Mr. (Not Quite) Perfect (18 page)

‘Excuse me...sorry...sorry...’ Allegra squeezed her way through the throng, too intent on escaping to enjoy the fantastic costumes. She kept her head down so that no one would see the tears pooling in her eyes and it was perhaps inevitable that she ended up bumping into a solid male body.

‘Sorry...I’m so sorry...’ Desperate to get away, she barely took in more than an elaborate waistcoat. Another Prince Charming in full eighteenth-century dress, she had time to think before she side-stepped to pass him, only to be stopped by a hand on her arm.

‘Would you do me the honour of this dance?’

Allegra had already started to shake her head when something familiar about the voice filtered through the music and the chatter and her heart clenched. How cruel that her longing should make it sound so like Max’s.

Blinking back her tears, she summoned a polite smile and lifted her eyes from the waistcoat and past the extravagant cravat to Prince Charming’s face underneath his powdered wig.

‘I’m afraid I’m just lea—’ Her voice faded as her gaze reached his eyes and she blinked, certain that she must be imagining things, but when she opened her eyes again he was still there.

‘Max?’ she quavered, still not sure that her longing hadn’t conjured him up out of thin air.

‘I know, I look a prat,’ said Max.

Astonishment, joy, incredulity, shock: all jostled together in such a fierce rush that Allegra couldn’t catch her breath. For a stunned moment all she could do was stare in disbelief. Max was out in the desert, in shorts and sunglasses, not dressed up as a fairy tale prince in a crowded ballroom.

‘Max?’

‘Yes, it’s me.’ Incredibly, he looked nervous.

‘Wh...what are you doing here?’ Still unable to believe that it could really be true, she had to raise her voice above the noise in the ballroom, and Max leant closer to make sure that she could hear.

‘I’ve been doing some thinking, and I decided it would be a shame if we wasted all those waltzing lessons,’ he told her, and he held out his hand. ‘Shall we dance?’

In a blur, Allegra let him lead her onto the floor, finding a place on the edge of the other couples who were whirling around the floor in an intimidatingly professional fashion. She didn’t understand anything, but if this was a dream, she didn’t want to wake up.

Max swung her round into position. He held one of her hands in his, and set the other on his shoulder so that he could take hold of her waist. ‘Okay,’ he yelled, looking down at their feet. ‘Remember the box? Let’s go...
one
, two, three,
one
, two, three...’

They made a mess of it at first, of course. They stumbled and trod on each other’s toes, but all at once, magically, they clicked and found the rhythm. True, they could only go round and round the ‘box’ but they were on the floor and they were moving together in time to the music—sort of. Allegra’s heart was so full, she was crying and floating in delirious joy at the same time.

Laughing through her tears, she lifted her face to Max’s. ‘We’re
waltzing!
’ she shouted.

‘Ready to try a new manoeuvre?’ he shouted back and, without waiting for her answer, he lunged with her further into the crowd. This was a whole new step outside their safe box, as they had never really mastered turning, but Max had a determined look on his face and Allegra followed as best she could.

‘Where are you going?’ she yelled in his ear.

‘Terrace,’ he said briefly, face set as he concentrated on steering her through the throng of dancers.

The
terrace?
Allegra thought about the chill drizzle that was falling outside, but it was too noisy to have a conversation and, anyway, Max seemed set on the idea. He danced her grimly across the floor. They’d lost their rhythm again and kept bumping into other couples, but somehow they made it to the other side. Max took a deep breath and somehow manoeuvred them through one of the windows and out onto the terrace that overlooked the hotel’s garden.

‘That was harder than I thought,’ he said, and let Allegra go.

Outside, the air was damp and cold, but it was blissfully quiet after the noise in the ballroom. Still gripped by a sense of unreality, Allegra shook her head slightly.

‘Max, what are you doing here? I thought you were in Shofrar.’

‘I was, but I told Bob that I needed to come back to London.’

She looked concerned. ‘Aren’t you enjoying the job?’

‘The job’s great.’ It was. ‘It’s everything I ever wanted to do, and the desert is beautiful. I wish you could see it, Legs. The light is extraordinary.’

‘Then why come back to London?’ she asked, puzzled.

Max took a deep breath. ‘Because you weren’t there,’ he said. ‘The thing is...’ He’d rehearsed this speech in his head but now that the moment had come, his mind had gone blank. ‘The thing is, I missed you,’ he finished simply.

