LITMIR.BIZ

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her man perfect. It would win awards, be syndicated worldwide. Stella would gasp with admiration.

      At this point Allegra’s imagination, vivid as it was, faltered. Stella, gasping? But a little strategic tweaking and the fantasy still worked. All right, Stella would look as enigmatic as ever but her words would be sweet. Allegra, she would say, you’re our new star writer. Have a massive salary.

      I’d love to, Stella, Allegra imagined herself saying in reply, super casual. But the Financial Times has made me an offer I can’t refuse.

      Surely her mother would be impressed by the FT?

      Sucking yoghurt thoughtfully from her spoon, Allegra went to the kitchen doorway from where she could study Max without being observed.

      He was still on the sofa, still flicking through channels in search of the news or sport, which was all he ever watched. Definitely not the kind of guy you would check out in a bar. Brown hair, ordinary features, steady blue-grey eyes: there was nothing wrong with him, but nothing special either.

      Yep, he was perfect.

      Max played rugby so he was pretty fit, but he didn’t make anything of himself. Allegra mentally trimmed his hair and got rid of the polo shirt only to stop, unnerved, when she realised that the image of him lying on the sofa bare-chested was quite...startling.

      Hastily, she put the shirt back on in her imagination. Whatever, the man was ripe for a makeover.

      All she had to do was get Max to agree. Scraping out the yoghurt pot, Allegra tossed it in the bin with a clatter and squared her shoulders. Only last week she’d written an article on the benefits of thinking positive and getting what you wanted. It was time to put all that useful research into practice.

      Back in the sitting room, she batted at Max’s knees until he shifted his legs and she could plonk herself down on the sofa next to him. ‘Max,’ she began carefully.

      ‘No.’ Max settled his legs back across her lap and crossed his ankles on the arm of the sofa, all without taking his eyes off the television.

      ‘What do you mean, no?’ Forgetting her determination to stay cool and focused, as per her own advice in the article, Allegra scowled at him. ‘You don’t know what I’m going to say yet!’

      ‘I know that wheedling tone of old,’ said Max. ‘You only use it when you want me to do something I’m not going to want to do.’

      ‘Like what?’ she said, affronted.

      ‘Like waste an entire hot bank holiday Monday sitting in traffic because you and Libby wanted to go to the sea.’

      ‘That was Libby’s idea, not mine.’

      ‘Same wheedle,’ said Max, still flicking channels. ‘And it was definitely your idea to have a New Year’s Eve party that time.’

      ‘It was a great party.’

      ‘And who had to help you clear up afterwards before my parents came home?’

      ‘You did, because you’re a really, really kind brother who likes to help his sister and his sister’s best mate out when they get into trouble.’

      Max lowered the remote and looked at Allegra in alarm.

      ‘Uh-oh. You’re being nice. That’s a bad sign.’

      ‘How can you say that? I’m often nice to you. Didn’t I make you a delicious curry last weekend?’

      ‘Only because you wanted some and didn’t want to admit that you’d broken your diet.’

      Sadly, too true.

      ‘And I said I’d go to that dinner and pretend to be your fiancée,’ she said. ‘How much nicer can I get?’

      Max pulled himself up to look at Allegra with suddenly narrowed eyes. ‘You’re not going to back out, are you? Is that what this is about? Now that Emma’s not around, I really need you.’

      ‘Aw, Max, that’s sweet!’

      ‘I’m serious, Legs. My career depends on this.’

      ‘I do think the whole thing is mad.’ Allegra wriggled into a more comfortable position, not entirely sorry to let the conversation drift while she worked out exactly how to persuade Max to agree to take part. ‘I mean, who cares nowadays if you’re married or not?’

      ‘Bob Laskovski does,’ said Max gloomily.

      At first he had welcomed the news that the specialist firm of consulting engineers he worked for was to be taken over by a large American company. An injection of capital, jobs secured, a new CEO with fantastic contacts with the Sultan of Shofrar and some major projects being developed there and elsewhere in the Middle East: it was all good news.

      The bad news was that the new CEO in question was a nut. Bob Laskovski allegedly had a bee in his bonnet about the steadying influence of women, of all things. If ever there was going to be unsettling going on, there was bound to be a female involved, in Max’s opinion. But Bob liked his project managers to be in settled relationships and, given the strict laws of Shofrar, that effectively meant that, male or female, they had to be married.

      ‘God knows what he thinks we’ll do if we don’t have a wife to come home to every night,’ Max had grumbled to Allegra. ‘Run amok and seduce local girls and offend the local customs, I suppose.’

      Allegra had just laughed. ‘I’d love to see you running amok,’ she’d said.

      Max had ignored that and ploughed on with his explanation. ‘If I don’t turn up with a likely-looking fiancée, Bob’s going to start humming and hawing about whether I’m suitable for the job or not.’

      It was ridiculous, he grumbled whenever given the opportunity. He had the skills, he had the experience, and he was unencumbered by ties. He should be the perfect candidate.

      There hadn’t been a problem when Bob had first said that he was coming over to London and wanted to meet the prospective project managers. That was another of Bob’s ‘things’, apparently: he liked to vet them personally over individual dinners. God knew how the man had had the time to build up a vast construction company.

      Max hadn’t thought about it too much when the invitation to dinner had arrived. He and Emma had been going to get married anyway, and she was bound to go down well with Bob. Max was all set for his big break.

      And then Emma had changed her mind.

      Max still couldn’t quite believe it. He might have lost his fiancée, but he was damned if he was going to lose the Shofrar job too. Still, at least Allegra had been quite willing to help when he broached the idea of her standing in for Emma. For all her silliness, she could be counted on when it mattered.

      ‘But just for an evening,’ she had warned. ‘I’m not going to marry you and go out to Shofrar just so you can be a project manager!’

      ‘Don’t worry, it won’t come to that,’ said Max, shuddering at the very thought of it.

      ‘There are plenty of examples of relationships busting up before and after engineers get out there, and once you’re actually doing the job and behaving yourself it’s not a problem. All I need to do is get Bob’s seal of approval. Everyone says it’s worth humouring him.

      ‘It’ll just be a dinner,’ he assured her. ‘All you need to do is smile and look pretty and pretend that you’re going to be the perfect engineer’s wife.’

      Of course, that was going to be the problem. He’d eyed Allegra critically. She’d been dressed in a short stretchy skirt that showed off her long legs, made even longer by precarious heels. ‘Maybe you’d better wear something a bit more...practical,’ he’d said. ‘You don’t really look like an engineer’s wife.’

      Allegra, of course, had taken that as a compliment.

      ‘I don’t mind going along to the dinner with you,’ she

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