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
