51. Dex

Iend up running the meeting, which is unplanned and unhelpful. I fumble my way through it with reasonable success, mainly because I'm MC and my colleagues all deliver what we require during their sections. The Wolff team seems genuinely impressed with the breadth and depth of our research capabilities and with the teamwork between the traders who trade the various sectors adjacent with Wolff's individual businesses.

As the Head of Equities, my role here is to underscore Loeb's expertise in the secondary market. Getting a place on this deal isn't just about being a bank known for deals—the bigger banks own that status. It's about convincing the Wolff team that investors will look to us for advice once the stock is trading publicly.

I have no way of knowing if this meeting is remotely necessary or whether Max has set it up to fuck with me. All I know is that the timing is fishy as fuck, and that everything I say during the fifty minutes we're at the table is a blur, because every vestige of strength I possess is spent trying not to look at him.

Trying not to remember how hard his tongue fucked my mouth.

Trying not to rub my own tongue over my lacerated gum, like I've been doing all week.

Trying not to think about the fact that he probably had Darcy in his bed this morning.

Darcy, Darcy, Darcy.

Fuuuuck.

He's sitting across from me, all slick hair and sharp eyes and perfectly cut suit, jacket hanging on his chair back and muscles straining under his shirt. He's fully engaged, as far as I can see, asking incisive questions of everybody. Articulating his vision for Wolff's future. Reeling every person at the table in. Casting his spell. And I'm supposed to sit here and watch him and listen and pretend I don't know how fucking angry and potent that cock of his was when he fucked his fist and came all over my fucking thigh?

Nope.

It's impossible.

So when the meeting draws to a close and everyone is standing and shaking hands and thanking each other for their time, I'm weak with relief and fading adrenalin, psyching myself up to shake him by the hand once more and send him firmly on his way.

Until he stands right in front of me and looks me in the eye and asks me for a word in private.

In my office.

We takethe lift down with everyone else and get off on the third floor with the traders and the Head of Equity Sales. ‘It's this way,' I tell Max curtly, leading him across the trading floor and waiting with a mix of impatience and curiosity and nausea as he shakes their hands and thanks them charmingly for their time. Again.

The smile, the charm, fade as soon as we get into my small office.

‘Lock the door,' he snaps, throwing his jacket over the back of the nearest chair and letting the research tome we presented him with fall to the table with a bang. I throw him a look I hope tells him I'm not remotely on board with any of this before doing exactly as he says and hitting a switch that makes the windows opaque for good measure. If he wants to bawl me out, as I suspect he does, then I'll take all the privacy I can get.

‘Have a seat,' I say wearily, but before I can sit he's got his hands on my shoulders, gripping hard and frogmarching me backwards until I hit the wall.

‘She cried on Saturday night, you know that?' he asks, spitting each word out through clenched teeth. ‘She was pretty sanguine about it all after you walked out, but this weekend she was just really fucking sad and humiliated, and I want to wring your fucking neck for hurting her like that.'

Fuck.

I made her cry.

He's right—I'm despicable. Loathsome. If you take Max out of the equation, the way I've treated Darcy is abhorrent. I open my mouth to defend myself, but he ploughs on, fingertips digging into my shoulders and blue eyes cold as fucking ice.

‘Alchemy may be a sex club, but you came and messed around with us privately, at her invitation, and you fucking know it. Shooting in her mouth and then fucking off is so fucking out of order that if you don't understand what you did wrong then I can't begin to explain it to you.'

The smooth-talking, jocular Max is gone. This version of him is as intense, as emotion-fuelled as he was in that shower when he took what he wanted from me. He's vibrating with fury, possessed by it, and it's devastating, because there's something about his careless, entitled ease that draws you in, but there's something about seeing him when he does care, when he is riled, that's simply catastrophic.

I won't have him thinking badly of me. I can't bear it. Just as I can't bear Darcy thinking badly of me, either.

Impossibly, the truth is the least gut-wrenching option right now.

So I spit it out.

‘I know exactly what I've done, and I despise myself. But it has nothing to do with Darcy, and you know it.'

His face slackens with disbelief, like he can't quite believe I have the guts to come clean.

‘Go on.'

I flare my nostrils. ‘I haven't stopped thinking about her. I told you, she's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. I adored every single second of being with her the other night. And you're right.' I swallow. ‘I should message her and tell her just that. But I can't.'

‘Because…'

‘Because you guys are a package deal.' Nausea rolls through me and I regret that black coffee I drank on an empty stomach.

He releases my shoulders, instead planting his palms on the wall either side of me with a smack that makes me jump. He's got me caged in now.

Excellent.