Mr. (Not Quite) Perfect (8 page)

She had imagined that taut moment of awareness just before Darcy rang the doorbell, she told herself. Look at them now, talking like old friends. There was no crackling in the air between them, no zing every time their eyes met. She had made the whole thing up.

The food wasn’t too bad either. What it lacked in presentational flair, it made up for in efficiency, with Max putting each course on the table with military precision.

All in all, the second task was a huge success, Allegra congratulated herself.

‘Coffee?’ Max asked at last.

‘Actually, I’d love a herbal tea if you’ve got one,’ said Darcy, and Max rolled an agonized look at Allegra.

‘In the cupboard above the kettle,’ she said.

The moment Max went out to put the kettle on, Darcy leant towards Allegra. ‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Sure,’ said Allegra in surprise.

‘Are you guys...?’

‘What?’

‘You and Max,’ said Darcy delicately. ‘I asked Max if you were an item, but he said you were just friends.’ She looked at Allegra. ‘Is that right?’

Allegra felt unaccountably miffed at the way Max had disclaimed any interest in her, but she could hardly deny it. ‘Of course,’ she said, taking a casual sip of wine. ‘Max is practically my brother.’

‘Oh, that’s good. So you won’t mind if I asked Max to dinner at my place?’

Allegra choked on her wine. ‘Dinner?’ she spluttered.

‘Yes. Not as part of the
Glitz
deal, but like a proper date.’

‘You want to date
Max
?’

Darcy laughed a little self-consciously. ‘I think he’s cute.’

Max?
Cute
?

‘He’s not like the usual guys I date,’ Darcy went on.

Allegra thought of the actors and rock stars who had been linked to Darcy, über hunks every one of them, and she blinked. ‘You can say that again.’

‘I kinda like him,’ Darcy confessed. ‘Do you think he’d say yes?’

A famous lingerie model inviting him to spend the evening alone with her at her house. Like Max would turn
that
invitation down.

‘You should ask Max, not me,’ said Allegra stiffly.

‘You don’t sound very keen on the idea,’ said Darcy, who was a lot more perceptive than she looked. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’

‘It’s not that. It’s just...well, Max puts on a good show, but his fiancée broke off their engagement not very long ago. I wouldn’t want him to get hurt again. I mean...’

Allegra was floundering, wishing she had never started on this. ‘...It’s just that you’re so gorgeous and you must have so many men after you. I...I’d hate it if you were just amusing yourself with Max and he ended up taking you too seriously. And I can see why he would,’ she said with honest envy. ‘I can’t imagine any guy not falling heavily for you.’

‘You’d be surprised,’ said Darcy with a touch of bitterness. ‘I don’t understand why I’ve got such a reputation as a man-eater. Nobody ever worries that I might be the one to get hurt, do they?’

‘Max isn’t your usual type,’ Allegra pointed out and Darcy nodded.

‘That’s why I’d like to get to know him better. I’m sick of guys who are all moody and dramatic, or who just want to be with me so they can get their name in the papers.’

‘Well, you certainly wouldn’t need to worry about that with Max.’

‘Great. Well, if you’re sure you’re okay with it, I’ll ask him.’

Allegra wasn’t at all sure that she
was
okay with it, but she couldn’t think of a single reason why not. Max was a grown man. He didn’t need her to look after him, and she could hardly veto his chance to fulfil every man’s fantasy of going out with Darcy, could she? He deserved some fun after Emma’s rejection.

So why did she have this leaden feeling in her stomach?

When Max came back with the coffee and the herbal tea, Allegra took her mug and excused herself. ‘I’ll leave you two together,’ she said with a brilliant smile. ‘I need to go and write up my notes. Have fun.’

* * *

‘What do you mean, you’re not coming?’ Max stared at Allegra in consternation.

‘I’m going to dinner at Flick’s,’ she pointed out. ‘Plus, I’m not invited.’

‘I thought you’d be going too. And Dom.’

‘Max, Darcy’s invited you to supper. It’s nothing to do with the article.’

‘Why?’ he asked, puzzled.

‘Crazy thought, but maybe she likes you.’

Thrown by this new information, Max dragged a hand through his hair. The truth was that he hadn’t really listened when Darcy had invited him the evening he’d cooked her dinner. It was after Allegra had gone to her room, and he’d just assumed that another task was involved.

