might have been a deal breaker.
‘My father was a mean man with money,’ she found herself elaborating. ‘I vowed when I was just a teenager that I would never marry a scrooge.’
‘I fully agree with you. But didn’t you know Dwayne was tight with money when you first started dating him?’
‘He wasn’t like that then. He used to spend money on me like water. Took me to the best restaurants, the best concerts, the best of everything.’
‘Yes, well, a man like Dwayne would have had to pull out all stops to impress a girl like you. And he succeeded, didn’t he? You fell for him and agreed to marry him. But once he had his ring on your finger, he dropped the ball. Am I right?’
‘Very right,’ Harriet agreed, then frowned. ‘What do you mean by “a girl like me”?’
Alex smiled a crooked smile. ‘It must have been very upsetting to find out that your Prince Charming was nothing but a frog. And a stingy frog at that. What I meant was that you were always a cut above Dwayne, not only in looks but in intelligence and personality. He must have known on first meeting you that he would have to lift his game in every department if he wanted to win the heart of the beautiful Harriet McKenna. But the fool couldn’t keep it up, which is what happens when you play out of your league.’
Harriet flushed wildly at his compliments, not sure whether to believe him or not. Alex could be inclined to flattery on occasions. Not with her, but with clients. Though he had said she looked gorgeous the night they’d all attended that fundraising dinner back in March. She’d been wearing a new red cocktail dress which had looked well on her with her dark hair and eyes.
‘So what was the final straw?’ Alex went on. ‘The wedding dress business? Or something else?’
‘The wedding dress suggestion certainly brought things to a head. But I’d been unhappy for some time. And worried. It was obvious Dwayne wasn’t the man I thought he was. He certainly wasn’t acting like the man I fell in love with. He’d become lazy around the house. And with me.’
‘You mean your sex life had suffered.’
Harriet laughed and blushed slightly. ‘What sex life?’
‘The man was a fool,’ Alex said sharply. ‘What did he honestly expect would happen if he started neglecting you in bed?’
‘I have no idea,’ Harriet said with a sigh, thinking to herself that she couldn’t imagine Alex neglecting any of his girlfriends in bed. That man had testosterone oozing out of every pore of his gorgeous male body. ‘He obviously didn’t expect me to break off our engagement. He couldn’t believe it at first. When I tried to explain the reasons why I’d fallen out of love with him, he went into a rage, accusing me of all sorts of crazy things.’
‘Like what?’
Harriet could see Alex was determined to hear the truth behind the break-up.
‘Like I no longer loved him because I’d fallen in love with you...
‘As if I’d be stupid enough to do something like that,’ she raced on before Alex had a chance to jump to any potentially dangerous conclusions.
THE ARRIVAL OF the brunette with his order of coffee and bagels could not have come at a better time, giving Alex the opportunity to hide his peeved reaction to Harriet’s somewhat scoffing reply to Dwayne’s accusation. A perverse reaction, in a way, considering he didn’t want any woman falling in love with him. But it wasn’t very flattering for Harry to tell him that her falling for him would be stupid!
His throwing the waitress one of his super-charming smiles was more the result of a bruised ego than his desire to capture the girl’s interest. He’d been right when he’d said she wasn’t his type. She’d been way too eager to please. As much as Alex liked to date pretty young things—and the brunette was just that—he preferred independent, spirited girls who didn’t gush or grovel, and who didn’t have a single gold-digging bone in their bodies. Alex had known immediately that the brunette was not of that ilk.
‘Is there anything else you’d like, sir?’ the brunette asked after carefully placing the coffee and bagel on the table, her attention all on him, not having cast a single glance in Harriet’s direction.
‘No, thanks,’ he said and resisted the impulse to give her a tip. Harriet was already looking seriously irritated.
As the waitress departed, Harriet sent him a droll look.
‘Yes, I know,’ he said drily. ‘It does happen to me all the time. But she’s still not my type.’
‘Then perhaps you shouldn’t have flirted with her.’
Alex clenched his teeth hard in his jaw whilst he struggled to control his temper. ‘And perhaps you should tell me why you find me so unlovable,’ he retorted, still smarting over her earlier remark.
She blinked at his sharpness before dropping her eyes, taking a few seconds to pour the sugar into her coffee and looking up at him again. ‘I never said you were unlovable, Alex. I said I would not be stupid enough to fall in love with you. That’s an entirely different concept.’
Alex’s bruised ego was not to be so easily mollified. ‘Would you care to explain that last statement further? Why would it be so stupid for you to fall in love with me?’
‘Aside from the fact that I’m your PA, you mean?’ she threw at him.
He had to concede that that was an excellent reason. It was never a good idea to mix business and pleasure, something which he was in danger of forgetting.
‘Point taken,’ he said. ‘Is that the only reason, then?’
She gave him a long, searching look that he found decidedly irritating. This was a Harriet he wasn’t used to. Up till today she’d been the perfect PA, never complaining or criticising, calmly obeying his every wish and command. She’d never before looked at him in such an assessing and possibly judgmental fashion. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like it one bit.
Frankly, he preferred the Harriet who’d wept in his arms.
‘You’re not eating your bagel,’ she said as she coolly stirred her flat white. ‘And your coffee will get cold. You know how you hate lukewarm coffee.’
‘I also hate not having my questions answered,’ he ground out, sweeping up his mug of black coffee and glaring at her over the rim.
* * *
Harriet knew she had annoyed him; knew he’d taken her statement as a personal criticism. It had been seriously foolish of her to tell him about Dwayne’s accusation. But it was too late now. Somehow she had to explain her remark without offending Alex further.
Make light of it, girl. Turn it round so that it’s your failing and not his. And don’t, for pity’s sake, repeat the word ‘stupid’ in context with falling in love with him. No wonder he took umbrage!
‘The thing is,’ she said in a lighter, less emotional voice, ‘I realised a few years back that if I
