Page 23 of Not Yet Yours

She spears a potato on her fork and twizzles it around in some sauce. She watches the potato and then looks quickly up at me.

“Nothing,” she says, and then her attention goes back to the potato.

She’s dragging the piece of potato so hard and fast on her fork that it breaks and falls away.

“I think that potato would beg to differ,” I say, hoping that if I can make her laugh, it will bring her walls down a bit.

“What?” she says, and then she looks down and sees what she’s done. She stops twiddling her fork. “Oh.”

“Harriet,” I say again, and I don’t go on until she looks at me. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong. Is it something I’ve done?”

For a moment, she just looks at me and I’m starting to think she isn’t going to answer me at all, but then she drops her gaze and speaks down at her plate.

“No, it’s nothing you’ve done. It’s something I’ve done,” she says.

I want to prompt her to tell me what she’s done, but something tells me to stay quiet and let her speak in her own time, so I bite my tongue and wait for her to tell me what’s going on.

“Before we came here, I made a promise to myself that we would have a fun weekend and convince people we were together and that would be it. I promised myself I wouldn’t let my guard down again and let anything happen between us. But, well I think it’s fair to say that I failed miserably at that,” she says, and I see the ghost of a smile playing across her lips, but it’sgone as quickly as it came. “I guess I figured that it is best to keep you at arm’s length than keep leading you on.”

“That’s what this is about?” I say, shocked to hear the reason for her being standoffish with me today. “Harriet, you don’t need to feel bad about last night. I sure as hell don’t. And you’re not leading me on. We both made it perfectly clear we weren’t in the right space the last time we were together to start something. I know exactly where I stand and I’m just enjoying the sex. I was under the impression we both were enjoying it.”

“Well, when you put it that way, yeah, I guess we are,” Harriet says, and this time when she smiles, it’s her full, radiant smile, and it doesn’t fade away for a long time.

By the end of our lunch, we are flirting and laughing together like we always have, and everything feels pretty much back to normal. And if it meant I had to lie to Harriet a little bit and have her think I don’t want more from her, well that’s ok. I wasn’t lying when I said I know where I stand with her and that she’s not leading me on. I know I’m playing with fire, but I’m confident I can straddle this line of having at least some of Harriet rather than none of her without getting hurt.

Chapter Thirteen

Liam

Ioffered to get ready for the party in the bathroom once Harriet had showered and was back in the main room in a robe so that she could have access to the dressing table and be able to get ready comfortably. She thanked me and said she would call me out when she was done. Since then, I have showered and washed my hair, towel dried and styled my hair, and put my clothes and shoes on. I have sprayed both deodorant and aftershave and now I’m just waiting for Harriet to call me. I realized it was going to take her longer than me because she has longer hair to deal with and because she was likely going to want to put makeup on, so I took an extra-long shower, so I wasn’t waiting around too long.

I’ve only been ready for about ten minutes when Harriet calls through to the bathroom to tell me that she’s ready and I can come out of the bathroom. I get up from the toilet lid where I’ve been perched and open the bathroom door. I turn the light out and then step out into the room and pull the door closed behind me. I stop dead in my tracks when I see Harriet standing facing the bathroom door and smiling at me.

She’s wearing a long pale-yellow dress with a long split up one side and with a halter neck. She has swept her hair up and pinned it in place with a few curly tendrils framing her face. She has a pair of nude heels on, and her purse matches the heels. Her makeup looks summery and fresh, and she has a pair of long, diamond earrings in her ears. Standing there and taking Harriet in, I don’t know how I don’t dive on her and make love to her all night long.

“Do I look ok?” she asks.

“No,” I say. “You look like the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”

She smiles and blushes.

“I’ll take it,” she grins. “You are looking rather handsome yourself tonight.”

I’m wearing a pair of black jeans and a blue T-shirt. Yes, they are designer, but I hardly think I match up to Harriet’s level of hotness. I offer Harriet my arm, which she takes, and we make our way down in the elevator, out of the hotel, and across the road to the restaurant.

Before we even go in, I know two things. One, Harriet is going to be the most beautiful woman in the room. And two, there is no doubt in my mind this is the woman I am going to marry. I’m going to be careful not to come on too strongly and scare her off, but I am going to woo her until I make her mine. There’s obviously something in her life that’s stopping her from committing to a relationship right now, but I’m happy to wait as long as it takes for her to figure her shit out and give me a chance.

We enter the pub and this time we don’t attempt to hide as we go toward the reserved room.

“Shit, wait,” Harriet says before we go in. “We don’t have a present. We don’t even have a card.”

“Sure, we do,” I say with a smile and pull the card out of my back pocket. “There’s a check in there. Don’t worry, it’s from the both of us.”

“Phew. Crisis averted,” Harriet smiles and we walk into the room.

It looks a lot different than it did yesterday. Today the tables are all covered in white cloth and the chairs are covered in white covers. Each chair has a red or gray ribbon tied around it and red and gray balloon displays make up the centerpiece for each of the tables. There is also a red and gray balloon arch over the buffet table and there is a DJ in place with a full-on disco dance floor set up in one corner.

There are quite a few people already here and I wonder if we will struggle to find a seat, but Harriet nudges me and nods toward the dance floor. Max is waving at us from one of the tables alongside it. She and Cullen have obviously saved us some seats with them.

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