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His Until Midnight
Nikki Logan


Each year, notoriously beddable Hong Kong tycoon Oliver Harmer allows himself one Christmas present: a lavish meal with off-limits Audrey Devaney. Keeping her at arm’s length – quite literally! - is a battle of epic proportions for Oliver, but also an irresistible temptation.Until the year she doesn’t come. Now the rules have changed!This Christmas, Audrey is single, and Oliver must decide if he will let her run away at midnight for good, or fight for her to stay until morning!









Anger settled between his brows. ‘I want to just enjoy today. Enjoy your company. Like we used to.’


And he didn’t want it to stop, which was not what she’d expected when she got out of the taxi sixty floors below. She thought he’d have just shrugged and wished her well and found someone else to start an annual Christmas tradition with.

‘Well, things have changed now,’ she urged. ‘Like it or not.’

Something flickered in his eyes, his face grew unnaturally intent. And she grew inexplicably nervous.

‘So,’ he started, ‘if we’re not friends what are we?’

She choked slightly on her wine. ‘Sorry?’

‘I accept that we’re not friends. But I wonder, then, what that means we are.’

She just stared.

‘Because there were two things that defined our relationship for me…’ He used the word “defined” as though it meant “constrained”. ‘One was that you were the wife of a friend. Now—tragically—no longer the case. And the other was that we were friends. Apparently also now no longer the case. So, tell me, Audrey—’

He leaned forward and swilled the liquid in his glass and his eyes locked on hard to hers.

‘—where exactly does that leave us?’


Dear Reader,

Have you ever heard the saying, ‘why let the truth get in the way of a perfectly good story’? A friend told me how she catches up, once a year, with a longstanding (male) friend in a gorgeous restaurant high above a beautiful Asian city. They spend a full, lazy day catching up and sharing stories and squeezing a year’s worth of friendship into that one day of the year and then they fly back to their respective countries. And it’s entirely, completely, unquestionably wholesome.

So of course I had to go and ruin it.

The simple premise grabbed me and filled me to overflowing with those ‘what ifs’ that authors love. What if it wasn’t completely wholesome? What if one of them was secretly attracted to the other one but never, ever planned to act on it? What if they did this for years and then one year something changed…?

And I realized that this story was really about the biggest ‘what if’ of all…one that we can all relate to. What if you’d turned right instead of left that day, or taken the bus instead of walking, or been brave enough to give your phone number to one man instead of his friend? What if you’d just grabbed opportunity by the shirt-collar the first time around? Where would you be today?

This is a story about the patience of Love, the beauty of Friendship and the magic of Christmas.

If you’re reading it at Christmas, please accept my best wishes to you and your family for a wonderful and safe holiday season.

May love always find you,

*Nikki*

www.nikkilogan.com.au – A Romance with Nature


His Until

Midnight

Nikki Logan






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


NIKKI LOGAN lives next to a string of protected wetlands in Western Australia, with her long-suffering partner and a menagerie of furred, feathered and scaly mates. She studied film and theatre at university, and worked for years in advertising and film distribution before finally settling down in the wildlife industry. Her romance with nature goes way back, and she considers her life charmed, given she works with wildlife by day and writes fiction by night—the perfect way to combine her two loves. Nikki believes that the passion and risk of falling in love are perfectly mirrored in the danger and beauty of wild places. Every romance she writes contains an element of nature, and if readers catch a waft of rich earth or the spray of wild ocean between the pages she knows her job is done.

This and other titles by Nikki Logan are available in eBook format—check out www.millsandboon.co.uk


For Alex and Trev who let me turn their entirely

platonic annual tradition into something much more

dramatic. Thank you for the inspiration.


Contents

Chapter One (#u247b3c20-ffbe-5b06-9aac-d405e659b8cd)

Chapter Two (#u40b5584a-3182-5e4e-aa9a-702b36e37936)

Chapter Three (#uf34206a5-eafd-5edd-9aec-0127f277002a)

Chapter Four (#u7e7f66e7-1386-55ff-bde0-d312cc642d87)

Chapter Five (#u4768c7aa-8a96-568d-a1a9-5795881fe12e)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)


ONE

December 20th, four years ago

Qīngtíng Restaurant, Hong Kong

Audrey Devaney flopped against the back of the curved sofa and studied the pretty, oriental-style cards in her hands. Not the best hand in the world but when you were playing for M&M’s and you tended to eat your stake as fast as it accumulated it was hard to take poker too seriously.

Though it was fun to pretend she knew what she was doing. Like some Vegas hotshot. And it wasn’t too hard to imagine that the extraordinary view of Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour stretching out behind Oliver Harmer was really out of the window of some casino high-roller’s room instead of a darkened, atmospheric restaurant festooned with pretty lanterns and baubles in rich, oriental colours.

Across from her, Oliver’s five o’clock shadow was designer perfect and an ever-present, unlit cigar poked out of the corner of his grinning mouth—more gummed than smoked, out of respect for her and for the other patrons in the restaurant. It only felt as if he bought the whole place out each Christmas, it wasn’t actually true. Though it was nice to imagine that they had the entire restaurant to themselves.

‘Thank you, again, for the gift,’ she murmured, letting the fringed silk ends of the cobalt scarf run between her fingers. ‘It’s stunning.’

‘You’re welcome. You should wear more blue.’

Audrey studied Oliver over her cards, wanting to ask but not entirely sure how to raise it. Maybe the best approach was the direct approach...

‘You know, you look pretty good for a man whose wedding just fell through.’

‘Good’ as in well. Not ‘good’ as in gorgeous. Although, as always, the latter would certainly apply. All that dark hair, long lashes and tanned Australian skin...

He took his time considering his hand and then tossed three cards face down onto the ornate carved table. ‘Dodged a bullet.’

That stopped her just as she might have discarded her own dud cards. ‘Really? Last Christmas it was all about how Tiffany might be “the one”.’

Not that she’d actually believed him at the time, but a year was the longest relationship she’d ever known him to have.

Maybe she was just in denial.

‘Turns out there was more than one “one” for Tiffany.’ The tiniest glimmer of hurt stained his eyes.

Oh, no. ‘Who called it off?’

His answer came fast and sure. ‘I did.’

Oliver Harmer was a perpetual bachelor. But he was also Shanghai’s most prized perpetual bachelor and so she couldn’t imagine the average woman he dated being too fast to throw away her luxury future.

But she knew from Blake how seriously Oliver felt about fidelity. Because of his philandering father. ‘I’m so sorry.’

He shrugged. ‘She was with someone when I met her; I was foolish to think that I’d get treated any different.’

Foolish perhaps, but he was only human to hope that he’d be special enough to change his girlfriend’s ways. And if ever there was a man worth changing for... Audrey dropped two cards onto the table and Oliver flicked her two replacements from the top of the pack with confident efficiency before taking three of his own.

‘What did she say when you confronted her?’ she murmured.

‘I didn’t see any purpose in having it out,’ he squeezed out past the cigar. ‘I just cut her loose.’

Without an explanation? ‘What if you were mistaken?’

The look he threw her would have withered his corporate opponents. ‘I checked. I wasn’t.’

‘Checking’ in Oliver’s world probably meant expensive private surveillance. So no, he wouldn’t have been wrong. ‘Where is she now?’

He shrugged. ‘Still on our honeymoon, I guess. I gave her an open credit card and wished her the best.’

‘You bought her off?’ She gaped.

‘I bought her forgiveness.’

