Mr. (Not Quite) Perfect Read online

Dickie stood back and studied Max critically, mentally stripping him of the offending clothes, and Max shifted self-consciously.

  ‘I zink sophisticated, but with an edge,’ Dickie proclaimed at last.

  ‘Perfect,’ said Allegra, the traitor. ‘Not too obvious, but interesting. A look that shows Darcy he’s confident enough to make his own fashion statement? A little quirky, perhaps?’

  Fashion statement? Jeez...Max pinched the bridge of his nose as Allegra and Dickie talked over him. He should be checking the material testing results, or writing up the geological survey for the motorway-widening bid, not standing here like a dumb ox while they wittered on about fashion statements!

  ‘Quirky?’ Dickie considered. ‘Per’aps you ’ave somezing zere...’

  Max was convinced now that the French accent was put on. No one could really speak that ridiculously.

  Although, for a man prepared to wear that bow tie, being ridiculous obviously wasn’t a problem.

  ‘What do you think?’ Allegra asked anxiously. ‘Can you do something with Max?’

  For answer, Dickie spun on his heel and clapped his hands at his minions, who had been waiting subserviently, talking to each other in hushed voices as they waited for the great man to pronounce.

  ‘Bring out ze shirts,’ he ordered.

  ‘Behave,’ Allegra whispered in Max’s ear.

  ‘I am behaving!’

  ‘You’re not. You’re glaring at Dickie. Do you want me glaring at Bob Laskovski over that dinner?’

  ‘No,’ he admitted.

  ‘Well, then.’

  Allegra could see Max balking as racks of clothes surrounded him like wagons and Dickie started snapping his fingers at his assistants, who leapt forward and held up shirts side by side. Max’s eyes were rolling nervously like a spooked horse and he practically had his ears flattened to his head, but Allegra stood behind Dickie and mouthed ‘remember the dinner’ at him until he sulkily complied and agreed to try on some shirts.

  Unbuttoning his cuffs, he hooked his fingers into the back of his shirt and dragged it over his head and Allegra and Dickie both drew a sharp breath. Who would have guessed that Max had such a broad, smooth, sexy back beneath that dull shirt? Allegra felt quite...unsettled.

  Dragging her eyes away, she made a big deal of making notes of Dickie’s choices in her notebook, but her gaze kept snagging on the flex of Max’s muscles as he shrugged in and out of shirts. Dickie kept turning him round—deliberately, Allegra was sure—so sometimes she saw his shoulders, sometimes his chest. And then they brought on the trousers, and there were his bare legs. Why had she never noticed before what great legs Max had?

  ‘Allegra!’ Dickie snapped his fingers in front of her face, startling her. ‘What do you think?’

  Allegra looked at Max. He wore a darkly flowered button-down shirt with a striped tie that clashed and yet complemented the colours perfectly. Trousers and jacket were beautifully cut, shoes discreet. If it hadn’t been for the mutinous expression, he would have looked super-cool.

  ‘I love it,’ she said. ‘He’s really rocking that flowered shirt.’

  Max hunched a shoulder. ‘I feel like a prat.’

  ‘Well, you don’t look like one for once,’ she said.

  ‘He needs an ’aircut of course,’ said Dickie, eyeing Max critically.

  Allegra checked her list. ‘That’s booked in next.’

  ‘And a manicure.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Max, backing away. ‘No, no, no, no, no!’

  ‘Yes, indeed.’ Allegra smiled blandly at him. ‘Now don’t make a fuss. It won’t hurt at all.’ She pretended to consult her list again. ‘Although I’m not sure I can say the same for the back, sack and crack wax we’ve got you booked in for after the manicure...’

  ‘Back, sack...?’ Aghast, Max opened and closed his mouth before obviously spotting the dent in her cheek where she was desperately trying not to laugh. ‘Why, you...’ Grinning with relief, he playfully shoved at her arm.

  Allegra was giggling, but tailed off when she realised everyone was standing around staring at them. How uncool of her.

  She cleared her throat. ‘Yes, well, take that outfit off for now. Let’s do something about that hair.’

