British Bachelors: Perfect and Available: Mr

Being so aware of him the whole time made her uncomfortable. It was crazy. It was inappropriate. It didn’t make sense.

It was just the assignment, she tried to reassure herself. It was just spending so much time with him. It wasn’t real. A temporary madness, that was all. Max would go to Shofrar and she would go back to normal.

She couldn’t wait.

Max had been very clear. He wasn’t interested in a quick fling. He was looking for someone who could be part of his life, someone who would share his interests and not mind being dragged around the world. It wasn’t Darcy, and it sure as hell wasn’t her either, Allegra knew. She was the last kind of girl Max would ever want to get involved with...and the feeling was mutual, she hurried to remind herself whenever that thought seemed too depressing. It wasn’t as if she wanted to leave London. She had a career here.

She might not be changing the world or writing ground-breaking articles, but she was doing what she wanted to do...wasn’t she? Allegra’s mind flickered to illustration then away. Drawing cartoon animals wasn’t a serious job. She could do better for herself, as Flick was constantly telling her.

Besides, the article about Max was going to be her big break. She had already written the first half and it was pretty good, even if she did say so herself. Perhaps she was spending rather too much time sketching Max while she thought, but it was inevitable that she should be thinking about him. Right now, that was her job, that was all.

‘Allegra! We’re going to be late!’ Max had just raised his fist to rap the bathroom door again when Allegra pulled it open. She smiled brightly at him, gratified by the way his jaw slackened.

‘What do you think?’ She pirouetted in the doorway. She was in the most demure outfit she could find, a killer LBD with a sheer décolletage and sleeves. Even Max couldn’t object to a black dress, Allegra had reasoned, but she’d been unable to resist pimping up the plainness with glittery earrings and bling-studded stilettos. There was only so much plain dressing a girl could do, and she was counting on the fact that Max and his boss were men and therefore unlikely to even look at her shoes.

‘Do I look sufficiently sensible?’ she asked, and Max, who had evidently forgotten that his fist was still raised, lowered it slowly.

‘Sensible isn’t quite the word I was thinking of,’ he said, sounding strained.

Allegra was disappointed. ‘I’ve put my hair up and everything,’ she protested. Her hair was so slippery it had taken ages to do, too.

‘You look very nice,’ Max said gruffly. ‘Now, come on. The taxi’s waiting. We need to get a move on.’ His gaze travelled down her legs and ended at her shoes. ‘Can you make it to the taxi?’

‘Of course I can,’ said Allegra, unsure whether to be pleased or miffed that he had noticed her shoes after all.

Her hair was precariously fixed, to say the least, so Allegra settled back into the seat and pulled her seat belt on with care. She loved London taxis, loved their bulbous shape and the yellow light on top. She loved the smell of the seats, the clicking of the engine, the straps that stopped you sliding around on your seat when they turned a corner. Sitting in a taxi as it drove past the iconic London sights made Allegra feel as if she was at the centre of things, part of a great vibrant city. It gave her a thrill every time.

Every time except that night.

That night, the streets were a blur. Allegra couldn’t concentrate on London. She was too aware of Max sitting beside her. He was sensibly strapped in too, and he wasn’t touching her. He wasn’t even close, but that didn’t stop her whole side tingling as if the seat belt had vanished and she had slid across the seat to land against him.

She swallowed hard. This was so silly. She shouldn’t have to make an effort to sound normal with Max.

‘So,’ she said brightly, ‘what’s the plan?’

‘Plan?’

‘We ought to get our stories straight about how we met at least.’

Max frowned. ‘Bob’s not going to be interested in that kind of thing.’

‘His wife might be.’

It was obvious Max hadn’t thought of that. ‘Better stick to the truth,’ he decided, and Allegra’s brows rose.

‘Won’t that rather defeat the object of the exercise?’

‘I don’t mean about the pretence,’ he said irritably. ‘Just that I know you through my sister, that kind of thing.’

It all sounded a bit thin to Allegra, but Max clearly didn’t think his boss was going to interrogate them in any detail. She just hoped that he was right.

‘I don’t think you’ll have to do much but smile and look as if we might conceivably be planning to get married,’ Max said.

‘How besotted do you want me to be?’ she asked provocatively. It was easier needling him than noticing how the street lights threw the planes of his face into relief, how the passing headlights kept catching the corner of his mouth. ‘I could be madly in love or just sweetly adoring.’

