An Exception to His Rule by Lindsay Armstrong

when she said she wasn’t built for affairs. Why he believed her, he couldn’t say. Why he didn’t see it as a ploy on her behalf to tell him she was an all or nothing girl, a ploy to set him on fire physically in a manner of speaking, he couldn’t say either.
    But what he’d considered the natural progression from a spontaneous attraction that had gripped them both was now fraught with all sorts of dangers...
    It always had been from her point of view, he found himself conceding. She’d always known it was a road she couldn’t, or shouldn’t, travel.
    He’d always thought, he conceded too with an inward grimace, that he could break her down or win her over to something that was fulfilling, pleasant but not too deep—no, not too deep.
    ‘You’re a fool, Damien Wyatt,’ he told himself. ‘Too blind to see that she is that kind of girl—a genuinely all or nothing girl. A girl who could be devastated if you had a relationship but didn’t marry her—and now you’ve got to withdraw somehow.
    ‘Why would it be so impossible to marry her?’
    A pool of silence swallowed up his question.
    Because he didn’t believe he could trust any woman again? And therefore he didn’t want to inflict the worst of his cynicism on Harriet Livingstone?
    He stood up abruptly. The sooner he distanced himself from her the better.
    * * *
    Harriet, to her surprise, fell asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow and she slept deeply and dreamlessly the night of the fire.
    As she studied herself in the bathroom mirror the next morning she couldn’t help but notice that, despite that night of quality sleep, she looked tense. There seemed to be an undertone of worry to her expression.
    ‘Damien,’ she said softly to herself. ‘Things between us are—a worry, aren’t they? What am I going to do?’
    She left the bathroom and suddenly remembered her kitchen would be on call and the least she could do was have some coffee ready.
    * * *
    It was Isabel who arrived first, looking shocked.
    ‘Damien rang me earlier,’ she told Harriet, puffing a bit after climbing the stairs. ‘Thank heavens it didn’t spread. I should have done something about Cook before now,’ she added with a sigh. ‘Thanks for helping to put it out.’
    ‘I didn’t do much, other than pointing a hose. Would you like some coffee?’
    ‘Love some. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me for meals and I’m not much of a cook,’ Isabel confessed.
    ‘That’s OK. I enjoy it. In fact I was just going to cook some bacon and eggs for breakfast.’
    ‘Yum! I’ll stay put then.’
    ‘What about Damien?’ Harriet asked as she reached into the fridge for her breakfast ingredients.
    ‘Oh, he’s gone off again. Perth this time. Not sure when he’ll be back. He’s got some South African mining magnate he’s dealing with.’ Isabel waved a hand.
    ‘Oh,’ Harriet said.
    ‘Didn’t he mention it? I suppose he didn’t have time,’ Isabel continued without waiting for a response. ‘He’s left me screeds of instructions to do with the kitchen—you know, it did need renovating and modernising.’ Isabel chuckled.
    Harriet smiled as well, but it wasn’t really an amused smile.
    * * *
    ‘So.’
    It was late in the afternoon and she was sitting on a bench with Tottie beside her on a small headland just south of Heathcote homestead. It was an overcast day with a cool breeze that was lifting Tottie’s shaggy coat and causing the seagulls to plane on the thermals.
    They’d been for a long brisk walk and were on their way home now.
    ‘So,’ Harriet said again. ‘It’s all off, Tottie. Your master has walked away without a word and I should be celebrating because I’ve always—almost—known I was playing with fire just by being anywhere near him.’
    ‘I’m not—’ she put her arm around Tottie ‘—celebrating, though. I’m miserable. I feel abandoned. I feel hard done by because he can come and go while I’m stuck here because of his mother’s