‘And that worked?’

‘Tiffany never was one for labouring under regret for long.’

Lord, he had a talent for ferreting out the worst of women. Always beautiful, of course and—*cough*—agile, but utterly barren on the emotional front. To the point that she’d decided Oliver must prefer them that way. Except for the trace of genuine hurt that had flitted across his expression...

That didn’t fit with the man she thought she knew.

She studied the nothing hand in front of her and then tossed all five cards down on the table in an inelegant fold.

‘Why can’t you just meet a nice, normal woman?’ she despaired. ‘Shanghai’s a big city.’

He scooped the pile of bright M&M’s towards him—though not before she snaffled yet another one to eat—and set about reshuffling the cards. ‘Nice women tend to give me a wide berth. I can’t explain it.’

She snorted. ‘It would have nothing to do with your reputation.’

Hazel eyes locked on hers, speculative and challenging. Enough to tighten her chest a hint. ‘And what reputation is that?’

Ah...no. ‘I’m not going to feed your already massive ego, Oliver.’

Nor go anywhere near the female whispers she’d heard about Oliver ‘the Hammer’ Harmer. Dangerous territory.

‘I thought we were friends!’ he protested.

‘You’re friends with my husband. I’m just his South-East Asian proxy.’

He grunted. ‘You only agree to our ritual Christmas catch-up for the cuisine, I suppose?’

‘Actually, no.’

She found his eyes—held them—and two tiny butterflies broke free in her chest. ‘I come for the wine, too.’

He snagged a small fistful of M&M’s and tossed them across the elegant, carved coffee table at her, heedless of those around them sharing the Christmas-themed menu sixty storeys above Hong Kong.

Audrey scrabbled madly to pick them up. ‘Ugh. Isn’t that just like a squazillionaire. Throwing your money around like it’s chocolate drops.’

‘Play your hand,’ he griped. But there was a definite smile behind it. As there always was. Christmases between them were always full of humour, fast conversation and camaraderie.

At least on the surface.

Below the surface was a whole bunch of things that she didn’t let herself look at too closely. Appreciation. Respect. A great, aching admiration for his life and the choices he’d made and the courage with which he’d made them. Oliver Harmer was the freest human being she knew. And he lived a life most people would hunger for.

She certainly did from within the boundaries of her awkward marriage. It was hard not to esteem his choices.

And then below all of that... The ever-simmering attraction. She’d grown used to it now, because it was always there. And because she only had to deal with it once a year.

He was a good-looking man; charming and affable, easy to talk to, easy to like, well built, well groomed, well mannered, but not up himself or pretentious. Never too cool to toss a handful of chocolates in a fine restaurant.

But he’d also been best man at her wedding.

Blake’s oldest friend.

And he was pursued by women day in and day out. She would be two hundred per cent mortified if Oliver ever got so much of a hint of the direction of her runaway thoughts—not the least because it would just inflate his already monumental ego—but also because she knew exactly what he’d do with the information.

Nothing.

Not a damned thing.

He would take it to his grave, and she would never fully know if that was because of his loyalty to Blake, his respect for her, or because something brewing between them was just so totally inconceivable that he’d chalk it up to an aberrant moment best never again spoken of.

Which was pretty much the right advice.

She wasn’t like the women he normally chose. Her finest day was the day of her wedding when she’d been called ‘striking’—and by Oliver, come to think of it, who always seemed to say the right thing at the right moment when she was on rocky emotional ground. She didn’t look as good as his women did in their finery and she didn’t move in the same circles and know the same people and laugh overly loud at the same stories. She wasn’t unattractive or dull or dim—she’d wager the entire pile of M&M’s in front of her on the fact that she could outrank every one of them on a MENSA test—but she certainly didn’t turn heads when she was in the company of the beautiful people. She lacked that...stardust that they had.

That Oliver was coated-to-sparkling in.

And in all the years she’d known him, she’d flat out never seen him with someone less beautiful than he was.

Clearly some scientific principle of balance at work there.

And when even the laws of nature ruled you out...

‘All right, Cool Hand Luke,’ she said, ripping her thoughts back to safer territory. ‘Let’s get serious about this game.’

* * *

That treacherous snake.

Audrey clearly had no idea whatsoever of Blake’s latest conquest. Her face had filled just then with genuine sympathy about Tiffany, but nothing else. No shadows of pain at the mention of someone’s infidelity, no blanching. No tears for a betrayal shared. Not that she was the tears-in-public type, but the only moisture in those enormous blue eyes was old-fashioned compassion.

For him.

Which meant that either Blake had lied and Audrey had no idea that her husband considered their marriage open, or she did know and Blake had worn her down to the point that she just didn’t care any more.

And that awful possibility just didn’t fit with the engaged, involved woman in front of him.

Oliver eyed her over his cards, pretending to psych her out and throw her game but really using the opportunity to study the tiniest traces of truth in her oval face. Her life tells. She wasn’t flat and lifeless. She was enjoying the cards, the food, the conversation. She always did. He never flattered himself that it was him, particularly, that she hurried to see each year, but she loved the single day of decadence that they always shared on December twentieth. Not the expenditure—she and Blake were both on healthy incomes and she could buy this sort of experience herself if she really wanted to—it was the low-key luxury of this restaurant, this day, that she really got off on.

She was the only woman he’d ever met who got more excited by not being flashy with his money. By being as tastefully understated as she always was. It suited her down to the ground. Elegant instead of glitzy, all that dark hair twisted in a lazy knot on top of her head with what looked like bamboo spears holding it all together. The way her hands occasionally ran across the fabric of her tailored skirt told him she enjoyed how the fabric felt against her skin. That was why she wore it; not for him, or any other man. Not because it hugged the intriguing curve of her thighs almost indecently. The money Audrey spent on fashion was about recognising her equal in a quality product.

Whether she knew that or not.

Which was why he struggled so badly with Blake’s protestations that Audrey was cool with his marital...excursions. He got that they didn’t have the most conventional of marriages—definitely a meeting of minds—but she just didn’t strike him as someone who would tolerate the cheapening of her relationship through his playing around. Because, if nothing else, Blake’s sleeping around reflected on her.

And Audrey Devaney was anything but cheap.

‘Oliver?’

He refocused to find those sapphire eyes locked hard on his. ‘Sorry. Raise.’

She smiled at his distraction and then flicked her focus back down to her cards, leaving him staring at those long, down-curved lashes.

Did she know that her husband hooked up with someone else the moment she left town? Did that bother her? Or did she fabricate trips specifically to give Blake the opportunity, to give herself necessary distance from his infidelity, and preserve the amazing dignity that she wore like one of her silk suits. He’d never got the slightest sense that she evened the score while she travelled. Not that he’d necessarily know if she did—she would be as discreet about that as she was about the other details of her life—but her work ethic was nearly as solid as her friendship. And, as the lucky beneficiary of her unwavering loyalty as a friend, he knew that if Audrey was in Asia working then that was exactly what she’d be doing.

Working her silk-covered butt off.

And, if she wasn’t, he’d know it. When it came to her, his radar was fine-tuned for the slightest hint that she was operating on the same wavelength as her husband.

Because if Audrey Devaney was on the market, then he was in the market.

No matter the price. No matter the terms. No matter what he’d believed his whole life about fidelity. He’d had enough hot, restless nights after waking from one of his dreams—riddled with passion and guilt and Audrey up against the cold glass of the window facing out over Victoria Harbour—to know what his body wanted.

