Did she realise that when he said ‘my mother’ he really meant Audrey? And instead of his father, he meant himself? To imagine this extraordinary woman sitting in that bar all those years ago, smiling and chatting and sipping her drink and all the while going through a mental process that ended in her deciding she wasn’t worthy—
She!
The finest of women.
It killed him.
‘You know her best,’ Audrey murmured. ‘I’m just hypothesising how she might have allowed that to happen. Everyone has a different story.’
Her furious back-pedalling made sense to him now. She’d exposed herself and so she was retreating to safer ground. But no, he wasn’t about to let her do that. Not when he’d finally made some headway into knowing her.
Really knowing her.
He reached forward and took her hand. ‘I wish I could impress upon her just how amazing a woman she is.’
She swallowed twice before answering. ‘You could just tell her.’
‘Do you think she’d believe me?’ His thumb traced the shape of her palm. ‘Or would she look for the angle?’
Hints of alarm etched across her expression. ‘If you say it often enough eventually she’ll have to believe you.’
Was it that simple? Could simple reinforcement undo the lessons—the experience—of years?
He released his breath slowly and silently. ‘I would have seen you, Audrey. I give you my word.’
Because
she
was special, though, not because he was, particularly.
She tipped her head back towards the sofa-top. ‘I could have done with a champion.’
Chivalrous wasn’t exactly what he was feeling now, but he absolutely would have defended her against those who would have caused her this hurt. Who would have changed her essence.
He would have taken on half the school for her.
‘And I could have done with your strength. And your maturity.’
She smiled, gently slipped her hand out from his and sat back against her seat. ‘Really? Were you a wild child?’
Ah. Back to safety. Any topic other than her.
But he let her go, incredibly encouraged now that he’d picked up the key to getting inside her. Because the beautiful thing about keys was that you could use them as and when required. And in between you tucked them away somewhere safe.
This one he tucked away in a pocket deep inside his chest and he let her have the breathing space she obviously needed.
‘Oh, the stories I could tell.’
‘Go ahead.’ She settled into her seat and seemed to have totally forgotten that less than half an hour ago she was heading for the door. ‘We’ve still got five courses.’
Yep. That was what he had. Five courses and the rest of the day to make sure Audrey Devaney didn’t disappear from his life forever.
SEVEN
Pomegranate, blood orange and Campari
How was it
possible that she’d just revealed more about herself in a few minutes to Oliver than she had in her entire marriage to her husband? Blake was all about the now; he lived for the moment, or planned for the future. But he spent no time looking back and he didn’t ever show a particular interest in her past beyond what it meant for his present
.
They talked—a lot—and they shared ideas and grand schemes and they got excited about some and disappointed about others but it was never remotely personal.
She’d certainly never told him about those awful few months at school. He wouldn’t have understood.
But if ever there was a man who should have not understood, he was sitting across from her today. Oliver with his comfortable background, his top-end schooling and his voted-most-likely-to-succeed status. Oliver
was
those boys from her past. He would have dated those girls that had slammed her up against the bathroom wall. He probably had!
He shouldn’t have been able to empathise at all.
Yet he did. And it was genuine.
‘Pomegranate, blood orange and Campari sorbet,’ the maître d’ announced, appearing at the side of their table with staff wielding another dish. In perfect synch, they positioned a fan of frosted antique tablespoons each packed with crushed ice and a ball of sorbet neatly balanced on the head of the spoon. They looked just like Christmas baubles sitting in snow.
‘Thank you,’ Audrey murmured, smiling as they left, bowing. After they’d gone, she added, ‘They’re very deferential to you, Oliver.’
‘The quality of service is one of the things Qīngtíng is famous for.’
Mmm, still... ‘They bow extra low to you.’
‘I spend a fortune with them whenever I’m in Hong Kong.’
Suddenly the thought that he might come here with other people—maybe with other women—grew and flashed green in her mind. This was
their
place. It didn’t exist when they weren’t here, surely?
‘Tell me about your year,’ she blurted, to force the uncomfortable idea off her tongue before thought became voice. ‘Did you ever hear from Tiffany?’
His lips twisted. ‘She married someone else by Valentine’s.’
‘No! So fast? That’s terrible.’
‘He adores her and doesn’t mind the lack of intelligent conversation. And she has more money than she can spend and a secure future. It was a good match.’
‘Better than you?’
‘Infinitely.’
‘Why were you with her, Oliver? If she wasn’t all that bright?’
His eyes shadowed and he busied himself with the sorbet. But he didn’t change the subject and eventually he lifted his head to meet her eyes again. The faintest sheen dotted his tan forehead.
‘Tiffany was engaging in her own way. I found her complete disregard for social convention refreshing. Besides, I get my intelligent conversation elsewhere so I didn’t feel the lack.’
‘You were going to
marry
her, Oliver. Grow old with her, maybe father her children. And you didn’t look to her for meaningful conversation?’
His lips thinned. ‘Intellect isn’t everything.’
No. Everyone had different strengths. She knew that better than most. Yet...
‘Oliver. This is
you
we’re talking about. You would have wasted away without a mental match in life.’
‘What if I couldn’t find a match?’
She practically snorted her pomegranate ice. ‘That’s a big call, isn’t it? To assume that no woman could be your intellectual match.’
His eyes blazed. ‘Not mine, Audrey.
Yours
.’
Her antique spoon clattered back onto its saucer.
But he didn’t shy away from her startled gaze. ‘You set a high bar, intellectually. Diversity of knowledge, your wit, your life experience. That’s hard to equal.’
‘Wh...’ What was she supposed to say to that? ‘Why would you
try
to match it?’
He leaned forwards, leading with his hazel eyes. ‘Because you’re the woman against which I measure all others, intellectually. You’re my gauge of what’s possible.’
