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‘Yeah. But I’ll be back in London soon, and I’m thinking of coming over to Ireland to visit you.’
‘I’d really love to see you,’ Harriet told him warmly. ‘But I warn you…the cottage is pretty basic.’
‘I just want somewhere quiet and private to chill. I’m exhausted,’ Boyce confided.
It was barely three years since Boyce and three of his friends had formed 4Some, one of the most successful boy bands in the music business. Boyce was the lead singer. Mobbed by hysterical girls wherever they went, 4Some were on a global tour, playing to sell-out audiences and making megabucks, but her brother’s schedule was a punishing one.
‘Will you promise not to tell anyone that I’ll be staying with you?’ he pressed her anxiously. ‘You can’t trust people not to blab to the press, and I want total peace.’
‘You’ll find it here,’ Harriet soothed.
‘You still haven’t said how you are.’ Audible concern shaded Boyce’s comment. ‘If it’s any comfort, I think Luke’s a total freak show and I can’t believe Alice has fallen for him too.’
‘Does she really love him?’ Harriet heard herself ask, before she could think better of it.
‘She says so, but I’m not making excuses for her,’ Boyce declared uneasily. ‘Don’t ask me to take sides.’
‘I won’t. Let’s not talk about it.’
When Boyce rang off, Harriet’s face was tight with restrained emotion. She went into her bedroom to retrieve the box that she had stowed below the bed on the day she’d first arrived. A box brimming with memorabilia far too precious to have been left behind even temporarily in London, she conceded with self-hatred. She should have dumped it after finding Luke in bed with Alice, not carried it all the way to Ireland with her! Did Alice really love him? What difference did that make? Grabbing her old portable CD-player and the bottle of wine, Harriet carried the box out to the field and emptied it, and then trekked doggedly back to the yard to fetch kindling to make a fire.
The sugary-sweet vocals of the song that had been a hit the night she first met Luke throbbed out of the CD-player. She knelt down and lit the fire with hands that trembled. She was in an agony of grief. Luke could never have loved her the way he loved Alice: it was obvious that he couldn’t wait to get her sister to the altar. They had actually named the day. Harriet’s heart felt like it was cracking right down the middle. Hot tears slid slowly down her cheeks. She hit ‘replay’ on the CD and helped herself to another swig of homemade wine. Luke was going to be her brother-in-law and she had to learn to live with that! But how did she learn to live with such pain?
‘This is a strange time of day to start a bonfire,’ a familiar accented drawl remarked, startling her out of her self-preoccupation. ‘I saw the glow from the Court and decided I should check it out in case the stables were at risk.’
‘I’m not that stupid.’ With great reluctance, Harriet twisted her head round.
Rafael Flynn stood poised several fe
et away. Silhouetted against the star-studded night sky, and seen from her vantage point at ground level, he looked unbelievably tall and authoritative.
‘I appreciate your concern, but I’m not in the mood for company,’ she added tightly.
‘Is this emotive display designed to make me feel bad about our current business dealings?’ Rafael enquired very drily.
Something inside Harriet just exploded. ‘Hell’s teeth…men!’ she launched back at him with honest incredulity. ‘Why are you all so blasted self-obsessed? My ex-fiancé accused me of leaving the country to make him feel bad. Now you think I’m putting on some melodramatic show for your benefit. Well, wake up and join the real world. Right at this minute I couldn’t care less about that stupid partnership! I’ve got much more important things on my mind.’
Accustomed to women who expressed dissatisfaction in infinitely more devious ways, Rafael thought that she had a wonderfully straightforward way of expressing her feelings. ‘Such as?’
‘The man I love is marrying my sister in August!’ Harriet bit out, and, snatching up one of the photos in the pile beside her, she chucked it into the flames. ‘That’s why I’m burning all this stuff.’
Rafael crouched down and scooped up a single large photo.
‘What are you doing?’ Harriet screeched, leaping upright and striving to retrieve it from his insensitive hold.
‘Encouraging your pyromania…Is this him? The object of your affections?’ Rafael extended the picture of Luke for her perusal but deliberately kept it out of her reach.
Deciding that a struggle lacked dignity, Harriet folded her arms and jerked her chin in a curt nod of affirmation.
‘He’ll be overweight by the age of forty. He’s already losing his hair, and he’s not very tall,’ Rafael pronounced drily. ‘Give your sister a badge for stealing him. She’s picked a short, fat, balding guy!’
‘Most women think Luke is very presentable.’ Harriet was infuriated by his irreverence. Furthermore, while it was one thing to have told him she was still getting over a previous relationship, being caught in the act with the old photos, the cuddly toys and the sad music collection was distinctly embarrassing.
‘Review him with a critical eye.’ Rafael displayed the photograph for reappraisal. ‘This is Mr Ordinary, not some mythical prince.’
Mr Ordinary? Oddly enough, she had not noticed before that Luke’s hairline had begun to recede, or that his jawline was no longer crisp. He had definitely enjoyed her cooking. Whatever else had been a lie that at least had not been. Her throat closed over, for she was recalling cosy evenings when she had prepared meals while Luke talked about his day at work.
‘Go away,’ she told her tormentor in a jagged undertone.