‘Call.’ She tossed a cluster of M&M’s onto the pile, interrupting the dangerous direction of his thoughts.

But he also knew himself pretty well. He knew that sex was the great equaliser and that reducing a woman that he admired and liked so much to the subject of one of his cheap fantasies was just his subconscious’ way of dealing with the unfamiliar territory.

Territory in which he found himself fixated on the only woman he knew who was genuinely too good for him.

‘Your game.’ Oliver tossed aces and jacks purely for the pleasure of seeing the flush Audrey couldn’t contain. The pleasure that spilled out over the edges of her usual propriety. She loved to win. She loved to beat him, particularly.

And he loved to watch her enjoy it.

She flipped a trio of fours on top of the mound of M&M’s triumphantly and her perfectly made-up skin practically glowed with pleasure. Instantly, he wondered if that was what she’d look like if he pushed this table aside and pressed her back into the sofa with his lips against that confident smile and his thigh between hers.

His body cheered the very thought.

‘Rematch,’ he demanded, forcing his brain clean of smut. Pretty sad when throwing a card game was about as erotic as any dream he could conjure up. ‘Double or nothing.’

She tipped her head back to laugh and that knot piled on the top and decorated with a bit of stolen airport tinsel wobbled dangerously. If he kept the humour coming maybe the whole thing would come tumbling down and he’d have another keeper memory for his pathetic fantasy-stalker collection.

‘Sure, while you’re throwing your chocolates away...’

She slipped off her shoes and pulled slim legs up onto the sofa as Oliver dealt another hand and, again, he was struck by how down to earth she was. And how innocent. This was not the relaxed, easy expression of a woman who knew her husband was presently shacked up with someone that wasn’t his wife.

No question.

Which meant his best friend was a liar as well as an adulterer. And a fool, too, for cheating on the most amazing woman either of them had ever known. Just wasting the beautiful soul he’d been gifted by whatever fate sent Audrey in Blake’s direction instead of his own all those years ago.

But where fate was vague and indistinct, that out-of-place rock weighing down her left hand was very real, and though her husband was progressively sleeping his way through Sydney, Audrey wasn’t following suit.

Because that ring meant something to her.

Just as fidelity meant something to him.

Perhaps that was the great attraction. Audrey was moral and compassionate, and her integrity was rooted as firmly as the mountains that surged up out of the ocean all around them to form the islands of Hong Kong where they both flew to meet each December twentieth. Splitting the difference between Sydney and Shanghai.

And he was enormously drawn to that integrity, even as he cursed it. Would he be as drawn to her if she was playing the field like her selfish husband? Or was he only obsessed with her because he knew he couldn’t have her?

That was more his playbook.

Just because he didn’t do unfaithful didn’t mean he was pro-commitment. The whole Tiffany thing was really a kind of retirement. He’d given up on finding the woman he secretly dreamed was out there for him and settled for one that would let him do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted and look good doing it.

And clearly even that wasn’t meant to be.

‘Come on, Harmer. Man up.’

His eyes shot up, fearing for one irrational moment that she’d read the direction of his inappropriate thoughts.

‘It’s just one game,’ she teased. ‘I’m sure you’ll take me on the next one.’

She was probably right. He’d do what he did every Christmas: give enough to keep her engaged and entertained, and take enough to keep her colour high with indignation. To keep her coming back for more. Coming back to him. In the name of her cheating bastard of a husband who only ever visited him when he was travelling alone—though he’d be sure to put an end to that, now—and who took carnal advantage of every opportunity when Audrey was out of the country.

But, just as he suppressed his natural distaste for Blake’s infidelity so that he could maintain the annual Christmas lunch with his best friend’s wife, so he would keep Blake’s secret.

Not only because he didn’t want to hurt gentle Audrey.

And not because he condoned Blake’s behaviour in the slightest—though he really, really didn’t.

And not because he enjoyed being some kind of confessional for the man he’d stood beside at his wedding.

No, he’d keep Blake’s secret because keeping it meant he got to have Audrey in his life. If he shared what he knew she’d leave Blake, and if she left Blake Oliver knew he’d never see her again. And it was only as he saw her friendship potentially slipping away like a landslide that he realised how very much he valued—and needed—it.

And her.

So he did what he did every year. He concentrated on Audrey and on enjoying what little time they had together this one day of the year. He feasted like the glutton he was on her conversation and her presence and he pushed everything else into the background where it belonged.

He had all year to deal with that. And with his conscience.

He stretched his open palm across the table, the shuffled cards upturned on it. As she took the pack, her soft fingers brushed against his palm, birthing a riot of sensation in his nerve endings. And he boxed those sensations up, too, for dealing with later, when he didn’t have this amazing woman sitting opposite him with her all-seeing eyes focused squarely on him.

‘Your deal.’


TWO

December 20th, three years ago

Qīngtíng Restaurant, Hong Kong

Behind her back, Audrey pressed the soft flesh of her wrists to the glassy chill of the elevator’s mirrored wall, desperate to cool the blazing blood rushing through her arteries. To quell the excited flush she feared stained her cheeks from standing this close to Oliver Harmer in such a tight space.

You’d think twelve months would be enough time to steel her resolve and prepare herself.

Yet here she was, entirely rattled by the anticipation of a simple farewell kiss. It never was more than a socially appropriate graze. Barely more than an air-kiss. Yet she still felt the burn of his lips on her cheek as though last year’s kiss were a moment—and not a full year—ago.

She was a teenager again, around Oliver. All breathless and hot and hormonal. Totally fixated on him for the short while she had his company. It would have been comic if it weren’t also so terribly mortifying. And it was way too easy to indulge the feelings this one day of the year. It felt dangerous and illicit to let the emotions even slightly off the leash. Thank goodness she was old enough now to fake it like a seasoned professional.

In public, anyway.

Oliver glanced down and smiled at her in that strange, searching way he had, a half-unwrapped DVD boxed set in his hands. She gave him her most careful smile back, took a deep breath and then refocused on the light descending the crowded panel of elevator buttons.

Fifty-nine, fifty-eight...

She wasn’t always so careful. She caught herself two weeks ago wondering what her best man would think of tonight’s dress instead of her husband. But she’d rationalised it by saying that Oliver’s taste in women—and, by implication, his taste in their wardrobes—was far superior to Blake’s and so taking trouble to dress well was important for a man who hosted her in a swanky Hong Kong restaurant each year.

Blake, on the other hand, wouldn’t notice if she came to the dinner table dressed in a potato sack.

He used to notice—back in the day, nine years ago—when she’d meet him and Oliver at a restaurant in something flattering. Or sheer-cut. Or reinforcing. Back then, appreciation would colour Blake’s skin noticeably. Or maybe it just seemed more pronounced juxtaposed with the blank indifference on Oliver’s face. Oliver, who barely even glanced at her until she was seated behind a table and modestly secured behind a menu.

Yet, paradoxically, she had him to thank for the evolution of her fashion sense because his disdain was a clear litmus test if something was too flattering, too sheer-cut. Too reinforcing.

It was all there in the careful nothing of his expression.

People paid top dollar for that kind of fashion advice. Oliver gifted her with it for free.

Yeah...his gift. That felt so much better on the soul than his judgement. And seasonally appropriate, too.

