by Nikki Logan
It wasn’t all that inconceivable. She could well imagine the facility with which a stunning woman would find herself with access to the kind of people Oliver mixed with. Where else was he going to meet women? And she absolutely couldn’t blame them for being drawn to him, once there. He was Oliver Harmer.
He took her hand across the table. ‘It’s really important to me that you don’t think I’m that kind of man.’
And it wasn’t as if he were giving her a news flash. She detached her hand from his under the pretence of wiping her mouth with her napkin and sighed. But she wasn’t about to be a princess about this. She was a big girl.
‘I wake up to myself every day, Oliver. I know where my virtues lie.’ Or didn’t.
‘I would give every cent I have—’ The greenish-brown of his eyes focused in hard but as he spoke he turned away, so that the words were an under-breath jumble. And something in his expression made her really want to know what came next.
‘Every cent, what?’
‘For you to recognise your strengths.’
Had even the kitchen staff stopped to listen? Every sound that wasn’t Oliver’s low voice seemed to have vanished. But something stopped her from letting his words fill her heart with helium.
‘I don’t need you to do this, Oliver.’ In fact she really would rather he didn’t. ‘I don’t care what you think of my appearance.’
‘Of course you do. Because you’re human and because I just reinforced all those jerks at your school with my stupid, careless words.’ He stood and pulled her to her feet. ‘I care what you think of my appearance.’
It was such a ludicrous concept—not that he cared, but that there was any question about how good he looked—she actually laughed. Out loud. ‘No, you don’t.’
‘I changed three times before coming here today.’
She looked him over, some of her pre-shock spirit returning. ‘And this was your best effort?’
The lips that gaped at her then were stained slightly red with pomegranate ice and looked more than a little bit like they were flush from kissing. ‘This is all brand-new gear!’
‘Oh, you shopped too? Wow.’ Her umbrage eased a bit more.
‘And I didn’t shave this morning because you once said you liked stubble. Four years ago.’
A reluctant laugh tumbled out of her. ‘Oh, that’s just sad, Oliver.’ It didn’t matter why he was demeaning himself to stave off her further embarrassment, she was just very grateful that he was. She peered up at him. ‘I know what you’re doing.’
‘What am I doing?’
‘You’re lying. To make me feel better.’
His eyes narrowed as he towered over her. ‘Is it working?’
‘Yes, actually.’ Purely based on the fact he cared enough to try. He’d meant what he said but he hadn’t meant it to be hurtful.
He took half a step closer. ‘Great then.’
‘Besides, you always look good. You don’t have to try.’
‘Small mercy. There are plenty more ways that I feel deficient around you, Audrey.’
The wealthiest and most successful man she knew? ‘Like how?’
Indecision carved that handsome face. ‘I live in fear that I’ll glance up suddenly and catch you looking at me with the kind of patient, vacant tolerance I give most of my dates.’
‘You think I’m humouring you?’
His shrug only lifted one big shoulder. ‘You only came here at all because of Blake. Maybe it’s all Christmas charity.’
The thought that she’d caused someone to question themselves the way she had—even someone as profusely confident as Oliver—made her squirm. Though she knew the ramifications of correcting him were steep.
‘I’m still here, aren’t I?’
He knuckled a loose piece of her hair more securely behind her ear. ‘Ah, but you came to say goodbye.’
‘I did,’ she breathed. That was totally her plan when she walked in. Until something had changed without her consent. ‘So why haven’t I?’
His eyes glittered and his hand turned palm side up and curled around her cheek. ‘Something else I’d give my fortune to know.’
A steam train thundered through her brain. ‘You’re rapidly running out of fortunes.’
‘Benefit of a double-A credit rating.’ His thumb crept across to trace the shape of her bottom lip. ‘I can get more.’
‘What are you doing?’ she whispered, and he knew exactly when to drop the game.
‘Everything I can before you tell me to stop.’
She absolutely should. They were in a public place and this was ‘The Hammer’, notorious player and corporate scourge of Asia. And more to the point, this was Oliver. She had no business letting him this close, no matter how much the furthest corner of her soul tried to tell her differently.
It didn’t matter that she was no longer anyone’s wife. It didn’t matter that he was the one controlling the lazy drag of his fingers and therefore any resulting public exposure. Those things only made it more dangerous. More ill advised.
But as his hazel eyes blazed down on her and his big, smooth thumb pressed against the flesh of her lips she struggled to remember any of those things.
And her mouth opened.
EIGHT
Baked scallops, smoked eel with capsicum salsa and a Parmesan and dill crust.
‘Stop.’
She wasn’t inviting him in. She was locking him out. Of course she was. This was Audrey.
Oliver drew his hands back into his own personal space and stepped away from her, more towards the wall-that-would-be-a-window. The soothing, ancient presence of the mountains far behind Victoria Harbour anchored him and stopped his heart from beating clear through his chest and then through all that glass into the open air of the South China Sea.
‘Shorter than I’d hoped,’ he murmured at the vast open space. Yet so much further than he’d ever imagined he’d get.
‘We’re in a public restaurant, Oliver.’
‘I have a suite just upstairs.’ As if that were really what stopped her.
