She unbuckled her belt quickly and stood up, muttering something about the bathroom. Once locked inside the small space she saw her face in the mirror, leached of colour.
Stupid, stupid Darcy. How could she have forgotten that this man’s two main traits were being ruthless and being more ruthless. He must have been laughing himself silly when Darcy had all but begged him to go to bed after his piéce de résistance: the balloon ride. It would be tainted in her head for ever now.
She thought of the pool then, of Max’s patience and gentle coaxing, and this time she couldn’t stop the contents of her stomach from lurching up.
When she’d composed herself she looked at herself in the mirror again. She had to get a grip. She’d lost herself for a moment and she’d done it willingly—her hands held tightly onto the sink—but it had only been for a moment. A weekend. She was okay. She could put this momentary weakness behind her and get on with things, and as soon as the ink was dry on the deal with Montgomery she’d be gone.
* * *
When they returned to Max’s apartment after going into the office Max disappeared into his study to do some more work. Darcy took herself out for a long walk around the centre of Rome, coming back with no sense of peace in her head or her heart.
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.