Chapter Nine
‘It’s eleven thirty.’
Darcy looked back at Max leaning against the door, somewhat surprised to hear the fleck of annoyance in his voice. Was he irritated that she was here? Or here late? ‘It’s Sunday.’
‘Sleeping in?’
‘Washing my hair.’
His eyes roamed over her fresh blow-dry, distinctly bouncier than yesterday’s limp ponytail. She was wearing her ‘no make-up’ make-up and after twenty minutes of agonized staring into her wardrobe, she’d pulled on boyfriend jeans, chunky loafers and her best cream rollneck. It was of vital importance that she didn’t look like she cared about how she looked.
‘Come in.’ He stepped back, and she moved past him into the beautiful entrance hall. ‘How are you today?’ he asked. He was wearing jeans and a blue marl knitted sweater with navy stripes on the cuffs. Socks, too, this morning. Sunday Max looked cosy, an open invitation to cuddle.
Only that wasn’t on offer – only the use of his sofa.
‘Fine, thanks. Did you have a good day out yesterday?’
He glanced at her as he passed, as if hearing the stiffness of their formal conversation. ‘Yes.’ He climbed the stairs, offering no details. ‘When did you leave?’ he asked over his shoulder.
‘About six...When did you get back?’
‘Six twenty.’
She rolled her eyes with relief. She’d escaped in the nick of time. ‘Ah. Well that’s good, then.’
‘Good?’
‘That I was out of the way.’
He glanced at her again as he headed into the luxurious kitchen. It was the same size as Darcy and Freja’s entire apartment. She noticed a huge, fresh bouquet of black tulips on the dining table; it scented the space, along with the coffee that was being freshly ground in the fancy machine. The Sunday papers were scattered on the table beside the boxes, open to the business pages.
‘When did the new boxes come over?’ she asked, not moving past the sofa as he made a couple of coffees.
‘Nine, thereabouts.’
He brought them over a few moments later. ‘Strong and black.’
‘Thanks.’ She wrapped her hands around the mug, grateful for its heat. She had decided against cycling over, not wanting to arrive looking dishevelled like yesterday, but there had been a hard frost overnight and vanity had dictated no socks with her rolled-up jeans. ‘You know, I hadn’t planned on coming back here today.’
It was intended as an apology, a way out for him, even, but he frowned. ‘Why not? Have you found what you needed?’
‘No.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘God, I wish. No—’
‘So then...?’
She hesitated a moment. ‘...Can I really not take one back with me? Just one? I’d be so careful. I’d protect it with my life.’
He frowned. ‘Why are you so determined to get away from here?’
‘I’m not.’
‘No? Could have fooled me.’
She stared at him, trying to find the right words. How could she tell him it felt like a punishment to be here, both with him and without him? It wasn’t easy for her to be in his presence, as it seemingly was for him to be in hers. He wasn’t neutral to her. ‘It just doesn’t feel right, dominating your weekend like this.’ It was as honest as she could get.
‘You’re not dominating. I barely saw you yesterday. It made no difference one way or the other that you were here.’
She swallowed. The words felt rough, even if he was trying to reassure her. ‘Well, even so, it’s a Sunday now and...Are you going out again today?’ she asked hopefully. At least, sitting here alone was something she knew she could do.
‘No.’
‘Oh.’ Her eyes flickered around the room, skating over the ceiling as she listened for signs of Angelina upstairs. She was probably still in bed. Beauty sleep.
‘She’s not here,’ he said, as if reading her mind.
‘Oh?’ But he offered nothing further and she tried to decide whether it was better or worse that they were alone here together.
‘Have you eaten?’
‘Uh...’
‘I noticed you didn’t seem to have anything from the fridge yesterday.’
‘Of course not. I’m not going to come over here and eat your food,’ she muttered.
He rolled his eyes, a small groan escaping him. ‘Darcy –’ But he stopped again, staring at her with an inscrutable look. He turned away and walked back to the kitchen counter, pulling some pastries from a brown paper bag. ‘Come over here.’
