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‘Of course not, although I think Nicola was more concerned with worming her way into the insurance business than rebelling against being at school. She just doesn’t want to go on to university. I guess the last few weeks have shown she’s willing to come in on the ground floor, so we’ll have to see.’
Harriet relaxed fractionally. So that was what the girl had been up to in her demure but determined way!
‘It was a very convenient way for you to spy on me, though, wasn’t it?’ she said, unwilling to let go of her suspicions.
‘Very, but I didn’t create the opportunity, I just took advantage of it,’ he said with a clipped precision that suggested he objected to the slur on his honour. ‘I probably would have asked you to take on the task of monitoring Nicola anyway; you were the natural choice. Of course I didn’t realise how critical my intervention in your affairs was going to turn out to be…’
He leaned towards h
er and picked up the hand she had clenched in her lap.
‘You can relax now, Harriet. You don’t have to run wild in an attempt to prove to yourself how shameless and wicked and promiscuous you are. We both know you’re none of those things. That was just a role created by your guilty subconscious. But you have nothing to feel guilty about. Our brief encounter may have been unwise, but it certainly wasn’t sordid—or in any way promiscuous. So, you see, now you can go back to being yourself again.’
Harriet had listened with rising indignation. ‘Brief encounter’? He made it sound as if they had merely shaken hands! They had made love, for goodness’ sake. Been as intimate as it was possible for a man and woman to be. Well, if he could shrug it off so casually, so could she! she thought grimly.
She stood up, and he stood up with her, almost rocking back on his heels as she told him fiercely, ‘Thank you, but you can keep your pompous, amateur psychiatric evaluations to yourself! You needn’t flatter yourself that the way I act has anything to do with you, subconsciously or otherwise!’
He thrust his head forward aggressively. ‘Don’t be absurd; of course it has. I could practically taste your embarrassment a few moments ago. You were shocked by the thought of yourself casually sleeping with me. It goes against the grain, doesn’t it, to hold yourself so lightly? How do you think you’re going to feel about yourself if you do it on a regular basis?’
‘At least next time it might be interesting enough for me to remember it for more than five minutes,’ she said snidely. ‘You know what they say—if you don’t at first succeed, try, try, try again!’
His nostrils flared. ‘Is that an invitation?’
She smiled provocatively and posed with her hands on her narrow hips, her shoulders leaning forward to emphasise her breasts, her eyes half-closed—a parody of a Marilyn Monroe pose that she had practised in the mirror. ‘Do you want it to be, honey?’
He looked as savage as a man could look in a bathrobe. ‘If you want to know what a memorable one-night stand feels like I’d be delighted to oblige.’
‘But that would make it a two-night stand,’ she pointed out with a toss of her head, exhilarated by his show of temper and knowing that his threat was an empty one. He was too fastidious, too much of a gentleman to let her goad him into treating her like an easy lay, especially with the smirch she had put on his much valued sense of honour at New Year so fresh in his mind.
‘Chickening out already, Harriet?’
She would have looked down her small, straight nose at him if he hadn’t been taller than she was. Instead she gave him an insulting once-over. ‘One night? No strings? Wham-bam, thank you, Marcus?’
He gritted his teeth. ‘If you’re sure that’s what you want.’
‘That’s exactly what I want!’ she declared, wondering what would happen if she told him that a thousand and one nights and chains of steel were more in line with her desires.
‘Fine!’
‘Fine!’ she echoed triumphantly. Now was the time to call his bluff. She batted her eyelashes at him. ‘Shall we start here, or in the bedroom?’
His wolfish smile gave her a nasty shock. ‘Oh, let’s do the thing properly. A night you asked for and a night you’ll get. With daylight saving I calculate that there are currently ten hours of darkness and we both have to be at work in—’ he consulted his watch ‘—roughly eight. I don’t want to short-change you…Look, I’m afraid I’m tied up for the next few days, so shall we say sunset on Sunday.’
Ten hours! Harriet tried not to let the thrill of shock show through her expression of careless indifference. Ten hours?
‘Fine,’ she said defiantly, clinging to the reckless certainty that he was merely trying to humiliate her into backing down before he did, to force her to admit that he was right and she was wrong. Never! She was going to win this game of brinkmanship and demonstrate once and for all that the new Harriet Smith was every bit her own person, not merely a hollow receptacle for the old Harriet’s fears!
‘Fine.’ His defiance was every bit as razor-sharp as hers. ‘I’ll expect you here about eight, then.’
He escorted her politely to the door and with every step Harriet expected him to growl that enough was enough. She was in the hall, walking away, when she finally heard him break.
‘Oh, Harriet?’
She spun round in relief, a tiny smile of triumph that she was helpless to hide playing insolently around her mouth.
‘Yes, Marcus?’ she said sweetly. ‘Did you forget something?’
He was leaning against the doorway, his blue gaze burning with controlled rage. ‘Just to warn you not to expect dinner. All you’re getting from me is sex. I don’t intend to waste a single minute of our one-night stand on anything as mundane as food…’
