The Bride Fonseca Needs(29)

Darcy. Where was she?

She'd been standing beside him when Montgomery had called out his name  and his first instinct had been to turn to her. She'd done this with  him. He wouldn't have done it without her. He'd wanted to share it with  her.

The surge of alien emotion that had gripped him had caught him right in  his throat and at the back of his eyes, making them sting.  Horrorstruck, in a nano-second he'd been aware that he was on the verge  of tears and about to let Darcy see it. So at the last second he'd  pulled away and strode forward. Not wanting her to see the rawness he  was feeling. Not ready for the scrutiny of those huge blue eyes that saw  too much.                       
       
           



       

He cursed again. She wasn't here. A quick tour of the surrounding rooms  didn't reveal her either, and Max made his way to the bedroom with a  growing sense of unease.

When he opened the door to the bedroom the sense of unease coalesced  into a black mass in his gut. Darcy barely looked up when he walked in.  She'd changed into black trousers and a stripy top. Her hair was pulled  back into a ponytail. She looked about sixteen. She was packing her  suitcase.

Max folded his arms, as if that might ease the constriction in his chest.

'What are you doing?'

She glanced at him, her face expressionless. 'I'm leaving.'

Seizing on his default mechanism of acerbity, Max drawled, 'I think I could have deduced that much.'

Darcy shrugged as she pulled the top of the suitcase down and started to zip it up. 'Well, then, if it's that obvious why ask?'

Anger started to flicker to life in Max's gut as the full impact of  what he was looking at sank in. She was leaving. He didn't like the  clutch of panic. Panic was not something he ever felt.

'What's going on, Darcy? They've only just made the announcement-dinner hasn't even been served yet.'

Darcy stopped zipping up the bag and looked at him. For a moment he saw something flicker in her eyes but then it was gone.

'I'm done, Max. I've more than paid my dues as your convenient wife.  When you can't even acknowledge me in your moment of glory it's pretty  obvious that I've become superfluous to your requirements.'

The panic gripped him tighter. He'd messed up. 'Look, Darcy, I know I couldn't have achieved this without you-'

She laughed, short and sharp. 'You had this all along. I think  Montgomery just enjoyed watching you jump through hoops... It's not many  deals or many men Maximiliano Fonseca Roselli will do that for.'

Darcy picked up the jacket that was laid over the back of a nearby  chair and shrugged it on, turning those huge blue eyes on him.

'What did you expect to happen now, Max? Some kind of fake domestic  idyll? The deal is done. This is over. There's no more need for the  charade.'

Max felt tight all over, in the grip of something dark and hot. He bit  out, 'You won't even stay one more night.' He didn't pose it as a  question, already hating himself for saying it.

Darcy shook her head and her glossy ponytail slid over one shoulder.  'No. I've given you enough of my time, Max. More than enough.'

Was it his imagination or had there been a catch in her voice? Max  couldn't hear through the dull roaring in his head. He felt himself  teetering on the edge of something... Asking her to stay? But, as she'd  said, for what? What did he want from her now? And what was this  terrifying swooping of emotion, threatening to push him over the edge,  spurred on by the panic which made his insides feel as loose as they'd  felt tight a moment ago...?

He'd only ever felt like this once before. When he'd stood before  another woman-his mother-and let her see the full extent of his  vulnerability and pain. He'd tipped over the edge then and his life had  never been the same.

He was not going to tip over the edge for anyone else. He had just  achieved the pinnacle of his success. What did he need Darcy for? He had  everything that he'd ever wanted. He could go on from here and live his  life and know that he was untouchable, that he had surpassed every one  of his naysayers and doubters. Every one of the bullies.

He and Luca would finally be equals-on his terms.

The realisation that no great sense of satisfaction accompanied that  knowledge was not something Max wanted to dwell on. Suddenly he was  quite eager to get on with things. Without that incisive bluer than blue  gaze tracking his every movement.

