‘You are just misinterpreting what I said to suit your own ends,’ Harriet objected angrily. ‘That is not what I meant at all.’
They were glaring at one another like two opponents, their argument only brought to an end by the waiter coming to remove their plates for the next course.
CHAPTER THREE
HARRIET stiffened as she saw the look of appreciation and invitation the pretty girl behind the reception desk gave Matt as they left the restaurant. Yet another reason for keeping clear of him, she decided grimly. What woman in possession of all her senses wanted a man who attracted and encouraged the interest of virtually every female he came into contact with?
Not that Matt had encouraged the girl’s acquisitive hungry look, Harriet was forced to concede as Matt strode past her obliviously. But that did not alter the fact that if he had done the girl would have leapt to seize the opportunity, Harriet acknowledged.
Courteously Matt placed his hand beneath her elbow to escort her across the car park, rather in the manner that her father adopted towards elderly female members of the family, she reflected darkly.
Her attention was momentarily distracted by the sight of a couple several yards away, wrapped in each other’s arms and exchanging the most passionate of kisses as the woman fumbled to unlock the door of the car.
The pounding of Harriet’s heart inside her chest was followed by an ache of longing that seemed to seep into every bit of her.
What would it be like to be loved and wanted by Matt like that? Well, whatever it was like she wasn’t going to be the one to find out, she told herself sharply.
Matt frowned as he glanced down towards Harriet. She hadn’t spoken since before they had left the restaurant—which was, he suspected, quite a record, since during the rest of the evening she had engaged in the kind of conversation that had left him reluctantly impressed by its range and depth. Matt wasn’t used to his dates having as keen an interest in world affairs as he did himself, nor in them being so comfortable and informed in debating them.
Just listening to Harriet gave the words ‘verbal foreplay’ a whole new meaning, he decided ruefully. Certainly he had never expected that he would find anything erotic in a vigorous discussion about the merits of a home-based workforce. But then he found just about everything about Harriet erotic. In fact, she fascinated him, infuriated him, and just about occupied every one of his waking hours as well as a large percentage of his sleeping ones. And that meant…
Harriet glowered at Matt as he suddenly and for no reason at all stood still right in the middle of the car park.
The couple by the car were still kissing.
Matt followed the direction of her gaze and tugged grimly on her arm so that she had to look away.
‘Stop thinking about it,’ he said curtly. ‘It’s not going to happen!’
Harriet could feel her face starting to burn with guilt and chagrin. Had he really guessed so easily how much she had wished that she were the one being kissed so passionately, and by him?
‘What makes you think I want it to?’ she demanded defensively.
They had reached his car, and as he unlocked it Matt gave her an oblique look. Her full lips were set in a constrained closed line and her green eyes were a mutinous jade.
He opened the passenger door for her, but as she stepped past him he encircled her with the car door and his body.
‘Of course you want it to. You’re in love, or you think you are. But Ben is not in love with you.’
Ben! Harriet went limp with relief and sagged against the car. Of course—he thought she was in love with Ben!
‘But that doesn’t stop you wanting to feel his mouth on yours, wanting to…’
The raw sound of Matt’s voice jerked her into defensive anger.
If she had been in love with Ben his last words would not have done her any good at all. As it was they were making her want to look at Matt’s own mouth as though she were magnetised by it! And not just look at it, she admitted longingly.
‘Have you ever thought of writing sex scenes for films?’ she asked him, with what she had intended to be sarcasm but which instead sounded more like breathless wonder, Harriet recognised in self-disgust as she scrambled into the car.
To her relief Matt refused to pick up her gauntlet, and started the car instead.
Half an hour later, as they drove through the down-at-heel area where she lived, Harriet could well imagine what Matt must be thinking. But she liked her small house, tucked in cosily with its neighbours, and she liked her long back garden even more.
As though he had read her mind Matt broke his silence to announce tersely, ‘This is a pretty rough area. Not one I would have thought safe for a woman living on her own.’
Yes, it was a bit of a rough area, and following an outbreak of violent incidents she felt increasingly worried about the fact that gangs of youths had begun to roam the local streets, and that if you possessed a car it was not considered wise to park it outside.
But the area still had a certain artisan quaintness about it, and—even more important to Harriet—her little house was affordable and within public transport distance of the office.
She also liked the fact that she had a local butcher and grocery shop, and that most of her elderly neighbours had been born and bred there and so were full of stories of how the area had once been. But now she was seeing it through Matt’s eyes, and what she was seeing made her feel both angry and uncomfortable.
Outside a local take away a gang of youths were scuffling and exchanging obscenities. Harriet could see the look Matt was giving them.
She felt obliged to defend them. ‘They’re only young.’
‘And that gives them licence to be foul mouthed?’ Matt challenged her. ‘Aren’t your family concerned about the kind of area you’re living in?’ he demanded.
Mutinously Harriet turned away from him, pretending not to hear. The truth was that her parents had been dismayed when she had shown them her new home—but she had managed to talk them around.
One of the reasons she had returned home at the weekend had been to wave them off for her father’s lecture tour of America. Since her brother and his family lived in New York, Harriet knew how much her parents were looking forward to their visit, and being able to spend some time with their grandchildren.
‘Harriet…’ Matt began ominously, and then stopped as he turned into her narrow street and they both saw the police car and the ambulance, lights flashing, outside her elderly neighbour’s home.
Her own feelings forgotten, Harriet pressed her hand to her mouth in anxiety. Mrs Simmonds was in her late eighties, and had a fund of interesting stories about the past, but Harriet was aware that she had a weak heart and had taken to surreptitiously checking on the elderly lady every day in a way that meant that she did not hurt her pride.
‘Oh, no!’
‘What the—’
They both spoke at the same time, and Matt stopped his car.
‘It’s Mrs Simmonds,’ Harriet told him shakily as they watched two burly ambulancemen carrying the old lady into the ambulance on a stretcher.
A police officer was already approaching the car.
‘What’s happened?’ Matt asked.
‘I’m Mrs Simmonds’s neighbour,’ Harriet told him, and got out to join Matt and the policeman. ‘I know she has a weak heart…’
‘Some young thugs broke into her house,’ the policeman told them angrily. ‘Ransacked