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.
‘I—’
Lord, was this wise? Couldn’t she just lie and be done with it? But this was Oliver staring at her with such intensity and it didn’t matter that he only saw her for ten hours a year, he could read her better than she could read herself.
‘I enjoy seeing you, too,’ she sighed. ‘You know I do.’
‘So why end it?’
‘What will people say?’
Was that the first time she’d ever surprised him? Maybe so, given how unfamiliar that expression seemed on his face. ‘What people?’
‘Any people.’
‘They’ll say we’re two friends having lunch.’
And dinner and sometimes a late supper to finish up with, but that was besides the point. ‘They’ll say I’m a widow moving on before her husband’s scent has even left the house.’
‘It’s just lunch, Audrey. Once a year. At
Christmas
.’
‘As if the people I’m worried about would give a rat’s what season it is.’
‘What do you care what they say? You and I will both know the truth.’
She shot a puff of air between her lips. ‘Spoken just like a man with more money than a small nation. You might not care about yours but reputations
mean
something to me.’
He shook his head. ‘How is it any different than what we’ve been doing the past five years? Meeting, spending the day together.’
‘The difference is Blake isn’t here any more. He was the reason I came.’
He made it legitimate.
Now it was just...dangerous.
‘Most women would be worried about
that
getting to the gossips. A married woman flying around the world to see a man that’s not her husband. But you didn’t care about it before you lost Blake—why do you care now?’
‘Because now I’m—’
She floundered and he bent in closer to study her. ‘You’re what? The only thing that’s changed in our relationship is your marital status.’
Her body locked up hard as awareness flooded his eyes.
‘Is that it, Audrey? You’re worried now because you’re single?’
‘How will it look?’
‘You’re a widow. No one will give a toss what you do or who you see. There’s no hint of scandal for them to inhale.’ But as she stared at him in desperate silence the awareness consolidated down into acute realisation. ‘Or are you more concerned about how it will look,
to me
?’
Her pulse pounded against her throat. ‘I don’t want to give the wrong impression.’
‘What impression is that?’ Cool and oh, so careful.
‘That I’m here because... That we’re...’
He flopped back against the plush sofa, the cigar hanging limply from his mouth. ‘That you’re interested?’
‘That I’m offering.’
Expressions chased across his face then like a classic flicker-show and finally settled on heated disbelief. ‘It’s lunch, Audrey. Not foreplay.’
That
word on
those
lips was all it took; her mind filled then with every carnal thought about him she’d ever suppressed. They burst out just as surely as if someone took the lid off the tank holding all those dragonflies captive, releasing them to fill the room and ricochet off the walls. It took all her concentration to force them back into the lead-lined box where she usually kept them.
‘Seriously, what’s the worst that could happen? If I made a move on you, you’d only have to say no.’
Her lips tightened even further. ‘It would be awkward,’ she squeezed out.
His snort drew the glance of the maître d’. ‘Whereas this conversation is such a pleasure.’
‘I don’t think your sarcasm is warranted, Oliver.’
‘Really? Your inference is that I would make some kind of fool of myself the very moment you’re available.’ Disbelief was wiggling itself a stronghold in his features. ‘How new do you imagine I am to women, Audrey?’
He was so close to the truth now, she didn’t dare speak. But that just gave him an empty stage to continue his monologue. And he was getting right into the part.
‘I’m curious. Do you see me as pathetically desperate—’ his whisper could have cut glass ‘—or is it just that you imagine yourself as so intensely desirable?’
Hurt speared straight down into that place where she kept the knowledge that she was the last sort of woman he’d want to be with. ‘Stop it—’
But no. He was in flight.
‘Maybe it wouldn’t be that way at all. I’m considered quite a catch, you know. They even have a nickname for me. Could your crazy view of the world cope with the fact that I could make a move and you wouldn’t be
able
to say no? Or want to?’
There was no way on this planet that he wouldn’t see the sudden blanche of her face. The blood dropped from it as surely as if the sixty floors below them suddenly vaporised.
And
finally
he fell silent.
Stupid, blind, lug of a man.
Audrey stood and turned to stare at the dragonflies, her miserable arms curled protectively around her midsection where the intense ache was still resident. It was that or fling her hands up to her mortified face. Beyond the glass, the other diners carried on, oblivious to the agony swelling up to press with such intent against her chest wall.
‘Is that it?’ Oliver murmured behind her after a mute eternity. ‘Is that why you don’t want to be here?’
Mortification twisted tighter in her throat. She raised a finger to trace the glass-battering of a particularly furious dragonfly wedged in the corner of the tank who hadn’t yet given up on its dream of freedom. ‘I’m sure you think it’s hilarious.’
The carpet was too thick and too new to betray his movement, but she saw his reflection loom up behind her. Over her. He stopped just before they touched.
‘I would never laugh at you,’ he said, low and earnest. ‘And I would never throw your feelings back in your face. No matter what they were.’
She tossed her hair back a little. Straightened a little more. She might be humiliated but she would not crawl. ‘No. I’m sure you’ve had prior experience with the inconvenient attachment of women.’
That was what made the whole thing so intensely humiliating. That she was just one of dozens—maybe hundreds—to fall for the Harmer allure.
‘I care for you, Audrey.’
...but...
It had to be only a breath away. ‘Oh, please. Save it for someone who doesn’t know you so well.’
The soberness in his voice increased. ‘I
do
care for you.’
‘Not enough to come to my husband’s funeral.’ She spun. Faced him. ‘Not enough to be there for your
friend
in the hardest week of her life when she was lost and overwhelmed and so bloody confused.’ She reached for her handbag on the empty seat at the end of the table. ‘Forgive me for suspecting that our compassion-meters aren’t equally calibrated.’
With a deft swing, she had the handbag and all its contents over her shoulder and she turned toward the restaurant’s exit. Remaining courses, be damned.
‘Audrey—’ His heavy hand curled around her upper arm. ‘Stop.’
She did, but only because she’d made quite enough of a scene for one lifetime. And this was going to be the last memory of her he had; she didn’t want it to be hysterical.
‘I think I should explain—’
‘You don’t owe me an explanation, Oliver. That’s what makes this whole situation so ridiculous. You owe me nothing.’
He wasn’t hers to have expectations of. He wasn’t even her husband’s friend any more. He was just an acquaintance. A circumstantial friend.
At best.
‘I wanted to be there, Audrey. For you. But I knew what would have happened if I’d flown in.’ He took her hands in his and held them gently between them. ‘You and I would have ended up somewhere quiet, nursing a generous drink and a bunch of stories long after everyone else had gone home, and you would have been exhausted and strung out and heartbroken.’ She dipped her head and he had to duck his to keep up eye contact. ‘And seeing that would have broken my heart. I would have taken you into my arms to give you support and make all the pain just vanish—’ he took a deep breath ‘—and we would have ended up in bed.’