She hesitated, then did as instructed. It was the furthest she had moved into the room and it felt like she was stepping out of the ‘professional’ realm that had brought her here and into the private one. She saw paperwork on the marble counters – stiff invitations, bills, letters – an Acqua di Parma scented candle, a pair of brown leather gloves. He had apples and pomegranates in the fruit bowl and when he opened the Wolf fridge, she saw an unopened bottle of Krug and a whole wheel of Brie. He retrieved a plate of cold, crisp grapes, ribbons of prosciutto and some sliced gouda.
‘Hungry?’
She nodded, knowing she had no business being famished. She had eaten well last night but in her haste (and panic) this morning, food had been the last thing on her mind.
He carried the food over to the table, setting the plates down at the far end. He took the chair at the head, pulling out the one beside it for her. ‘Sit. Eat.’
‘Yes, sir,’ she quipped in military fashion, drawing a quick look from him. She smiled, breaking the tension, and he gave a half-smile back. They seemed to be rare with him, these lighter moments of emotion.
‘So you were out last night?’ he asked, motioning for her to fill her plate first.
‘Yes, dinner plans,’ she replied, forking some of the cheese and ham onto her plate and breaking off a clump of grapes.
‘Where?’
‘Noma.’
His eyebrows shot up. ‘Did you have the duck feet candies?’
The what...? ‘No.’
‘Shame. They’re excellent.’
‘Oh. Maybe next time, then.’ She could sense he wanted to ask who she’d been with. Somehow the question hovered, like the feeling of being watched – distinct but intangible. And she found she didn’t want to tell him – but she did. Just like she didn’t want to be here – but she did. And she didn’t want him to be here – but she did. It was confusing, this constant sense of conflict. ‘You like it there?’
‘That’s rhetorical, right?’ She wanted to ask who he’d gone with, too, but she didn’t. She felt a silence bloom between them filled with questions they couldn’t ask, conversations they wouldn’t have.
‘Is that really a Liebermann?’ she asked instead, looking over at the huge oil on the wall above the sofa. She wondered idly what other artworks were hanging in this beautiful home.
He half smiled again, looking impressed. ‘Yes. Everyone always assumes it’s Manet.’
‘Well, it would be pretty poor if I didn’t know.’ She sighed. ‘It’s really sensational.’
‘It’s always been my favourite,’ he murmured, twisting in his chair to look over at it.
‘Always?’
He hesitated, turning back to her. ‘My parents owned it first. It used to hang in the music room.’
Music room? Who had a music room?
‘My father was determined I should be able to play piano to a decent standard, even though I detested it and clearly had no natural talent. My teacher would rap my knuckles with a wooden ruler whenever I got anything wrong. Which was frequently.’
‘Really?!’
‘I know. Old school.’ He shrugged. ‘I would try everything to get out of the lessons. That painting hung on the wall opposite and I would just stare at it, wishing I was inside the canvas. Anywhere but there. Sounds crazy, right?’
‘Not at all. I always used to do that too.’
‘You did?’
‘Oh yes. Depending on my mood, I was either the girl on Fragonard’s swing, or Millais’s Ophelia...I was a very dramatic teenager.’
He grinned, taking a sip of his coffee. ‘Did you always know you wanted to be in the art world?’
‘Pretty much. Paintings have always spoken to me, somehow.’ She looked down quickly. ‘Sorry, I know that sounds pretentious. I just don’t know how else to describe it.’
‘I get it.’
‘You do?’
‘I’ve always had an affinity, I suppose. I grew up surrounded by beautiful things.’
‘So then what made you choose law?’
He looked back at her, his eyes roaming over her face as if studying her. ‘Expectations.’
‘Your parents’ expectations?’