‘But...what about Emma?’ Allegra’s eyes were huge. She looked as if she was unsure whether she was dreaming or not, and Max couldn’t blame her. One minute she had been heading out of the ballroom and the next she was faced with an idiot in full eighteenth-century dress.

‘She told me she wanted to say goodbye to you at the airport,’ Allegra went on. ‘I thought she was going to suggest that you got back together.’

‘She did,’ said Max, remembering how long it had taken him to understand what Emma was saying. Her timing hadn’t been good, to say the least. His mind had been too full of Allegra, standing on the doorstep, watching as he drove away. ‘She said she wanted to try again, that she’d realised that friendship was a better foundation for marriage than passion.’

‘Which was what you’d said all along.’

‘I did say that and I believed it, but I’ve changed my mind,’ Max said. ‘Friendship isn’t enough on its own, nor is passion. You need both. I told Emma that I’d like to be friends, but I knew that I’d never be happy unless I could be with you.’

‘With me...’ she echoed incredulously, but a smile lit her eyes, and he took hold of her hands.

‘I love being with you, Legs. I don’t care what we’re doing. Even when you were making me dress up and make a fool of myself, it was fun. I missed being able to talk to you and hear you laugh, I missed you nagging about my clothes. God, I even found myself rolling my cuffs up!’ he said, and Allegra laughed unsteadily.

Tears were trembling on the end of her lashes and Max tightened his grasp on her fingers, desperate to tell her how he felt before she cried. ‘I missed you as more than a friend, though. I wanted to be able to touch you and feel you...I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that night. It’s never been like that for me before,’ he said honestly. ‘It was as if everything else had been a practice and suddenly with you it was the real thing. Like I’d never understood before that was how it was supposed to be. I can’t explain it. With you, it just felt right...’ He trailed off, seeing the tears spilling down her cheeks. ‘Don’t cry, Legs, please. I just wanted to tell you how I felt.’

‘I’m crying because I’m happy,’ she said, trying in vain to blink back the tears. ‘Oh, Max, that was how it was for me too.’

The tight band around Max’s chest unlocked and he released her hands to take her face between his palms.

‘Allegra,’ he said unevenly, ‘I know I’m stuffy and I can’t dance and I’ve got no dress sense but I love you. That’s why I came back. I had to tell you.’

Incredibly, she was smiling still. ‘I love you too,’ she said, sliding her arms around his waist. ‘I’ve missed you so much.’

A smile dawned in Max’s eyes as his heart swelled. Tenderly, he grazed her jaw with his thumbs. ‘You love me?’ he repeated, dazed at the wonder of it.

‘I do,’ she said and her voice broke. ‘Oh, Max, I do.’ And she clung to him as he kissed her at last, the way he had dreamt of kissing her for so many long and lonely nights, so many bleak days.

She kissed him back, a long, sweet kiss edged with the same giddy relief at having been pulled back from an abyss at the last moment. They ran their hands hungrily over each other, a remembered inventory of pleasure. Heedless of the drizzle that was rapidly turning to rain, they forgot the ball, forgot the cold, forgot everything but the dazzling joy of being able to touch each other again, feel each other again.

Max was rucking up Allegra’s skirt with an urgent hand before a splatter of rain right down his neck brought him reluctantly back to reality. Grumbling at the weather, he pulled Allegra into the shelter of an overhanging balcony and rested his forehead against hers.

‘I wish you’d said something before you left,’ she said, softening her criticism by clinging closer. ‘I’ve been so wretched without you.’

‘I couldn’t. You made it pretty clear that night was just a one-off as far as you were concerned,’ he pointed out. ‘We’ve got different lives, you said, and you were right. I could see that. God, Legs, I only had to look at you. You were having so much fun in London. You’ve got a great life, doing what you want to do. You’re so bright and warm and funny and gorgeous. How could I possibly imagine you wanting to be with a boring civil engineer?’

Allegra couldn’t help laughing. ‘Nobody looking at you dressed up as Prince Charming could possibly describe you as boring, Max!’ For the first time she took in the full glory of his costume. His jacket was made of plum-coloured velvet, and he wore tight breeches and silk socks held up with garters. The satin waistcoat was the same colour as the jacket, and an intricately arranged necktie frothed at his throat. ‘Where on earth did you find your outfit?’

‘Dickie got it for me.’

‘Dickie!’ She gaped at him. ‘He didn’t tell me that you’d been in touch!’

