“No, but she is a terrible cook. They had to call the fire department after one of her attempts.”
His friend grinned. “Does her grandmother realize?”
“I would imagine so. She’s a pretty smart woman.”
“So are you going to tell Fliss you know?”
“No. I’m going to let her carry on being ‘Harriet’ until she decides to tell me the truth.”
“Why?”
Lulu rolled onto her back hopefully, and Seth crouched down to rub her belly. “First, because if we keep up the pretense then she has no reason to avoid me.”
“None of this makes sense. If she was avoiding you, why would she be here in the first place?”
“She knew I was in Manhattan and didn’t realize it was temporary. She came here to reduce the chances of running into me.” And he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Was it a good thing or a bad thing? It was good that she was unsettled enough by his presence to go to those lengths. Not so good that she was so afraid of facing him she was prepared to conceal her identity.
Chase unlocked the car. “You have one hell of an effect on women, Carlyle. Next you’ll be telling me she pushed Grandma down the stairs to give herself a reason to come here.”
Seth laughed. “No, but I suspect she grabbed that excuse like a drowning man might grab a life preserver.”
“So if Grandma is the life preserver, what does that make you? The big bad crocodile waiting in the water to eat her alive?” Chase paused by the car. “And tell me what the ‘second’ is.”
“Second?”
“You said first you’d keep up the pretense so that she has no reason to avoid you. That means there’s a ‘second.’”
“Second is that while she is ‘Harriet,’ I hope to be able to tackle some issues she wouldn’t discuss as Fliss.”
“Are you going to kiss her?” Chase looked intrigued. “Maybe she’ll be the first woman in history to break up with a guy because she’s jealous of herself.”
“I’m not going to kiss her. And we won’t be breaking up because we’re not dating.”
“How long is this going to carry on?”
“Until she tells me who she is.” Seth rose to his feet. “Do me a favor—play along, will you?”
“I’m no good at subterfuge. I almost wish you hadn’t told me.”
“You’re going back to Manhattan. You won’t see much of her anyway.”
“What do I do about Matilda? Do I tell her the truth?”
“I think you should leave that up to Fliss.”
“I don’t want Matilda hurt.” There was a steely edge to Chase’s tone that only ever appeared when he thought someone was trying to take advantage of his wife.
“Fliss won’t hurt her. I suspect right now she’s on the phone to Harriet trying to work out a way to unravel this.”
“I can’t believe she came up with such a complicated plan.”
“I don’t think there was a plan. I don’t think she came here intending to emulate Harriet. I think she came as herself, but then she met me on the roadside, panicked and said the first thing that came into her head.”
“That doesn’t seem strange to you?”
“No. It’s classic Fliss. She puts the imp in impulsive.”
Chase gave him a long look, the steel in his eyes giving way to amusement and sympathy. “I guess that keeps things interesting.”