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‘You’ve made quite a mess of my family circle,’ she told him flatly.
‘I do owe you an explanation.’
‘You didn’t feel you owed me one when it mattered, so don’t waste your breath now.’
Stubbornly determined not to be deflected from his purpose, Luke stood his ground. ‘I still have a lot of feelings for you, Harriet. In fact I don’t think I ever stopped loving you. Alice was the biggest mistake of my life. I’m here to ask you to give me a second chance.’
Harriet surveyed him with incredulous eyes. ‘Even you can’t imagine I’d consider taking you back after you slept with my sister! Or accept a nonsensical claim that you still loved me while you were planning to marry her!’
‘You and I were meant to be together for ever…but it got too comfortable. I didn’t want to marry Alice, but once I’d lost you I couldn’t face the truth that your sister and I were a disaster together. I should have married you a couple of years ago. It’s my fault that we stood still and got stale.’
‘We didn’t have the passion anyway.’
‘I would much rather have a woman with a brain and a work ethic,’ Luke argued. ‘Alice and I were only good for an affair, and it was never meant to be anything more. What I had with her wasn’t real…it was a fantasy.’
‘Maybe so, but I’m still not interested. I found my fantasy with someone else…and it was real—very real—I assure you.’ Her throat thickened as she made that declaration, but she was no longer ashamed of it. It might not be possible for her to be with Rafael any more, but with him she had learned what it was to really love. Nobody could ever take the knowledge of the joy and fulfilment she had briefly found away from her.
Luke frowned. ‘You’ve always loved me, Harriet. I may not offer fantasy, but we make a very good team—’
‘I can’t believe you think that I still might care about you…I don’t!’ Harriet declared in exasperation.
‘My firm is opening a branch in New York and I’m transferring there to make a fresh start. We could go together.’ His mouth tightened. ‘We could even get married before we go.’
Harriet almost burst out laughing when he offered that ultimate sacrifice. Instead she opened the door again on the summer sunshine. ‘Go home, Luke,’ she advised ruefully, embarrassed for him. ‘Don’t be so lazy that you can’t be bothered looking for a new woman!’
‘But you were so much a part of my life…it doesn’t feel right without you!’ he ground out accusingly.
Harriet saw that he did still have some genuine feelings for her, but he had caused too much pain and too much damage for her to pity him.
When he was gone she went out to the barn to start going through the crates of miscellaneous items that had been removed from the old sheds before they were demolished. While she sorted the stuff out into various piles she put on the radio for company.
When the music went off suddenly, her ears rang in the silence.
‘Harriet…’
She whirled round: Rafael was straightening, his hand dropping back from the radio. The last word in designer elegance, his pale grey silk business suit looked incongruous in the dusty untidy confines of the barn.
‘I’m filthy,’ she mumbled.
‘So…’ Stunning dark golden eyes glittered over her and then veiled. ‘Your ex visited you.’
Harriet blinked. ‘Does Tolly tell you everything?’
‘I was halfway to the airport when he unrolled that one.’
‘Halfway to the airport?’
‘Tolly phoned me to tell me. I had to turn back. What did Luke want?’
She rubbed grimy hands down over the thighs of her jodhpurs. ‘You’ll never believe it…he wanted me back.’
‘I believe it,’ Ra
fael breathed very quietly.
‘Poor Alice,’ she sighed.
Rafael took a sudden step closer and then froze to the spot, as if someone had turned a shotgun on him. ‘Are you taking him back?’
