Cristal sat—as it always did—at the centre of the small table between two large, curved sofas. The first and only furniture she’d ever enjoyed that was actually worthy of the name lounge. Certainly, by the end of the day they’d both be sprawled across their respective sides, bodies sated with the best food and drink, minds saturated with good conversation, a year’s worth of catching up all done and dusted.
At least that was how it normally went.
But things weren’t normal any more.
Suddenly the little space she’d craved so much felt claustrophobic and the chilled Cristal looked like something from a cheesy seduction scene. And the very idea that she could do anything other than perch nervously on the edge of her sofa for the next ten or twelve hours...?
Ludicrous.
‘So what are you hunting this trip?’ Oliver asked, no qualms whatsoever about flopping down into his lounge, snagging up a quarter-filled flute on the way down. So intently casual she wondered if he’d practised the manoeuvre. As he settled back his white shirt stretched tight across his torso and his dark trousers hiked up to reveal ankles the same tanbark colour as his throat. ‘Stradivarius? Guarneri?’
‘A 1714 Testore cello,’ she murmured. ‘Believed to now be in South East Asia.’
‘Now?’
‘It moves around a lot.’
‘Do they know you’re looking for it?’
‘I have to assume so. Hence its air miles.’
‘More fool them trying to outrun you. Don’t they know you always get your man...or instrument?’
‘I doubt they know me at all. You forget, I do all the legwork but someone else busts up the syndicates. My job relies on my contribution being anonymous.’
‘Anonymous,’ he snorted as he cut the tip off one of the forty-dollar cigars lying on a tray beside the champagne. ‘I’d be willing to wager that a specialist with an MA in identification of antique stringed instruments is going to be of much more interest to the bad guys than a bunch of Interpol thugs with a photograph and a GPS location in their clammy palms.’
‘The day my visa gets inexplicably denied then I’ll start believing you. Until then...’ She helped herself to the Cristal. ‘Enough about my work. How is yours going? Still rich?’
‘Stinking.’
‘Still getting up the noses of your competitors?’
‘Right up in their sinuses, in fact.’
Despite everything, it was hard not to respond to the genuine glee Oliver got from irritating his corporate rivals. He wasted a fair bit of money on moves designed to exasperate. Though, not a waste at all if it kept their focus conveniently on what he wasn’t doing. A reluctant smile broke free.
‘I was wondering if I’d be seeing that today.’ His eyes flicked to her mouth for the barest of moments. ‘I’ve missed it.’
That was enough to wipe the smile clean from her face. ‘Yeah, well, there’s been a bit of an amusement drought since Blake’s funeral.’
Oliver flinched but buried it behind a healthy draw from his champagne. ‘No doubt.’
Well... Awkward...
‘So how are you doing?’ He tried again.
She shrugged. ‘Fine.’
‘And how are you really doing?’
Seriously? He wanted to do this? Then again, they talked about Blake every year. He was their connection, after all. Their only true connection. Which made being here now that Blake was gone even weirder. She should have just stayed home. Maybe they could have just done this by phone.
‘The tax stuff was a bit of a nightmare and the house was secured against the business so that wasn’t fun to disentangle, but I got there.’
He blinked at her. ‘And personally?’
‘Personally my husband’s dead. What do you want me to say?’
All the champagne chugging in the world wasn’t going to disguise the three concerned lines that appeared between his brows. ‘Are you...coping?’
‘Are you asking me about my finances?’
‘Actually no. I’m asking you how you’re doing. You, Audrey.’
‘And I said fine.’
Both hands went up, one half filled with champagne flute. ‘Okay. Next subject.’
And what would that be? Their one reason for continuing to see each other had gone trundling down a conveyor belt at the crematorium. Not that he’d remember that.
Why weren’t you at your best friend’s funeral? How was that for another subject? But she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
Unfortunately, for them both, Oliver looked as uninspired as she did on the conversation front.
She pushed to her feet. ‘Maybe this wasn’t such a—’
‘Here we go!’ Ming-húa appeared flanked by two serving staff carrying the first amuse-bouche of their marine-themed Christmas degustation. ‘Obsiblue prawn and caviar with Royale Cabanon Oyster and Yuzu.’
Audrey got ‘prawn’, ‘caviar’ and ‘oyster’ and not much else. But wasn’t that kind of the point with degustation—to over-stimulate your senses and not be overly bothered by what things were or used to be?
Culinary adventure.
Pretty much the only place in her life she risked adventure.
She sank politely back onto her sofa. It took the highly trained staff just moments to place their first course just so and then they were alone again.
Oliver ignored the food and slid a small gift-wrapped parcel across the table.
Audrey stared at the patched-up wrapping. Best he was prepared to do after she’d stood him up? ‘Um...’
‘I don’t expect anything in return, Audrey.’
Did he read everyone this well? ‘I didn’t imagine we’d be doing gifts this year.’
‘This was from last year.’
She paused a moment longer, then pulled the small parcel towards her. But she didn’t open it because opening it meant something. She set it aside, instead, smiling tightly.
Oliver pinned her with his intense gaze. ‘We’ve been friends for years, Audrey. We’ve done this for years, every Christmas. Are you telling me you were only here for Blake?’
The slightest hint of hurt diluted the hazel of his eyes. One of the vibrant dragonflies flitting around the enormous terrarium matched the colour exactly.
She
