by Liz Fielding
When the doorbell rang on the dot of five-thirty on Monday morning, Louise flipped the switch and said, ‘I’ll be right down.’
She slipped into her new coat, set the black velvet beret at a jaunty angle on her head, picked up her roomy shoulder bag and went downstairs.
Max was waiting in the car with the engine running.
‘Got everything?’ he asked as she slid in beside him, clipped her seat belt into place.
So much for Miss Business Efficiency of whatever year you cared to mention.
What was the point when she didn’t even get a ‘good morning’?
‘Everything important,’ she replied and ticking them off on her fingers, ‘Hairspray, lipstick, emergency nail repair kit…’ She looked across at him, suddenly wanting not to make him angry, but to make him laugh. ‘Safety pins…’
If he was tempted to smile, he did a manful job of hiding it and, too late to do any good, she wished she’d kept a rein on her temper, or at least her tongue.
A first, that.
They made the airport in what must have been some kind of record, for silence as well as speed, on roads that were relatively clear so early in the morning. Although half an hour had never felt so long.
Things didn’t improve when they reached the terminal building. Max just leaned across her, took an envelope out of the glove compartment and handed it to her.
‘You handle the check-in while I go and park.’
Unmistakably an order and considering it was combined with the silent treatment her immediate reaction was to tell him to stuff Meridia, stuff Bella Lucia and to go run his own errands. But even as she opened her mouth she found herself recalling her earlier regret and-another first-kept her peace.
‘Right. Well, I’ll be-’
‘I’ll find you, Louise,’ he said, cutting her short. Then, ‘Will you please move, before I get a parking ticket?’
She manfully resisted the temptation to drop his passport and the tickets in the nearest bin and take a taxi home, but he was unappreciative of her restraint and once they were boarded, closed his eyes, suggesting that even silence was a strain. That he couldn’t bear to look at her.
Because he thought that she was involved with Cal? Nothing else had changed since the evening they’d spent talking about the business over supper, not touching, keeping their distance after that searing kiss.
Which meant what, exactly?
That he was jealous?
She glanced at him as if some clue might be found in his posture. In the give-away tension around his closed eyes as she watched him.
‘Are you together?’ The stewardess, breakfast tray in hand, joined her in regarding Max, unsure whether or not to disturb him.
‘Never met him before in my life,’ Louise replied, turning away and smiling up at the woman.
‘Oh. Right. I don’t suppose he said anything about breakfast, then?’ The woman sounded harassed. No doubt someone had already given her a hard time for trying to do her job, something Max would never do. He knew the stresses and was always considerate of anyone in the service industry.
Unless it was her, of course.
He’d always made an exception in her case.
And recalling her revelatory thoughts about Cal, she asked herself, So why would he bother? Unless he cared?
The stewardess was still waiting.
‘Breakfast? Oh, wait, he did say something about looking forward to it.’ Feeling a desperate urge to smile, she instead raised her eyebrows, inviting the woman to agree that he was clearly crazy. ‘I guess he didn’t have time to eat before he left for the airport.’
That finally did raise a smile-or maybe it was a grimace-and Max opened his eyes, straightened in his seat.
‘Now would be a very good time to use one of those safety pins, Louise,’ he said. ‘To fasten your lips together.’
Max regretted the words the minute they left his mouth. He’d spent most of the weekend reminding himself that it was always a mistake to mix business with pleasure, but when she’d swept out of the front door in that dramatic scarlet coat, sexy little hat, common sense had taken a hike. Even so, he’d thought he’d covered himself with the most innocuous of remarks.
“Got everything?” What was there to take offence at in that?
And now he’d done it again. This time with intent.
Apparently they couldn’t be together for more than a minute without one of them lighting the blue touch-paper. This time he was the guilty party and there was an apparently endless moment while he waited for the explosion. He was ready for it, wanted it, he realised in a moment of searing self-revelation. At least when they were fighting he knew he had her total attention. That she wasn’t thinking about anyone but him.