This year’s outfit was a winner. And while she missed the disguised scrutiny of his greenish-brown gaze—the visual caress that usually sustained her all year—the warm wash of his approval was definitely worth it. She glanced at herself in the elevator’s mirrored walls and tried to see herself as Oliver might. Slim, professional, well groomed.

Weak at the knees with utterly inappropriate anticipation.

Forty-five, forty-four...

‘What time is your flight in the morning?’ His deep voice honey-rumbled in the small space.

Her answer was more breath than speech. ‘Eight.’

Excellent. Resorting to small talk. But this was always how it went at the end. As though they’d flat run out of other things to talk about. Entirely possible given the gamut of topics they covered during their long, long lunch-that-became-dinner, and because she was usually emotionally and intellectually drained from so many hours sitting across from a man she longed to see but really struggled to be around.

It was only one day.

Twelve hours, really. That was all she had to get through each year and wasn’t a big ask of her body. The rest of the year she had no trouble suppressing the emotions. She used the long flight home to marshal all the sensations back into that tightly lidded place she kept them so that she disembarked the plane in Sydney as strong as when she’d left Australia.

She’d invited Blake along this year—pure survival, hoping her husband’s presence would force her wayward thoughts back into safer territory—but not only had he declined, he’d looked horrified at the suggestion. Which made no sense because he liked to catch up with Oliver whenever he was travelling in Asia, himself. Least he used to.

In fact, it made about as little sense as the not-so-subtle way Oliver changed the subject every time she mentioned Blake. As if he was trying to distance himself from the only person they had in common.

And without Blake in common, really what did they have?

Twenty-seven, twenty-six, twenty-five...

Breath hissed out of her in a long, controlled yoga sigh and she willed her fluttering pulse to follow its lead. But that persistent flutter was still entirely fixated on the gorgeous, expensive aftershave Oliver wore and the heat coming off his big body and it seemed to fibrillate faster the closer to the ground floor they got.

And they were so close, now.

Ultimately, it didn’t matter what her body did when in Oliver’s immediate proximity—how her breath tightened, or her mouth dried or her heart squeezed—that was like Icarus hoping his wings wouldn’t melt as he flew towards the sun.

There was nothing she could do about the fundamental rules of biology. All that mattered was that it didn’t show on the outside.

On pain of death.

Tonight she’d been the master of her anatomy. Giving nothing away. So she only had to last these final few moments and she’d be away, speeding through the streets of Hong Kong en route to her own hotel room. Her cool, safe, empty bed. The sleepless night that was bound to follow. And the airport bright and early in the morning.

She should really get the red-eye next year.

It was impossible to know whether the lurch in her stomach was due to the arrest of the elevator’s rapid descent or because she knew what was coming next. The elegant doors seemed to gather their wits a moment before opening.

Audrey did the same.

They whooshed open and she matched Oliver’s footfalls out through the building’s plush foyer onto the street, then turned on a smile and extended a hand as a taxi pulled up from the nearby rank to attend them.

‘Any message for Blake?’

She always kept something aside for this exact moment. Something strong and obstructive in case her body decided to hurl itself at him and embarrass them all. Invariably Blake-related because that was about the safest territory the two of them had. Blake or work. Not to mention the fact that reference to her husband was usually one of the only things that made a dent in the hormonal surge that swilled around them when they stood this close.

The swampy depths of his eyes darkened for the briefest of moments as he took her hand in his large one. ‘No. Thank you.’

Odd. Blake hadn’t had one, either. Which was a first...

But her curiosity about that half-hidden flash of anger lasted a mere nanosecond in the face of the heat soaking from his hand into the one he hadn’t released anywhere nearly as swiftly as she’d offered it. He held it—no caresses, nothing that would raise an eyebrow for anyone watching—and used it to pull her towards him for their annual Christmas air-kiss.

Her blood surged against its own current; the red cells rushing downstream to pool in fingers that tingled at Oliver’s touch stampeding against the foolish ones that surged, upstream, to fill the lips that she knew full well weren’t going to get to touch his.

She thrilled for this moment and hated it at the same time because it was never enough. Yet of course it had to be. The sharp, expensive tang of his cologne washed over her catgut-tight senses as he leaned down and brushed his lips against her cheek. A little further back from last year. A little lower, too. Close enough to her pulse to feel it pounding under her skin.

Barely enough to even qualify as a kiss. But ten times as swoon-worthy as any real kiss she’d ever had.

Hormones.

Talk about mind-altering chemicals...

‘Until next year,’ he breathed against her ear as he withdrew.

‘I will.’

Give my regards to Blake. That was what usually came after ‘the kiss’ and she’d uttered her response before her foggy brain caught up to the fact that he hadn’t actually asked it of her this year. Again, odd. So her next words were stammered and awkward. Definitely not the cool, calm and composed Audrey she usually liked to finish her visit on.

‘Well, goodbye, then. Thank you for lunch.’

Ugh. Lame.

Calling their annual culinary marathon ‘lunch’ was like suggesting that the way Oliver made her feel was ‘warm’. Right now her body blazed with all the unspent chemistry from twelve hours in his company and her head spun courtesy of the shallow breathing of the past few minutes. Embarrassed heat blazed up the back of her neck and she slipped quickly into the waiting taxi before it bloomed fully in her face.

Oliver stood on the footpath, his hand raised in farewell as she pressed back against the headrest and the cab moved away.

‘Wait!’

She lurched against her seat belt and suddenly Oliver was hauling the door open again. For one totally crazy, breathless heartbeat she thought he might have pulled her into his arms. And she would have gone into them. Unflinchingly.

But he didn’t.

Of course he didn’t.

‘Audrey—’

She shoved her ritualistic in-taxi decompression routine down into the gap between the seat back and cushion and presented him with her most neutral, questioning expression.

‘I just... I wanted to say...’

A dozen indecipherable expressions flitted across his expression but finally resolved into something that looked like pain. Grief.

‘Merry Christmas, Audrey. I’ll see you next year.’

The anticlimax was breath-stealing in its severity and so her words were little more than a disenchanted whisper. ‘Merry Christmas, Oliver.’

‘If you ever need me...need anything. Call me.’ His hazel eyes implored. ‘Any time, day or night. Don’t hesitate.’

‘Okay,’ she pledged, though had no intention of taking him up on it. Oliver Harmer and The Real World did not mix. They existed comfortably in alternate realities and her flight to and from Hong Kong was the inter-dimensional transport. In this reality he was the first man—the only man—she’d ever call if she were in trouble. But back home...

Back home she knew her life was too beige to need his help and even if she did, she wouldn’t let herself call him.

The taxi pulled away again and Audrey resumed decompression. Her breath eased out in increments until her heart settled down to a heavy, regular beat and her skin warmed back up to room temperature.

Done.

Another year survived. Another meeting endured in her husband’s name and hopefully with her dignity fully intact.

And only three hundred and sixty-five days until she saw Oliver Harmer again.

Long, confusing days.


THREE

December 20th, two years ago

Qīngtíng Restaurant, Hong Kong

Oliver stared out at the midnight sky, high enough above the flooding lights of Hong Kong to actually see a few stars, and did his best to ignore the screaming lack of attention being paid to him by Qīngtíng’s staff as they closed up the restaurant for the night.

The arms crossed firmly across his chest were the only thing keeping his savaged heart in his chest cavity, and the beautifully wrapped gift crushed in his clenched fist was the only thing stopping him from slamming it into the wall.

She hadn’t come.

For the first time in years, Audrey hadn’t come.