But she ignored the underlying meaning. Again, because she was Audrey. The woman had more class than he could ever hope to aspire to.
‘I thought we were on the top floor?’ she said, smoothing her skirt and keeping the conversation firmly off what had just happened. All that...touching.
‘The top public floor. There’s a penthouse.’ Technically part of the sixtieth floor but a half-dozen metres higher.
‘And you have it?’
He turned and faced her. And the music. ‘It came with the restaurant.’
Her brows dipped over slightly glassy eyes. He loved that he’d made them that way. But then they cleared and those fine brows lifted further than he imagined they could go. ‘You bought the restaurant?’
‘I did.’
She shook her head. ‘What’s the matter? No good restaurants closer to Shanghai?’
‘I like this one.’
And Qīngtíng had the added advantage of being saturated in echoes of his time together with Audrey. And when she didn’t come last year he began to believe that might be all he’d ever have of her.
Memories.
‘Clearly.’ And then her innate curiosity got the better of her. ‘What did it cost?’
God, he adored her. So classy and yet so inappropriate at the same time. Absolutely no respect for social niceties. But he wasn’t ready to put a price tag on his desperation just yet. Bad enough that his accountant knew.
‘More than you can imagine. It wasn’t on the market.’ He’d just kept offering them more until they caved.
Understanding filled her eyes. ‘That’s why you seemed so familiar with the dragonfly keeper. And why they bow so low for you.’ And why he got to call the chef Gerard. ‘You’re their boss.’
‘They treat everyone that well,’ he defended. Badly.
‘Why did you buy it?’
Uh...no. Not something he was going to admit to the woman who’d
made it clear she wasn’t after anything more with him. In words and, just moments ago, in deed.
He cleared his throat. ‘It’s a fantastic investment. The return is enormous.’ As much an unexpected bonus as the big, luxurious, lonely suite right above their heads. ‘Do you want to see it?’
She turned her confusion to him.
‘The penthouse. It’s pretty spectacular.’
‘Is it...? Are you...?’ She took a deep breath. ‘Will you be sleeping there tonight?’
Was that her subtle way of asking whether there was a bed up there? ‘You’re safe with me, Audrey.’
Heat flared at her jaw. ‘I know.’
Though, hadn’t he been the one to instigate the touch-a-thon just now? ‘It’s so much more than a bedroom. It’s like a small house perched atop this steel mountain.’ She didn’t have a prayer of hiding the spark of interest. So he went for the kill shot. ‘Every window gives you a different view of Hong Kong.’
She was inordinately fond of this city, he knew. In fact, pretty much anything oriental. It made him wonder what she’d thought of Shanghai; if she’d liked it as much as he did.
And why, exactly, was that important...?
Indecision wracked her face. She wanted to see it, but she didn’t want to be alone with him away from the security of a restaurant full of unwitting chaperones. So who did she trust less—him or herself?
Her eyes flicked to her left as two restaurant staff approached from the direction of the beautifully disguised kitchens and placed their next dish on the table.
‘Oh, great!’
Audrey hadn’t been quite that animated about the arrival of the previous dishes. But she certainly rushed back to her seat with enthusiasm now. Oliver half smiled and followed her.
‘Scallops and smoked eel swimming in a sea of capsicum with a Parmesan and dill crust,’ Ming-húa announced before departing. Each dish composed of an enormous white shell in which three tender scallop and eel pairs sat, awash, in a red liquid salsa. A two-pronged splade balanced across each one.
‘Did Blake burn you financially?’ Audrey asked, breathless, as she tucked into her scallops.
It was absolutely the last thing he expected her to say, although retreating behind the memory of her departed husband shouldn’t have surprised him.
‘No. Why?’
‘I figured money would have to be the only thing big enough to drive a wedge between the two of you.’
Oliver moderated a deep breath. She wasn’t going to let this go. ‘Look, Audrey...Blake and I were friends for a long time and people change in that time. Values change. The more time we spent apart, the less we had in common.’
Except for Audrey. She was their constant.
‘I just don’t understand why he would have kept it a secret, unless it was a big deal of some kind.’
Even in absentia, he was still lying to cover his old friend’s ass. But it was more than that. Hadn’t she just shared the misery of her childhood, all those issues with self-worth? What would it do to her to learn her husband was a serial adulterer?
The burning need to protect her surged through him. ‘Let it go, Audrey.’
But something was clearly troubling her. She was eating the scallop as though it were toast. Biting, chewing and swallowing with barely any attention on the succulent food. ‘What values?’
He faked misunderstanding.
‘You said that values changed with time. What values changed between the two of you, if it wasn’t about business?’
‘Audrey—’
‘Please, Oliver. I need to know. Was it your values?’
‘Why do you need to know?’
She eyed him as she slipped the last succulent morsel between her lips. ‘Because a few years before he died, he changed. And I want to know if it’s connected.’
Dread pooled in his belly. ‘Changed how?’
‘He just...’ She frowned, trying to focus what was obviously a lot of thoughts all rushing her at once. ‘He became...affectionate.’
The second surprise in his day. ‘Affectionate?’
‘He grew all touchy-feely. And he’d never done that before.’
