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?’
FIVE
Lobster calamari tangle in braised southern ocean
miniatures
Tension balled in amongst the food in Audrey’s stomach. She should have seen this coming. He wasn’t a gazillionaire for nothing; the acute sharpness of his mind was one of the things that she...appreciated most about Oliver.
She flattened her skirt carefully. ‘We’re...acquaintances.’
Excellent. Yes. A nice neutral word.
He considered, nodded, and she thought she was safe. But then his head changed—mid-nod—into more of a shake. ‘No, see that doesn’t work for me. I wouldn’t normally spend this much time—’ or this much money, presumably ‘—on a mere acquaintance.’
‘Associates?’ She hid the croak in a swallow of champagne.
‘Definitely not. That suggests we do business. And that’s the last thing on my mind when we’re together. It’s why I enjoy our Christmases so much.’
‘Then what do you suggest we are?’
He thought about that. ‘Confidantes.’
He’d certainly shared a lot of himself with her, but they both knew it didn’t go both ways.
‘How about cohorts?’ she parried.
He scrunched his nose. ‘More consorts. In the literal sense.’
No. That just put way too vital an image in her head. ‘Sidekicks?’
He laughed, but his eyes didn’t. ‘What about soulmates?’
The words. The implication. It was too much.
‘Why are you doing this?’ Audrey whispered, tight and tense.
‘Doing what?’
What was it exactly? Flirting? Pressing? She stared at him and hoped her face wasn’t as bleak as her voice. ‘Stirring.’
He drained the last of the Cristal from his glass. ‘I’m just trying to shake you free of the cold, impersonal place you put yourself in order to have this conversation.’
‘I don’t mean to be impersonal.’ Or cold. Though that was a term she’d heard before courtesy of Blake. In his meaner moments.
‘I know you don’t, Audrey. That’s the only reason I’m not mad at you. It’s a survival technique.’
‘Uh-huh...’ She frowned in a way she hoped would cover the fact he was one hundred per cent right. ‘And what am I surviving?’
‘This day?’ He stared, long and hard. ‘Maybe me?’
‘Don’t flatter yourself.’
Four staff with exquisite timing arrived with the second seafood plate of the degustation experiences ahead of them. Two cleared the table and two more lay down matching shards of driftwood, decorated with glistening seaweed, and nested in it were a selection of oceanic morsels. A solitary lobster claw, calamari in a