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For a fleeting moment Darcy thought that if this was a real engagement then it would be her problem too. She wondered if a man like Max would ever lean on anyone but himself and felt an almost overwhelming urge to go to him and offer...what?
She left quickly, lest Max see anything of her emotions on her face.
In the car on the way home Darcy had a much keener and bleaker sense of what things must have been like for Max when he’d left Brazil with his mother. The fact that he’d ended up on the streets wasn’t so hard to believe now, and the empathy she felt for him was like a heavy weight in her chest.
* * *
A few hours later Max sat back in the chair in his dark living room and relished the burn of the whisky as it slid down his throat. He finally felt the tension in his body easing. He’d left his mother sleeping, with a nurse watching over her.
When he’d seen Elisabetta Roselli across the function room earlier tension had gripped him, just as it always did. It was a reflex born of years of her inconsistant mothering. Never knowing what to expect. And even though he was an adult now, and she couldn’t affect his life that way any more, his first reaction had been one of intense fear and anxiety. And he hated it.
Darcy... He could still see her face in his mind’s eye when she’d turned back from the door, concerned. The fact that she’d handled seeing his mother in that state impacted on him in some deep place he had no wish to explore.
His brother had not had to suffer dealing with the full vagaries of their mother. Max was used to dealing with it on his own... But for a moment, with Darcy looking back at him, he’d actually wanted to reach out and pull her to him, feel her close, wrapping her arms around him...
A soft noise made Max’s head jerk up. Darcy stood silhouetted in the doorway of the living room as if conjured right out of his imagination. She was wearing loose sleep pants and a singlet vest that did little to hide those lush heavy breasts, the tiny waist. Her hair was long and tumbled about her shoulders.
‘Sorry, I heard a noise...you’re back. Is she...your mother...is she okay?’
Max barely heard Darcy. He was so consumed with the sight of her breasts, recalling with a rush of blood to his groin how they’d felt pressed against him on that dance floor.
Damn it to hell. He didn’t want to want her. Especially not when he felt so raw after the incident with his mother. But even from across the room her huge blue eyes seemed to see right through him—into him. Right down to the darkest part of him.
It made something twist inside him. A need to push her away, push her back. Avoid her scrutiny.
‘Getting into character as my wife already, Darcy? Careful, now—I might believe you’re starting to like me. I guess having an addict for a mother is bound to score some sympathy points...’
CHAPTER SIX
DARCY IMMEDIATELY PALED in the dim lighting, and Max didn’t even have time to regret the words that had come out of his mouth before her eyes were flashing blue sparks.
‘I know
you’re a ruthless bastard, Max, but I’ve never thought you were unnecessarily cruel. If that’s the way this will play out then you can find yourself another convenient wife.’
She whirled around and was almost gone before Max acknowledged the bitter tang of instant remorse and shot up out of his chair, closed the distance between them and grabbed her arm in his hand, stopping her in her tracks.
He cursed and addressed the back of that glossy head. ‘Darcy. I’m sorry.’
After a long moment she turned round. She was so tiny in her bare feet, and it reminded him of how she’d fitted against him earlier that day, making him aware of an alien need to protect, to cosset.
Her eyes were huge, wounded. He cursed himself silently. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again, aware that he’d probably never uttered those words to anyone.
‘You should be.’
Her voice was husky and it had an effect on every nerve-ending in Max’s body.
‘You didn’t deserve that.’
‘No, I didn’t.’
And then, because it felt like the most natural thing in the world, as well as the most urgent, Max took her other arm and pulled her round to face him. The air crackled between them. He could see Darcy’s breasts rise and fall faster with her breathing, and he was so hard he ached.
He dipped his head and pressed his mouth to Darcy’s, drawing her up against him. She was as still as a statue for a long moment, as if determined to resist, and then on a small indrawn breath her mouth opened under Max’s and the blood roared in his head.
His hands dropped and settled on her waist, over the flimsy fabric of her vest, relishing the contours of her tiny waist. She triggered something very primal in him in a way no other woman ever had.
His tongue stroked into her mouth, finding hers and tangling with it hotly. His erection jerked in his pants in response and he groaned softly.