FOUR

December 20th, last year

Obsiblue prawn and caviar with Royale Cabanon Oyster and Yuzu

‘You’re lucky I’m even here.’

The rumbled accusation filtered through the murmur of low conversation and the chink of expensive silverware on Qīngtíng’s equally expensive porcelain. Audrey turned towards Oliver’s neutral displeasure, squared the shoulders of her cream linen jacket and smoothed her hands down her skirt.

‘Yet here you are.’

A grunt lurched in Oliver’s tanned throat where a business tie should have been holding his navy silk shirt appropriately together. Or at the very least some buttons. Benefit of being such a regular patron—or maybe so rich—niceties like dress code didn’t seem to apply to him.

‘Guess I’m slow to learn,’ he said, still dangerously calm. ‘Or just naively optimistic.’

‘Not so naive. I’m here, aren’t I?’

‘You don’t look too pleased about it.’

‘Your email left me little choice. I didn’t realise how proficient you’d become in emotional blackmail.’

‘It wasn’t blackmail, Audrey. I just wanted to know if you were coming. To save me wasting another day and the flight from Shanghai.’

Shame battled annoyance. Yes, she’d stood him up last year, but she found it hard to imagine a man like Oliver left alone and dateless in a flash restaurant for very long. Especially at Christmas. Especially in a city full of homesick expats. She was sure he wouldn’t have withered away from lack of company.

‘And playing the dead best friend card seemed equal to your curiosity, did it?’

Because that was the only reason she was here at all. The relationship he’d had with her recently passed husband. And she’d struggled to shake the feeling that she needed to provide some closure for Oliver on that friendship.

His hazel eyes narrowed just a hint in that infuriating, corporate, too-cool-for-facial-expression way he had. But he didn’t bite. Instead he just stared at her, almost daring her to go on. Daring her, just as much, to hold his glower.

‘They got new carpet,’ she announced pointlessly, thrilled for an excuse not to let him enslave her gaze. Stylised and vibrant dragonflies decorated the floor where once obscure oriental patterns had previously lain. She sank the pointed tip of her cream shoe into the plush opulence and watched it disappear into Weihei Province’s best hand-tufted weave. ‘Nice.’

‘Gerard got another Michelin.’ He shrugged. ‘New carpet seemed a reasonable celebration.’

Somehow, Oliver managed to make her failure to know that one of Hong Kong’s most elite restaurants had re-carpeted sound like a personal failure on her part.

‘Mrs Audrey...’

Audrey suppressed the urge to correct that title as she turned and took the extended hand of the maître d’ between her own. ‘Ming-húa, lovely to see you again.’

‘You look beautiful,’ Ming-húa said, raising her hand to his lips. ‘We missed you last Christmas.’

Oliver shot her a sideways look as they were shepherded towards their customary part of the restaurant. The end where the Chinese version of Christmas decorations were noticeably denser. They racked up a bill this one day of the year large enough to warrant the laying on of extra festive bling and the discreet removal of several other tables, yet, this year, more tables than ever seemed to have been sacrificed. It left them with complete privacy, ensconced in the western end of the restaurant between the enormous indoor terrarium filled with verdant water-soaked plants and fluorescent dragonflies, and the carpet-to-ceiling reinforced window that served as the restaurant’s outer wall.

Beyond the glass, Victoria Harbour and the high-tech sparkle and glint of hundreds more towering giants just like this side of the shore. Behind the glass, the little haven that Audrey had missed so badly last Christmas. Tranquil, private and filled with the kind of gratuitous luxury a girl really should indulge in only once a year.

Emotional sanctuary.

The sanctuary she’d enjoyed for the past five years.

Minus the last one.

And Oliver Harmer was a central part of all that gratuitous luxury. Especially looking like he did today. She didn’t like to notice his appearance—he had enough ego all by himself without her appreciation adding to it—but, here, it was hard to escape; wherever she looked, a polished glass surface of one kind or another offered her a convenient reflection of some part of him. Parts that were infinitely safer facing away from her.

Chilled Cristal sat—as it always did—at the centre of the small table between two large, curved sofas. The first and only furniture she’d ever enjoyed that was actually worthy of the name lounge. Certainly, by the end of the day they’d both be sprawled across their respective sides, bodies sated with the best food and drink, minds saturated with good conversation, a year’s worth of catching up all done and dusted.

At least that was how it normally went.

But things weren’t normal any more.

Suddenly the little space she’d craved so much felt claustrophobic and the chilled Cristal looked like something from a cheesy seduction scene. And the very idea that she could do anything other than perch nervously on the edge of her sofa for the next ten or twelve hours...?

Ludicrous.

‘So what are you hunting this trip?’ Oliver asked, no qualms whatsoever about flopping down into his lounge, snagging up a quarter-filled flute on the way down. So intently casual she wondered if he’d practised the manoeuvre. As he settled back his white shirt stretched tight across his torso and his dark trousers hiked up to reveal ankles the same tanbark colour as his throat. ‘Stradivarius? Guarneri?’

‘A 1714 Testore cello,’ she murmured. ‘Believed to now be in South East Asia.’

‘Now?’

‘It moves around a lot.’

‘Do they know you’re looking for it?’

‘I have to assume so. Hence its air miles.’

‘More fool them trying to outrun you. Don’t they know you always get your man...or instrument?’

‘I doubt they know me at all. You forget, I do all the legwork but someone else busts up the syndicates. My job relies on my contribution being anonymous.’

‘Anonymous,’ he snorted as he cut the tip off one of the forty-dollar cigars lying on a tray beside the champagne. ‘I’d be willing to wager that a specialist with an MA in identification of antique stringed instruments is going to be of much more interest to the bad guys than a bunch of Interpol thugs with a photograph and a GPS location in their clammy palms.’

‘The day my visa gets inexplicably denied then I’ll start believing you. Until then...’ She helped herself to the Cristal. ‘Enough about my work. How is yours going? Still rich?’

‘Stinking.’

‘Still getting up the noses of your competitors?’

‘Right up in their sinuses, in fact.’

Despite everything, it was hard not to respond to the genuine glee Oliver got from irritating his corporate rivals. He wasted a fair bit of money on moves designed to exasperate. Though, not a waste at all if it kept their focus conveniently on what he wasn’t doing. A reluctant smile broke free.

‘I was wondering if I’d be seeing that today.’ His eyes flicked to her mouth for the barest of moments. ‘I’ve missed it.’

That was enough to wipe the smile clean from her face. ‘Yeah, well, there’s been a bit of an amusement drought since Blake’s funeral.’

Oliver flinched but buried it behind a healthy draw from his champagne. ‘No doubt.’

Well... Awkward...

‘So how are you doing?’ He tried again.

She shrugged. ‘Fine.’

‘And how are you really doing?’

Seriously? He wanted to do this? Then again, they talked about Blake every year. He was their connection, after all. Their only true connection. Which made being here now that Blake was gone even weirder. She should have just stayed home. Maybe they could have just done this by phone.

‘The tax stuff was a bit of a nightmare and the house was secured against the business so that wasn’t fun to disentangle, but I got there.’

He blinked at her. ‘And personally?’

‘Personally my husband’s dead. What do you want me to say?’

All the champagne chugging in the world wasn’t going to disguise the three concerned lines that appeared between his brows. ‘Are you...coping?’

‘Are you asking me about my finances?’

‘Actually no. I’m asking you how you’re doing. You, Audrey.’

‘And I said fine.’

