remembered how breathless she felt when Oliver would walk towards them out of the twilight shadows and how flat she felt when he walked away.
Yeah. She remembered.
‘Then you must recall how partial Blake was to public displays of affection.’ Oliver used to get so embarrassed by them, looking away like the fifth wheel that he was. Hard to imagine the confident man that he now was being discomposed by anything. ‘Wasn’t that sufficient demonstration of his feelings?’
‘It was a demonstration all right. I always got the feeling that Blake specially reserved the displays of affection for when you were in public.’
Mortification added a few more degrees to the heat that was only just settling back under her jacket. Because that was essentially true. Behind closed doors they lived more like siblings. But what he probably didn’t know was that Blake saved the PDAs up most particularly for when Oliver was there. Scent marking like crazy. As though he was subliminally picking up on the interest she was trying so very hard to disguise.
She breathed in past the tightness of her chest. ‘Really, Oliver? That’s what you want to do today? Take shots at a dead man?’
Anger settled between his brows. ‘I want to just enjoy today. Enjoy your company. Like we used to.’
He slid the gift back across in front of her. ‘And on that note, open it.’
She sat unmoved for a moment but the steely determination in his gaze told her that was probably entirely pointless. He was just as likely to open it for her.
She tore the wrapping off with more an annoyance she hoped he’d misread as impatience.
‘It’s a cigar.’ And a pack of cards and M&M’s. Just like three years ago. Her eyes lifted back to his. Resisted their pull. ‘I don’t smoke.’
‘That’s never stopped me.’
She struggled against the warm memory of Oliver letting her beat him at cards and believing she hadn’t noticed. ‘That was a great day.’
‘My favourite Christmas.’
‘Nearly Christmas.’
His dark head shook. ‘December twenty-fifth has never compared to the twentieth.’
She sat back. ‘What do you do on Christmas Day?’
‘Work, usually.’
‘You don’t go home?’
‘Do I go to my father’s home? No.’
‘What about your mum?’
‘I fly her to me for Chinese New Year. A less loaded holiday.’
Audrey just stared.
‘You’re judging me,’ he murmured.
‘No. I’m trying to picture it.’
‘Think about it. I can’t go back to Sydney, I can’t go to a girlfriend’s place on Christmas without setting up the expectations of rings and announcements, and the office is nice and quiet.’
‘So you work.’
‘It’s just another day. What do you do?’
‘I do Christmas.’ She shrugged.
But it wasn’t anywhere near as exciting as flying to see Oliver. Or as tasty as whatever festive treat Qīngtíng had in store for her. And it didn’t warm her for the rest of the year. It was roast dinners and eggnog and family and gifts that none of them needed and explaining ad nauseam every year why Blake wasn’t there.
Here she’d got to split her focus between the beautiful skyline that was Hong Kong and Oliver. Depending on her mood.
Her eyes fell back on his gift. She picked up the cigar and clamped it between her teeth in a parody of him. Two seconds later she let it fall out again.
‘Ugh. That’s horrible.’
His laugh could have lit the other end with its warmth. ‘You get used to it.’
‘I can’t imagine how.’
Yet somehow, while it tasted awful on her own lips, she caught herself deciding it might taste better on his. And then she had to fight not to stare there. Oliver made that a whole lot harder by leaning forward, picking up the cigar where she’d dropped it, rolling it under his nose and then sliding the sealed end between his teeth. Pre-loved end first.
Something about the casual intimacy of that act, of him putting her saliva into his mouth so effortlessly—as if they were a long-term couple perfectly used to sharing bodily fluids—sent her heart racing, but she used every ounce of self-control she had to keep it from showing as he mouthed it from the right to the left.
Not the worst way to end your days if you were a cigar—
Stop!
Behind his easy smile his gaze grew unnaturally intent. And she grew inexplicably nervous.
‘So,’ he started, very much like one of his poker-plays, ‘if we’re not friends what are we?’
She choked slightly on her Cristal. ‘Sorry?’
‘I accept your assertion that we’re not friends. But I wonder, then, what that means we are.’
Rabbit. Headlights. She knew it wasn’t dignified and she knew exactly how that bunny felt, watching its fate careen inevitably closer.
‘Because there were two things that defined our relationship for me...’ He used the word ‘defined’ as though it meant ‘constrained’. ‘One was that you were the wife of a friend. Now—tragically—no longer the case. And the other was that we were friends. Apparently also now no longer the case. So, tell me, Audrey—’
He leaned forward and swilled the liquid in his glass and his eyes locked on hard to hers.
‘—where exactly does that leave us?’
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