One Night, Twin Consequences

“Me, too.” She raised her gaze from the table and met his eyes. “But I guess some people just aren’t meant to stray from their path.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Oh, nothing really. It’s just...” she reached across the table and took back the swan, untwisting it as she spoke “...sticking to what I know has always been a good idea.”

She smiled up at him, something clouding the azure clarity of her eyes. Disappointment? Sorrow?

“And what would happen, exactly, if you did something new?” He bridled on her behalf. “Are you going to sit there and just let them decide your future for you?” As the words came out, he was surprised to hear the heat behind them. He actually wanted her to come to Casita Verde. See what he’d done. Offer a new perspective. Just a few hours with Harriet wasn’t near enough. He wanted more.

“That’s more my sister’s terrain!” Harriet tried to laugh away his suggestion. “She’s the real star in the family,” she finished quietly. It sounded practiced. Something she was far too used to saying.

“And is that something you tell yourself or something someone else is telling you? If they are, they need their eyes and minds tested,” Matteo protested.

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“Well, let’s see.” He held up a finger for each point. “You’re beautiful. Intelligent. You’ve turned the lives of countless children into something they can bear. Your sister must be pretty amazing to overshadow all that.”

“She is,” Harriet replied without hesitation, their eyes locking as she spoke. “She really is.”

There was no jealousy in her words, just admiration. The same way he’d felt about his sister. Just love. No expectations.

“I’m getting hot.” Harriet started fanning herself with the hem of her pashmina, her eyes suddenly keen to alight anywhere but on him. “Are you hot? I think maybe I could do with a walk.”

Harriet shot out of her chair without a second glance at Matteo. Their conversation was getting a bit overwhelming. Out on the street she gulped in a lungful of cool air as if she’d been suffocating.

Maybe she had been. Not from Matteo. Not by a long shot. But from the things he was saying. The cages he was unwittingly rattling? He was rapidly unzipping the safe, cozy cocoon she’d built for herself and had been terribly happy in, thank you very much. Her sister needed her to be the stable one, the one who didn’t change. That was her role. Wasn’t it?

Then again...what exactly would happen if she took some chances of her own?

She blew out a slow breath, trying to regain some perspective. But all she could see was herself through Matteo’s eyes: a woman too frightened to change.

“Harriet! Chuchera!” Matteo ran to catch up with her. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, fine.” No. Not even remotely.

“Sorry, I was just paying the bill, and then you were—” He stopped, his hands taking ahold of her shoulders and turning her towards him. “Are you all right, chuchera?”

Harriet nodded dumbly. He was...divine. Exactly the type of man she’d never imagined being with and now he was hunting her down after failed speeches, paying supper bills she’d scarpered on and running after her to make sure she was all right?

One ticket for Matteo the Dreamboat Ride, please!

Her eyes widened. Not exactly a hostess with the mostest moment.

“You shouldn’t have paid the bill!” She started digging in her handbag for her purse and felt his hand slip down her shoulder to her wrist, stopping her frantic movements. If there was such a thing as sexy lava it was pouring through her everywhere Matteo’s fingers had touched and doing a swirly, pooling thing in her belly. She didn’t dare look at him. She was superimposing far too much on him. It was easy to make someone into perfection when you only had eight hours together. Eight amazing hours. The knowledge that they would quickly come to an end all but brought a cry of despair to her throat. She curled her lips in past her teeth, dragging them back out, no doubt pale with the absence of blood in them. Feeling the sting of pain at what she’d never have.

“How do you fancy a walk along the river?” She used her best tour-guide voice. “It’s really lovely at night. I’m sure you’ll just love the Houses of Parliament!”

* * *

It wasn’t much of a surprise to Matteo that their riverside walk was both bereft of conversation and came to an end at St. Nick’s. Something had passed between them after dinner and Harriet hadn’t looked him in the eye once since then.