Both hands went up, one half filled with champagne flute. ‘Okay. Next subject.’

And what would that be? Their one reason for continuing to see each other had gone trundling down a conveyor belt at the crematorium. Not that he’d remember that.

Why weren’t you at your best friend’s funeral? How was that for another subject? But she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

Unfortunately, for them both, Oliver looked as uninspired as she did on the conversation front.

She pushed to her feet. ‘Maybe this wasn’t such a—’

‘Here we go!’ Ming-húa appeared flanked by two serving staff carrying the first amuse-bouche of their marine-themed Christmas degustation. ‘Obsiblue prawn and caviar with Royale Cabanon Oyster and Yuzu.’

Audrey got ‘prawn’, ‘caviar’ and ‘oyster’ and not much else. But wasn’t that kind of the point with degustation—to over-stimulate your senses and not be overly bothered by what things were or used to be?

Culinary adventure.

Pretty much the only place in her life she risked adventure.

She sank politely back onto her sofa. It took the highly trained staff just moments to place their first course just so and then they were alone again.

Oliver ignored the food and slid a small gift-wrapped parcel across the table.

Audrey stared at the patched-up wrapping. Best he was prepared to do after she’d stood him up? ‘Um...’

‘I don’t expect anything in return, Audrey.’

Did he read everyone this well? ‘I didn’t imagine we’d be doing gifts this year.’

‘This was from last year.’

She paused a moment longer, then pulled the small parcel towards her. But she didn’t open it because opening it meant something. She set it aside, instead, smiling tightly.

Oliver pinned her with his intense gaze. ‘We’ve been friends for years, Audrey. We’ve done this for years, every Christmas. Are you telling me you were only here for Blake?’

The slightest hint of hurt diluted the hazel of his eyes. One of the vibrant dragonflies flitting around the enormous terrarium matched the colour exactly.

She gifted him with the truth. ‘It feels odd to be doing this with him gone.’

She didn’t want to say wrong. But it had always felt vaguely wrong. Or her own reaction to Oliver certainly had. Wrong and dishonest because she’d kept it so secret and close to her heart.

‘Everything is different now. But our friendship doesn’t have to change. Spending time with you was never just about courtesy to a mate’s wife. As far as I’m concerned we’re friends, too.’

Pfff. Meaningless words. ‘I missed you at your mate’s funeral.’

A deep flush filled the hollow where his tie should have been. ‘I was sorry not to be there.’

Uh-huh.

‘Economic downturn made the flight unaffordable, I guess.’ They would spend four times that cost on today’s meals. But one of Oliver’s strengths had always been courage under fire. He pressed his lips together and remained silent. ‘Or was it just a really busy week at the office?’

She’d called. She knew exactly where he was while they’d buried her husband. ‘Or did you not get my messages in time?’

All eight of them.

‘Audrey...’ The word practically hissed out of him.

‘Oliver?’

‘You know I would have been there if I could. Did you get the flowers I arranged?’

‘The half-a-boutique of flowers? Yes. They were crammed in every corner of the chapel. And they were lovely,’ honesty compelled her to admit. And also her favourites. ‘But they were just flowers.’

‘Look, Audrey, I can see you’re upset. Can I please just ask you to trust that I had my reasons, good reasons, not to fly back to Sydney and that I had my own private memorial for my old friend back home in Shanghai—’ Audrey didn’t miss the emphasis on ‘old’ friend ‘—complete with a half-bottle of Chivas. So Blake had two funerals that day.’

Why was this so hard? She shouldn’t still care.

She shouldn’t still remember so vividly the way she’d craned her neck from inside the funeral car to see if Oliver was walking in the procession of mourners. Or the way she’d only half attended to the raft of well-wishers squeezing her hand after the service because she was too busy wondering how she’d missed him. It was only later as she wrote thank-you cards to the names collected by the funeral attendants that she’d finally accepted the truth.

Oliver hadn’t come.

Blake’s best friend—their best man—hadn’t come to his funeral.

That particular truth had been bitter, but she’d been too swamped in the chaos of new widowhood to be curious as to why it hurt so much. Or to imagine Oliver finding a private way of farewelling his old mate. Like downing a half-bottle of whisky.

‘He always did love a good label,’ she acknowledged.

A little too fondly as it turned out since Blake’s thirst for good liquor was deemed a key contributor to the motor vehicle accident that took his life. But since her husband sitting in his den enjoying a sizeable glass or three with the evening newspaper had given Audrey the space and freedom to pursue things she enjoyed, she really couldn’t complain.

The natural pause in the uncomfortable conversation was a cue to both of them to eat, and the tart seafood amuse-bouche was small enough that it was over in just mouthfuls.

Behind her, the gentle buzz of dragonfly wings close to glass drew her focus. She turned to study the collection that gave the restaurant its name. There were over one hundred species in Hong Kong—vibrant and fluorescent, large and small—and Qīngtíng kept an immaculate and stunning community of them in the specially constructed habitat.

She discreetly took several deep breaths to get her wayward feelings under control. ‘Every year, I forget how amazing this is.’

And, every year, she envied the insects and pitied them, equally. Their captive life was one of luxury, with every conceivable need met. Their lives were longer and easier than their wild counterparts and neither their wetland nor food source ever dried up. Yet the glass boundaries of their existence was immutable. New arrivals battered softly against it until they eventually stopped trying and they accepted their luxurious fate.

Ultimately, didn’t everyone?

‘Give him a chance and the dragonfly curator will talk your ear off with the latest developments in invertebrate husbandry.’

His tone drew her eyes back. ‘I thought you only flew down for the day? When did you have a chance to meet Qīngtíng’s dragonfly guy?’

‘Last Christmas. I unexpectedly found myself with time on my hands.’

Because she hadn’t come.

The shame washed in again. ‘It was...too soon. I couldn’t leave Australia. And Blake was gone.’

He stared at her. Contemplating. ‘Which one of those do you want to go with?’

Heat rushed up her neck.

‘They’re all valid.’ His silence only underscored her lies. She took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t come last year, Oliver. I should have had more courage.’

‘Courage?’

‘To tell you that it was the last time I’d be coming.’

He flopped back in his chair. ‘Is that what you’ve come to say now?’

It was. Although, saying it aloud seemed to be suddenly impossible. She nodded instead.

‘We could have done that by phone. It would have been cheaper for you.’

‘I had the Testore—’

‘You could have come and not told me you were here. Like you did in Shanghai.’

Every muscle tightened up.

Busted.

She generally did her best to deal with Shanghai contacts outside Shanghai for a very specific reason—it was Harmer-country, and going deep into Oliver’s own turf wasn’t something she’d been willing to risk let alone tell him about. But how could he possibly know the population had swelled to twenty-five-million-and-one just that once? She asked him exactly that.

His eyes held hers. ‘I have my sources.’

And why exactly were his sources pointing in her direction?

‘Before you get too creeped out,’ he went on, ‘it was social media. Your status listed your location as the People’s Square, so I knew you were in town.’

Ugh. Stupid too-smart phones. ‘You didn’t message me.’

‘I figured if you wanted to see me you would have let me know.’

Oh. Sneaking in and out of China’s biggest city like a thief was pathetic enough, but being so stupidly caught out just made her look—and feel—like a child. ‘It was a flying visit,’ she croaked. ‘I was hunting a Paraguayan harp.’

Lord. Not making it better.

‘It doesn’t matter, that’s in the past. I want to know why you won’t be returning in the future.’