‘You got worried because he got more intimate with you?’ Exactly what kind of a marriage had they had?
‘It was just notable by its sudden presence.’ She cleared her throat. ‘And it escalated every November. Like clockwork.’
The weeks leading up to her annual pilgrimage to Hong Kong. Overcompensating for the fact that he was lining up to betray her in the most fundamental way possible, probably.
‘So I thought...that is, I wondered...’ She closed her eyes and took a long slow breath. ‘I thought it might have been related to me coming here. That he was struggling with it.’
‘But he was the one who encouraged you.’
‘I know, that’s the part I don’t understand. But I knew he had problems with how I was with you when we were all together and so I thought maybe he believed—’
She snapped her mouth shut.
How I was with you... Oliver filed that one away for later dissection. ‘He believed what?’
‘That there was something going on.’ She flushed. ‘With us.’
There were no words. Oliver could only stare. She was so very far off the mark and yet so excruciatingly close to the truth.
‘But there wasn’t,’ he hedged.
‘Blake didn’t know that.’ She threw her hands up. ‘It’s the only thing I can think of to explain it.’
Is it really, Audrey?
It wasn’t until she spoke that he realised he had—aloud. ‘What do you mean?’
Crap. ‘I mean there could be dozens of other alternatives. Blake knew he could trust you with his life.’
That was what made his betrayal all the more vile.
‘I thought, maybe he confronted you with it and, knowing how you felt about your father, you might have been insulted and the two of you might have fought...?’
Maybe that was what her subconscious wanted her to believe.
‘He didn’t confront me.’ That much he could safely say. Blake was the confrontee not the confronter.
‘Oh.’ Those two appealing little forks appeared between her brows again. ‘Okay.’
She was out of ideas. Oliver knew he could just change the subject and she’d go with that because that brilliant mind of hers was flirting around the edges but was determined not to see the possibility of truth. And who could blame her?
But would it eat at her forever?
She lifted the half-shell and used the splade to scoop up some of the rich, vibrant sauce. Her frown didn’t dissipate even as she sipped at her dish.
No. She wasn’t going to let her curiosity die with her husband. She was just going to let it fester and worsen her deeply suppressed self-doubt as only secrets could. But telling her the truth wouldn’t achieve much better.
Except maybe bring it all out into the light where she could deal with it. Surely something like that lost some of its power when it was exposed to the light. Rather than poisoning as a fear. If Audrey knew nothing, he’d have been content to leave it that way but she knew enough that she would eventually work her way around to the truth or, if not that, then her subconscious would whisper cruelly in her ears forever. Or she’d hear it from someone else instead of in the protective company of a friend.
He studied her strong face and made his decision.
‘It was guilt, Audrey.’ The splade froze halfway to her mouth. ‘If Blake changed then he was overcompensating because he knew what was going to happen the moment you left the country.’
Those enormous blue eyes grew. ‘What do you mean?’
He took a deep breath and trashed the memory of a dead man.
‘Your husband had affairs, Audrey. Lots of them. Every year while you were here with me.’
* * *
The effusive apologies of the staff for what was essentially her own mistake bought Audrey a few precious moments to get her
act together. Immaculate girls in exotic Chinese silk dabbed and pawed at the ruined linen of her outfit where the splade, the shell and its entire remnant contents had tumbled out of her deadened fingers.
Oliver watched her with concern through the chaos and all the bodies.
She’d never had so many hands on her breasts and thighs at one time. How ironic to consider that in the same moment as discovering that her husband—who’d barely troubled himself to pay more than businesslike attention to the private parts of her body—was apparently sleeping all around town the moment she left the country.
Betrayal stung, heated and raw in that place behind her heart she never let anyone go.
And tears stung just as angry in her eyes.
‘Ming-húa—’ Oliver barked and then spoke quietly to the maître d’, who then rattled a fast command to his staff who, in turn, scattered on individual errands. One left a clean towel with Audrey but it wasn’t going to do much against the red stain that spread like a chest-wound down her cream front.
‘Come on,’ Oliver said, pulling her to her feet. ‘You can change upstairs.’
Code for I’m taking you somewhere you can have your meltdown in private.
She let him pull her towards the exit, his hand hot and secure around her ice-cold one. But as they got to the elevators he led her, instead, up a carpeted circular staircase, which opened discreetly onto one side of the public restaurant lobby.
At the top of the stairs, the furnishings changed slightly to the polished floor and neutral décor so popular in this part of China. It actually felt quite welcoming since her home in Australia was much the same. Executive beige. Blake’s taste, not hers. All very stylish but totally without soul.
Like their marriage.
Oliver swiped a keycard through the scanner and swung open a pair of big, dark doors into an amazing space.
The view shouldn’t have stolen her gaze so immediately considering it was only a half-floor higher than the restaurant they’d spent all afternoon in, but the penthouse sat squarely on the top of the building and its windows wrapped around three-hundred-and-sixty degrees of amazing view. Some of it was the much taller buildings around them and the patches of mountainside in between, but the majority was the towering chrome and glass forest that was the buildings of Central Hong Kong and, across the harbour, Kowloon.