‘Just be normal,’ he said repressively. ‘If you can.’

They were to meet Bob and his wife at Arturo’s, a quiet and classic restaurant no longer at the forefront of fashion but still famous for its food. When they got there, Max paid off the taxi and ran a finger under his collar. He’d wanted to wear a plain white shirt but Allegra had bullied him into putting on the mulberry-coloured shirt Dickie had picked out for him, with a plain tie in a darker hue.

‘Bob’s going to wonder what the hell I’m doing in a red shirt,’ he grumbled as he eased the collar away from his throat.

‘Stop fiddling, you look great,’ said Allegra. She stepped up and made his senses reel by straightening his tie and patting it into place. ‘Really,’ she told him, ‘you look good. You just need to relax.’

‘Relax, right,’ said Max, taking refuge in sarcasm. ‘I’m just going for the most important interview of my career so far, which means lying through my teeth to my new boss. What’s there to feel tense about?’

‘We don’t have to lie if you don’t want to. Why not just tell Bob the truth about Emma?’

For a moment Max was tempted. Wouldn’t chucking in the towel be easier than spending the evening trying to convince Bob Laskovski that it was remotely credible that a girl like Allegra would choose to be with him? She was so clearly out of his league.

When she had opened the bathroom door and smiled at him, it had been like a punch to his heart. ‘Do I look sufficiently sensible?’ she had asked while he was still struggling for breath, while he was trying to wrench his eyes off the way her dress clung enticingly to her slender body.

True, her arms and shoulders were covered but that sheer black stuff was somehow even more tantalising than bare skin would have been. It seemed to beckon him forward to peer closer, hinting at the creamy skin half hidden beneath the gauzy film of black. Between the sheer arms and shoulders and the tight-fitting dress, Max felt as if there were great neon arrows angled at her throat, at her breasts, at the curve of her hips: Look here! Look here!

The dress stopped above her knees—Look here!—revealing those killer legs of hers—And here!—ending in absurd shoes that were studded with mock jewels. Her earrings swung and glittered in the light and her hair, twisted up and back more neatly than usual, gleamed.

Once the oxygen had rushed back to his head, Max had been able to think of lots of words to describe Allegra right then: sexy, erotic, dazzling, gorgeous... Had he already mentioned sexy? But sensible? Suitable? Max didn’t think so.

Now she was adjusting his tie and standing so close her perfume was coiling into his mind, and lust fisted in his belly. For a wild moment the need to touch her was so strong all Max could think about was grabbing her, pushing her up against a wall and putting his hands on her, touching her, feeling her, taking her.

Horrified by the urge, he took a step back. What was happening to him? He didn’t do wild. He was sensible, steady, an engineer, not some macho type acting out his caveman fantasies.

Max shook his head slightly to clear it. This whole article business was getting to him, that was all. The sooner he got to Shofrar, the better. That was what he wanted, not to rip his little sister’s friend’s clothes off. And for Shofrar he needed Bob Laskovski’s approval. Was he really going to risk blowing the project manager role he’d coveted for so long just because he was distracted by Allegra’s perfume?

‘No,’ he said. His voice was a little hoarse, but firm. ‘I want to stick with what we agreed.’

‘Okay.’ Allegra smiled at him and tucked her hand through his arm. ‘In that case, let’s go and get you that job, tiger.’

SEVEN (#ulink_4a2d5c32-6e5e-581c-89b2-7bf6ab730f2d)

At work, Bob Laskovski was always referred to in hushed tones, and Max was expecting his boss to be an imposing figure. Headshots on the website showed a serious man with a shiny pate and a horseshoe of white hair but, in person, Bob was short and rotund with an easy smile and eyes that crinkled engagingly at the corners.

Max was relieved when Allegra let go of him so that he could shake hands with Bob, who turned to introduce his wife. No trophy wife for Bob: Karen Laskovski was silver-haired and very elegant. No doubt Allegra could have described what she was wearing in exhaustive detail, but Max just got an impression of warmth and charm and a light blue outfit.

And now it was his turn. Allegra smiled encouragingly when he glanced at her, and Max cleared his throat.

‘This is my fiancée, Allegra.’

There, the lie was out. Max was sure he could hear it clanging around the restaurant and waited for the other diners to look up and shout Liar! Liar! but nobody seemed to notice anything unusual, least of all the Laskovskis. Couldn’t they see what an ill-assorted couple he and Allegra were?