Discomfort gnawed at her intestines. ‘I can’t keep flying here indefinitely, Oliver. Can’t we just say it’s been great and let it go?’

He processed that for a moment. ‘Do all your friends have best-by dates?’

His perception had her buzzing as furiously as the dragonflies. ‘Is that what we are? Friends?’

‘I thought so.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘I never got the sense that you were here under sufferance. You certainly seemed very comfortable helping me spend my money.’

‘Oliver—’

‘What’s really going on, Audrey? What’s the problem?’

‘Blake’s gone,’ she pointed out needlessly on a great expulsion of breath. ‘Me continuing to come and see you...What would be the point?’

‘To catch up. To see each other.’

‘Why would we do that?’

‘Because friends nurture their relationships.’

‘Our relationship was built on someone who’s not here any more.’

He blinked at her—twice—and his perfect lips gaped. ‘That might be how it started but it’s not like that any longer.’ An ocean of doubt swilled across the back of his gaze, though. ‘I met you about six minutes before Blake did, if you recall. Technically, I think that means our friendship pre-dates Blake.’

That had been an excruciating six minutes, writhing under the intensity of the sexiest man she’d ever met, until his infinitely more ordinary friend had wandered into the Sydney bar. Blake with his narrower shoulders, his harmless smile and his non-challenging conversation. She’d practically swamped the man with her attention purely on reactive grounds, to crawl out from under Oliver’s blistering microscope.

She knew when she was batting above her average and thirty seconds in his exclusive company told her Oliver Harmer was major league. Majorly gorgeous, majorly bright and majorly bored if he was entertaining himself by flirting with her.

‘That doesn’t count. You only spoke to me to pass the time until Blake turned up.’

He weighed something up. ‘What makes you think I wasn’t laying groundwork?’

‘For Blake?’

His snort drew a pair of glances from across the room. ‘For me. Blake’s always been quite capable of doing his own dirty work...’ As if it suddenly occurred to him that they were speaking of the dead, his words petered off. ‘Anyway, as soon as he walked in the room you were captivated. I knew when I’d been bested.’

What would Oliver say if he knew she’d clung to Blake’s conversation specifically to avoid having to engage with his more handsome friend again? Or if she confessed that she’d been aware of every single move Oliver made until the moment she left her phone number with Blake and fled out into the Australian night.

He’d probably laugh.

‘I’m sure it did no permanent damage to your self-esteem,’ she gritted.

‘I had to endure his gloating for a week. It wasn’t every day that he managed to steal out from under me a woman that I—’ His teeth snapped shut.

‘A woman that what?’

‘Any woman at all, really. You were a first.’

She shook her head. ‘Always so insufferable. That’s why I gave my phone number to him and not you.’

That and the fact she always had been a coward.

He settled back into his sofa. ‘Imagine how different things would be if you’d given it to me that day.’

‘Oh, please. You would have bored of me within hours.’

‘Who says?’

‘It’s just sport for you, Oliver.’

‘Again. Who says?’

‘Your track record says. And Blake says.’

Said.

He sat forward. ‘What did he say?’

Enough to make her wonder if something had gone down between the two friends. She hedged by shrugging. ‘He cared about you. He wanted you to have what he had.’

The brown flecks amid the green of his iris seemed to shift amongst themselves. ‘What did he have?’

‘A stable relationship. Permanency. A life partner.’

Would he notice she didn’t say ‘love’?

‘That’s rich, coming from him.’

‘What do you mean?’

He glanced around the room and shifted uncomfortably in his seat before bringing his sharp, intent gaze back to her. Colour stained the very edge of his defined jaw. Audrey reached up to press her hand to her topknot to stop the lot falling down with the angle of her head. The pins really weren’t doing their job so she pulled them out and the entire arrangement slid free and down to her shoulders.

His expression changed, morphed, as she watched, from something pointed to something intentionally dull. ‘Doesn’t matter what I mean. Ancient history. I didn’t realise old Blake had such passion in him.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Such possession. I always got the impression that your marriage was as much a meeting of minds as anything else.’

Heat raced up from under her linen collar. What’s wrong, Oliver, can’t imagine me inspiring passion in a man? ‘You hadn’t seen us together for years,’ she said, tightly.

Why was that?

‘My business relies on my ability to read people, Audrey. I hung out with you guys a lot those few years before your wedding. Before I moved to Shanghai. The three amigos, remember? Plenty of opportunity to form an opinion.’

Did she remember...?

She remembered the long dinners, the brilliant, three-way conversations. She remembered Oliver stepping between her and some drunk morons in the street, once, while Blake flanked her on the protected side. She remembered how breathless she felt when Oliver would walk towards them out of the twilight shadows and how flat she felt when he walked away.

Yeah. She remembered.

‘Then you must recall how partial Blake was to public displays of affection.’ Oliver used to get so embarrassed by them, looking away like the fifth wheel that he was. Hard to imagine the confident man that he now was being discomposed by anything. ‘Wasn’t that sufficient demonstration of his feelings?’

‘It was a demonstration all right. I always got the feeling that Blake specially reserved the displays of affection for when you were in public.’

Mortification added a few more degrees to the heat that was only just settling back under her jacket. Because that was essentially true. Behind closed doors they lived more like siblings. But what he probably didn’t know was that Blake saved the PDAs up most particularly for when Oliver was there. Scent marking like crazy. As though he was subliminally picking up on the interest she was trying so very hard to disguise.

She breathed in past the tightness of her chest. ‘Really, Oliver? That’s what you want to do today? Take shots at a dead man?’

Anger settled between his brows. ‘I want to just enjoy today. Enjoy your company. Like we used to.’

He slid the gift back across in front of her. ‘And on that note, open it.’

She sat unmoved for a moment but the steely determination in his gaze told her that was probably entirely pointless. He was just as likely to open it for her.

She tore the wrapping off with more an annoyance she hoped he’d misread as impatience.

‘It’s a cigar.’ And a pack of cards and M&M’s. Just like three years ago. Her eyes lifted back to his. Resisted their pull. ‘I don’t smoke.’

‘That’s never stopped me.’

She struggled against the warm memory of Oliver letting her beat him at cards and believing she hadn’t noticed. ‘That was a great day.’

‘My favourite Christmas.’

‘Nearly Christmas.’

His dark head shook. ‘December twenty-fifth has never compared to the twentieth.’

She sat back. ‘What do you do on Christmas Day?’

‘Work, usually.’

‘You don’t go home?’

‘Do I go to my father’s home? No.’

‘What about your mum?’

‘I fly her to me for Chinese New Year. A less loaded holiday.’

Audrey just stared.

‘You’re judging me,’ he murmured.

‘No. I’m trying to picture it.’

‘Think about it. I can’t go back to Sydney, I can’t go to a girlfriend’s place on Christmas without setting up the expectations of rings and announcements, and the office is nice and quiet.’

‘So you work.’

‘It’s just another day. What do you do?’

‘I do Christmas.’ She shrugged.

But it wasn’t anywhere near as exciting as flying to see Oliver. Or as tasty as whatever festive treat Qīngtíng had in store for her. And it didn’t warm her for the rest of the year. It was roast dinners and eggnog and family and gifts that none of them needed and explaining ad nauseam every year why Blake wasn’t there.

Here she’d got to split her focus between the beautiful skyline that was Hong Kong and Oliver. Depending on her mood.

