An Exception to His Rule(61)

                ‘Harriet?’ He removed his arm and put his fingers beneath her chin to turn her face to his. ‘What?’

                Her eyes were wide but dark and very blue. ‘You said...’ she began quietly.

                ‘Forget what I said earlier,’ he ordered. ‘Have you never said or done something and almost immediately started to wonder why you did it?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Well, I have and that was one of them. Anyway, things have changed.’

                ‘Nothing’s changed,’ she denied.

                ‘There you go again,’ he drawled. ‘You kissed me once and were all set to walk away from me. Don’t tell me that modus operandi extends to making love to me as if—’ he paused, and looked deep into her eyes ‘—your soul depended on it, then walking away?’

                Harriet breathed heavily with great frustration. ‘I don’t have a “modus operandi” I employ like that,’ she said through her teeth.

                ‘So why did you make love to me like that?’

                She opened her mouth then gestured, annoyed. ‘I felt sorry for you—I felt sorry for me. It was so lonely and scary not knowing what had happened to Charlie; it was awful. That’s—’ she lifted her chin ‘—why I did it.’

                ‘There had to be more than that.’

                Harriet moved restlessly then she sighed. ‘Yes. Of course. We obviously—’ she shrugged ‘—are attracted.’

                ‘Thank you,’ he said with considerable irony. ‘So why’s it such a bad idea? We both appeared,’ he said dryly, ‘to have forgotten our inhibitions and our hang-ups as well.’

                Harriet acknowledged this with a tinge of colour mounting in her cheeks but she said, ‘Temporarily, yes, but you can’t spend your life in bed. And I get the feeling marriage can create a pressure cooker environment for those hang-ups if they’re still lingering.’

                ‘Don’t,’ he advised, ‘come the philosopher with me, Harriet Livingstone.’

                She bristled. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! It’s only common sense.’

                He grinned fleetingly. ‘OK. How about this, then? If you won’t marry me, would you consider a relationship? That should give our hang-ups the freedom to rattle in the breeze rather than build up all sorts of pressure.’

                Harriet sat up. ‘No, I will not! And I’ll tell you why. You’ve got me on your conscience again, haven’t you? You couldn’t change so suddenly otherwise. Well, you don’t need to. I’ll be fine.’

                He sat up, all trace of amusement gone. ‘Listen,’ he said harshly, ‘if I have got you on my conscience, I’ve got good reason. You came here to Heathcote obviously traumatised—I wouldn’t be surprised if you were traumatised the day you ran into me. You were as skinny as a rake—and all because some guy had passed you over for another girl—’

                ‘Not just another girl,’ Harriet threw in. ‘My best friend.’

                Damien paused.

                ‘Someone I loved and trusted,’ she went on. ‘We met in our last year at school. I hadn’t made any close friends up until then because we moved around so much. That’s why I think she meant so much to me. Then Carol and I went to the same college and we did everything together. We backpacked around Europe. We did a working holiday on a cattle station; we did so much together.