Darcy
liked
him?

‘You mean, like on a date?’ he asked cautiously and Allegra rolled her eyes. She was doing something complicated with her hair in front of the mirror over the mantelpiece.

‘I’d have thought you’d have been over the moon,’ she said, through a mouthful of hairclips.

‘Darcy King wants to go out with
me
?’

‘I know, I thought it was unlikely too,’ said Allegra, fixing another clip into place.

Max sat on the sofa and tossed the remote from hand to hand. Darcy King. She was gorgeous, sexy, warm,
nice
. Why wasn’t he ecstatic?

‘I thought I was just signing up for this article of yours,’ he said grouchily. ‘I didn’t realise I’d be getting involved in other stuff as well.’

‘It’s just dinner, Max. I don’t suppose she’s planning on a bout of eye-popping sex straight away.’

Apparently satisfied with her hair, Allegra turned from the mirror. It never failed to amaze Max how she could spend so long achieving a range of hairstyles, each messier than the last. That evening she had twisted it up and fixed it into place with a clip, but bits stuck out wildly from the clip, and other strands fell around her face. Max’s fingers itched to smooth them behind her ears, but the idea of sliding his fingers through that silky hair was so tantalising that for a moment he lost track of the conversation.

‘You ought to be flattered,’ she said.

‘I am,’ said Max, wrenching his mind back from a disturbingly vivid image of pulling that clip from her hair and letting it fall, soft and shiny, to her shoulders. ‘It’s just...I don’t want to complicate things.’

‘What’s complicated about dinner? You had dinner with Darcy the other night and this time you won’t even have to worry about the cooking.’

‘It’s not that.’ How could he tell Allegra that, much as he liked Darcy, he found her a bit overwhelming? ‘It’s not long since I was engaged to Emma,’ he said, grasping at the excuse. ‘It feels too soon to be getting involved with anyone else.’

Allegra’s face softened instantly and then she snarled every one of his senses by coming to sit on the sofa beside him and placing her hand on his knee.

‘I’m sorry, I keep forgetting that you must still be gutted about Emma.’

Max didn’t think gutted was quite the right word, in fact, but with Allegra sitting so close, her green eyes huge and warm with sympathy, it was all he could do to nod.

‘Darcy knows you were engaged,’ Allegra went on, with a comforting rub on his thigh. At least, Max assumed it was meant to be comforting, although in practice it was excruciatingly arousing. If she moved her hand any higher, he couldn’t be responsible for his actions... As unobtrusively as he could, he shifted along the sofa.

Allegra was still talking, still looking at him with those big, earnest eyes, completely unaware of the effect she was having on him. ‘She won’t expect you to fall madly in love with her, Max. It’ll just be dinner. Darcy’s nice, and it’ll be a boost for your ego, if nothing else. You should go and forget about Emma for an evening.’

It wasn’t Emma he needed to forget, it was the feel of Allegra’s hand on his leg, but Max heard himself agreeing just so that he could get up before he grabbed her and rolled her beneath him on the sofa. He had to give himself a few mental slaps before he had himself under control enough to change and go back down to the sitting room, where Allegra was perched on the armchair and bending over to ease on a pair of precipitously-heeled shoes. She was in a dark floral sleeveless dress with black lace over the shoulders and a skirt that showed off miles of leg in black stockings, and Max’s throat promptly dried all over again.

Those loose strands of hair had slithered forward when she bent her head and she tucked them behind her ears as she glanced up to see Max standing in the doorway. There was an odd little jump in the air as their eyes met, and then both looked away.

‘You look nice,’ Max said gruffly.

‘Thank you.’ Her gaze skimmed his then skittered away. ‘Is that one of the shirts Dickie picked out for you?’

‘Yes.’ Self-consciously, he held his arms out from his side. ‘Why, is it too casual?’

‘It’s perfect—or it would be if you rolled up your cuffs, and...’ Allegra pointed at her throat to indicate that his collar was too tightly buttoned.

She had a thing about his collar, but Max knew from experience that it wasn’t worth the argument. With a long-suffering sigh, he unfastened another button before starting on his cuffs. She had a thing about those too. He could do them up again as soon as she’d gone.

‘So, you’re seeing your mother,’ he said after a moment. ‘What’s it going to be? A cosy night in with just the two of you?’