He shrugged, clearly not wanting to be drawn, but as she looked around the impressive home, it was clear their instincts had been correct. As Erik had said, there wasn’t the same kind of money to be made working in the art world as in commercial property development – or law.
‘So who’s your personal favourite?’ he asked, watching as she ate. He had put a croissant on his own plate but didn’t seem terribly hungry and she began to feel self-conscious, as if she had come into his house and was just taking from him.
‘Artist?’
He nodded.
‘Well...Max Liebermann is right up there, actually. But I’d probably say Joaquín Sorolla.’
‘Oh...I’ve got a Sorolla.’ He glanced towards the ceiling.
She stopped chewing. ‘Here? You’ve got a Sorolla here ?’
He gave a hesitant smile. ‘You’re not going to rob me, are you?’
She sat back in her chair, staring at him. ‘You just left me, a perfect stranger, alone in your house all day yesterday with a Sorolla hanging on your wall?’
‘Well, I might have thought twice if I’d realized you were such a fan.’ He cocked a half-grin as her bewilderment persisted. ‘Don’t worry, I have good security. Why do you think the insurers are happy to go along with this?’
She shook her head, tearing off the tip of her croissant. ‘I just don’t understand how you could do that.’
‘Clearly.’
‘What’s the title of it? Would I know it?’
‘It’s called Bacante .’
‘Not Bacante en Reposo ? You mean the one with the girl on the bed?’
‘Yeah, that’s the one.’ He looked impressed.
Her eyes shone with excitement as she stared at him, open-mouthed. ‘His brushwork in that...’
‘I know.’
‘And his colours: the pink, the reds, that flash of white.’
‘I know.’
She couldn’t believe he had that actual painting in his house. Right here. She hesitated, wanting to ask where it was in the house but not wanting to ask, either. The line between professional and personal, polite and personal, was constantly shifting.
‘It’s upstairs,’ he said, as if reading her mind.
‘Oh.’
There was a pause. ‘If you’d like—’
‘No,’ she said quickly, sensing he’d only asked out of politeness, and wasn’t it enough of an intrusion that she was eating breakfast in his kitchen? ‘I know it. I’ve seen it hundreds of times. It’s wonderful.’
‘Yes.’ He didn’t point out she’d never seen the real thing; that seeing it in a book or on a screen couldn’t possibly compare to standing right in front of it hanging on a wall. But to go upstairs with him, into the truly private part of the house, wasn’t an option. They both knew that.
A small silence bloomed.
‘Was that also a gift?’
‘No. I bought it at auction in Madrid.’
‘Ah.’
She ate a little more of her breakfast but her appetite had deserted her as the chasm between his life and hers widened with each passing comment. After a few more bites, she sat back. ‘I should really get on.’
‘But you haven’t had—’
‘I didn’t come over here to hijack your day and have breakfast with you, Max. I need to work.’
He looked up at her as she pushed her chair back and quickly rose. ‘Okay.’
‘Thanks for the sustenance.’
‘Anytime.’
She hesitated as he reached for an iPad on the table. Was he going to stay sitting here while she worked at the other end of the room? ‘...You’re sure there’s not somewhere else I could work? A study? Broom cupboard?’
‘Darcy.’ He pinned her with a steady look. ‘I’ll do my own thing. I’ll ignore you. You ignore me.’
Ignore him.
Right.
‘I’m not here,’ he murmured, sinking onto the opposite side of the U-shaped sofa arrangement and picking up the sports pages.
Darcy listened to the rustle of the pages, aware of his sprawling frame in her peripheral vision. She reached for the next envelope in the box, pretending his proximity was of no consequence to her, even though her eyes had followed him every time his back was turned.
She opened the envelope to find newspaper clippings of reviews of an exhibition in Turin in 1920. It appeared Trier had managed to get three paintings included – a shoemaker’s workshop, a beach scene and a marketplace. She knew nothing in these reviews was likely to contain the information she needed – a woman’s name, something to get going with – but she couldn’t discount them out of hand either. What if the woman in the portrait had been a rich buyer at the exhibition? Or a collector? Of course, most women hadn’t been in control of their own money back then, but if she’d been a wealthy widow or an heiress...
