And clearly even that wasn’t meant to be.
‘Come on, Harmer. Man up.’
His eyes shot up, fearing for one irrational moment that she’d read the direction of his inappropriate thoughts.
‘It’s just one game,’ she teased. ‘I’m sure you’ll take me on the next one.’
She was probably right. He’d do what he did every Christmas: give enough to keep her engaged and entertained, and take enough to keep her colour high with indignation. To keep her coming back for more. Coming back to him. In the name of her cheating bastard of a husband who only ever visited him when he was travelling alone—though he’d be sure to put an end to that, now—and who took carnal advantage of every opportunity when Audrey was out of the country.
But, just as he suppressed his natural distaste for Blake’s infidelity so that he could maintain the annual Christmas lunch with his best friend’s wife, so he would keep Blake’s secret.
Not only because he didn’t want to hurt gentle Audrey.
And not because he condoned Blake’s behaviour in the slightest—though he really, really didn’t.
And not because he enjoyed being some kind of confessional for the man he’d stood beside at his wedding.
No, he’d keep Blake’s secret because keeping it meant he got to have Audrey in his life. If he shared what he knew she’d leave Blake, and if she left Blake Oliver knew he’d never see her again. And it was only as he saw her friendship potentially slipping away like a landslide that he realised how very much he valued—and needed—it.
And her.
So he did what he did every year. He concentrated on Audrey and on enjoying what little time they had together this one day of the year. He feasted like the glutton he was on her conversation and her presence and he pushed everything else into the background where it belonged.
He had all year to deal with that. And with his conscience.
He stretched his open palm across the table, the shuffled cards upturned on it. As she took the pack, her soft fingers brushed against his palm, birthing a riot of sensation in his nerve endings. And he boxed those sensations up, too, for dealing with later, when he didn’t have this amazing woman sitting opposite him with her all-seeing eyes focused squarely on him.
‘Your deal.’
TWO
December 20th, three years ago
Qīngtíng Restaurant, Hong Kong
Behind her back, Audrey pressed the soft flesh of her wrists to the glassy chill of the elevator’s mirrored wall, desperate to cool the blazing blood rushing through her arteries. To quell the excited flush she feared stained her cheeks from standing this close to Oliver Harmer in such a tight space.
You’d think twelve months would be enough time to steel her resolve and prepare herself.
Yet here she was, entirely rattled by the anticipation of a simple farewell kiss. It never was more than a socially appropriate graze. Barely more than an air-kiss. Yet she still felt the burn of his lips on her cheek as though last year’s kiss were a moment—and not a full year—ago.
She was a teenager again, around Oliver. All breathless and hot and hormonal. Totally fixated on him for the short while she had his company. It would have been comic if it weren’t also so terribly mortifying. And it was way too easy to indulge the feelings this one day of the year. It felt dangerous and illicit to let the emotions even slightly off the leash. Thank goodness she was old enough now to fake it like a seasoned professional.
In public, anyway.
Oliver glanced down and smiled at her in that strange, searching way he had, a half-unwrapped DVD boxed set in his hands. She gave him her most careful smile back, took a deep breath and then refocused on the light descending the crowded panel of elevator buttons.
Fifty-nine, fifty-eight...
She wasn’t always so careful. She caught herself two weeks ago wondering what her best man would think of tonight’s dress instead of her husband. But she’d rationalised it by saying that Oliver’s taste in women—and, by implication, his taste in their wardrobes—was far superior to Blake’s and so taking trouble to dress well was important for a man who hosted her in a swanky Hong Kong restaurant each year.
Blake, on the other hand, wouldn’t notice if she came to the dinner table dressed in a potato sack.
He used to notice—back in the day, nine years ago—when she’d meet him and Oliver at a restaurant in something flattering. Or sheer-cut. Or reinforcing. Back then, appreciation would colour Blake’s skin noticeably. Or maybe it just seemed more pronounced juxtaposed with the blank indifference on Oliver’s face. Oliver, who barely even glanced at her until she was seated behind a table and modestly secured behind a menu.
Yet, paradoxically, she had him to thank for the evolution of her fashion sense because his disdain was a clear litmus test if something was too flattering, too sheer-cut. Too reinforcing.
It was all there in the careful nothing of his expression.
People paid top dollar for that kind of fashion advice. Oliver gifted her with it for free.
Yeah...his gift. That felt so much better on the soul than his judgement. And seasonally appropriate, too.
This year’s outfit was a winner. And while she missed the disguised scrutiny of his greenish-brown gaze—the visual caress that usually sustained her all year—the warm wash of his approval was definitely worth it. She glanced at herself in the elevator’s mirrored walls and tried to see herself as Oliver might. Slim, professional, well groomed.
Weak at the knees with utterly inappropriate anticipation.
Forty-five, forty-four...
‘What time is your flight in the morning?’ His deep voice honey-rumbled in the small space.
Her answer was more breath than speech. ‘Eight.’
Excellent. Resorting to small talk. But this was always how it went at the end. As though they’d flat run out of other things to talk about. Entirely possible given the gamut of topics they covered during their long, long lunch-that-became-dinner, and because she was usually emotionally and intellectually drained from so many hours sitting across from a man she longed to see but really struggled to be around.
It was only one day.
Twelve hours, really. That was all she had to get through each year and wasn’t a big ask of her body. The rest of the year she had no trouble suppressing the emotions. She used the long flight home to marshal all the sensations back into that tightly lidded place she kept them so that she disembarked the plane in Sydney as strong as when she’d left Australia.
She’d invited Blake along this year—pure survival, hoping her husband’s presence would force her wayward thoughts back into safer territory—but not only had he declined, he’d looked horrified at the suggestion. Which made no sense because he liked to catch up with Oliver whenever he was travelling in Asia, himself. Least he used to.
In fact, it made about as little sense as the not-so-subtle way Oliver changed the subject every time she mentioned Blake. As if he was trying to distance himself from the only person they had in common.
And without Blake in common, really what did they have?
Twenty-seven, twenty-six, twenty-five...
Breath hissed out of her in a long, controlled yoga sigh and she willed her fluttering pulse to follow its lead. But that persistent flutter was still entirely fixated on the gorgeous, expensive aftershave Oliver wore and the heat coming off his big body and it seemed to fibrillate faster the closer to the ground floor they got.
And they were so close, now.
Ultimately,