the edge of a couch near Max’s desk.
She watched as he came and stood at the window near her, saw the scar on the his face snaking down from his temple to his jaw.
She found herself asking impulsively, ‘The scar—how did you get it?’
Max tensed, and there was an almost imperceptible tightening of his fingers around his glass. His mouth thinned and he didn’t look at her. ‘Amazing how a scar fascinates so many people—especially women.’
Immediately Darcy tensed, feeling acutely exposed. She said stiffly, ‘Sorry, it’s none of my business.’
He looked at her. ‘No, it’s not.’
Max took in Darcy’s wide eyes and a memory rushed back at him with such force that it almost felled him: a much younger Darcy, but with the same pale heart-shaped face. Concerned. Pushing between him and the boys who had been punching the breath out of him with brute force.
He’d been gasping like a grounded fish, eyes streaming, familiar humiliation and impotent anger burning in his belly, and she’d stood there like a tiny fierce virago. When they’d left and he’d got his breath back she’d turned to him, worried.
Without even thinking about what he was doing, still dizzy, Max had straightened and reached out to touch her jaw. He’d said, almost to himself, ‘“Though she be but little, she is fierce.”’
She’d blushed and whirled around and left. He’d still been reeling from the attack—reeling from whatever impulse had led him to quote Shakespeare.
Darcy was reaching across to put her glass on the table now, standing up, clearly intending to leave. And why wouldn’t she after he’d just shut her down?
An impulse rose up within Max and he heard himself say gruffly, ‘It happened on the streets. Here in Rome, when I was homeless.’
Darcy stopped. She lifted her hand from the glass and looked at him warily. ‘Homeless?’
Max leaned his shoulder against the solid glass window, careful to keep his face expressionless. Curiously, he didn’t feel any sense of regret for letting that slip out. He nodded. ‘I was homeless for a couple of years after I was kicked out of Boissy.’
Darcy said, ‘I remember the blood on the snow.’
Max felt slightly sick. He still remembered the vivid stain of blood on the snow, and woke sometimes at night sweating. He’d vowed ever since then not to allow anyone to make him lose control again. He would beat them at their own game, in their own rareified world.
‘A boy went to hospital unconscious because of me.’
She shook her head faintly. ‘Why did they torment you so much?’
Max’s mouth twisted. ‘Because one of their fathers was my mother’s current lover and he was paying my fees. They didn’t take kindly to that.’
Darcy had one very vague memory of an incredibly beautiful and glamorous woman arriving at the school one year with Max, in a chauffeur-driven car.
She found herself resting against the edge of the desk, not leaving as she’d intended to moments ago. ‘Why were you homeless?’
Max’s face was harsh in the low light. ‘My mother failed to inform me that she’d decided to move to the States with a new lover and left no forwarding details. Let’s just say she wasn’t exactly at the nurturing end on the scale of motherhood.’
Darcy frowned. ‘You must have had other family... Your father?’
Max’s face was so expressionless that Darcy had to repress a shiver.
‘I have a brother, but my father died some years ago. I couldn’t go to them, in any case. My father had made it clear I was my mother’s responsibillty when they divorced and he wanted nothing to do with me. They lived in Brazil.’
Darcy tried not to look too shocked. ‘But you must have been just—’
‘Seventeen,’ Max offered grimly.
‘And the scar...?’ It seemed to stand out even more lividly now, and Darcy had to curb the urge to reach out and touch it.
Max looked down at his drink, swirling it in his glass. ‘I saw a man being robbed and chased after the guy.’ He looked up again. ‘I didn’t realise he was a junkie with a knife until he turned around and lunged at me, cutting my face. I managed to take the briefcase from him. I won’t lie—there was a moment when I almost ran with it myself... But I didn’t.’
Max shrugged, as if chasing junkies and staying on the right side of his conscience was nothing.
‘The owner was so grateful when I returned it that he insisted on taking me to the hospital. He talked to me, figured out a little of my story. It turned out that he was CEO of a private equity finance firm, and as a gesture of goodwill for returning his property he offered me a position as an intern. I knew this was a chance and I vowed not to mess it up...’
Darcy said, a little wryly, ‘I think it’s safe to say you didn’t waste the opportunity. He must have been a special man to do that.’
‘He was,’ Max said with uncharacteristic softness. ‘One of the few people I trusted completely. He died a couple of years ago.’
There was only the faintest low hum of traffic coming from the streets far below. Isolated siren calls that faded into the distance. Everything around them was dark and golden. Darcy felt as if she were suspended in a dream. She’d never in a million years thought she might have a conversation like this with Max, who was unreadable on the best of days and never spoke of his personal life.
‘You don’t trust easily, then?’
Max grimaced slightly. ‘I learnt early to take care of myself. Trust someone and you make yourself weak.’
‘That’s so cynical,’ Darcy said, but it came out flat, not with the mocking edge she’d aimed for.
Max straightened up from the window and was suddenly much closer to Darcy. She could smell him—a light tangy musk, with undertones of something much more earthy and masculine.
He looked at her assessingly. ‘What about you, Darcy? Are you telling me you’re not cynical after your parents’ divorce?’
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