She tried to keep her eyes on the clippings and her mind on the task, but she could hear him breathe. Just like when he’d gone downstairs an hour ago, she’d heard the whirr of a running machine, the clatter of weights on the presses, faint grunts, the beat of a Spotify playlist.
Other sounds, too, announced his presence. Stretching, clearing his throat, clicking his fingers distractedly. The room above this had very creaky floors and she heard him on the phone up there, his voice a low bass through the ceiling. Angelina? Darcy wondered where she was today. Whether she had stayed here last night or left early this morning.
She redoubled her focus on the clippings. The paper was yellowing, the font tiny. No names were mentioned bar those of the artists.
Her phone buzzed and she glanced at it, seeing Aksel’s name.
‘I take it back. A new record for strangest veterinary incident.’
She smiled, picking up the phone.
‘Oh?’
‘Emergency admittance of a dog. Owner tried to castrate it by putting rubber bands around the testicles. Led to urinary infection and two-hour surgery this morning.’
Darcy gasped, her hand flying to her mouth.
‘What’s wrong?’
She looked up, to find Max already watching her. ‘Sorry.’
‘What is it?’
‘It’s nothing. Just a slightly shocking anecdote from a friend who’s a vet.’
‘Oh?’ He looked intrigued.
‘He’s been regaling me with horror stories in his clinic.’
‘I see.’
She looked back at the screen, typing quickly.
‘Will he be ok?’
‘Yes, just very sore.’
‘Poor thing.’
‘I’ve had to put him in the cone of shame. Now he’s really feeling sorry for himself.’
She smiled. Aksel was warming up nicely. Much more of this and she might actually start to foster some hope for their date on Tuesday.
She glanced up, thinking of a reply, to find Max still watching with an intense stare.
The doorbell rang, breaking his focus, and he got up. She watched him disappear downstairs. He had changed into grey trackies and a t-shirt after working out. Sunday Max, part II. He returned a moment later with some steaming bags of food. ‘Lunch,’ he said, walking past, but she sensed a twinge of irritation beneath his usual brusque demeanour.
She got up and joined him, watching as he put the bags on the counter and lifted out some boxes with a distinctive name on the side. Noma might be iconic, but Geranium had just been voted the number one restaurant in the world...
‘Geranium does takeaway?’ she asked in amazement.
‘No.’ He shrugged. ‘But I have a friend who works there.’
He didn’t look at her as he set out the boxes, a sharpness to his movements. He was definitely being testy with her. Had she done something wrong? Outstayed her welcome, in spite of her best efforts to be invisible? She bit her lip at the contradiction; it wasn’t like she’d asked for lunch.
‘Max...do you want me to go?’
He sighed, planting his hands down on the counters as he fixed her with a hard stare. ‘No, Darcy, I don’t want you to go. I want you to eat and I want you to stop apologizing for being here.’
She looked back at him, wanting to leave now more than ever. She sensed they were having an argument and she didn’t even know why. ‘Okay,’ she shrugged, bewildered. ‘No more apologies, then.’
‘Good.’ He reached into a cabinet below and brought out some plates and bowls. He was silent for a moment as he began decanting the dishes. ‘I wasn’t sure what you’d like, so I asked for a selection.’ It was more considerate than Erik had been at dinner the other night, ordering with impunity.
‘It looks incredible.’ It smelled even better. She couldn’t believe Geranium had delivered to him. Was this who she’d heard him talking to on the phone earlier? ‘But you really didn’t need to go to this trouble. I could have popped out and got a sandwich. Or burger.’
He smiled at her then, as if she’d said something funny, and she felt the bubble of tension that had floated up between them so suddenly burst just as quickly. ‘No. I wanted you to try the scallop.’ He opened up the smallest box – it had been secured with a ribbon – to reveal a tiny cake sitting atop a small white fluted porcelain dish.
