‘Lou?’ He was pressing her to commit. To say the word.
‘Yes,’ she said, as matter-of-factly as if he’d asked her if she wanted a drink.
Her answer was always going to be, had to be, yes.
For now. Until the fourteenth of February. Valentine’s Day.
‘What’s the matter? You don’t look convinced?’ She let loose a smile that was trying to break out. ‘You did say that you wouldn’t take no for an answer.’
For once Max seemed lost for words, a predicament so rare that she’d have to be a saint not to take some pleasure from the situation. The truth was that all day she’d been on pins, nervous about meeting her mother for the first time, nerves that had been made worse by the background tension: her cast-iron certainty that Max was simply going through the motions to convince Jack that he had done all he could to bring her on board. That he didn’t really want her.
But the meeting with her mother had gone better than she could ever have imagined and then, when she’d seen Max waiting for her at the gallery, that for once he’d kept his promise, made time for her…
She didn’t, in her heart of hearts, believe that anything other than desperation would have driven him to make such a gesture, but he had made it, demonstrating beyond words that she was the one in the driving seat. That he needed her, that the family was relying on her. Taking her seriously for once.
How could she not say ‘yes’?
‘For the moment my time is completely booked up with the relaunch of HOTfood, but once that’s out of the way-’
‘When?’ he demanded, impatiently. ‘When can you start?’
‘After the party on Friday.’ She looked up at him. ‘After that I’ll be all yours.’
It was only when she wanted to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear that she realised Max was still holding her hand, and as she looked up at him she found herself remembering years before when, on a family trip to the beach, he’d reached out to her when she couldn’t keep up with him and Jack as they’d scrambled over the rocks.
How he’d stopped, come back to hold out a hand to her. How safe she’d felt.
Remembering how safe she’d always felt. How lucky she’d been…
‘You haven’t got a fistful of clients hammering on your door?’ he asked, abruptly abandoning her hand to straighten a fork on the table.
‘What? Oh, yes. Well, actually, no…’ She tucked back her hair, said, ‘I haven’t taken on any new jobs since my return from Australia. I didn’t want to tie myself down.’
He frowned. ‘You were really serious about leaving?’
Was she?
In truth she hadn’t known. It was as if she’d been poised between her old life and the possibility of something new, waiting for some small sign to set her on the right path.
What she’d got, in the shape of Max Valentine, was a three-lane motorway direction sign saying ‘BELLA LUCIA’…
His question suggested that as far as he was concerned it was a momentary whim to be brushed aside now she was back in the fold and, deciding that it was wiser to leave him with that impression, she lifted her shoulders in a wordless shrug.
He let it go, said, ‘I didn’t ask if you were free this evening.’
‘No, you didn’t.’
‘Are you?’
There were two possible answers to that question.
One…She could tell him that she had to work and then waste the evening pointlessly stressing over the last minute details of the HOTfood party even though she knew there was nothing left to do, or…
Two…‘No, Max. I’m not free. I’m having a working supper with the new head of the Valentine empire. Unless you’ve got something more interesting planned?’
His response was a sudden smile that involved every part of his face, deepening the creases that bracketed his mouth, lighting up his eyes in a way that almost impossibly intensified the blue. The kind that took time, that she hadn’t seen in years.
‘I can’t think of anything more interesting than that,’ he said and she was forced to bludgeon down the heart leap, the foolish warmth at his admission that being with her would be a pleasure rather than a pain.
‘Interesting’ was what he’d actually said.
In some cultures ‘interesting’ was a curse…
‘If that’s your measure of interesting, Max,’ she replied, ‘you need to put some serious thought into getting a life.’
He looked as if he was about to say something. He clearly thought better of it, because instead he shrugged, said, ‘This is my life.’
He’d got that right, anyway. The restaurants, the people who worked for them; he’d strived for success not just for himself, the family, but because he knew that it was the men and women who worked for them who would suffer most if things went wrong.
He’d only fired her, she realised, because her volatility when she was around him threatened that success…
‘Come on, let’s get started,’ he said, ignoring the lift in favour of the stairs. ‘I’ve been thinking about some of your ideas.’
‘Which ones?’ she asked, taking them rather more sedately in her high heels and narrow skirt.
‘All of them, but especially Meridia. I really think you’re on to something so I sent Emma an email and asked her to look out for likely locations.’
‘Your sister doesn’t work for you any more, Max,’ she reminded him. ‘In fact I imagine being Queen of Meridia doesn’t leave her with too much spare time to spend running errands for you.’
‘You think?’
He stopped without warning, turned and, a step below him, she was suddenly cheek-to-chest close. Without thinking she swayed back to avoid touching him, just as she always had, just as he always had, but now he put out a hand to grab her, steady her as she took a step back. Save her from a fall. Keep her close.
‘If we’re not cousins,’ he’d said, ‘we don’t have a problem…’
Not for him, maybe, but it was as if that moment when he’d come close to kissing her had intensified her response to him. Even through her coat, the sleeve of her suit, his hand was applying heat to a square of skin just above her elbow that spread like wildfire to every part of her body.
Just the simple act of breathing became suddenly more difficult.
Yes…
The word whispered through her mind, silken temptation.
This was what you wanted. Max at your feet. Max in your bed…
‘Yes,’ she said. Then, when he waited for her to elaborate. ‘I do think.’
‘Well, never mind,’ he said, with a tormenting smile that she knew only too well, ‘I’ve got you for that now.’
Got her? To run his errands? Was that what he thought? Not even close…
‘You think?’ she enquired, throwing his words back at him as the heat intensified to a dangerous calm. She knew this feeling, recognised this, welcomed it even; the motorway sign was flashing an urgent warning ‘SLOW- ACCIDENT AHEAD’ but, just as she always had, she ignored it.
‘What are you looking for?’ Max asked as she cast about her before fixing her gaze on the vast arrangement of flowers on the half landing where the staircase split into two and curved away on either side.
She blinked, collected herself, swallowed.
What was she thinking? She was grown up, an in-demand consultant, not some stupid girl with a crush.
Get a grip. He was just teasing.
There had been a time when his teasing had made her insides curl up in a paroxysm of pleasure that this godlike figure had noticed her.
A lifetime ago.
Then there had come a time when it had just made her mad.
