She was feeling increasingly angry with herself for giving in to his smooth seduction, having known what it was likely to do to her.
He was still working when she returned, so she ate alone and went to bed, telling herself that the ache she felt was just her pathetic imagination.
After midnight, just when she was hovering on the edge of sleep, Max came into her room.
'This isn't my room.'
Darcy came up on one elbow, anger rising. 'No, it's my room.'
'So why aren't you in my bed?'
'Because,' Darcy said tersely, well and truly awake now, 'I don't care for the hot and cold routine, and you've made it perfectly clear that now we've consummated the relationship you're done with any niceties.'
Max came close to the bed and Darcy hated the way her blood sizzled with anticipation.
'I never said I was nice, Darcy,' he pointed out. 'Are you going to come to my bed?'
'No,' Darcy said mutinously.
Max just shrugged and left, and Darcy let out a shaky sigh of...disappointment. She lambasted herself. She was pathetic. And then her mouth dropped open when Max walked back in with a bunch of clothes and some toiletries.
She watched, dumbfounded, as he proceeded to strip and get into the bed beside her. He leaned on one elbow, unselfconsciously naked in the way that only the most gorgeous people could be, and those tawny eyes glinted with pure devilment.
'The honeymoon is over, but this isn't.'
He reached for her and Darcy had a split second to realise that she could take the moral high ground and resist Max's arrogant pull or, as she asked herself belligerently, why shouldn't she use Max as he was using her? Take her own pleasure from him until she was sated?
That was the weak logic she used, anyway, as she hurled herself back into the fire.
When she woke in the morning and all those little voices were ready to rip her to shreds for her weakness she resolutely ignored them and told herself she could do this. Max didn't have the monopoly on being cold and ruthless.
* * *
As the days progressed, getting closer to the time they'd be leaving for Scotland, their working hours got longer. And in the nights...the passion between them seemed to burn brighter and fiercer with each coupling. Darcy's anger with herself and Max added something that seemed to hurl her over the edge further and further each time, until she was left spent and shaking.
Some nights Max seemed to forget what part he was playing, and he'd scoop her close and hold her to him with arms like vises around her. It was on those nights that Darcy knew she was fooling herself the most.
This game she was playing with Max was costing her. She knew that she wasn't strong enough emotionally to keep it up indefinitely, and that it would have to stop before she got burned in the fire completely.
But just not right now...
The Montgomery estate, north of Inverness
Darcy huffed out a breath and stopped to look at the view. It was spectacular, and it soothed some of the tension inside her. Hills and mountains stretched as far as the eye could see, and small lochs were dotted here and there like black pools. Clouds scudded across the blue sky.
In true Scottish fashion, even though it was summer, it had rained since they'd arrived, a couple of days ago. But now the sun was out and the countryside sparkled.
Darcy was relishing a rare chance to be alone. She'd had enough of Max's tense mood infecting her own.
Wily old Montgomery was playing hard to get right to the end. The party was tonight, and Max still wasn't sure where he stood. To make things even worse, there were several other high-profile financiers invited. Darcy almost felt sorry for Max-but then she thought of the sensual torture he'd put her through the previous night and promptly felt unsorry for him.
She sat down on a piece of soft springy ground and sighed, pushing her hair back off her hot cheeks. Here against this timeless and peaceful backdrop she couldn't keep running from her own conscience and her heart.
In spite of everything, she'd fallen for Max. Self-disgust that she should fall for someone so ruthless and single-minded took the edge off the awful tendency she felt to cry. And yet her bruised heart still pathetically wanted to believe that the Max she'd seen that weekend in Como was real...
One thing Darcy did know was that Max fooled himself as much as everyone around him. He had feelings, all right, but they were so buried after years of hiding them that it would be like mining for diamonds trying to extract them.
She knew why her instinct had always warned her off deeper commitment if this was the pain it brought.
But she couldn't continue with the status quo. It was a form of self-destruction that Darcy knew she had to stop now-he'd worn her down and broken her apart like the pro he was, and she couldn't let it continue.
Max wasn't going to like it, but he'd get over it. He'd have to, because nothing would compel her to change her mind. Not even his singular seduction.
* * *
That night Darcy felt jittery, and Max said beside her, 'Stop fidgeting.'
She sent him a dark look. She had her arm tucked into his, for all the world the happy newly married couple.
Mrs Montgomery had come up to Darcy earlier and said confidentially, 'Why, he's a new man, my dear. He was always so brooding before.'
Darcy had smiled weakly and looked to see Max throwing his head back and laughing at something his companion said. Her gut had twisted. Was he different? And then she'd clamped down on that very dangerous line of thought.
She was wearing the royal blue satin dress she'd seen in the window of the boutique that day in Milan. When she'd spotted it hanging in her wardrobe in Max's apartment it had given her a jolt as she'd recalled a much more light-hearted Max.
She hadn't wanted to wear it, but he'd insisted. And the look in his eyes when she'd put it on had been nearly enough to make her skin sizzle.
He'd growled, 'If we weren't already late for dinner I'd lock the door to this room, make you take it off, make love to you and then make you put it on again... But I'd probably only want to take it off again...'
A voice had wheedled in Darcy's head-What's one more night...?-and she'd shut it out. She couldn't afford one more night with Max.
The crowd was making a toast now, to Cecil Montgomery, his smiling wife and their four children and assorted grandchildren. Darcy's heart constricted. Happiness was there for some people. The very few.
She felt Max tense beside her. Time for the announcement.
Montgomery started by going into a long-winded account of his career, clearly building up to the big moment. Darcy bit her lip and looked at Max, but his face was expressionless.
'As many of you will know, it's been my life's work to cultivate, protect and grow the famous private equity fund of this family that goes back generations. It's my legacy to my children and grandchildren-not to mention our very important philanthropic work...'
Montgomery cleared his throat and kept going.
'As we all know in these uncertain times, expert advice is necessary to ensure the growth and protection of anything of importance. And this fund is not just my life's work, but my ancestors'. It's been of the utmost importance that I choose someone who has those sensibilities in mind. Who understands the importance of family and legacy...for the benefit of not only my own family but also much larger concerns.'
He paused dramatically and then took a breath.
'There is only one person I would trust with this great responsibility, and I'm pleased to announce that that man is...Maximiliano Fonseca Roselli.'
Darcy could feel the surge of emotion in Max's body. He shook with it. She waited for him to turn and acknowledge her, as much for appearances' sake as anything else, but after a moment he just disengaged her arm from his and strode forward to accept Montgomery's handshake and congratulations.
Darcy could see people looking at her. It was as brutal a sign of where she really stood in his life as a slap in the face, and she realised then that all along she'd been harbouring some kind of pathetic hope that perhaps she was mistaken and he did feel something for her.
Seeing the crowd lining up to congratulate Max, Darcy took advantage of the moment to slip out of the room and walk blindly through the castle, eyes blurred but refusing to let the tears well and fall.
She would not cry over this man. She would not.
* * *
Max cursed silently. Where was she? He knew Darcy was petite, but he'd realised that somehow he had an uncanny knack of finding her glossy dark brown head in any crowd. He thought of her as she'd stood before him in the bedroom not long ago, the deep blue of the satin dress curving around her body in such a way that it had made him feel animalistic. He'd almost forgotten what the evening was about. Almost.
Lingering tendrils of relief and triumph had snaked through him as he'd forged his way through the throng, accepting congratulations and slaps on the back. Funny, he'd expected to bask in this moment for a lot longer, but he was distracted.