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And the remainder of the morning wasn’t much better. Her concentration was shot to pieces, her thinking dominated by the memory of last night, and her need to make sense of what had happened. And, of course, deal with it.
Three times she reached for the phone and began to dial Isobel’s number. Three times she got halfway, only to abandon the call.
I can’t talk to her yet, she thought. I’m too confused. Besides, what on earth can I say? Tell her I want an injunction against him, followed by the quickest divorce in the history of the world? How many awkward explanations will that throw up?
‘What’s the matter? Have a bad night?’
She jumped almost convulsively as she looked up to see Tony watching her from the doorway.
Colour stormed into her face. ‘No,’ she returned defensively. ‘Why do you ask?’
He frowned. ‘Because you’ve been looking white as a ghost— totally wiped out. Just as if …’ He paused, looking faintly embarrassed. ‘Well, that doesn’t matter.’
He strolled forward, hands in pockets. ‘Yet now you could be running a temperature,’ he commented critically. ‘Sure you’re all right? Not sickening for something?’
She stared at the screen in front of her. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Good.’ He hesitated again, then said almost gently, ‘You know, Harriet, you don’t have to drive yourself so hard all the time. Maybe you should take some time off—chill out a little. No one would think less of you.’
Her voice was quiet. ‘I might.’ Because the job I do is—me. I can’t let go of that. I dare not.
‘That’s what I’m trying to get at.’ Tony sighed. ‘Being Gregory Flint’s granddaughter does not require you to be one hundred per cent perfect. You’re allowed to make mistakes.’
She didn’t look at him. ‘Even though mistakes can be dangerous?’ And when I’ve just made one—a terrible one—bordering on total disaster. A mistake which is making me wonder about myself—ask questions I don’t want to answer?
‘Even then,’ he said. ‘It could perhaps ease things round here as well. Improve office relationships.’
She drew a swift breath. ‘To do a sloppy job?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘To be human. Maybe that missed alarm was a signal.’ He paused. ‘Look—take the rest of the day off. Shop—take a walk in the park—go home and catch up on your sleep. Anything that will relax you. And it’s not a suggestion, Harriet,’ he added briskly, seeing she was about to protest. ‘I’m telling you to do it.’
At the doorway, he paused. ‘Oh, and leave the laptop. That’s another order.’
Harriet stared after him. Wasn’t there one department of her life where she was still allowed a choice? she asked herself in a kind of desperation.
She had a curious feeling that the foundations on which she’d constructed her existence were being eroded, and the entire structure was beginning to totter.
And it was humiliating being sent home like this—like an unruly pupil being made to stand in a school corridor, she thought stormily, as she grabbed her bag and made for the lift, glad there was no one around to witness her departure.
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