British Bachelors: Perfect and Available: Mr

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.