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