  * * *

  Max ran his finger around his collar. His flowery collar. He felt ridiculous. His hair had been washed and conditioned and cut and it was just as well it hadn’t been any longer or that fool of a barber—excuse him, hairstylist—would have had it flopping all over his face. He had been shaved too, swathed in hot towels. Actually that hadn’t been too bad—until they had slapped on some cologne without his say-so. His eyes were still watering.

  If any of his mates saw him now, or caught him stinking like a tart’s boudoir, he would never hear the end of it. Thank God this was the last place he would meet anyone he knew. The dimly lit bar was crowded, but if anyone else in there was an engineer, they weren’t like any civil engineers Max had ever met. Everyone seemed to be at least ten years younger than him and half of them were outrageously dressed. Unbelievably, his own absurd shirt didn’t stand out at all compared to what everyone else was wearing. He might have to forgive Allegra for it after all. He’d been so certain that she’d deliberately manoeuvred Dickie into choosing the flowery shirt as a joke.

  ‘Isn’t this place fab?’ Across the table, Allegra was bright-eyed as she surveyed the crowd. Dom, the photographer, was sitting next to her and together they were keeping up a running commentary on celebrities they had spotted and what everyone was wearing. Max had tuned out after a while. He hoped Darcy King would turn up soon and make this purgatory worthwhile.

  ‘Don’t look now...’ Allegra leant forward with a little squeal of excitement ‘...but that’s Chris O’Donnell sitting behind you!’

  ‘No! Not Chris! Squeeeee!’

  She looked at him. ‘You don’t know who Chris O’Donnell is, do you?’ Without waiting for his reply, she turned to Dom. ‘He doesn’t know who Chris O’Donnell is.’

  Dom stared at Max. ‘You just jetted in from Mars or something, man?’

  ‘Chris O’Donnell is the ultimate bad boy rocker,’ said Allegra, apparently shocked to her core by the depths of Max’s ignorance. ‘He just got voted sexiest man in the country, and he’d certainly have had my vote...’ She sighed wistfully.

  Max raised his brows. ‘I didn’t know you had a taste for bad boy rockers, Legs. Not your usual type, surely? I don’t see your mother approving.’

  Allegra flushed. ‘I wouldn’t want him as a boyfriend or anything, but you’ve got to admit he’s smokin’ hot...’

  ‘So have you told Flick about your major new assignment?’ Max said, not wanting to get into a discussion about which men Allegra thought were hot. He was fairly sure the list wouldn’t include a civil engineer, flowery shirt or not.

  Not that he cared about that. It was just uncomfortable to talk about that kind of stuff with someone he’d known for so long. It would be like discussing sex with his sister.

  ‘I rang her last night.’ Allegra’s brightness dimmed slightly.

  ‘Was she pleased to hear about your big break?’

  ‘Well, you know Flick.’ Her smile was painful to watch and Max cursed himself for asking. He should have known Flick would disappoint her. ‘She did say “Well done” when I explained that it might mean a promotion if the article was a success. But she’s writing about the political implications of the economic crisis; you can’t blame her for not being impressed by my piece on whether it’s possible to create the perfect boyfriend. I suspect she thinks it’s a bit silly.’

  Max had thought precisely the same thing but now, perversely, he was outraged at Flick’s dismissal of Allegra’s assignment. ‘Did you tell her all that stuff you told me, about how these were the kind of issues that really matter t
o a lot of young women?’

  Allegra sighed. ‘I don’t think boyfriend trouble quite ranks with the global downturn in the economy in my mother’s scheme of things.’ She squared her shoulders, sat up straighter. ‘And she’s right, of course. I should take more interest in political issues.’

  She was nothing if not loyal to her mother, Max thought, still irrationally annoyed by Flick’s response. Would it have killed her to have encouraged her daughter for once? Poor Allegra tried so hard to get her mother’s approval. She had to want it bad to feign an interest in politics, given that he’d never heard her or Libby utter a word on the subject.

  And she was going to find it hard, as demonstrated by the fact that barely had her resolve to be more politically aware fallen from her lips than her attention was caught by a girl teetering past in ludicrously high shoes. ‘Omigod, I am totally stealing that vampire chic look!’

