His brow cleared, his smile derisive. ‘I’ve never really understood this fascination with what has become England’s national sport.’
‘It isn’t as boring as cricket?’ January returned dryly.
Max chuckled softly. ‘You could have a point there!’
Max looked more like a rugby player himself, his physique muscular to say the least, January allowed grudgingly.
Not that it was of any of her business, she told herself sharply; there was nothing more she needed to know about Max Golding. It was bad enough that she was in love with him!
‘If you’ll excuse me,’ she said sharply, as usual feeling disturbed just by Max’s presence in the same room as her, ‘I have to get to work.’
He nodded. ‘I have a few things to attend to myself,’ he told her enigmatically. ‘Perhaps I’ll catch up with you later,’ he added dismissively.
January watched him leave beneath lowered lashes. Tomorrow he would be gone. From the hotel. From England. From her life. How her heart ached just at the thought of it!
Only a few more hours to get through, she told herself determinedly. And then she could give in to the heartbreak that had been threatening since he’d come to the farm earlier to inform them he was leaving, going back to America.
Perhaps it was as well she would no longer be working here after tonight; she simply wouldn’t have been able to come to the hotel without imagining Max here, her loss all the more acute because he really wasn’t.
As she was aware of his absence during the early part of the evening. Strange how quickly she had become accustomed to his being here the evenings she worked, how flat the evening seemed because he wasn’t there watching her with that intense blue gaze.
She had to stop this, she decided as she stood at the bar sipping sparkling water during her first break. Max had never really been in her life, so how could she feel so devastated now that he was going out of it? She didn’t know—she just did!
How could she bear it?
How was she going to survive without his annoying—wonderful!—presence in her life?
‘Penny for them?’
She turned sharply at the huskily intimate sound of his voice, hurriedly blinking back the tears that had blurred her vision. ‘Shouldn’t that be “cent”?’ she came back lamely.
Max shook his head, frowning slightly. ‘How many more times? I don’t actually live in America, January.’
Her eyes widened. ‘You don’t?’
He gave another shake of his head. ‘I have no idea why you thought that I did.’
‘Because you said you had flown here from there.’ She frowned. ‘And Jude Marshall is there. I just assumed—’ Somehow the thought that Max might actually still be in England somewhere, and not all the way across the Atlantic, made their parting not quite so hard to bear.
‘I have an apartment in London, January,’ he told her softly, his gaze searching now on the paleness of her face. ‘An apartment I have a feeling I will be using a lot more in the near future,’ he added dryly.
She looked at him quizzically. ‘You will?’
‘Yes,’ he confirmed with satisfaction. ‘January—’
‘Mr Golding?’
They both turned at the sound of that enquiring voice, January’s gaze widening even further as she took in the police uniform the man was wearing. What on earth—?
‘Yes?’ Max answered sharply, January actually able to feel his sudden tension.
The policeman glanced at January. ‘If you could just step outside for a few minutes, sir,’ he prompted quietly.
January was feeling tense herself now. What on earth could the police want with Max? Surely they didn’t think—?
‘I’m coming with you,’ she told Max determinedly as he turned to leave with the other man.
He glanced back at her, blue gaze guarded now. ‘I would much rather you didn’t,’ he said softly.