‘Me?’ Her squeak was hardly the poster child for mental brilliance.
‘And I haven’t found anyone like you, yet.’ He studied her as she squirmed. ‘That makes you uncomfortable?’
‘Yes!’
‘Because you don’t agree with my assessment of your smarts or because you don’t want to be my bar?’
Her heart thundered so hard at the back of her throat she thought he might hear it pulsing below her words. ‘Because pedestals are wobbly at the best of times.’
‘Or is it just knowing that I consider us a perfect intellectual match that makes you nervous?’
If he said
intellectual
one more time she would scream; it only served to remind her how not matched they were in other ways.
She took a long breath. ‘I’m flattered that you think so.’ But only because of how highly she esteemed his mind. But then she saw how incredibly
un
-uncomfortable he looked. The devil lurked behind that sparkle in his eyes.
Oh.
‘You’re teasing me.’
‘Hand on heart.’ His big fist followed suit and he shook his head. ‘But I knew your modesty wouldn’t allow you to believe it.’
‘You must meet some extraordinary people.’
‘None who I’d want to spend an entire day just talking to.’
She stared, crippled by the monument of that. ‘No pressure, then.’
Two diners looked around at Oliver’s bark of laughter. ‘Yeah, the next word out of your mouth better impress.’
She consciously coordinated the muscles necessary to breathe and then used the outward part of the breath to say, ‘Euouae.’
Oliver blinked.
‘It’s a musical mnemonic to denote the sequence of tones in the Seculorum Amen.’
‘See what I mean?’ His smile broke out on one side of that handsome mouth. ‘Who knows that?’
She blew out a long breath. ‘It’s also the longest word in the English language made up of only vowels.’
‘Okay, now you’re just showing off. Eat your sorbet.’
‘Thank you, Oliver,’ she said, as soon as her mind would work properly again. ‘That’s quite a compliment.’
‘No, actually, it’s a curse. I can’t tell you how many dinners I’ve sat through waiting for something like Eweyouu—’
‘Euouae.’
‘—to casually come up.’
‘Hopefully none of those meals were as long as this one, then.’
‘I’m serious, Audrey; you’ve spoiled me for other women.’
And just like that she was speechless again. And her blood was back to its thundering.
Intellectually
, she reminded herself.
Only in that one way.
Because the women Oliver Harmer chose had beauty and grace and breeding and desirability and experience and, Lord knew, more elasticity than she could ever aspire to.
‘So, you just...lowered your bar?’
‘I decided that I could get my fix of conversational stimulation every Christmas instead.’
‘You’re assuming that your wife would be happy for us still to meet each year. I’m not sure I would be if you were—’ she nearly choked on the word ‘—mine.’
He shrugged. ‘It wouldn’t be negotiable.’
‘Famous last words. What would happen when you were completely smitten with her and she turned her big violet eyes up to you and let them fill with tears and begged you not to go?’
‘Really? Violet.’
‘I’m sure she’d be exceptional.’
He gave her that point. ‘I’d hand her a Kleenex and tell her I’d see her later that evening.’
‘And if she let her robe fall open and seduced you into staying?’
His eyes darkened. ‘Then I’d cancel the car and take the chopper to make up the lost time.’
‘And if she threatened you with divorce?’
‘Then I’d call my lawyer and let him deal with the weeping,’ he huffed, eyes rolling. ‘Do you imagine I’m so easily manipulated, Audrey?’
No. She couldn’t imagine him falling for any of that.
‘So what if the woman that loved you sat you down and stoically explained how much it hurt her that you got from someone else something she couldn’t give you.’
His pupils enlarged and then the deepest of frowns surrounded them. ‘God, Audrey...’
Had he never thought about what it might do to the woman ‘lucky’ enough to get him? She much preferred to think that a woman he chose would select door number four. The vaguely dignified option. Of course, the alternative would be to say nothing and just
ache
every year as December twentieth approached.
Yeah, that had worked really well for her.
He blew air from between tight lips and forked his fingers through his hair.
‘You see my point?’ she murmured.
‘So you’re basically dooming me to a bachelor’s life forever, then? Because I’ve been looking, Audrey, and you’re not out there.’
‘I’m just saying you can’t have Frankenstein’s bride.’
He tipped his head.
‘You don’t want a regular woman with flaws and room for improvement. You want the intelligence of one woman, the courage of another, the serenity of a third. And you want it all wrapped up in a beautiful exterior.’
‘She doesn’t have to be beautiful.’
Pfff.
‘Yes, she does, Oliver. You only date stunning women.’ The Internet was full of pictures of him with his latest arm decoration.
‘You think I’m that shallow?’
All right then... ‘When was the last time you were seen in public with a plain, ordinary woman?’ she challenged.
And he shot back, fast and sure. ‘I have lunch with one every Christmas.’
The air whooshed out of her, audibly. But it wasn’t indignation and she didn’t flounce out. She sat as straight and dignified as she could and opened her mouth to say something as witty as he probably expected. But absolutely nothing came to her.
So she just closed it again.
He swore. ‘Audrey, I’m sorry. I spoke carelessly. That was supposed to be a compliment.’
Because he deigned to lower himself long enough to eat in public with a less than beautiful woman? ‘Your flattery could do with some refinement, then,’ she squeezed out.
‘You are so much more than the particular arrangement of your features. I see all the things you
are
when I look at you, not the things you
aren’t
.’
Clumsy, but at least he wasn’t patronising her with claims of inner beauty.
‘Please, Audrey. You’re the last person on this planet that I would want to hurt. Or that I’m fit to judge. My social circle tends to fill with beautiful stars on the rise. I don’t date them for the pleasure of sitting there looking at them. I date them to see what else they have going for them.’
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.