He watched, smiling, as she peeked into each of the children’s rooms, pulling up a bit of duvet here or there, tucking in a wayward teddy bear or two. It was obvious to see the place was Harriet’s go-to comfort zone.

He couldn’t really judge. He actually lived at the original Casita Verde. The fact that it had been a monastery in its former life appealed to him. Solidified his future. Not that his life was entirely monk-like...he saw women. Occasionally. Women who wanted nothing more than a fling—because he never promised more. The likelihood of a woman agreeing to live at Casita Verde and never have children of her own? Pretty slim. So monk’s quarters suited him just fine.

“Now we have to be very, very quiet.” Harriet held a slim finger to her lips as they made their way across the open common area. “This bit of flooring is super-creaky and I promised the other nurses I wouldn’t come back.”

“Why?” Matteo grinned down at her, all hunched shoulders and poised on tiptoe. “Are you the big bad boss?”

“The research nurse with no life is more like it.” Harriet’s mouth shot into an apologetic oops position. A perfect red moue.

This time he laid a finger on her lips. She had a life, she just didn’t have confidence, and Harriet was a woman who should have confidence in herself.

In the instant their eyes met the atmosphere went taut with something he knew he didn’t want to fight again. Something that had been fizzing and crackling away between them from the moment they’d met.

Beneath the pad of his finger he felt the accelerated rhythm of her pulse beating in sync with her heart. Her pupils were dilated in the dim light of the corridor, nearly eclipsing the luminous blue irises. Her breath was held so tightly in her chest he could feel the release against his own when she let finally let herself breathe again. She blinked a couple of times, lips still pressed to his finger. It took him a moment to appreciate she hadn’t pulled back. She was responding to his touch.

Before he could stop himself he was kissing her with an urgency he hadn’t thought himself capable of. His hands slid up and along her back, straight up the center of her spine, enjoying the feeling of her body responding to the movement of his hands as he did so. Holding her slender frame against his own felt entirely natural. And unbelievably satisfying.

He was surprised at the surge of desire eclipsing his ever-present pragmatism. After tonight, the chances they’d see each other again were slim to nil. More likely nil. But meeting Harriet, he was shocked to realize, had meant something to him. The fact he’d come to find her to see if she was all right after the speech, insisting they go to dinner, talking and walking for hours were absolutely out of the ordinary. He didn’t hunt down complications. He never sought love. And now here he was, kissing her as if his life depended on it.

“We shouldn’t be doing this.”

Harriet’s lips moved against his as he teased kiss after kiss out of her.

“Why not?”

“The children?”

“Are you asking me or telling me?” Matteo murmured as his thumb gently pressed and moved along her jawline, exposing the creamy expanse of neck he was itching to kiss and explore with his tongue.

A low gasp of pleasure vibrated along Harriet’s throat as he nibbled and tasted his way towards the nook between her neck and the extra-sensitive spot just below her earlobe. When his teeth gave her earlobe a little tug, the resonance of her response deepened to a groan of unmistakable pleasure.

“Let’s go to your office.”

He felt her entire body tense then, as she made a swift decision, turn electric with intent.

* * *

It was all Harriet could do to stop herself from jumping up, wrapping her legs round Matteo’s sexy waist and begging him to take her right there and then. She settled for exercising the most self-control she’d ever had to use for the thirty-second race-walk to her office.

This was a carpe diem moment if ever there was one. The chances of a man like Matteo igniting her intellect and her body coming around again? Non-existent to...ooooh, never again in her lifetime! Especially with months—years—of diapers, laundry, feedings and who knew what else that would consume her time once her sister arrived with the twins. She’d be back to being Harriet the Reliable. Tonight she wanted to be Harriet the Wild One. Harriet the Brave.

Kissing and touching and being held by a man who had made her believe in herself for a few ridiculously perfect hours? It was an emotional risk she was going to take.

Just once.

She owed herself that. To see what it felt like to live.