British Bachelors: Perfect and Available: Mr

Max pulled himself up to look at Allegra with suddenly narrowed eyes. ‘You’re not going to back out, are you? Is that what this is about? Now that Emma’s not around, I really need you.’

‘Aw, Max, that’s sweet!’

‘I’m serious, Legs. My career depends on this.’

‘I do think the whole thing is mad.’ Allegra wriggled into a more comfortable position, not entirely sorry to let the conversation drift while she worked out exactly how to persuade Max to agree to take part. ‘I mean, who cares nowadays if you’re married or not?’

‘Bob Laskovski does,’ said Max gloomily.

At first he had welcomed the news that the specialist firm of consulting engineers he worked for was to be taken over by a large American company. An injection of capital, jobs secured, a new CEO with fantastic contacts with the Sultan of Shofrar and some major projects being developed there and elsewhere in the Middle East: it was all good news.

The bad news was that the new CEO in question was a nut. Bob Laskovski allegedly had a bee in his bonnet about the steadying influence of women, of all things. If ever there was going to be unsettling going on, there was bound to be a female involved, in Max’s opinion. But Bob liked his project managers to be in settled relationships and, given the strict laws of Shofrar, that effectively meant that, male or female, they had to be married.

‘God knows what he thinks we’ll do if we don’t have a wife to come home to every night,’ Max had grumbled to Allegra. ‘Run amok and seduce local girls and offend the local customs, I suppose.’

Allegra had just laughed. ‘I’d love to see you running amok,’ she’d said.

Max had ignored that and ploughed on with his explanation. ‘If I don’t turn up with a likely-looking fiancée, Bob’s going to start humming and hawing about whether I’m suitable for the job or not.’

It was ridiculous, he grumbled whenever given the opportunity. He had the skills, he had the experience, and he was unencumbered by ties. He should be the perfect candidate.

There hadn’t been a problem when Bob had first said that he was coming over to London and wanted to meet the prospective project managers. That was another of Bob’s ‘things’, apparently: he liked to vet them personally over individual dinners. God knew how the man had had the time to build up a vast construction company.

Max hadn’t thought about it too much when the invitation to dinner had arrived. He and Emma had been going to get married anyway, and she was bound to go down well with Bob. Max was all set for his big break.

And then Emma had changed her mind.

Max still couldn’t quite believe it. He might have lost his fiancée, but he was damned if he was going to lose the Shofrar job too. Still, at least Allegra had been quite willing to help when he broached the idea of her standing in for Emma. For all her silliness, she could be counted on when it mattered.

‘But just for an evening,’ she had warned. ‘I’m not going to marry you and go out to Shofrar just so you can be a project manager!’

‘Don’t worry, it won’t come to that,’ said Max, shuddering at the very thought of it.

‘There are plenty of examples of relationships busting up before and after engineers get out there, and once you’re actually doing the job and behaving yourself it’s not a problem. All I need to do is get Bob’s seal of approval. Everyone says it’s worth humouring him.

‘It’ll just be a dinner,’ he assured her. ‘All you need to do is smile and look pretty and pretend that you’re going to be the perfect engineer’s wife.’

Of course, that was going to be the problem. He’d eyed Allegra critically. She’d been dressed in a short stretchy skirt that showed off her long legs, made even longer by precarious heels. ‘Maybe you’d better wear something a bit more...practical,’ he’d said. ‘You don’t really look like an engineer’s wife.’

Allegra, of course, had taken that as a compliment.

‘I don’t mind going along to the dinner with you,’ she said now. ‘I may not be much of an actress, but I expect I can pretend to love you for an evening.’

‘Thanks, Legs,’ said Max. ‘It means a lot to me.’

‘But...’ she said, drawing out the word, and his eyes narrowed suspiciously; he never liked the sound of ‘but’. ‘...there is just one tiny thing you could do for me in return.’

She smiled innocently at him and his wary look deepened. ‘What?’

‘No, your line is, Of course, Allegra, I’ll do whatever you want. Would you like to try it again?’

‘What?’ he repeated.

Allegra sighed and squirmed round until she was facing him. She tucked her hair behind her ears, the way she did when she was trying to look serious, and fixed him with her big green eyes.

‘You know how hard it’s been for me to make my mark at Glitz?’

Max did. He knew more than he wanted, in fact, about Allegra’s precarious foothold on the very lowest rung of the glossy magazine, where as far as he could make out, emotions ran at fever-pitch every day and huge dramas erupted over shoes or handbags or misplaced emery boards. Or something equally pointless.

Allegra seemed to love it. She raced into the flat, all long legs and cheekbones and swingy, shiny hair, discarding scarves and shoes and earrings as she went, and whirled out again in an outfit that looked exactly the same, to Max’s untutored eye.

She was always complaining, though, that no one at the magazine noticed her. Max thought that was extremely unlikely. Allegra might not be classically beautiful but she had a vivid face with dark hair, striking green eyes and a mobile expression. She wasn’t the kind of girl people didn’t notice.

He’d known her since Libby had first brought her home for the holidays. Max, callous like most boys his age, had dismissed her at first as neurotic, clumsy and overweight. For a long time she’d just been Libby’s gawky friend, but she’d shed the weight one summer and, while it was too much to say that she’d emerged a butterfly from her chrysalis, she had certainly gained confidence. Now she was really quite attractive, Max thought, his gaze resting on her face and drifting, quite without him realising, to her mouth.

He jerked his eyes away. The last time he’d found himself looking at her mouth, it had nearly ended in disaster. It had been before he’d met Emma, a moment of madness one night when all at once things seemed to have changed. Max still didn’t know what had happened. One moment he and Allegra had been talking, and the next he’d been staring into her eyes, feeling as if he were teetering on the edge of a chasm. Scrabbling back, he’d dropped his gaze to her mouth instead, and that had been even worse.

He’d nearly kissed Allegra.

How weird would that have been? Luckily they’d both managed to look away at last, and they’d never referred to what had happened—or not happened—ever again. Max put it out of his mind. It was just one of those inexplicable moments that were best not analysed, and it was only occasionally, like now, when the memory hurtled back and caught him unawares, a sly punch under his ribs that interfered oddly with his breathing.

Max forced his mind back to Allegra’s question. ‘So what’s changed?’ he asked her, and she drew a deep breath.

‘I’ve got my big break! I’ve got my own assignment.’

‘Well, great...good for you, Legs. What’s it going to be? A hard-hitting exposé of corruption in the world of shoes? Earth-shattering revelations on where the hemline is going to be next year?’

‘Like I’d need your help if it was either of those!’ said Allegra tartly. ‘The man who wouldn’t know fashion if it tied him up and slapped him around the face with a wet fish.’

‘So what do you need me for?’

‘Promise you’ll hear me out before you say anything?’

Max swung his legs down and sat up as he eyed Allegra with foreboding. ‘Uh-oh, I’m starting to get a bad feeling about this!’

‘Please, Max! Just listen!’

‘Oh, all right,’ he grumbled, sitting back and folding his arms. ‘But this had better be good.’

‘Well...’ Allegra moistened her lips. ‘You know we have an editorial conference to plan features for the coming months?’

Max didn’t, but he nodded anyway. The less he had to hear about the workings of Glitz, the better.

‘So the other day we were talking about one of the girls whose relationship has just fallen apart.’

‘This is work? Gossiping about relationships?’ It didn’t sound like any conference Max had ever been in.

‘Our readers are interested in relationships.’ Allegra’s straight, shiny hair had swung forward again. She flicked it back over her shoulder and fixed him with a stern eye. ‘You’re supposed to be just listening,’ she reminded him.