It didn’t happen.
Instead of taking the tray from the still hovering stewardess and tipping it in his lap, she leaned forward, picked up her bag and, from a miniature sewing kit, extracted a clip of tiny gold safety pins.
She unhooked one, turned and offered it to him. ‘Go ahead, Max.’
In the clear bright light of thirty thousand feet, her eyes were a pure translucent silver and for a moment he couldn’t think, speak, move.
‘Whenever you’re ready,’ she prompted. And pushed out her lips, inviting him to get on with it.
It was all he could do to stop the brief expletive slipping from his own lips.
‘It’s a bit small,’ was the best he could manage. ‘The pin,’ he added, quickly, in case she thought he was referring to her mouth.
Too late, he realised that there was no safe answer as she lifted one brow and said, ‘So, I have a big mouth.’
Pushing him, inviting him to do his worst…
He felt a surge of relief. This was better. ‘Too big for this pin,’ he said, closing his hand around hers. Happy to oblige.
They were six miles above the earth. Where could she go?
‘Sorry about that,’ she said.
Her mouth was innocent of a smile but without warning a dimple appeared in her left cheek and he felt a surge of warmth, knowing-because he knew her as no one else did-that it was there.
‘I’m rarely called to pin up anything bigger than a shoestring strap, or a broken zip at a photo-shoot.’ The dimple deepened as if she were having serious trouble keeping the smile at bay. ‘I’ll make a note to pack something larger in future.’
‘Good plan,’ he said, taking the pin, letting go of her hand. Touching her was firing up the kind of heat that no shower was cold enough to suppress. ‘In the meantime I’ll hang onto this one, just in case.’
‘In case of what?’
‘Just “in case”’, he said, dropping it into his ticket pocket. ‘Who knows when one will encounter a shoestring-strapped damsel in distress?’
Then, because this elegant, perfectly groomed version of Louise was so different from the way she’d looked on Saturday, warm, tousled and sleepy from the bed she’d shared with Cal Jameson-when for a moment he’d looked into her eyes and seen himself reflected there, as if he were the centre of her soul-he turned away, unable to bear it.
‘I’ll pass on the food, thanks,’ he said to the stewardess. ‘Just leave me the juice.’
‘Me, too,’ Louise said. Then, turning to him, ‘Do you want to run through what we’re doing today, Max?’
Not as much as he’d hoped, but work had always served him well enough in the past.
‘Why not?’ And he watched as she produced a folder, opened it, handed him a copy of the papers. Within minutes he was absorbed in the ideas she’d managed to throw together over the weekend. ‘Impressive,’ he said. ‘Considering the distractions.’
For some reason that made her smile.
‘I spoke to my mother, too. Ivy…’
‘You called her?’
‘She called me. She wanted me to go to lunch yesterday.’
‘Perhaps there was something in the stars.’ She frowned, not understanding. ‘My mother called me, as well. She
wanted me to bail her out of jail.’
He hadn’t meant to tell her. He’d never told anyone. Not his father, not Jack. She was his mother. His cross.
‘Max…’ Louise laid her hand over his. ‘I’m so sorry. Is she in desperate trouble?’
‘Nothing that money won’t sort out. Unpaid bills. It just took a bit of sorting out.’
‘I would have helped.’
‘I didn’t need any help,’ he said. He didn’t need anyone. ‘I’ve done it all before.’
‘It’s a shame we didn’t make it to the fishing lodge,’ Louise said as they returned to the chauffeur-driven car Sebastian had thoughtfully laid on for them.
The day had just ebbed away. Lunch with Emma and Sebastian had been unexpected. Wonderful, but even an informal, private lunch with the king and his new queen was not exactly an eat-and-run deal. Then the meeting with a leading hotelier had been long on formality, short on substance, and who could know that the Director of Tourism thought he had to ‘sell’ them Meridia? Organise a tour of the city, with stops at all the historic sites. It would have been unpardonably rude to tell him they were already ‘sold’, but it had left them too short of time to get out to the island in daylight.