‘Oh! That’s making my mouth water just looking at it.’ The top of it was a shiny glazed marble of vanilla into red.
‘It’s good. It’s a cake made with seeds, apples, elderberries and apple brandy.’
She looked up at him with a conspiratorial smile. ‘It would be wrong to try that first, right?’
His eyes locked with hers. ‘Very wrong. You have to wait, Darcy.’
‘But it looks so good. What if I can’t?’ she protested, jokingly reaching a hand towards it.
He caught her hand with his. ‘Sometimes we have to.’
The joke was gone as she looked up at the word we to find him openly – hungrily – staring at her, at her mouth. She was transported back to their first few moments in the National Gallery, when the flirtation had been open and strong; not something to deny or repress or pretend wasn’t happening. Would it be so terrible if he were to kiss her? After all, Freja and Tristan worked together, and they were making a success of it.
But he dropped her hand and turned away, decanting the boxes, before carrying the plates over to the table.
She followed him, the two of them taking their places again, as at breakfast. In silence, she helped herself to a little of everything.
‘This is what you should try first,’ he murmured, pushing towards her a singular white scallop wrapped with a lacy, deep red vine. Like the cake, it too was sitting on a small white fluted dish, as if they were dining in the restaurant itself. ‘It’s a scallop, gently grilled and served with blackcurrant and a dried scallop roe infusion.’
She peered at it. ‘The lacy bit is blackcurrant?’
He nodded.
‘So not only do you have world-class art on your walls, your food is art too?’
‘Not every day, but I thought perhaps you’d appreciate it.’
For a moment she had thought he was going to say it was a special occasion.
She watched as he carefully split the scallop with a fork and held it out towards her. ‘Try it.’
She looked at it, hesitating as she saw that he wasn’t handing her the fork to take from him. It felt intimate to her but his gaze was inscrutable and she leaned forwards, her mouth opening for him as he gently fed her. Automatically her eyes closed as the flavours hit her tastebuds.
‘Well?’
‘Oh my God,’ she groaned, not wanting to swallow but to savour the taste for as long as she could. She opened her eyes again. ‘...Bastard. You’ve ruined me.’
He grinned. ‘Have more.’ He held up the other forkful.
‘You’re a feeder,’ she muttered, taking it with more hunger this time.
He arched an eyebrow. ‘You clearly don’t eat enough.’
‘Oh, I eat plenty,’ she shrugged. ‘Just in fits and starts. Some days I’ll eat like a fairy and others, like a trucker.’
He laughed at that, his shoulders shaking, and she realized it was the first time she had seen him actually let himself go, even for a moment. It made him seem younger.
They ate with appetite after that, sharing the dishes, her eyes closing at the profusion of flavours, little sighs of happiness escaping her as he forked different samples onto her plate for her to try. ‘Oh God, this is so good. So good.’
He looked bemused, watching her.
‘What?’
‘You do a little nod of your head every time you like something,’ he said, doing an impression of her.
‘No I don’t.’ Did she? She had never noticed.
He shrugged.
‘Well, you smoosh your mouth to the side when you’re reading,’ she countered.
He looked scandalized, his brows coming together in a deep frown. ‘I don’t smoosh .’
‘Oh, you do.’
He paused for a beat. ‘Darcy, I don’t smoosh.’
‘You were doing it just now, reading the sports pages.’ She smooshed her mouth to the side in her best impression.
He laughed again, but this time shooting her a look as if she was drawing something from him against his will.
They sank into a small silence as their teases died down.
‘So, who’s your team? Let me guess – Copenhagen?’
‘Actually, AGF.’
‘Really?’
‘I went to school in Aarhus.’
‘Ah. Best days of your life?’
‘I sincerely hope not,’ he quipped. ‘Do you support a team?’
