The memory made Max cringe now.
He’d let emotion get in the way once before and had paid the price.
Another more pertinent memory came back: the day he’d seen his old nemesis while he’d been foraging in that bin in Paris. It was one of those moments in life when the fates had literally laughed in his face just to torture him.
One of them had come back and handed Max a five-euro note. Max had taken it and ripped it up, before letting it drop to the ground and spitting on it.
He hadn’t needed anyone then, and he didn’t need anyone now. He knew better than anybody how life could be as fickle and as random as a pair of dice rolling to a stop, dictating the future.
But he’d changed that. The power to dictate everything lay with him.
He’d fought for this control over his destiny and he was damned if he was going to let it slip out of his grasp now just because he was forgetting where his priorities lay. Anger licked through his blood at the knowledge of just how far off course he was in danger of straying.
Darcy was distracting him.
And he was fogetting the most important thing: She was just a means to an end.
* * *
The following morning, on the plane ride home, Darcy didn’t need to be psychic to know that something had changed during the night. Max was back in ruthless boss mode. Brusque. Abrupt.
He’d already been up when she’d woken, dressed and packed.
She’d felt flustered. ‘You should have woken me.’
He’d been cool. ‘I have some work to catch up on in Dante’s study. We’ll leave in half an hour.’
She couldn’t fault Max for wanting to jump straight back into things—after all Montgomery’s party was right around the corner, sealing the deal... But it was almost as if he had just carved out these few days to seduce Darcy and now it was mission accomplished and he was moving on.
She’d expected this. But she hadn’t expected it to be quite so brutally obvious.
Was it a dream or had this man gripped her hips so hard last night that she still bore the marks of his fingers on her flesh? Had she imagined that he’d held her ruthlessly still so that he could thrust up into her body over and over again, until she’d been begging for mercy, and only then finally tipped them both over the edge?
No, because she’d seen the marks in the mirror in the bathroom and her muscles still ached pleasurably.
Darcy felt a little shattered—as if the pieces that Max had rent asunder deep inside her would never come back together again.
Maybe he was regretting the weekend...realising that it had all been a huge mistake. Realising that she hadn’t been worth all that effort...the shopping, the hot air balloon... But even if he was, she wasn’t going to regret it. She’d made her choice.
‘Darcy?’
She looked at Max, who was frowning impatiently. ‘I need you to take some notes—we’ll be going straight to the office from the airport.’
Ignoring the voices screaming at her to leave it alone, Darcy turned to him and said, ‘So that’s it, then? Honeymoon over. Back to work.’
Max looked at her and she shivered.
‘What did you expect?’
/>
‘All that seduction...the hot air balloon...’
Max shrugged. ‘You knew I wanted you in my bed—whatever it took.’
Incredible pain lanced her. ‘I see.’
For a moment Darcy thought she might be sick, but she forced it down. She had to get away from Max. She hated it that she wasn’t strong enough to weather the evidence of his ruthlessness in front of him.