You’re angry with him,she tried desperately to remind herself.You’re angry with him. You should be shouting at him, not holding hands with him in the hallway while looking deeply into his eyes. Remember what Willa said. Professional boundaries. Right now, there’s nothing professional about this and the only boundary between you two is an invisible line under a hedge in the garden. You have to get it together.
As though reading her thoughts, Max abruptly cleared his throat, and his thumb stopped moving over her own.
“Right,” he began authoritatively. “Can I trust you not to jab my eye out now? Put your claws away? Can you be a good girl and stop trying to kill me?”
Good girl.The phrase caught Bo off guard, sparking a sudden, unexpected warmth in her body that had nothing to do with the situation, and everything to do with Max and his words.
“I can be good,” Bo replied, her voice at once both sulky and sultry, and she felt another unforeseen throb of desire run through her.
I really have to get on Reddit and look up kink,she thought, taking a deep breath. I mean, ‘I can be good’? What the actual fuck?
Max cleared his throat again, and Bo wondered if his thoughts had strayed the same way as hers. “Fine.” He released her hand, nodding to the room beside them. “You’ll see I’m emptying Geoffrey’s study. I need the space. Legally, Geoffrey’s books and furnishings are now mine, and I have no need of them. I had planned on donating them.”
“Oh.” Bo paused. “They’re sitting outside, in boxes.”
“Temporarily, yes. I’ve arranged for them to be collected and taken over to the British Library. A curator there will go through them one by one. They’ll siphon off the valuable ones for their collection, while the rest will go to the British Heart Foundation to be sold.”
“Oh,” Bo said again, a little pointlessly. “I see.”
Max’s face softened. “Anything you want, you can take. Legally Geoffrey’s things are mine, but morally, you have a claim on them too. So, whatever you want, help yourself to. The same goes for his furniture. I told you already; I don’t live here. I have no use for Geoffrey’s bits and pieces, and less desire to ship any of them across Europe. Whatever you want, you can have.”
There it was again, that slight raise in the tempo of Bo’s heart.
“Why are you being so nice to me?” she asked him, and he stared back at her quizzically.
“Why wouldn’t I be nice to you? I told you; I’m not your enemy.”
“It feels like you should be.”
Max gave her a long look. “That’s understandable. The previous times we’ve talked, I’ve not been in the best of moods, have I? I’ve no defence for that, other than that my relationship with Geoffrey was complicated, and you happened to find yourself in the middle of that complication. I mean it though, Bo; you’re not my enemy. I told you that you could trust me, and you can.”
“Even though our relationship is complicated too?” Bo mused, thinking out loud, and to her surprise, Max nodded.
“By its very nature, yes, I suppose it is,” he agreed. “Still, I’d much rather our relationship was happily complicated than vexed and miserable.”
“Happily complicated? Is there such a thing?”
Max shrugged. “I hope so. Like it or not, we’re stuck with each other for the next few months. I’d much rather have someone living at the bottom of the garden who I can be friendly with than someone I’m constantly warring with. I was constantly warring with Geoffrey. It’s exhausting. To be frank, I’ve a busy few months coming up, and I don’t have the energy to war with anyone but myself. So, if you and I could be happily complicated, I’d appreciate it.”
Bo pondered his suggestion, but only for a minute. In all honesty, she just needed to get through the next few months until she had the money from the sale of Geoffrey’s property in her pocket. Then she would have all the breathing space she needed to re-evaluate her life and what she wanted from it. Besides, Max was right; if they were friendly with one another, it would make those months easier. Of course, there was still a small part of her that was concerned this was all one giant trick by Max to lull her into a false sense of security so he could build a case against her to challenge Geoffrey’s will. That small part was overridden, however, by Max’s insistence that he was trustworthy, and by the fact that Bo believed him.
“Okay,” she agreed, nodding slowly. “Happily complicated works for me. I can be friendly if you can.”
“Thank you.”
“And I can really take any of Geoffrey’s things for myself?” Bo then asked, still uncertain.
“Yes. There’s no space for them in his study now. I need the whole room for my piano.”
“The whole room?” Bo raised an eyebrow. “Your piano takes up the whole room?”
Max nodded. “It’s a concert piano. They’re large beasts by nature.”
“You must like music.”
Max gave her an odd look. “I suppose so. I’m a pianist. That’s what I do for a living. Play piano.”
“Oh.” Bo blinked. “Oh, so you’re a musician.”
