Shock rippled through Harriet at the mention of Dwayne. Because she hadn’t given him a second thought. The penny dropped that she hadn’t been in love with Dwayne for a long time.
No, be honest, Harriet. You were never in love with him. Yes, it was upsetting breaking up with him. But your heart wasn’t broken, just your dreams.
‘When you’re ready to move on,’ Alex was saying, ‘then just say so and we’ll call it quits. Okay?’
Harriet just stared at him, stunned by the ruthlessness of his proposal and by her reaction to it. Sheer, unadulterated excitement. It was a struggle to stop the heat inside her body from reaching her face. Somehow, she managed.
‘Okay?’ he repeated, his eyes narrowing on hers.
‘Okay,’ she agreed, already afraid that calling it quits might prove impossible. Or it would whilst she was working for him. No matter what happened between them, it was perfectly clear that her days at Ark Properties were now numbered.
‘Good,’ he said, just a tad smugly. ‘I’d kiss you to seal the deal, but I don’t dare. After that last kiss, we’d probably end up having sex on the grass and, as much I occasionally fancy a quickie in the great outdoors, I prefer the comfort of a bed. Or a sofa. Or even a nice, warm spa bath.’
Harriet tried to banish the thought of having sex with Alex tonight in the spa bath, but it refused to go, evoking images which both aroused and tormented her. Dear God, but she could hardly wait!
‘Now, we’d better get down there and pretend to do some work. I don’t want Wally to think I made up some feeble excuse just so I could go away for a dirty weekend.’
But that’s exactly what you did, Harriet thought dazedly as they both climbed back into the Range Rover. She didn’t believe Alex’s claim that he’d changed his mind about seducing her. He’d meant to have her all along. And now, he had her. Game, set and match!
Chapter Ten
ALEX STRUGGLED TO keep his focus on the job at hand in the two hours they spent with Wally, though he doubted the foreman noticed. He was too busy chatting away with Harriet and showing her everything. Wally seemed inordinately pleased that she would be visiting him in a couple of weeks’ time, and not Alex. It seemed foolish to feel jealousy, but he did.
Alex might have worried about this uncharacteristic reaction more if his head hadn’t been projecting forward to the evening ahead. He was impatient to have Harry in his arms again. Impatient to show her that he was the boss, even in the bedroom; that her ridiculous penchant for rules didn’t apply to him. Yes, he would always use a condom. He wasn’t a fool. But other than that he would not be dictated to, especially when she wanted him as much as he wanted her. He almost felt sorry for Dwayne. How could any man live up to that ridiculous checklist of hers? He’d have to be a saint.
Alex wasn’t a saint. Not even remotely. But neither was he cruel or heartless. He was well aware that Harriet had just been through a tough time in her life. But he had no intention of hurting her. Hell, he would never hurt any woman, especially not Harry, whom he respected and admired enormously. Alex felt confident that having an affair with him would actually be good for her. It might encourage her to lighten up a bit. To live for the moment. To just have fun for a while.
By the time they left for the relatively short drive to the nearby resort, Alex had convinced himself that a strictly sexual affair with him was just what the doctor ordered for someone suffering over the break-up of a relationship.
* * *
Harriet didn’t feel like chatting on the way to the resort, tension over the night ahead gathering in the pit of her stomach. Alex did his best to engage her in conversation, not very successfully. When he finally gave up asking her what she now saw as futile questions about the golf estate, she turned her head to gaze through the passenger window at her surrounds, noting idly that the countryside was very beautiful, with rolling hills and lush paddocks, the grass very green despite it being winter. Not many frosts this far north, she thought. Not to mention near the coast.
A sign came up saying that Coffs Harbour was only a few kilometres away.
By the time they turned into the resort, her nerves were jangling and her belly was as tight as a drum. Harriet still found it hard to believe that she was about to spend the night with Alex. All night, in his bed. Maybe even in his bath as well. It stunned her how quickly she had gone from engaged woman to suddenly single to her boss’s secret mistress. Not that they’d actually done the deed yet. But it was a foregone conclusion. With the wild desires that were flooding her body at that moment, she couldn’t have changed her mind even if she’d wanted to.