‘Not actively. My brother is a Chelsea supporter so I’m a proxy fan, I guess.’
‘You have a brother?’
‘Younger, by three years. And then a sister, seven years younger.’
‘So you’re an eldest child,’ he mused.
‘You say that ominously, the way people say they’re a Scorpio. Or a witch.’
He chuckled again.
‘You?’
‘...Just me. Can’t you tell?’
She supposed she could, now it was pointed out to her: the self-sufficiency, conspicuous maturity, self-possession...He didn’t look like someone who’d ever had to fight over sitting in the tap end of the bath.
Unless it was with a model.
She sighed, suddenly depressed again by the image, and he glanced at her. ‘Good?’
He meant the food, she knew. She nodded. ‘Great.’
Max was watching the match on his iPad, on the sofa, wearing his AirPods. Every few minutes he would wince at a foul, gasp at a bad tackle, groan at a referee’s decision, unaware of the sounds he was making into the silence.
She had moved onto the third box and was almost through it. Most of the material had been bulky but unhelpful – more auction catalogues that she could move through quickly and discount. A sense of worry was beginning to build. She had been wading through resources at the gallery’s archives for almost a week now and hadn’t unearthed a single clue as to this woman’s identity.
She sighed and sank back against the cushions. Her meeting with Otto was tomorrow morning. How could she tell him that a week into a five-week deadline, she had achieved precisely nothing? She hadn’t found a single useable fact.
‘Everything okay?’
She looked up. Max was watching her, one of his AirPods out.
‘Yeah, I guess.’
He glanced at the box, correctly identifying it as the source of her despair. ‘Still nothing?’
‘Nope.’
‘It’ll come.’
‘But will it come in time? I’ve got a meeting with Otto tomorrow and absolutely nothing to give him.’ She sighed again, running her hands down her face and keeping them planted on her cheeks as she stared at the boxes. They might as well have been empty for all the good they were doing her. ‘Oh God, what if he pulls me off the project and gives it to someone else?’
Max was quiet for a moment. ‘He won’t do that.’
She raised an eyebrow. Her advisor was a demanding and ambitious man. ‘You don’t know that. I’m only on the job because the official researcher is on maternity leave and her replacement is too busy with the rest of the retrospective.’
He didn’t reply but got up from the sofa, moving into the kitchen and returning a few moments later with a bottle of wine and two glasses.
‘Oh...no. I need to keep a clear head,’ she protested weakly as he poured.
‘One drink won’t hurt. You need a break. You’ve been working non-stop all weekend. Tell Otto I can vouch for that. You can call me as a character witness.’ He handed her a glass and collapsed back onto his side of the sofa with one for himself.
‘It won’t help. Otto needs information, not excuses. The clock is ticking and—’
‘Drink.’
She obeyed. ‘...Oh, that’s good.’
‘Yeah.’
She looked at the glass, taking in the deep claret colour, before looking back at him. ‘Do you always have to have the best of everything?’
He hesitated. ‘Is that a bad thing?’
‘No, of course not.’
His eyes narrowed as if he didn’t believe her, but she wasn’t sure she believed herself either. Was he spoilt, pampered, over-privileged? Did he know how to do anything for himself, or was it all done for him – meals delivered by the best restaurant in the city, housekeepers, assistants and security guards on tap to keep all the plates spinning? Was his world so vacuous and empty that he had to fill it with bright, shiny things: Liebermanns and models and premier grand cru?
He put the AirPod back in and returned his attention to the match. Darcy resumed her final trawl through the last box of the day: some letters Trier had received from a French artist called Louis Moreau. By this time, Trier had moved on to Rome and was living and working in a tiny studio in Trastevere. Her French was decent, but her eyes narrowed as she struggled to decipher the handwriting, which was tightly scripted, with frequent ink blots that made the job of reading markedly harder.