Her eyes fell back on his gift. She picked up the cigar and clamped it between her teeth in a parody of him. Two seconds later she let it fall out again.

‘Ugh. That’s horrible.’

His laugh could have lit the other end with its warmth. ‘You get used to it.’

‘I can’t imagine how.’

Yet somehow, while it tasted awful on her own lips, she caught herself deciding it might taste better on his. And then she had to fight not to stare there. Oliver made that a whole lot harder by leaning forward, picking up the cigar where she’d dropped it, rolling it under his nose and then sliding the sealed end between his teeth. Pre-loved end first.

Something about the casual intimacy of that act, of him putting her saliva into his mouth so effortlessly—as if they were a long-term couple perfectly used to sharing bodily fluids—sent her heart racing, but she used every ounce of self-control she had to keep it from showing as he mouthed it from the right to the left.

Not the worst way to end your days if you were a cigar—

Stop!

Behind his easy smile his gaze grew unnaturally intent. And she grew inexplicably nervous.

‘So,’ he started, very much like one of his poker-plays, ‘if we’re not friends what are we?’

She choked slightly on her Cristal. ‘Sorry?’

‘I accept your assertion that we’re not friends. But I wonder, then, what that means we are.’

Rabbit. Headlights. She knew it wasn’t dignified and she knew exactly how that bunny felt, watching its fate careen inevitably closer.

‘Because there were two things that defined our relationship for me...’ He used the word ‘defined’ as though it meant ‘constrained’. ‘One was that you were the wife of a friend. Now—tragically—no longer the case. And the other was that we were friends. Apparently also now no longer the case. So, tell me, Audrey—’

He leaned forward and swilled the liquid in his glass and his eyes locked on hard to hers.

‘—where exactly does that leave us?’


FIVE

Lobster calamari tangle in braised southern ocean

miniatures

Tension balled in amongst the food in Audrey’s stomach. She should have seen this coming. He wasn’t a gazillionaire for nothing; the acute sharpness of his mind was one of the things that she...appreciated most about Oliver.

She flattened her skirt carefully. ‘We’re...acquaintances.’

Excellent. Yes. A nice neutral word.

He considered, nodded, and she thought she was safe. But then his head changed—mid-nod—into more of a shake. ‘No, see that doesn’t work for me. I wouldn’t normally spend this much time—’ or this much money, presumably ‘—on a mere acquaintance.’

‘Associates?’ She hid the croak in a swallow of champagne.

‘Definitely not. That suggests we do business. And that’s the last thing on my mind when we’re together. It’s why I enjoy our Christmases so much.’

‘Then what do you suggest we are?’

He thought about that. ‘Confidantes.’

He’d certainly shared a lot of himself with her, but they both knew it didn’t go both ways.

‘How about cohorts?’ she parried.

He scrunched his nose. ‘More consorts. In the literal sense.’

No. That just put way too vital an image in her head. ‘Sidekicks?’

He laughed, but his eyes didn’t. ‘What about soulmates?’

The words. The implication. It was too much.

‘Why are you doing this?’ Audrey whispered, tight and tense.

‘Doing what?’

What was it exactly? Flirting? Pressing? She stared at him and hoped her face wasn’t as bleak as her voice. ‘Stirring.’

He drained the last of the Cristal from his glass. ‘I’m just trying to shake you free of the cold, impersonal place you put yourself in order to have this conversation.’

‘I don’t mean to be impersonal.’ Or cold. Though that was a term she’d heard before courtesy of Blake. In his meaner moments.

‘I know you don’t, Audrey. That’s the only reason I’m not mad at you. It’s a survival technique.’

‘Uh-huh...’ She frowned in a way she hoped would cover the fact he was one hundred per cent right. ‘And what am I surviving?’

‘This day?’ He stared, long and hard. ‘Maybe me?’

‘Don’t flatter yourself.’

Four staff with exquisite timing arrived with the second seafood plate of the degustation experiences ahead of them. Two cleared the table and two more lay down matching shards of driftwood, decorated with glistening seaweed, and nested in it were a selection of oceanic morsels. A solitary lobster claw, calamari in a bed of roe, a fan of some kind of braised whitebait and—

Audrey leaned in for a good look. ‘Is that krill?’

Oliver chuckled and it eased some of the tension that hung as thick as the krill between them. ‘Don’t ask. Just taste.’

Whatever it was, it was magnificent. Weird texture on the tongue but one of the tastiest mouthfuls she’d ever had. Until she got to the lobster claw.

‘Oh, my...’

‘They’ve really outdone themselves with this one.’

The whole selection slid down way too easily with the frosty glass of Spanish Verdelho that had appeared in front of each of their dishes. But once there was nothing left on their driftwood but claw-husk and seaweed, conversation had no choice but to resume.

‘Ask me how I know,’ Oliver urged and then at her carefully blank stare he clarified. ‘Ask me how I know what it is that you’re doing.’

She took a deep slow breath. ‘How do you know what I’m supposedly doing, Oliver?’

‘I recognise it. From dealing with you the past five years. Eight if you want to go right back to the beginning.’

Oh, would that she could. The things she would do differently...

‘I recognise it from keeping everything so carefully appropriate with you. From knowing exactly where the boundaries are and stopping with the tips of my shoes right on the line. From talking myself repeatedly into the fact that we’re only friends.’

Audrey’s heart hammered wildly. ‘We are.’

He leapt on that. ‘So now we are friends? Make up your mind.’

She couldn’t help responding to the frustration leaching through between his words. ‘I don’t know what you want from me, Oliver.’

‘Yes, you do.’ He shifted forward again, every inch the predator. ‘But you’re in denial.’

‘About what?’

‘About what we really are.’

They couldn’t be anything else. They just couldn’t. ‘There’s no great mystery. You were my best man. You were my husband’s closest friend.’

‘I stopped being Blake’s friend three years ago, Audrey.’

The pronouncement literally stunned her into silence. Her mouth opened and closed silently in protest. She knew something had gone down between them but...that long ago?

She picked up the M&M’s. ‘This long?’

‘Just after that.’ He guessed her next question. ‘Friendships change. People change.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she whispered. And why hadn’t Blake? He knew that she saw Oliver whenever she went to Hong Kong. Why the hell wouldn’t her husband tell her not to come?

He took a long breath. ‘I didn’t tell you because you would have stopped coming.’

Only the gentle murmur of conversation, the clink of silverware on plates and the hum of dragonfly wings interrupted the long, shocking silence. There was so much more in that sentence than the sum of the words. Two staff materialised behind them, unobtrusively cleared away the driftwood and shell remnants and left a small palate cleanser in their place. Then they were alone again.

‘So, my comments today can’t have been a surprise, then.’ She braved her way carefully through the next moments. ‘You knew I was going to end it.’

‘Doesn’t mean I’m going to acquiesce politely and let you walk off into the sunset.’

Frustration strung tight and painful across her sternum. ‘Why, Oliver?’

He swapped the cigar from the left side of his mouth to the right. ‘Because I don’t want to. Because I like what we do and I like how I feel when we do it. And because I think you’re kidding yourself if you don’t admit you feel the same.’

The challenge—and the truth—hung out there, heavy and unignorable.

A nervous habit from her childhood came screaming back and, even though she knew she was doing it, she was helpless to stop her palms from rubbing back and forth along her thighs.

In desperation, she spooned up the half-melted sorbet and its icy bite shocked the breath right back into her. Oliver waited out her obvious ploy.




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