The fact that he looked at Darcy even now and felt nothing but hunger  was irritating, but he told himself that once she was out of his orbit  it would die down...fade away.

He would take a new lover. Start again.

He uncrossed his arms. 'Your bonus will be in your bank by Monday. My solicitor will work out the details of the divorce.'

'Thank you.' Darcy avoided his eye now, picking up her bag.

A knock came to the door and she looked up. 'That'll be the taxi. The  housekeeper is sending someone up for my bags when it arrives.'

Max had pushed everything he was feeling down so deep that he was  slightly light-headed. Like a robot, he moved over to the bed and took  Darcy's suitcase easily in one hand. He took it to the door and opened  it, handing it out to the young man on the other side. One of the estate  staff.

And then Darcy was in the doorway, close enough for him to smell her  scent. It had an immediate effect on him, making his body hard.                       
       
           



       

Damn her. Right now he was more than ready to see the back of her. That edge was beckoning again, panic flaring.

He stepped back, allowing her to leave the room. He forced himself to  be solicitous even as he had a sudden urge to haul her back into the  room and slam the door shut, locking them both inside.

And what then? asked a snide voice.

Another one answered: Chaos.

'Good luck, Darcy. If you need anything get in touch.'

'I won't.' Her voice was definitely husky now, and she wasn't looking at him. 'But thank you. Goodbye, Max.'





CHAPTER TEN

DARCY WASN'T SURE how she managed it, but she stayed in a state of calm  numbness until she was on the train at Inverness Station and it was  pulling out in the direction of Edinburgh, followed by London.

As the train picked up speed, though, it was as if its motion was  peeling her skin back to expose where her heart lay in tatters, just  under her breastbone. It had taken almost every ounce of her strength to  stand before Max and maintain that icy, unconcerned front.

She just made it to the toilet in time, where she sat on the closed  lid, shuddering and weeping and swaying as the train took her further  and further away from the man who had taken all her vulnerabilities and  laid them bare for his own ends.

And she couldn't even blame him. She'd handed herself over to his  ruthless heartlessness lock, stock and barrel. She'd made that choice.


Three months later

Darcy climbed up the steps from the tube and emerged in a quiet road of  a leafy suburb in north London. Well, not so leafy now that autumn was  here in force, stripping everything bare.

After walking for a few minutes she hitched her bags to one hand as she  dug out her key and put it in the front door of her apartment building.  A familiar dart of pleasure rushed through her. Her apartment building.  Which housed her bijou ground-floor two-bedroomed apartment that had  French doors leading out to her own private back garden.

The bonus Max had provided had more than covered the cost of the  apartment with cash-making the sale fast and efficient. She'd moved in  three weeks ago.

Max. He was always on the periphery of her mind, but Darcy shied away  from looking at him too directly-like avoiding the glare of the sun for  fear of going blind.

For a month after she'd left him in Scotland she'd had to endure seeing  him emblazoned over every paper and magazine: the wunderkind of the  financial world, accepted into the highest echelons where heads of state  and the most powerful people in the world hailed his genius.

The emotion she'd felt thinking that he finally must have found some peace had mocked her.

There'd been pictures of him in gossip columns too, attending  glittering events with a different beautiful woman on his arm each time.  The pain Darcy had felt had been like a hot dagger skewering her belly,  so she'd stopped watching the news or reading the papers.

She put her shopping away with little enthusiasm and thought idly of  inviting her neighbour from upstairs for something to eat. John was the  first person to make her laugh since she'd left Max.

After a quick trip upstairs, and John's totally overjoyed acceptance of  her invitation-'Sweetie, you are the best! I was about to die of  hunger...like literally die!'-Darcy went back downstairs and prepared  some dinner, feeling marginally better.

She could get through this and emerge intact. She could, she vowed as  she skewered some chicken with a little more force than necessary.

* * *

'You know, if you ever want to tell Uncle John about the bastard who  done you wrong, I'll get a few boxes of wine and we'll hunker down for  the weekend. Make a pity party of it.'