense of cynicism. But that cynicism had all but disappeared from his brother’s eyes as he’d looked adoringly at his new wife.
Max sighed volubly, forcibly wiping the memory from his mind. Damn this introspection. Since when did he feel hollow and give his brother and his new wife a moment’s consideration?
He frowned and brooded over the view. He was a loner, and he’d been a loner since he’d taken responsibility for his actions as a young boy and realised that he had no one to turn to but himself.
And yet he had to concede, with some amount of irritation, that watching his peers fall by the wayside into domesticity was beginning to make him stand out by comparison. The prospect of going to dinner with Montgomery and his wife was becoming more and more unappealing, and Max was certain that the old man was determined to use it as an opportunity to demonstrate his unsuitability.
At that moment Max thought of Darcy’s suggestion that he take his ex-lover to dinner. For some reason he found himself thinking not so much of Noor but of Darcy’s huge blue eyes. And the way colour had flared in her cheeks when he’d told her what he thought of that suggestion.
He found himself comparing the two women and surmised with some level of grim humour that they couldn’t be more different.
Noor al-Fasari was without a doubt one of the most beautiful women in the world. And yet when Max tried to visualise her face now he found that it was amorphous—hard to recall.
And Darcy... Max frowned. He’d been about to assert that she wasn’t beautiful, but it surprised him to realise that, while she certainly didn’t share Noor’s show-stopping, almost outlandish looks, Darcy was more than just pretty or attractive.
And, in fairness, her job was not to promote what beauty she did possess. Suddenly Max found himself wondering what she would be like dressed more enticingly, and with subtle make-up to enhance those huge eyes and soft rosebud lips.
Much to his growing sense of horror, he found that her voluptuous figure came to mind as easily as if she was still walking out of his office, as she’d done only minutes before. He might have fooled himself that he’d been engrossed in the conversation with his friend, but in reality his eyes had been glued to the provocative way Darcy’s pencil skirt clung to her full hips, and how the shiny leather belt drew the eye to a waist so small he fancied he might span it with one hand.
His skin prickled. It was almost as if an awareness of her had been growing stealthily in his subconscious for the past few months. And as if to compound this unsettling revelation he found the blood in his body growing heated and flowing south, to a part of his anatomy that was behaving in a manner that was way out of his usual sense of control.
Almost in shock, Max sat down, afraid that Darcy might walk in and catch him in this moment of confusion and not a little irritation at his wayward responses.
It was the memory of his ex-lover that had precipitated this random lapse in control. It had to be. But when he tried to conjure up Noor’s face again, with a sense of desperation, all he could recall were the shrill shrieks she’d hurled his way—along with an expensive vase or two—after he’d told her their affair was over.
A brief knock came to his door and Darcy didn’t wait before opening it to step inside. ‘I’m heading home now, in case you want anything else?’
And just like that Max’s blood sizzled in earnest. A floodgate had been opened and now all he could see was her glossy dark brown hair, neatly tied back. Along with her provocative curves. Full breasts thrust against her silk shirt. The tiny waist. Womanly hips, firm thighs and shapely calves. Small ankles. And this was all in a package a couple of inches over five feet. When Max had never before found petite women particularly attractive.
She wasn’t even dressed to seduce. She was the epitome of classic style.
He couldn’t fault her—not for one thing. Yet all he could think about doing right now was walking over to her and hauling her up against his hot and aching body. And, for a man who wasn’t used to denying his urges when it came to women, he found himself floundering.
What the hell...? Was he going crazy?
Darcy frowned. ‘Is there something wrong, Max?’
‘Wrong?’ he barked, feeling slightly desperate. ‘Nothing is wrong.’
‘Oh,’ said Darcy. ‘Well, then, why are you scowling at me?’
Max thought of the upcoming dinner date with Montgomery and his wife and imagined sitting between them like a reluctant gooseberry. He made a split-second decision. ‘I was just thinking about the dinner with Montgomery...’
Darcy raised a brow. ‘Yes?’
Feeling grim, Max said, ‘You’re coming with me.’
She straightened up at the door. ‘Oh.’ She looked nonplussed for a moment, and then said, ‘Is that really appropriate?’
Max finally felt as if he had his recalcitrant body under some kind of control and stood up, putting his hands in his pockets. ‘Yes, it’s highly appropriate. You’ve been working on this deal with me and I’ll need you there to keep track of the conversation and make nice with Montgomery’s wife.’
Darcy was clearly reluctant. ‘Don’t you think that perhaps someone else might be more—?’
Max took one hand out of his pocket and held it up. ‘I don’t want any further discussion about this matter. You’re coming with me—that’s it.’
Darcy looked at him with those huge blue eyes and for a dizzying moment Max felt as if she could see all the way down into the depths of his being. And then the moment broke when she shrugged lightly and said, ‘Okay, fine. Anything else you need this evening?’
He had a sudden vivid image of ripping her shirt open, to see her lush breasts encased in silk and satin, and got out a strangled-sounding, ‘No, you can go.’
To his blessed relief, she did go. He ran both hands through his hair with frustration. Ordinarily Max would have taken this rogue reaction as a clear sign that he should go out and seek a new lover, but he knew that the last thing he needed right now in the run-up to the final negotiations with Montgomery was