Max knew as well as she did that Flick didn’t do cosy, but Allegra couldn’t help smiling a little wistfully. She adored her mother, and it made her feel disloyal to wish sometimes that Flick could be a little—just a little!—more like Libby and Max’s mum, who was easygoing and gave wonderful hugs and would happily watch
I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here!
instead of the news. The first time Allegra had been to stay with Libby they had had supper on their laps in front of the television, and it had felt deliciously subversive.

‘I think there’ll be a few people there,’ she told Max as she wiggled her feet into a more comfortable position in her shoes. ‘She says she’s got someone she wants me to meet.’

Max started on his second cuff, his expression sardonic. ‘Flick’s setting you up with a new boyfriend?’

‘Maybe.’

‘You don’t sound very keen.’

She hadn’t, had she? She’d sounded like someone who would really rather be staying at home. That would never do.

Allegra stood up and tested her shoes. ‘Of course I’m keen,’ she said. ‘The men my mother introduces me to are always intelligent, cultured, amusing, interesting... Why wouldn’t I be keen?’

‘No reason when you put it like that,’ said Max. He had dealt with his cuffs and now he stood in the centre of the room with his hands in his pockets, looking sulky and surly and disconcertingly attractive. Allegra almost told him to button up his shirt again so he could go back to looking stuffy and repressed.

‘I’m feeling positive,’ she said airily. ‘This guy could be The One. I could be on my way to meet true love!’

Max snorted. ‘Well, don’t make a date for Wednesday, that’s all.’

He had finally heard from Bob Laskovski’s office. Bob and his wife would be in London the following week and the dinner to meet Max and his ‘fiancée’ was arranged for the Wednesday night. Max was nervous about the whole business, Allegra knew. He wasn’t comfortable with deception, but he was desperate for the Shofrar job. Perhaps that was why he was so grouchy at the moment?

Darcy was welcome to him, Allegra told herself as she flipped open her phone to call a cab. She couldn’t care less that Max was having supper with a lingerie model.
She
was going out to have a great time and meet a fabulous new guy. And, who knew, maybe she’d find true love at last as well.

* * *

Flick still lived in the four-storey Georgian house in a much sought after part of Islington where Allegra had grown up but it never felt like going home. The house was immaculately decorated and most visitors gasped in envy when they stepped inside, but Allegra much preferred the Warriners’ house with its scuffed skirting boards and faded chair covers.

Flick’s dinner parties were famous, less for the food, which was always catered, than for the company. Politicians, media stars, business leaders, diplomats, writers, artists, musicians, journalists...anyone who was anyone in London jostled for a coveted invitation to sit at Flick’s dining table. No celebrities, pop stars or soap opera actors need apply, though. Flick insisted on a certain intellectual rigour.

Thus Allegra found herself sitting between Dan, a fast-track civil servant, obviously destined for greatness, while William, on her right, was a political aide. They both worked in government circles and were both high-flyers, full of gossip and opinion.

Toying with her marinated scallops, Allegra felt boring and uninformed in comparison. She couldn’t think of a single clever or witty thing to say.

Not that it mattered much. The conversation around the table was fast and furious as usual, but no one was interested in her opinion anyway, and it was enough for Allegra to keep a smile fixed to her face.

Beside her, Dan had launched into a scurrilous story about a politician everybody else seemed to know but who Allegra had never heard of. She laughed when everybody else laughed, but she was wondering how Max was getting on with Darcy. Would he sleep with her? Allegra realised that she had stopped smiling and hurriedly put her smile back in place.

Why did she care? Max would be leaving soon anyway, and it wasn’t as if he was interested in her. True, there had been that moment when their eyes had met earlier, when she was putting on her shoes and had glanced up to find him watching her and something had leapt in the air between them.

It was just because they were spending so much time together for the article, Allegra told herself. It wasn’t that she would really rather be sharing pizza with Max in front of the television than sitting here at this glamorous, glittering party. Of course she wouldn’t.

Oh, God, she had missed Dan’s punchline. At the other end of the table, she caught Flick’s eye and the tiny admonishing frown and sat up straighter.

Beside her, William was filling her glass, teasing her out of her abstraction. His eyes were warm, and she was picking up definite vibes. Allegra gazed at him, determined to find him attractive. She’d already established that he’d split up with his long-term girlfriend a year ago. A mutual thing, he’d said. They were still friends.