Chapter Twenty-Six
Denmark flashed past the windows, snowflakes dashing against the windscreen as they drove through the night. His hand was on her thigh, squeezing every few moments as if checking she was real. The past twenty-eight hours had felt like a dream and she didn’t want it to end. She didn’t want them to be driving back to the city, to their separate homes and divided lives, and she knew he felt the same. They had remained in front of the fire at Solvtraeer for as long as they possibly could, only the worsening weather finally convincing Max they had to hit the road.
She let her head loll against the headrest, gazing at his profile as he drove. ‘You’re too handsome,’ she murmured.
‘No.’
‘Yes...It made me hate you on sight.’
‘Ouch,’ he winced.
‘Yeah – that profile pic. Imperious stare, saying you don’t date...you come off as deeply arrogant. You’ll have to change it.’
He glanced over, his eyes falling to her lips and making her stomach flip, just like that. She wanted him to tell her he didn’t need that profile pic now, that he’d be closing his account...
‘Well, you still swiped right. And you definitely didn’t hate me the night we met.’ Laughter tripped through his eyes like a skipping child.
‘...No,’ she groaned, unable to deny it. ‘More’s the pity.’
He smirked, his eyes on the road but knowing exactly the effect he had on her.
‘There’s something I want to know,’ she said, studying his jawline.
‘Okay.’
‘Did you recognize me, the night we met? Did you know we’d matched?’
He smiled, bemused. ‘Not only did I recognize you, I recognized you long before you recognized me.’
‘No you didn’t!’
‘I saw you when you arrived. You were coming down the steps and I started making a beeline for you.’
‘You recognized me straight away?’
‘No. At that point I just wanted you—’
Darcy swallowed at his candour.
‘But then you went over to Otto’s group; I saw you being introduced to Helle and I realized, from all the interest in you, that you must be the specialist researcher they were bringing in. It felt like an unfortunate complication.’
‘That’s why you hung back?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you kept staring at me.’
‘No law against that,’ he shrugged, unapologetic. ‘I was on my way out, trying to resist temptation, when I checked my messages and saw that the hot girl I’d matched with, who was turning down my kind offer of a drink, was right in front of me. There’s only so much a man can take.’
‘So you decided to wait and try your luck again?’
‘Well, you’d turned me down on the grounds you had plans. Given I was at those plans, I figured I now had a good shot.’ He winked at her. His logic was impeccable.
‘But if you knew we were going to be working together...?’
‘There’s always an exception to the rule, Darcy.’ His hand squeezed her leg. ‘And besides, it wasn’t like we were going to be in the same office. As it was, I had to manufacture ways to see you.’
‘Like making me work at your house?’ she grinned, feeling vindicated. ‘I knew it!’
He grinned back. ‘I liked having you around.’
‘You make me sound like a pet.’
‘You were even cuter than that. So principled . I could barely get you past the door,’ he chuckled.
‘Yeah, well – it was just great being introduced to all your girlfriends.’
‘Not my girlfriends,’ he said with a simple shake of his head. ‘They only ever stayed the night. You’re the only one I ever wanted to stay for the day.’
‘Charmer.’ She reached out and stroked his cheek again; it was impossible to stop touching him. ‘So, if you were looking for reasons to see me, why did you come to the gallery the day after we met to “establish boundaries”?’
‘To see you again.’
‘You dumped me – in order to see me again?’
‘Technically I couldn’t dump you when we weren’t together – but yes. And also because I was angry with you.’
Her eyes narrowed gleefully. ‘Because I had a date?’
He shrugged again.
‘You get so jealous,’ she smiled, remembering how he’d ghosted her after meeting Aksel too.
‘Not usually.’
She watched him. ‘So then, if we didn’t really need to work closely together, we could have just dated?’
‘No. Because I don’t date...Didn’t date.’ He looked ahead at the road. ‘I realized you were different; that’s why I was trying to keep a distance.’
‘That didn’t work out so well for you, huh?’ she murmured, taking his hand and sliding it up her thigh a little. She saw how he swallowed before he glanced over at her, with a look she had grown accustomed to over the past day and night. ‘You’re a confusing man,’ she whispered.
He shook his head. ‘I’ve always been straightforward. No false promises. No leading anyone on.’
‘Never letting anyone close.’
‘We all wear armour, Darcy. Even you.’ His grip tightened on her thigh.
She stared at him, hating how badly he made her want him. It wasn’t good. She shouldn’t be falling so hard, so soon...
‘Don’t,’ he murmured, the small half-smile playing on his lips as she continued to stare.
‘Don’t what?’
‘Ask me what we are.’ He glanced at her again. ‘You’re the exception.’
