She immediately avoided that incisive gaze and looked out at the glittering cityscape beyond Max. A part of her had broken when her world had been upended and she'd been split between her parents. But as a rule it wasn't something she liked to dwell on. She was reluctant to explore the fact that it had a lot to do with her subsequent avoidance of relationships.
She finally looked back to Max, forcing her voice to sound light. 'I prefer to say realistic. Not cynical.'
The corner of Max's mouth twitched. Had he moved even closer? He felt very close to Darcy.
He drawled now, 'Let's agree to call it realistic cynicism, then. So-no dreams of a picturesque house and a white picket fence with two point two kids to repair the damage your parents did to you?'
Darcy sucked in a breath at Max's unwitting perspicacity. Damn him for once again effortlessly honing in on her weak spot: her desire to have a base. A home of her own. Not the cynical picture he painted, but her own oasis in a life that she knew well could be upended without any warning, leaving her reeling with no sense of a safe centre.
Her career had become her centre, but Darcy knew she needed something more tangibly rooted.
She tried to sound as if he hadn't hit a raw nerve. 'Do I really strike you as someone who is yearning for the domestic idyll?'
He shook his head and took a step closer, reaching past Darcy to put his glass on the table behind her. She knew this should feel a little weird-after all they'd never been so physically close before, beyond their handshake when she'd taken the job. But after the intensity of their day spent cocooned in this office, with the darkness outside now, and after Max had revealed the origin of his scar, a dangerous sense of familiarity suppressed Darcy's normal impulse to observe the proper boundaries.
She told herself it was their shared experience in Boissy that made things a little different than the usual normal boss/PA relationship. But really the truth was that she didn't want to move as Max's arm lightly brushed against hers when he straightened again. The sip of whisky she'd taken seemed to be spreading throughout her body, oozing warmth and a sense of delicious lethargy.
Max looked at her. He was so close now that she could see how his eyelashes were dark gold, lighter at the tips.
'No,' he said. 'I don't think you are looking for the domestic idyll. You strike me as someone who is very focused on her career. A bit of a loner, perhaps?'
That stung. Darcy had friends, but she'd been working away so much that she only saw them if she went back to the UK. He was right, though, and that was why it stung. The revelation that she might be avoiding platonic as well as romantic relationships was not welcome.
She cursed herself. She was allowing fatigue, a sip of whisky and some unexpected revelations from Max to seriously impair her judgement. There was no intimacy here. They were both exhausted.
She straightened up, not liking the way that put her even closer to Max. She looked anywhere but at him. 'It's late. I should get going if you want me to be awake enough to pay attention at dinner tomorrow evening.'
'Yes,' Max said. 'That's probably wise.'
Her feet seemed to be welded to the floor, but Darcy forced herself to move and turned to walk away-bumping straight into the corner of the desk, jarring her hip bone. She gave a pained gasp.
Max's hand came to her arm. 'Are you okay?'
Darcy could feel the imprint of Max's fingers, strong and firm, and just like that she was breathless. He turned her towards him and she couldn't evade his gaze.
'I... Thanks. It was nothing.' Any pain was fast being eclipsed by the look in Max's eyes. Darcy's insides swooped and flipped. The air between them was suddenly charged in a way that made her think of running in the opposite direction. Curiously, though, she didn't want to obey this impulse.
And then something resolute crossed his face and he pulled her towards him.
Darcy was vaguely aware that Max's grip on her arm wasn't so tight that she couldn't pull free. But a sense of shock mixed with intense excitement gripped her.
'What are you doing?' she half whispered.
His gaze moved from her mouth up to her eyes and time stood still. Max's other hand moved around to the back of her neck, tugging her inexorably towards him. His voice was low and seductive. 'I haven't been able to stop thinking about what this would be like.'
'What what would be like?'
'This...'
Before Darcy's brain could catch up with the speed at which things were moving Max's mouth came down and covered hers, fitting to her softer contours like a jigsaw piece slotting into place.
He was hard and firm, masterful as he moved his mouth against hers, enticing her to open up to him-which she found herself doing unhesitatingly. The kiss instantly became something else...something much deeper and darker.
Max was bold, his tongue exploring the depths of her mouth, stroking sensuously, making her lower body clench in helpless reaction. His body was whipcord-hard against hers, calling to her innermost feminine instincts that relished such evidence of his masculinity.
The edge of the desk was digging into Darcy's buttocks, but she barely noticed as Max urged her back so that she was sitting on it, moving his body between her legs so she had to widen them.
It was as if he'd simply inserted himself like a sharp blade under her skin and she'd been rendered powerless to think coherently or do anything except respond to the feverish call of her blood to taste this man, drink him in. It was intoxicating, heady, and completely out of character for her to behave like this.
Max's hands were moving now, sliding down the back of her silk shirt, resting on her waist over the belt of her trousers. And then he moved even closer between her legs and Darcy felt the thrust of his erection against her belly.
It was that very stark evidence of just how far over the edge they were tipping that blasted some cold air through the heat haze clouding her brain.
Darcy pulled back to find two slumberous pools of tawny gold staring at her. Their breathing was laboured and she was aware of thinking with sudden clarity: Max Fonseca Roselli can't possibly want me. I'm not remotely his type. He's playing with me.
She jerked back out of his arms and off the desk so abruptly that she surprised him into letting her go. Her heart was racing as if she'd just run half a marathon.
Some space and air between them brought Darcy back to full shaming reality. One minute they'd been knee-deep in the minutiae of Montgomery's life and business strategies, and the next she'd been sipping fine whisky and Max had been telling her stuff she'd never expected to hear.
And then she'd been climbing him like a monkey.
She'd never behaved so unprofessionally in her life. She lambasted herself, and ignored the screeching of every nerve-end that begged her to throw herself back into his arms.
Max looked every inch the disreputable playboy at that moment, with frustration stamped onto hard features as he observed his prey standing at several feet's distance. His cheeks were slashed with colour, his hair messy. Oh, God. She'd had her hands in his hair, clutching him to her like some kind of sex-starved groupie.
When she felt she could speak she said accusingly, 'That should not have happened.'
Her hair was coming down from its chignon and she lifted her hands to do a repair job. The fact that Max's gaze dropped to her breasts made her feel even more humiliated. If they hadn't stopped when they had- She shut her mind down from contemplating where exactly she might be right now.
Allowing him to make love to her on his desk? Like some bad porn movie cliché: Darcy Does Her Boss.
She felt sick and took her hands down now her hair was secured.
Max looked at her and didn't seem to share half the turmoil she felt as he drawled, with irritating insouciance, 'That did happen, and it was going to happen sooner or later.'
'Don't be ridiculous,' Darcy snapped on a panicked reflex at the thought that he had somehow seen something of her fascination with him. She was aghast to note that her legs were shaking slightly. 'You don't want me.'
Max folded his arms across his broad chest. 'I'm not in the habit of kissing women I don't want, Darcy.'
'Ha!' she commented acerbically as she started to hunt for her discarded shoes. She sent him a quick glare. 'You really expect me to believe you want me? That was nothing but a momentary glitch in our synapses, fuelled by fatigue and proximity.' She finally spotted her shoes and shoved her feet into them, saying curtly, 'This shouldn't have happened. It's completely inappropriate.'
'Fatigue and proximity?'
Max's scathing tone stopped Darcy in her tracks and she looked at him with the utmost reluctance. He was disgusted.