  Max was obscurely pleased to see her revert to her frivolous self. ‘Vampire chic?’ he echoed, knowing the disbelief in his voice would annoy her, and sure enough, she gave him the flat-eyed look she and Libby had perfected when they were twelve.

  Back to normal. Good.

  ‘You just don’t get it, do you?’ she said. ‘Look at you! We bring you to the hottest place in town, and you sit there like you were wishing you were in some grotty pub!’

  ‘There’s no “like” about it. I am wishing I was in a pub.’

  ‘Here, have a drink.’ Allegra passed him the drinks list. ‘Maybe that’ll cheer you up—and no, you can’t have a pint.’

  Morosely, Max scanned the list and choked when he saw the prices. ‘They want how much for a cocktail?’

  ‘Don’t panic, you’re not paying for the drinks,’ she said. ‘But, in all other respects, this is a real date, so start looking as if you’re looking forward to meeting Darcy, not as if you’re waiting to have your eyes poked out with a sharp stick.’

  She shook her head as Max tried to ease the tightness around his neck. Dickie had a throttling way with a tie. ‘Relax!’ she said, leaning across the table to slap his hand away from his throat, and the scent of her perfume momentarily clouded Max’s brain.

  ‘You’re so repressed,’ she told him as he blinked the disturbing awareness away. ‘Now listen, you’re going to meet Darcy any minute and you’re going to have to make an effort. This is your first task. You need to make sure she likes you enough to accept your invitation to dinner cooked by you, which is your second task.’

  ‘You’ve explained all this,’ said Max grouchily.

  ‘And, just in case you were thinking of falling at the first hurdle so that you don’t have to carry on, I’ll just remind you that we haven’t had that dinner with your boss yet.’

  Why had he ever put the idea of blackmail into her head? She had taken to it like a natural. He’d created a monster.

  ‘Remember, you’re interested in Darcy, not in a lingerie model,’ Allegra carried on bossily. ‘Ask her questions but don’t interrogate her—and don’t expect her to take all the burden of the conversation either.’

  ‘I’ve been on dates before, you know.’

  Allegra ignored that. ‘She’ll be hoping to meet someone interesting and interested, someone charming and witty who can make her laugh, but who’s got some old-fashioned manners—don’t forget to stand up when she arrives—and who can make her feel safe but sexy and desirable at the same time.’

  ‘And I’m going to be doing all of this with you listening in and Dom here taking pictures?’

  ‘You’ll hardly notice us after a while,’ she assured him, then straightened as Dom nudged her. ‘And here she comes! Good luck,’ she mouthed to Max as he adjusted his tie and slid out of the banquette to greet Darcy.

  He couldn’t help staring. Spectacular was the only word. Of course he’d seen photos before, blown up across billboards or plastered across magazines, but in the flesh Darcy was breathtaking. She glowed with sex appeal, from her artfully tumbled blonde hair to the bee-stung mouth and the voluptuous body.

  ‘Your tongue’s hanging out,’ Allegra said in his ear, and Max shut his mouth with a snap.

  ‘You must be Max,’ said Darcy in the famously husky voice and Max unscrambled his mind.

  ‘I am. It’s good to meet you, Darcy,’ he said and stuck out his hand, but she only laughed and brushed it aside as she moved forward to kiss him on the cheek, enveloping him in a haze of perfume and allure.

  ‘Let’s not be formal,’ she said while every man in the room watched him enviously. ‘I hear we’re going to be great friends!’

  Dry-mouthed, Max stood back to usher her into the banquette. ‘It sounds like you know more than I do,’ he said with an accusing glance at Allegra, who was greeting Darcy cheerfully. What else hadn’t she told him?

  ‘Don’t worry, darling,’ said Darcy, patting his hand. ‘It’s going to be fun.’

  * * *

  Darcy and Max were getting on like the proverbial fire in a match factory. Allegra told herself she should be pleased that it was going so well. She took a gulp of the sparkling water she’d ordered as she was supposed to be working.

  Darcy was obviously enjoying herself. She threw her head back and laughed her glorious laugh. She propped her chin on her hands and leant forwards, as if the famous cleavage needed attention drawn to it. She flirted with those impossibly long lashes and ran her fingers up and down Max’s arm. Max, unsurprisingly, wasn’t complaining.