She sipped her wine, tucking her knees up to her chin as she read: ‘The heat was unbearable...peace conference...Versailles ...proposition Dessoye...’
She yawned, unable to suppress it in time. French politics was not what she needed to know about...She needed a woman’s name. She forced herself to focus, envisaging Otto’s face across the desk from her tomorrow. She just needed something, anything.
She frowned, stumbling upon some sentences that she couldn’t decipher at all. She tried again.
‘What is it?’
She looked up to find Max watching her again. ‘Oh...I just can’t understand what this says,’ she said, holding up the letter. ‘It’s in French.’
‘I speak French. Let me see.’ She went to hand it over to him, but instead he got up and sank down on the cushion next to her. ‘Which bit?’ he asked, peering over her shoulder.
Darcy fell very still at the sudden proximity. Their legs were pressed together as the cushions splayed and she was close enough to smell a faint woody scent on his skin – cologne or body wash, she wasn’t sure.
‘This,’ she murmured, pointing as he read it a few times. On the face of it, he was simply being helpful, but she detected a deeper shift, something far more fundamental changing between them.
‘It says they’re proposing a bill for electoral reform embracing the scrutin de liste method and a system of proportional representation.’
‘Oh. Well, no wonder I couldn’t understand it. I can barely understand that in English; that’s definitely beyond my A-level French.’
He smiled at her. ‘Riveting stuff.’
‘I know. Aren’t I lucky?’ His face was just inches from hers, and she saw his gaze openly drop to her mouth. All day – all weekend – the tension had flickered quietly beneath every word, every look, though they had resolutely ignored it; but as his eyes rose to hers now, she knew this time it was no good. No matter what he had said about them having to keep things strictly professional, this mutual attraction wasn’t going to go away. It was going to just keep sitting between them like a giant black cat – determined to be acknowledged – and she made no attempt to pull back as he leaned in at last and finally kissed her.
His lips tasted of wine, like hers, as he pressed his mouth to hers softly, at first. She felt his scent envelop her; what had been faint at a few inches away was now distinct and intoxicating. The pressure lessened on her lips for one moment, two, both of them breathing quickly, knowing that this had been a question and the next kiss would be the answer. The passion flooded her, running like a riptide between them, coming in at sharp angles, tugging at her feet and trying to upend her. Both of them.
It was better even than she could have imagined and as he came in again, the kiss grew stronger and deeper, his mouth beginning to open, his head to move, the tip of his tongue finding hers. Her heart rate had already accelerated to double time and—
The doorbell rang.
For a moment, as his hand moved to her hair, she thought he hadn’t heard it; but when it came again thirty seconds later, he pulled back slightly, though still didn’t get up. Instead, they sat face to face in their own world, breathless with passion, his gaze reaching deep into her and finding what he wanted to see; what she wanted to hide, but couldn’t.
He kissed her again, their urgency growing even as the doorbell rang once more.
‘Hadn’t you better get that?’ she breathed, her lips still against his, not wanting to break apart.
‘No,’ he replied, refusing to release her. The kiss had made prisoners of them both and this intrusion, this threat, only increased their desperation. She felt his grip around her tighten as her body pressed against his, touching at every point.
The bell rang again. ‘...They sound insistent.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘...It could be important.’
‘No.’ He increased his hold on her, but this time she did pull back.
‘You don’t know that.’
He sighed, pressing his forehead to hers in frustration. ‘...Someone had better be dying,’ he muttered under his breath, breathless too. ‘...Don’t move. I’ll get rid of them.’
He got up, striding over to the door, and looked back at her with open want for a moment before disappearing down the stairs.
Darcy sat in silence for a moment, grateful for the brief reprieve. She needed to get her breath back. She’d never been kissed like that before. She’d never felt her own edges blur, her body so completely overrule her mind...Not that she needed talking out of anything. He had been the one pushing for boundaries, not her, and if the dinner with Tristan and Freja last night had proved anything, it was that it was – somehow – possible to sleep together and still maintain a professional relationship. Why not them, too? In his arms just now, everything had felt so natural between them – effortless and inevitable – it was as if she was simply allowing water to flow downhill. Letting Nature take its course.