Now they barely had time to make their check-in at the airport and, although Max had said nothing, it was as clear as day what he was thinking. That the wasted time was entirely down to her.
‘I should have listened to you, Max, instead of trying to cram everything in. We’re going to have to make another trip to look at it.’
‘That won’t be necessary.’
She stopped, stared after him. He’d didn’t even want to look? Was rejecting it sight unseen. Had he just been stringing her along, making some crappy pay back point about leaping before they’d looked…?
‘You’ve decided against it?’ she demanded, already regretting jumping in to take the blame.
Realising that she wasn’t keeping pace with him, he turned to face her.
‘No, Louise. On the contrary. I want to see it very much, but I thought it likely that we’d need more time so I’ve arranged for us to stay over until tomorrow.’
‘Oh.’ She should have felt happy that he was, after all, enthusiastic about the project, but instead she felt oddly flattened. Excluded. Was that how he’d felt when she’d gone ahead and made arrangements without talking to him first? ‘You didn’t think to mention it?’ she asked as she joined him and they moved on.
‘I did, but at the time you were otherwise occupied.’ It was true-Emma had claimed her attention over lunch, wanting to talk about the coming ball. Ask her advice…‘Is it a problem?’ Max asked, standing back so that she could step into the rear of the car, then joining her. ‘We could always stop somewhere to buy a toothbrush.’
‘Not necessary.’
She glanced at him, then quickly looked away.
They’d been sitting shoulder-to-shoulder close for most of the day, but clearly regretting letting slip his problems with his mother-showing a chink in his armour-he’d kept his distance mentally, put up some kind of invisible wall between them. Maybe it had simply been a business thing, a protection against the simmering undercurrent that was always there, just beneath the surface.
Now they were on their own for the first time since they’d landed, she was doubly conscious of his nearness, not as a business colleague, but as a man.
‘I never travel without one,’ she said, aware that he had looked at her, querying her response. ‘A toothbrush.’ The ‘everything’ she hadn’t got around to listing for him was her emergency pack consisting of spare underwear, a clean T-shirt and a toothbrush; having been held up by delays on more than one occasion, she never travelled without it.
‘Nor do I.’ Then, ‘I’m sorry if I’ve interfered with your plans for the evening. Did you have something special arranged?’
‘On a Monday? After a full day travelling? Are you crazy?’ Then realising what he meant, she added, coolly, provocatively, ‘Just an early night.’ And felt a curious mixture of feelings as his jaw tightened. A giddy heart lift that he cared enough to feel jealousy at the thought of Cal Jameson in her bed. Regret that, despite the changes in their relationship, the fact that he’d felt able to open up a little to her about his own problems-and whoever would have believed Max Valentine had problems?-they were both still caught up in a loop, unable to break the habit of striking first, thinking later. ‘So?’ she prompted. ‘Where are we staying?’
‘At the lodge,’ he replied, equally cool. Equally provocative. ‘We’ll have all night to make ourselves familiar with the interior, consider the possibilities and, if we’re still interested, all day tomorrow to look around the island.’ He paused briefly. ‘I trust the arrangements I’ve made meet with your approval.’
She frowned. Did he really think she’d object? Or was it that he was still so angry with her that he felt he had to score points?
After the incident with the safety pin they’d both been on their best behaviour, managing an entire day without rubbing each other up the wrong way. Now, with no one around to see, they were, apparently, to return to sniping terms.
Well, not her. Not any more. ‘They do, Max,’ she said, very quietly. ‘I should have thought of it myself.’
‘You’ve been fully occupied with your own affairs, no doubt.’
‘It has been quite a week,’ she agreed, even though she was certain he wasn’t referring to the HOTfood relaunch, but holding to her determination not to be roused. ‘Twelve-hour days as standard. But as of five-thirty this morning, I’m all yours.’
