Reform Of The Playboy. Mary Lyons

      ‘I don’t want to be rude, because I know you’re into all that New Age stuff, but it’s definitely not my scene,’ Harriet told her firmly. ‘What I really need is a lawyer who’s clever enough to break that damned contract we signed. Unfortunately, it seems forged in chains of iron—so I’m well and truly stuck with the awful man.’

      Sophie gave a helpless shrug. ‘I really am sorry that it’s all turned out so badly. But as far as the contract is concerned, you did say that you wanted it to be unbreakable, and so…’

      ‘I know I did. It’s all my own fault,’ Harriet admitted with a heavy sigh. ‘So, it looks as if I’ll just have to find enough patience to survive the next five months without slaughtering the rotten man!’

      The contract wasn’t Sophie’s fault—and Trish meant well, of course, Harriet told herself as she waved goodbye to her friends, who’d arranged to play a game of tennis in Ladbroke Square. But no amount of crystal beads, lighting joss sticks or chanting Buddhist mantras would be likely to do anything towards bringing ‘harmony,’ or any other calming influence, into the difficult relationship between herself and Finn Maclean.

      Slowly making her own way home, and out into the blessed peace of Lansdowne Gardens, Harriet sank down on to a bench beneath a lilac tree, heavy with fragrant white blossom, as she tried to clear her mind of what Trish would undoubtedly call ‘negative thoughts.’

      Unfortunately, try as she might, it was proving almost impossible not to recall, in hideous Technicolor, the disturbing scene which had taken place two nights ago.

      After bursting into Finn’s apartment, accosting him in the hallway and telling him, in no uncertain terms, exactly what she thought of anyone stupid enough to leave the front door of a house open to all and sundry, she’d found herself being roughly dragged into the small kitchen.