In her mind, she heard Freja’s voice telling her he was everything she didn’t need. And it was true that the more she saw of his life, the more she saw the differences between them. He came from and belonged in a different world to hers.
And yet, she would deny him nothing. She didn’t care if they didn’t match or suit. Freja hadn’t seen the connection between them. The chemistry was too strong to ignore.
She reached for her glass of wine and took a deep slug, her nerves rising as she anticipated his return and everything that would follow. Him, in that doorway, coming towards her. For her...
His voice drifted up the stairs and she strained to hear, but the words were indistinct. Until, suddenly, they weren’t. She heard a woman’s voice rise with...frustration? Anger?
She heard the low bass of Max’s voice, also getting louder: ‘...didn’t agree this!’
‘Can’t we be spontaneous?...was missing you!...you’d call!’
Darcy caught her breath. Angelina.
‘...come back!’
Her heart pounded with sudden guilt and shame. They were together, she knew that. What was she doing, allowing herself to be seduced by a man she had seen with his girlfriend, only the day before?
Hurriedly, Darcy put down her wine glass and picked up the letter again as she heard footsteps running on the stairs. In a panic, she perched herself on the front edge of the sofa cushions to look less at home. She cupped her chin in her hand and was reading intently when, moments later, the door was pushed open.
She readied herself with a polite smile, but the woman stopped in her tracks at the sight of her.
‘Hi—’ Darcy’s voice trailed off.
Max came up behind the woman a second later, looking tense. There was a taut silence. Darcy felt as if her heart was about to fall from its perch to her feet. She saw Max slump a little as he recognized the look of shock – and dismay – in her eyes. He swallowed.
‘Darcy, this is Natalia. Natalia, Darcy,’ he mumbled.
Wow. It really was a revolving door policy he had going. And she had been right on the cusp of stepping into it. She felt stupid. Humiliated. Meaningless.
‘Hello, Natalia .’ She smiled benignly, as best she could, at the woman: tall, blonde. Model.
‘Darcy and I work together,’ he said as the woman spun on her heel to look back at him accusingly. And rightly so. ‘She’s researching a project at the gallery.’
‘Oh, really?’ Her words were heavily accented with Russian and sarcasm. She didn’t sound like she believed a word of it.
Good for her, Darcy thought, replacing the letter in the box with a shaking hand and setting the lid on top.
‘Yes, but I had just finished up,’ Darcy said, not even sure why she was covering for him. She owed him no loyalty. Clearly he didn’t know the meaning of the word. ‘Max kindly gave me some space to work here –’
The blonde looked back at her – and the wine glasses – with outright suspicion.
‘I can’t access the archives when the museum’s shut, you see. Security. Insurance...But I’m done for the day, so I’ll get out of your hair.’ Darcy tried to move naturally, but even breathing felt forced. Her upset was so fierce, the only way her body wanted to express it was in tears – but she would not allow that to happen. She just had to get out of here. ‘These are ready to be sent back, Max,’ she said officiously, without looking at him.
Natalia watched her as she got up, smoothing her jeans and reaching for her bag; the model loosened a moment later, as if recognizing there was no threat here. She even almost smiled.
‘Nice meeting you, Natalia. Thanks, Max,’ Darcy said, still managing to avoid making eye contact as she headed for the door.
‘I’ll just see –’
She heard him start to follow her and she whirled round, holding up a hand, forced to make eye contact now. ‘No, no need,’ she said, her cold look stopping him in his tracks. ‘You’ve got company, Max – and I’ve stayed far too long as it is. I should have left long before now.’
Her eyes told him this had been a mistake. A grievous error. He had played her as one of the many, but it wouldn’t happen again.
‘I’ll see myself out.’