  He was doing much better than she had expected, Allegra had to admit. After that stunned moment—and she couldn’t honestly blame him for that—he had recovered quickly and, while he wasn’t exactly charming, he had a certain assurance that came from not caring what anybody else thought of him, and a kind of dry humour that seemed to be going down well with Darcy anyway.

  Which Allegra was delighted about, naturally.

  No, really, she was. Personally, she didn’t think it was necessary for Darcy to touch him quite so often, but Darcy was obviously the tactile type. Not her fault that Allegra’s fingers were twitching with the longing to reach across the table and slap her hand from Max’s arm.

  Who would have thought Max would brush up so well too? She’d thought he would dig in his heels at the flowery shirt but, apart from a few fulminating glances sent her way he’d clearly decided to honour his part of the agreement. Unlikely as it was, the shirt suited him beautifully. Something about the fabrics and the exquisite cut of the garments gave him a style he had certainly never possessed before.

  It would take more than a shirt to turn him into an über hunk, of course, but Allegra had to allow that he didn’t look as ordinary as he usually did.

  It was amazing what a difference a good haircut made, too. She found herself noticing all sorts of things about him that she had never noticed before: the line of his jaw, the crease in his cheek, the uncompromising brows.

  Vaguely disturbed, Allegra bent her head over her notebook. She was listening to the conversation between Max and Darcy as unobtrusively as possible and scribbling notes for the article she would write up when the final task was completed.

  The article that could change her career and put her in a position to apply for jobs on magazines with a little more gravitas. If she got it right.

  So why was she letting herself be distracted by the way Max’s smile had suddenly started catching at the corner of her eye, the way it had suddenly started making her pulse kick as if it had startled her?

  He was only smiling, for God’s sake. She wanted him to be smiling at Darcy. She was supposed to be pleased with the way it was going, not feeling cross.

  Darcy was telling Max a long story about the house she was having built, and he was offering advice about foundations and geological surveys. He’d obviously forgotten her advice about being witty and charming, but Darcy was hanging on his every
word.

  Disgruntled, Allegra gave up listening after a while. She wasn’t going to fill her article with engineering talk, however fascinating Darcy might find it. Dom had taken his pictures and left some time before, and she let her pen drift: Derek the Dog dancing on his hind legs, Mrs G tipsy on cocktails, Flick smiling proudly—Allegra had to imagine that one.

  Then she sketched Darcy leaning forward, lips parted breathlessly, and Max himself. But somehow she found herself drawing the Max she knew, the Max who wore a crummy polo shirt buttoned too high at the neck and lay on the absurdly feminine sofa, king of the remote, and she felt a pang of something she chose not to identify.

  ‘Hey, those are great!’ Darcy leant across the table and plucked the notebook away before Allegra had a chance to react.

  She studied the drawings, chuckling. ‘Who’s the cute dog? Look, Max, that’s you...’ Her smile faltered as she took in the polo shirt. ‘At least...?’

  Max peered at the sketch. ‘Yep, looks like me.’

  Allegra was blushing furiously. ‘They’re just doodles...’

  ‘No, really, they’re very good,’ said Darcy. ‘You clever thing.’ She tapped a finger on the picture of her. ‘You’ve caught me exactly, hasn’t she, Max?’

  ‘It’s unmistakably you, but a drawing can’t really capture your charm,’ he said and Darcy laughed her trademark husky laugh, delighted, while Allegra concentrated on not throwing up.

  If she wasn’t much mistaken, Max was flirting. He must really like Darcy. Perhaps it was time to leave them alone. Ignoring the sinking feeling in her stomach, she took her notebook back from Darcy. ‘I should go.’

  ‘Don’t go yet.’ To her surprise, rather than wanting to get rid of her, Max handed her the drinks list. ‘If you’ve finished working, you might as well have a proper drink.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Darcy with a sunny smile. ‘You deserve it for setting up this article. I just know we’re going to have a good time.’ Her fingers teased Max’s shoulder and Allegra’s fingers tightened around the menu. ‘I can’t believe Max here hasn’t been snapped up already, can you?’