After Felix - Lily Morton Page 0,60
hasten to wipe it off my face, but from the way he’s looking at me, it’s lingering like glitter dust.
The waiter arrives with my food at this opportune time, and I seize on the distraction, chatting to him and trying to ignore the way Max’s eyes have darkened and his breathing has picked up.
When the waiter’s gone, I apply myself to my food with diligence. Max gives me a break and goes back to his paper. I sneak secret little glances at him. I’m free from discovery, because when Max reads the news, he really reads it. His concentration is absolute, and you can practically hear the cogs in his brain whirring. I always used to love the way he’d launch himself into powerful diatribes afterwards, dissecting articles and summing up events in the world with a mind that is as sharp as a knife. That’s the thing with Max—it’s easy to forget he’s scarily intelligent because his air of irreverence and naughtiness so neatly covers it up.
His lips purse in thought as his eyes scan the newsprint, and I remind myself not to let down my guard. At some point he’s going to cotton on to the fact that I’m actually enjoying myself and then he’ll use that information to shoehorn himself back into my life. And I can’t have that.
The truth is that I’m enjoying myself more now than in all the time I’ve been apart from him. When he first blackmailed me into helping him, I’d been furious, but my anger was mixed with wanting to laugh. It’s that enormous charm of his.
My fury has faded to the point where I no longer want to do him bodily harm. Instead, I have dedicated myself to fucking him over on a mammoth scale. In the first week, I ordered him forty cases of printer paper rather than the forty packets he’d requested. When he’d told me about my mistake, I’d explained indignantly that his handwriting needed to improve. Then last week, I booked him for a course of speaking engagements with a sexual health clinic with the title, Max Travers. My Life in Condom Wrappers. Even though I’ll be long gone by the time he gets the confirmation, it was well worth it. And I’m only just getting started.
Still, I’m not sure I should celebrate any successes. Mostly, Max has only laughed at my attempts at fucking with him, and that old lazy approval of me keeps appearing in his eyes. Dangerous, because it affects me far more than I ever want him to know. I used to live for that warm, heated look on his face, the expression that said he was proud of me. But I’m never sliding down into that pit again. I’m not naive and young enough to believe that what’s between us is anything more than attraction. Yes, he was the best fuck I’d ever had, and, yes, it had been impossible to fuck him out of my system after I left him. But Max had also been the best at breaking my heart, and I can’t go there with him again. Ever.
I push my plate away. I glance up and meet his eyes. He’s obviously been watching me. There’s a dark and almost lost look about him, and for a mad second, I want to comfort him and demand to know what the matter is. Then it’s gone, and he smiles, leaving me to wonder whether I imagined it.
“Time to go,” I say cheerfully. “The bookshop and your army of fans await you.”
He groans. “Please don’t say it in that fashion. I’m not Justin Bieber.”
“A fact I am very aware of,” I say tartly. “You couldn’t hold a tune in a bucket.”
Instead of being offended like a normal person, he just laughs.
“I’m going to check us out,” I say. I stand and make my way towards reception, aware of him following me.
Max leans on the desk as I give the receptionist the room numbers. I wait while she brings up our details, trying to ignore the way she’s eyeing Max like he’s the last chocolate in the box.
“Here we go,” she says brightly. “How was the suite, sir?” she asks Max, as I deal with his credit card that I now carry as if he’s the fucking queen and I’m his lady in waiting.
“Oh, he didn’t sleep in the suite,” I say brightly. “That was my room.”
When we’d begun the book tour, he’d urged the idea of sharing a room for cost