Bruce Lee?’
‘No one’s like Bruce Lee,’ Meng Kai said.
‘Jackie Chan?’
‘No.’
Jasmine eyed him speculatively. ‘Maybe if you smiled.’
But Kai hadn’t smiled. Not during those first few months. Not for a very long time, and then only rarely.
Meng Kai had moved into the apartment above the garage, he’d had free rein of the house. It hadn’t been long before the housekeeper and the gardener and Jasmine’s tutors all answered to him. Jasmine had answered to him too – such a timid little thing she’d once been. No thought of disobedience – if Kai or her father told her to do something, Jasmine did it. So eager to please. So damn lonely, only Kai hadn’t wanted to be friends with her. Not at first.
And then the levee had given way and all of a sudden Kai had unbent – though only with her – and Jasmine had taken full advantage of his change of heart. Kai become her confidante, her sounding board, the big brother she’d never had. Kai was comfort, he was protection, and most of all he was hers.
To all intents they’d been family, Jasmine thought grimly, returning to the now just long enough to place new toiletries in the guest bathroom. Father, older brother, younger sister.
And then Jasmine had turned sixteen and Kai twenty-four, and Kai had fought hard for Jasmine to have more freedom, more friends. ‘She’s too sheltered,’ Kai had said bluntly, during one of his rare arguments with her father. ‘You have to give her room to grow. You can’t make her world this small.’
‘She has everything money can buy,’ her father had countered.
‘She needs freedom. We both do. She can’t continue to look to me for all those things you don’t allow her to experience any other way. Send her to school. Let her make friends. Widen her focus.’
Part of her had applauded Kai’s words. Part of her had been fearful. To this day, Jasmine didn’t know which emotion would have won out, because her father had been immovable.
Jasmine’s home-schooling would continue as usual. Her strictly regulated social outings would continue, as usual.
And no matter what Kai had said about needing his freedom, Kai had stayed too.
On the morning of Jasmine’s seventeenth birthday, Kai had taken her to the flower market. She’d thought of the trip as a birthday outing, at first. Thought that Kai had wanted to please her, and he had pleased her. He’d bought her street-stall food and given her one of his rare, unguarded smiles when she’d purchased a fake jade turtle on a leather band and slipped it over her head.
She’d been truly happy in that moment; and Kai had reached out to untwist the little turtle and his knuckles had brushed her skin and his eyes had met hers and then he’d withdrawn his hand slowly, almost casually, and put his hand to the back of his head as he’d turned away.
Such a fleeting touch shouldn’t have had the power to throw Jasmine’s world into chaos. Kai had always been beautiful to her. He’d always been her hero.
But just for that moment in time she hadn’t thought of him as a brother.
She’d bought flowers for the household after that and had them delivered, and she’d tried not to dwell on Kai’s touch and the awkwardness that followed. Such an innocent, everyday touch. Kai had meant nothing by it. Nothing at all.
Kai hadn’t wanted to go to the nearby bird market but Jasmine had persisted and finally got her way. Walk it off, she told herself. Focus on something else, something other than Kai. She’d heard that sentiment just days earlier, when Kai had confronted her father, and all of a sudden she saw a reason behind Kai’s impassioned words on her behalf.
A reason she barely knew how to acknowledge.
Morning had flowed around them, warm and bright as they’d made their way on foot to the bird market. Early morning, full of bright-eyed songbirds in their tiny bamboo morning cages. Plain little things, some of them, until she closed her eyes and listened, and then the beauty of the sound had taken her breath away.
So many birds, so many cages; all sorts of birds and everything one could possibly think to feed them. Expensive, the best of these birds. Doting owners who lavished their attention upon them. It had been such a welcome distraction from the memory of Kai’s touch. Something else to think about besides the smooth weight of the little plastic turtle against her skin. Jasmine had loved strolling through the bird market.
Kai, upon reflection, had not.
‘What do you see?’ he’d asked as they reached the end of one crooked alley way and turned to step into the next. ‘Why do you like it?’
‘I like it because there’s life here, and celebration, and beauty and sound and old men whose smiles fill their faces when their favourite songbird sings. There’s colour here, and frenzy. A social structure built around these alleyways. Why wouldn’t I like it?’
‘Have you ever wondered,’ he said, and his voice was low and rough and he would not look at her, ‘what they’d sound like if they were free?’
Three days after the marathon shopping trip, Hallie boarded a plane to Hong Kong. She’d been manicured, pedicured, pampered and polished and was corporate-wife chic in her lightweight camel-coloured trousers and pink camisole. Her shoes matched her top, her handbag was Hermès, and Nick was at her side, thoroughly eye-catching in a grey business suit and crisp white business shirt minus the tie. She was the woman who had it all and it was all pure fantasy.
That didn’t mean she couldn’t embrace the moment.
Wispy streaks of cloud scattered the midday sky, their seats were business class, the take-off was perfect, and Hallie relaxed into her seat, prepared to be thoroughly indulged, only to discover that any woman sitting next to Nick was more likely to be thoroughly ignored. That or she was currently invisible to the women of the world as they dimpled, sighed, primped and preened for him.
The flight attendants settled once the flight was underway and went about their business with efficient professionalism, but the encouraging smiles of the female passengers continued. One innovative young lady even managed to trip and fall gracefully into Nick’s lap amidst a flurry of breathless apology and a great deal of full body contact.
‘Do women always fall over their feet trying to get your attention?’ she asked once the woman had gone.
‘Actually, she fell over my feet,’ said Nick. ‘They were sticking out into the aisle. It was my fault she landed in my lap.’
‘And her breasts in your face? That was your fault too?’
Nick shrugged, trying to look a picture of innocence and failing miserably. ‘She was trying to get up,’ he said in her defence. ‘These things happen.’
‘So I see.’
He was used to it, Hallie decided. He was just plain used to women falling all over him. ‘You know, you’d save yourself a lot of unwanted attention if you wore a wedding ring,’ she said. She was wearing one, along with the terribly traditional diamond engagement ring. As far as the world was concerned she was well and truly
