‘Did you never suspect?’ Harriet asked curiously.
‘Sometimes. But she was good at diverting any doubts I may have had. And I’m not trying to say I was blameless myself. If anything was going to work for Veronica in a marriage, it was an anchorman. I could work that out, I could see,’ he said intensely, ‘that she was one of those high-powered people who often didn’t know how to come down from the heights. But I couldn’t...I—’ he closed his eyes briefly ‘—just got more and more irritated and difficult to live with.’
Harriet looked across at him. His profile was rock-hard and she could see the tension in the set of his mouth and his shoulders. ‘How can you be sure you’re going to feel like this with another woman?’
‘I’ve had a couple of—’ he shrugged ‘—liaisons since then. They didn’t last. I didn’t want them to last because I felt stifled,’ he said. ‘I wanted to be free. I never, ever want to go through that kind of trauma again.’
He paused then he said sardonically, ‘I would never have thought I was naïve going into marriage with Veronica; I certainly wasn’t afterwards. I kept looking for signs, pointers, indicators that I was being taken for a fool again so that those liaisons became a nightmare of mistrust.’
He broke off and sighed. ‘And I keep thinking of the consequences and how one innocent child got caught up in it all. That’s why I’m better on my own. But I had to tell you this. Despite the fact that this attraction lies between us, it could never be more than that.’
He put his hand over hers. ‘I’m sorry.’
Harriet blinked away a tear. ‘That’s OK.’
He paused then looked at her curiously. ‘You really don’t mind?’
Harriet smiled, just a gentle curve of her mouth. ‘Yes, I do mind a bit but I always knew it couldn’t work for me, so—’
‘You’re still in love with—whoever he was?’
Harriet considered and realised that until quite recently she might have believed that. Not any more, however. But it made no difference now. There was no future for her with Damien Wyatt...
She blinked several times as it hit her like a train all of a sudden that it mattered greatly to her to think there was no future for her with this man. He couldn’t have spelled it out more clearly.
So, she thought, the tables have turned. I was the one who was eager to cut ‘things’ off between us; now I’m the one who...
‘Harriet?’
‘Uh—I don’t know. But, for my own reasons, I really don’t want to get involved like that again. You probably think I’m silly.’ She stopped and shrugged.
There was a long silence. Then he said, ‘Tottie will be devastated.’
Harriet smiled and blew her nose. ‘Well, I ought to get back to work. Do you—’ she hesitated ‘—do you want me to finish your mother’s things?’
‘Yes,’ he replied promptly. ‘I won’t be here—no, I’m not going to try to go to Perth again today, but tomorrow I will.’
‘Oh.’ Harriet jumped up with a hand to her mouth. ‘I’m cook tonight. I promised Isabel roast beef. Will you...?’ She looked a question at him.