‘And you’re telling me we’re supposed to sit in meetings now, pretending to be the enemy, when we’ve just done all these unspeakable things to one another?’ She took his hand and slid it even further up her inner thigh, seeing the smile curve on his lips. He looked at her hungrily. ‘Do you think they’ll be able to tell?’
He shook his head. ‘No.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Because we’re both professionals. And because you’re almost done on this project, and then our private life won’t matter one way or another to anyone else.’
Our . She smiled at the word. It felt precious, coming from him.
He glanced at her hopefully. ‘...You are almost done, aren’t you?’
She wrinkled her nose, giving a little sigh. ‘Well, not nearly as done as I’d like to be.’
‘What does that mean?’ he frowned, looking puzzled. ‘You’ve confirmed it’s Lilja in the painting. You’ve got unrestricted access to our archives, you’ve seen private family photos, we’ve made love in the very rooms she walked through...’ He winked, destroying her. ‘What more do you need? Just write up her bio and deliver it. Everything will be a lot simpler once we can sign this thing off. Then we won’t have to pretend anything.’
‘I know.’ She bit her lip as she shifted her weight and looked out of the window, feeling suddenly pressured. Questions kept coming to her mind that felt wrong to ask.
‘Darcy?...What is it?’
‘Nothing.’
‘It’s obviously something.’
She dropped her head back, running her hands over her face as she tried to clear her thoughts. ‘I just feel like I’m missing something important. It’s staring me in the face but I can’t see it. I feel like I’m not seeing the wood for the trees.’
He sighed. ‘Look, Lilja was my great-grandmother. I never knew her, obviously, but without wanting to do her down, it’s not as if she lived a life of international mystery. She was a privileged woman of a certain class. How much is there really to say about her?’
Never knew her... Darcy flinched, staring into the darkness suddenly. ‘...That’s it.’
‘What is?’
She didn’t reply immediately, allowing her thoughts to run, untrammelled. ‘It makes no sense why she would have done it,’ she murmured.
Max frowned. ‘Done what?’
She angled her knees towards him, her brain shifting gears, facts and theories beginning to move into new positions. ‘Max, you know how she died, don’t you?’
His jaw pulsed at the sudden, unwelcome turn in conversation. ‘Of course. She drowned.’
‘Yes – but do you also know it wasn’t accidental?’
He glanced at her with a guarded look. She took it as confirmation. ‘Where are you going with this?’
‘Viggo told me she walked into the sea and killed herself – but it doesn’t make sense that she would do that.’
‘Doesn’t it? She had been living in Hornbaek for years by then. She was depressed, Darcy.’
‘That’s just it – she wasn’t. She had been completely broken by her son’s death but she’d gradually recovered. She’d just had another baby. Emme, her daughter. A daughter that she never got to know. Why would she have killed herself when she’d finally got the one thing that could heal her? It makes no sense that she would have done this.’
‘Doesn’t it?’ he asked, his voice suddenly cold. ‘You don’t think depression is insidious? You think it just miraculously disappears when one good thing happens?...Having the baby could well have made things worse for her. Postnatal depression?’
Darcy pulled back. He was right, of course. That also made sense. She looked across at him, realizing she shouldn’t have articulated her theory out loud. Not to him. Lilja’s great-grandson. ‘Max, I’m sorry, I was just hypothesizing. I didn’t mean to—’
But it was too late. She had crossed a line. She could see his knuckles were white around the steering wheel as he drove. ‘What exactly is it you want to find, Darcy? Do you want sensation? Do you want terrible things to have happened to my family so that you can launch some kind of exposé when the painting’s revealed?...Is this about trashing my family’s reputation so that you can make yours?’
‘Of course not!’ She was appalled. How could he think such a thing?
‘No?’
‘No!’
He shook his head as the temperature between them dropped to freezing. ‘Well, it sure as hell looks like you’ve got an agenda from where I’m sitting.’
‘You’re back!’ Freja exclaimed, coming outside in her Ugg slippers and heatless curling ribbons, the bin bag in one hand as Darcy stood on the pavement, watching Max’s tail-lights disappear up the street. ‘A whole day later than planned. I wonder what could have happened?’ she asked in a wry voice.
Darcy heard the bin lid slam down and the slap of Freja’s slippers on the path as she came and stood by her. Someone had already cleared the snow to the sides.
‘...That’s him, is it?’ Freja asked, when Darcy didn’t reply.
‘Yeah,’ Darcy breathed, watching the indicator come on. A right turn, and he was gone.
‘Darce?’ Her flatmate put a hand on her shoulder, seeing her subdued manner. ‘What’s happened?’
‘He trusted me. He finally started opening up and I...I just threw it back in his face.’ Darcy turned to look at her, tears skimming her cheeks as a sob burst from her at last. ‘...I think I’ve just messed everything up.’