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 gifted him with the truth. ‘It feels odd to be doing this with him gone.’
She didn’t want to say wrong. But it had always felt vaguely wrong. Or her own reaction to Oliver certainly had. Wrong and dishonest because she’d kept it so secret and close to her heart.
‘Everything is different now. But our friendship doesn’t have to change. Spending time with you was never just about courtesy to a mate’s wife. As far as I’m concerned we’re friends, too.’
Pfff. Meaningless words. ‘I missed you at your mate’s funeral.’
A deep flush filled the hollow where his tie should have been. ‘I was sorry not to be there.’
Uh-huh.
‘Economic downturn made the flight unaffordable, I guess.’ They would spend four times that cost on today’s meals. But one of Oliver’s strengths had always been courage under fire. He pressed his lips together and remained silent. ‘Or was it just a really busy week at the office?’
She’d called. She knew exactly where he was while they’d buried her husband. ‘Or did you not get my messages in time?’
All eight of them.
‘Audrey...’ The word practically hissed out of him.
‘Oliver?’
‘You know I would have been there if I could. Did you get the flowers I arranged?’
‘The half-a-boutique of flowers? Yes. They were crammed in every corner of the chapel. And they were lovely,’ honesty compelled her to admit. And also her favourites. ‘But they were just flowers.’
‘Look, Audrey, I can see you’re upset. Can I please just ask you to trust that I had my reasons, good reasons, not to fly back to Sydney and that I had my own private memorial for my old friend back home in Shanghai—’ Audrey didn’t miss the emphasis on ‘old’ friend ‘—complete with a half-bottle of Chivas. So Blake had two funerals that day.’
Why was this so hard? She shouldn’t still care.
She shouldn’t still remember so vividly the way she’d craned her neck from inside the funeral car to see if Oliver was walking in the procession of mourners. Or the way she’d only half attended to the raft of well-wishers squeezing her hand after the service because she was too busy wondering how she’d missed him. It was only later as she wrote thank-you cards to the names collected by the funeral attendants that she’d finally accepted the truth.
Oliver hadn’t come.
Blake’s best friend—their best man—hadn’t come to his funeral.
That particular truth had been bitter, but she’d been too swamped in the chaos of new widowhood to be curious as to why it hurt so much. Or to imagine Oliver finding a private way of farewelling his old mate. Like downing a half-bottle of whisky.
‘He always did love a good label,’ she acknowledged.
A little too fondly as it turned out since Blake’s thirst for good liquor was deemed a key contributor to the motor vehicle accident that took his life. But since her husband sitting in his den enjoying a sizeable glass or three with the evening newspaper had given Audrey the space and freedom to pursue things she enjoyed, she really couldn’t complain.
The natural pause in the uncomfortable conversation was a cue to both of them to eat, and the tart seafood amuse-bouche was small enough that it was over in just mouthfuls.
Behind her, the gentle buzz of dragonfly wings close to glass drew her focus. She turned to study the collection that gave the restaurant its name. There were over one hundred species in Hong Kong—vibrant and fluorescent, large and small—and Qīngtíng kept an immaculate and stunning community of them in the specially constructed habitat.
She discreetly took several deep breaths to get her wayward feelings under control. ‘Every year, I forget how amazing this is.’
And, every year, she envied the insects and pitied them, equally. Their captive life was one of luxury, with every conceivable need met. Their lives were longer and easier than their wild counterparts and neither their wetland nor food source ever dried up. Yet the glass boundaries of their existence was immutable. New arrivals battered softly against it until they eventually stopped trying and they accepted their luxurious fate.
Ultimately, didn’t everyone?
‘Give him a chance and the dragonfly curator will talk your ear off with the latest developments in invertebrate husbandry.’
His tone drew her eyes back. ‘I thought you only flew down for the day? When did you have a chance to meet Qīngtíng’s dragonfly guy?’
‘Last Christmas. I unexpectedly found myself with time on my hands.’
Because she hadn’t come.
The shame washed in again. ‘It was...too soon. I couldn’t leave Australia. And Blake was gone.’
He stared at her. Contemplating. ‘Which one of those do you want to go with?’
Heat rushed up her neck.
‘They’re all valid.’ His silence only underscored her lies. She took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t come last year, Oliver. I should have had more courage.’
‘Courage?’
‘To tell you that it was the last time I’d be coming.’
He flopped back in his chair. ‘Is that what you’ve come to say now?’
It was. Although, saying it aloud seemed to be suddenly impossible. She nodded instead.
‘We could have done that by phone. It would have been cheaper for you.’
‘I had the Testore—’
‘You could have come and not told me you were here. Like you did in Shanghai.’
Every muscle tightened up.
Busted.
She generally did her best to deal with Shanghai contacts outside Shanghai for a very specific reason—it was Harmer-country, and going deep into Oliver’s own turf wasn’t something she’d been willing to risk let alone tell him about. But how could he possibly know the population had swelled to twenty-five-million-and-one just that once? She asked him exactly that.
His