Page 60 of All I Want for Christmas

She didn’t reply.

‘...Besides, you said you weren’t coming over. Yet here you are.’

She glanced back, wanting to tell him that coming here had been the last thing she wanted to do – but she couldn’t drop Viggo in it. ‘My plans changed last minute and it made sense to push through, seeing as you were away – okay? You’re supposed to be away!’

‘And I was. For two days. Monday. Tuesday.’

And now it was the early hours of Wednesday. She rolled her eyes, turning away again. What did it matter anyway? She checked her screen. The small circle was spinning.Looking for drivers. Hurry up!

‘...So you’d only come over if I wasn’t here?’

Darcy just shook her head. She was too tired to argue at this time of night.

‘So then youareangry.’

‘I’m not,’ she lied, because how could she admit to anything she was feeling? She wanted more from him than he was offering, that was the crux of it. She wasn’t the one who had wanted to keep things professional between them in the first place, and when they’d kissed, she’d felt all the things she’d been trying not to feel. It had felt so good, natural even, but that was the danger, she saw now: she was going to fall and he wasn’t.

‘You’re avoiding me, even though the thing with Natalia was before I met you and...it’s not like you and I are—’

She whirled around, knowing exactly what they weren’t. She wanted him, even though she knew she would just be another conquest. Natalia’s arrival had merely confronted her with that fact and given her a...firebreak. Freja had been right from the start: she had to stay away from him, even if she didn’t want to.

‘I know, Max, it’s strictly professional between us. You’ve gone to great pains to make that clear. I have got the point!...And I’m not avoiding you, I just don’tknowyou. We’re not friends.’

He frowned. ‘You don’t know me? You just spent the weekend in my house!’

‘No, I sat on your sofa and worked. But it could just as easily have been a park bench. Or a desk in the library.’

He came down a step. ‘We had breakfast and lunch together!’

She gave a small guffaw. ‘That was not breakfast and lunch.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘That was some stylized version of it.’

He looked exasperated – and very tired. ‘I don’t even know what that means.’

‘It means that you live your life like it has a filter on it!’ she burst out. ‘Nothing’s real in your world. Everything’s perfect. You’re perfect! Your girlfriends are models! You live in a showho—’ She stopped herself, but it was far too late. She’d said too much.

There was a silence and she could see he was taken aback by her outburst.

‘Hello?’ They both looked along the road to see a figure coming along the pavement. Jens was walking towards them at a brisk march, but his pace visibly slowed as he approached, looking between them with concern. It was the middle of the night and they were raising their voices. There was no way he hadn’t heard them.

‘Oh Jens, great, you’re here,’ Darcy said weakly. ‘Max has...he’s got the box.’

‘You worked late,’ Jens said to her, as Max came down the steps and handed him the box with a mutinous look. ‘I was expecting to hear from you hours ago.’

‘Yes. I never intended to be here this long,’ she said again, for Max’s benefit. ‘I accidentally fell asleep. But Max has only just got back and he said he’d hand it over to you so I could get home...If my Uber would ever get here,’ she muttered through clenched teeth as she looked down the street again.

‘Ah.’ Jens looked between them again, reading the tension. Neither she nor Max was capable of hiding it at this time of the night. ‘...And shall we deliver the next one tomorrow?’

‘No,’ she said quickly, drawing a sharp look from Max. ‘No, that won’t be necessary...Thank you, though.’

‘Okay,’ he said, stepping back with an awkward expression. ‘Well, good night then.’

Neither Darcy nor Max spoke as Jens headed back towards the gallery. He was in his mid-fifties and overweight, wearing a dark grey uniform with a baton in his belt, but no further weapons; if someone were to launch a raid on the museum, it would be the dog alone stopping them. It seemed strange that the insurers considered Jens an adequate last line of defence for the Foundation’s treasures.

Darcy looked at her phone again. The search session had timed out. She lifted her arm and checked the signal here – three bars – and put in a fresh request. ‘Just go inside, Max. It’s cold and it’s late and this isn’t your problem,’ she said, turning away.

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