‘I think not.’
It was probably fortunate that the car pulled alongside the jetty at that moment, that they were fully occupied transferring themselves to a launch that was waiting to ferry them across to the island. It was hard work being this good when she wasn’t getting any help.
But the journey gave them a fairy-tale view of the city from the lake, the floodlit ancient castle, layer upon layer of lights descending and then reflected back in the ripples. They stood in the bows and watched its retreat before turning to each other.
‘That’s a good start,’ Max said.
‘Magical. I’m glad we had a chance to see it at night.’ Then as the boat slowed she turned to see the approach to the island, the fishing lodge. Equally magical. ‘Come on, let’s see if the arrival lives up to the journey.’
It did. A liveried footman was waiting at the jetty to lead them up a broad flight of stone steps that opened out onto a wide terrace, through a pair of huge, two-storey height doors. Once inside a vast entrance hall, the footman bowed them into the hands of a butler, before disappearing.
‘Good evening, Sir. Madam.’ He took their coats, passing them on to a hovering maid, and already Louise’s mind was working overtime.
They could keep all this, she thought. Sell it as a chance to be treated like royalty…
‘I’ll show you to your room,’ he said, leading the way up a wide wooden staircase that opened up onto a magnificent first-floor gallery with rooms on three sides. The lodge might have been small by castle standards, but not by any other measure.
He opened a door, crossed the room. ‘Your dressing room and bathroom are here, Madam.’ Then, turning to Max, ‘What time do you wish dinner to be served, sir?’
‘Not too late. It’s been a long day,’ Max said. ‘Seven-thirty?’
‘Certainly. A fire has been lit in the drawing room. Please ring and ask for anything you want.’
And with that the man was gone, leaving them both in a vast room dominated by an ornately draped and very high four-poster bed. At its foot, on a low chest, stood their bags.
Side by side.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THERE was a long moment of silence, then Louise cleared her throat and said, ‘I think there must have been a slight misunderstanding. The butler must have assumed we were husband and wife, rather than…
She stopped. It was hard to break the habit of a lifetim
e. Max was not family. And sharing a room with him, a bed with him, was her darkest dream…
‘I’ll go and sort it out,’ he said.
‘No.’ The word escaped her before she could corral it, keep it safely locked up.
Maybe.
Maybe she didn’t try as hard as she might have done.
This felt like fate saying, ‘Now…’
‘No?’ he repeated, his face expressionless, giving nothing away. For a moment, when he’d taken the pin from her, kept it, anything had seemed possible. Since then he’d kept all interaction on a strictly business level, kept his distance, not just physically, but emotionally.
‘I’m desperate for a cup of tea,’ she said, losing her nerve. ‘Let me freshen up and then we can both go.’
‘I thought you might want a little privacy in order to phone your Antipodean friend,’ he said, stiffly. ‘Explain that you won’t be home tonight.’
‘I don’t have to explain myself to anyone, Max, least of all Cal Jameson.’ Or him, for that matter, but it was time to put an end to this. Set the record straight. ‘And after the state he and some girl he brought home with him on Saturday night left my flat in, he’s very far from being my friend. In fact the next time I find him on my doorstep at two in the morning, I’ll be very tempted to leave him there.’
‘Girl?’ Max repeated, homing in on the one important word, going to the heart of what she was telling him.
‘He must have picked her up when he went clubbing. They woke me coming in at some unearthly hour…’ Then, all innocence, ‘Oh, please. You didn’t think I was sleeping with him, did you?’
‘You implied as much-’
‘No, Max,’ she said cutting him off, dropping the pretence. ‘You implied it. In front of a valued client, what’s more. You implied I was sleeping with him, too, I seem to recall, which might have been funny if it hadn’t been so insulting.’
‘He certainly implied as much.’
‘Cal? Or Oliver Nash?’
His mouth tightened. ‘You know who I mean.’