‘I asked him not to and, anyway,’ said Max, drawing her back into him and putting on a superior air, ‘I’m not Prince Charming, I’m a duke.’

‘
Are
you?’ Allegra tucked in the corners of her mouth to stop herself laughing.

He pretended to be hurt. ‘I thought you’d have recognised a Regency duke when you saw one!’

‘Hmm, I think you and Dickie might have slipped a century,’ said Allegra. ‘My Regency duke didn’t wear a powdered wig.’

‘Thank God for that!’ Max snatched off his wig and cast it aside, before taking Allegra back in his arms. ‘I couldn’t find a time travel machine, so this was the closest I could get to your fantasy,’ he confessed. ‘I had this great plan. I was going to recreate it for you exactly,’ he told her as her eyes widened. ‘I was going to waltz you out onto the terrace, just the way you told me about, and then I was going to tell you how passionately I loved you and beg you to marry me, and bowl you over with the romance of it all. I wanted you to have the perfect proposal.

‘But I made a mess of it,’ he said. ‘The fact is, I’m not a duke, I can’t dance, I look like an idiot and it’s raining. Where’s the romance in that?’

‘It’s the most romantic thing I could imagine,’ said Allegra, her voice tight with emotion. ‘The duke’s just a fantasy, but you’re
real
.’ She kissed him softly. ‘Maybe you can’t dance, and no, you’re not the sharpest dresser, but you’re perfect for me and I love you just as you are.’

‘What, even buttoned up to my collar?’

‘Even then.’

Max grinned, pleased. ‘Hey, you really must love me,’ he said and she laughed.

‘I really do,’ she said, and he kissed her again, pressing her against the wall until they were both breathless and shaky with desire.

‘We’ve wasted so much time,’ Max grumbled against her throat. ‘I wish I’d known how you felt before I left.’

‘I couldn’t tell you,’ Allegra protested, snuggling closer. ‘You told me yourself you needed someone sensible like Emma.’

‘I thought that too,’ he said, as his hands slid possessively over her curves. ‘But it turns out that I need fun and frivolity instead. I’ve asked Bob if I can transfer back to the London office. I thought even if my Regency duke impersonation didn’t work, it would be easier to be in the same city. At least then I’d get to see you.’

Allegra pressed closer, loving the hard demand of his hands. ‘Ask him if you can stay in Shofrar after all,’ she said. ‘It turns out that I don’t have any fun if I’m not with you, so why don’t I come with you?’

‘But what about your job at
Glitz
?’

‘Well, I’ve made some decisions since you left.’ She told him what the agent had said about her drawings. ‘It’s a long shot but who knows? It might come off and I can always try my hand at other illustrations. I’m sure I’ll be able to keep myself busy during the day, anyway,’ she said. ‘And you can keep me busy at night,’ she added with a wicked smile.

‘I’ll do my best.’ Max kissed her again, and that was the last they spoke for some time. Careless of the rain puddling on the terrace around them, oblivious to the music spilling out from the ballroom, they lost themselves in the heady wonder of touch and taste.

‘You know we’ll have to get married?’ said Max eventually, resting his cheek against her hair.

Allegra tipped back her head to smile at him. ‘I’m counting on it,’ she said.

Max felt his heart swell until it was jammed almost painfully against his ribs. ‘Allegra...’ he said, shaken by the rush of emotion. ‘I don’t want to be apart from you again. How soon do you think we can arrange a wedding?’

‘As soon as possible.’ Allegra looked demure. ‘I’m sure Dickie will be happy to find a flowery waistcoat for you to wear.’

‘I don’t mind what I wear as long as you’re standing there saying “I do”,’ he said.

‘You might regret saying that!’

‘The only thing I’ll regret is not telling you I loved you earlier,’ he said seriously, and her lips curved under his as he kissed her once more.

Inside, the orchestra struck up another waltz, and they smiled at each other as they moved into the dance. Max’s arm was around her, his fingers warm and firm around hers as they danced through the puddles, heedless of the rain.

Allegra’s heart was floating. ‘This is perfect,’ she said, as Max twirled her around. ‘Waltzing on the terrace, a proposal of marriage... What more could I want?’

‘I seem to remember something about being ravished against a balustrade,’ said Max, and his eyes gleamed in the dim light as he danced her over to it. Turning so that she was pressed against the balustrade, he smiled lovingly down into her face. ‘You, my darling, are about to have your dream come true.’