A little while ago she had believed he was the perfect match for herself. It was hard to get her head around transferring that sense of rightness to the connection between Michael and Lucy, but at least it didn’t hurt anymore. She felt no jealousy. No envy. Just a rather horrid sense that fate was playing a capricious trick in seeding attractions with the potential to mess up their lives.
* * *
Harry clenched his hands in instinctive fighting mode. Throughout the whole encounter with Mickey and Lucy, Elizabeth’s attention had been trained on them. She hadn’t looked to him for any help. Even now with them gone, her focus was inward, probably measuring her feelings and unwilling to reveal them.
Was she still obsessed with Mickey?
He needed to know.
‘Elizabeth...’ he said more tersely than he’d meant to.
Her gaze flicked up to his. He saw no pain in her eyes. It was more a look of curious assessment. Of him. Was she comparing what she’d felt for Mickey with how she now felt about him? Last night’s intimacy had to have had some impact on her. She’d responded to him very positively.
‘If you’d rather not have lunch with them...’ he started, willing to make up some excuse for her to avoid spending more time in their company if she found it intolerable.
‘No, it’s fine,’ she cut in. ‘If it’s okay with you for me to vacate the office for the lunch hour.’
‘You’re sure?’ he asked, wanting absolute confirmation that she was free of any angst over her sister’s connection with his brother.
A whimsical smile softened her expression as she walked towards him. To his surprise and delight, when she reached him she slid her hands up his chest and linked them around the back of his neck. ‘Lucy said to go get our men and right now you’re my man, Harry. I hope you’re happy about that,’ she said in a soft seductive lilt.
Was it true?
He fiercely didn’t want it to be on the rebound.
He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into full body contact with him. No resistance. In fact, she rubbed herself teasingly against him, stirring an instant erection. Her eyes blazed with a boldness he’d never seen in them and he sensed a determination in her to take life by the scruff of the neck and give it a good shake.
Whatever... Her dream about Mickey was gone and she was choosing to have him. He kissed her and she kissed him right back, no hesitation, no inhibitions—a full-blooded response that made it extremely difficult to rein in the desire she’d fired up. It was the wrong time to race her off to bed. Mickey and Lucy were waiting for them in the restaurant and he wouldn’t put it past Lucy to come looking for them if they didn’t appear within a reasonable time.
Besides, the promise was certainly there that last night was not going to be the one-night stand Elizabeth had dictated.
He could wait.
He was satisfied that he’d won.
Elizabeth Flippence was now his woman.
ELIZABETH woke up on Sunday morning and was instantly aware of the man lying in the bed he hadn’t shared with her before last night—the sound of his breathing, the warmth emanating from his naked body, the memories of intense pleasure in their lovemaking. Harry Finn...
She rolled onto her back to look at him, a smile twitching at her lips. He was still asleep. Her gaze wandered over every part of him that was not covered by the bed sheet—the strongly muscled shoulders and arms, the ruggedly masculine face with its slightly crooked nose, the black curls flopping over his forehead, the five o’clock shadow on his jaw. Her man, she thought, at least for the time being.
It felt slightly weird but definitely liberating to have thrown out her rule book on how life should be led, diving straight into the deep end with Harry and not caring if it was a big mistake. Lucy’s comment yesterday—you never know when something might strike us dead so we do what we want to do—had made it seem stupid to deny herself what Harry could give her out of fear that she’d made a rash choice and this lovely time with him probably wouldn’t last.
So what if it didn’t!
She was thirty years old. Why not experience all the pleasure she could with this man? When—if—it ended, at least she would have had the most marvellous sex any woman could have.
She wondered if Lucy was feeling the same about Michael. Was he as good a lover as his brother? Did being in love make it better? It was far too soon to say she was in love with Harry but he was much—nicer—than she had ever thought he could be, not like a superficial playboy at all. He really did care about her feelings.
His eyes suddenly flicked open, instantly catching her looking at him. ‘Hi!’ he said, his mouth curving into a happy smile.
She smiled back. ‘Hi to you, too!’
‘How long have you been awake?’
She reached out and ran a finger down his nose. ‘Long enough to wonder how this got broken.’
He laughed and rolled onto his side, propping himself up on his elbow, answering her good-humouredly. ‘Rugby tackle. It made a bloody mess of my nose but I stopped the other guy from scoring a try and we won the game.’
‘Sport,’ she said, mentally correcting her former prejudice that had decided the injury had come out of a misspent youth. ‘Jack Pickard told me you’d been good at all sports in your teens. He reckoned you could have been a champion on any playing field.’
He cocked an eyebrow at her. ‘You were asking him about me?’
‘No. I was being told about you. But I am asking now. Tell me about those years, Harry. What were your proudest moments in sport?’
* * *
He was happy to talk about them, basking in her interest. For two years she had rejected knowing more about him, always projecting the attitude that he wasn’t worth knowing. That glacier of disinterest had definitely thawed over the past two days.
‘Did you ever dream of competing in the Olympic Games? Or representing Australia in rugby or cricket?’ she asked.
He shook his head. ‘I simply enjoyed sport. I never aimed to make a career out of it. Mickey and I wanted to join Dad in the business. He used to talk to us about what he was doing, what he was planning. It was creative, challenging, exciting....’ He grinned. ‘And you made your own rules, no toeing a line drawn for you by sport officialdom.’
‘You were lucky to have a father like that, Harry.’
Not like hers.
He saw it in her eyes, heard it in the tinge of sad envy in her voice. He remembered what she had told him about her own father and realised how cautious she would be about her relationships with men, judging them on character before allowing them into her life. Playboy—womaniser—that would be a firm no-no regardless of physical attraction. No doubt she would instantly back off from
