His Until Midnight (14 page)

His lips fell on hers so naturally. Lingered. ‘You’re welcome.’

Yet it wasn’t the same as the many—many—kisses they’d shared tonight because it wasn’t really
tonight
at all. It was now
today.
And it was daylight and the real world was waking around them—solstice or not—and getting on with their lives.

Which was what they needed to do.

They’d been doing the whole
make-believe
for long enough.

‘You’ve sure raised the bar on first dates,’ she breathed without thinking, but then caught herself. ‘I mean...any date.’

Discomfort radiated through his body and into hers. ‘It’s a kind of first date.’

No, it wasn’t. The awkward tension in his voice was a dead giveaway.

‘First implies there’ll be more,’ she said, critically light. ‘We’re more of an
only
date, really.’

And, importantly, it was the
end
of the only date. After breakfast she really needed to be thinking about picking up her stuff from the hotel and getting out to the airport over on Lantau. Before she made more of a fool of herself than she already had.

Before she curled her fingers around his strong arms and refused, point-blank, to let go.

‘You don’t see there being more?’

It was impossible to know what his casual question was hoping to ferret out. A yes or a no. It was veiled enough to be either.

Every part of her tightened but she kept her voice light. Determined to be modern and grown-up about this. ‘We live in different countries, Oliver. That makes future dates a bit hard, doesn’t it?’

‘What we live in is a technological age. There are dozens of ways for us to stay connected.’

Not physically. And that was what he was talking about, right? Even though she got the sense he was speaking against his own will. ‘I’m not sure I’m really the sexting type.’

Huh.
She all but felt it in the puff of breath on the back of her neck.

‘So...that’s it? One night of wild sex and you’re done?’

She twisted in his arms and locked her eyes on his. ‘What were you hoping for, two nights? Three?’ She held his gaze and challenged him. ‘More?’

His face grew intensely guarded.

Yeah. Just as she thought.

‘We have until ten,’ he reminded her.

‘What difference will a few more hours make?’

‘Look what a difference the first few made.’

True enough. Her life had turned on its head in less than twelve hours. ‘But what difference will it
make
? Really?’

Heat blazed down on her. ‘I didn’t expect you to be scrabbling to get away from me.’

She sat up straighter, pulled away a few precious inches. ‘I’m not scrabbling, Oliver. I’m just being realistic.’

‘Can’t you be realistic on the way to the airport?’

She studied him closely. His face gave nothing away. Again, part of his success in the corporate world. ‘Right down to the wire?’

‘I just... This haste is unsettling.’

‘You’ve never tiptoed out of a hotel room at dawn before?’

‘Yeah I have, and I know what that means. So I don’t like you doing it to me.’

‘Oh.’ She shifted away and curled her legs more under her. ‘You don’t like being revealed as a hypocrite.’

‘Is it hypocrisy to have enjoyed our night together and not want it to end?’

‘It has to end,’ she pointed out. But then she couldn’t help herself. Maybe he knew something she didn’t. ‘Doesn’t it?’

If he clenched his jaw any tighter it was going to fracture. ‘Yeah, it does.’

‘Yeah,’ she repeated. ‘It does.’ Because they were only ever going to be a one-off thing. A question answered. An itch scratched. ‘Sydney’s waiting for me. Shanghai’s waiting for you.’

Except of course that he was on the phone this morning making up for time lost to their...adventures. So, Shanghai didn’t really need to wait all that long at all, did it?

Was the morning after always this awkward? She could totally understand why he might have snuck out in the past to avoid it.

‘Did you make plans for the next few hours?’ she tested.

‘I did.’

‘And you didn’t want to run them past me, first? What if I had Testore business this morning?’

Okay, now they just sounded like a bickering couple. But the line between generous and controlling wasn’t all that thick. And bickering gave all the simmering pain somewhere to go.

He had enough grace to flush. ‘Do you?’

She let out a long, slow breath. Maybe it would be smarter to say yes. To get off this boat and hurry off to some imaginary appointment. But he’d done this lovely thing... ‘No. I took care of it all earlier in the week.’

He nodded. Then sagged. ‘It was supposed to be the perfect end to the—’ he bit back his own words and straightened ‘—to a nice night.’

Nice.
Ouch.

‘We’re on a one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old private junk on Victoria Harbour at sunrise on the winter solstice. You’ve done well, Oliver.’

He stared out at a ferry that rumbled past them. Its wake slapped against the junk’s hull like lame applause. He sighed. ‘So, you want to head back in?’

She probably should.

‘I don’t want this to end any sooner than it has to.’ She caught and held his gaze despite the ache deep in her chest. ‘But I do respect that it does have to.’

Denial was one thing... Delusion was just foolish.

She settled back against his legs. ‘We’ll head back when we’re due.’

It took him a while to relax behind her, but she felt the moment he accepted her words. His body softened, his hand crept up to gather her wind-whipped hair into a protected ponytail that he gently stroked in time with the sloshing of the waves. She sank back into his caress.

As if she’d been doing it always.

As if she always would.

Her friend. With shiny, new, short-term benefits.

Maybe that was just what they’d be now. Not that he’d offered anything other than a vague and unplanned cyber ‘more’. She tried to imagine dropping into Shanghai for a quickie whenever she was in Asia and just couldn’t. That wasn’t her. Despite all evidence to the contrary, overnight. Despite the woman she’d seen reflected in the dragonfly terrarium.

Which was not to say her body wasn’t
screaming
at her to be that person, but last night was really about years of longing finally being fulfilled. And it was all about fairy tales and chemistry and the loudly ticking approach of dawn. It had nothing to do with reality. Living together day to day, or the occasional fight, or morning breath or blanket hogging, or making the mortgage or any of the many unromantic things that made up a relationship.

It was what it was. A magical storybook ending to an unconventional friendship.

More than magical, really. It was dream-come-true country.

And everyone knew that anything that seemed too good to be true...probably was. But she’d take it while it was on offer—including the next few hours—because she was unlikely to see its equal again in her life.

Ever.

TWELVE

Sulewesi coffee beans with eggnog and nutmeg

Collecting Audrey’s things
and checking out of her hotel room while most people were still asleep took an easy fifteen minutes and then they were back in the limo and heading out to Stanley on the southern-most tip of Hong Kong island. Within the half-hour Oliver was pulling back a chair for her on the balcony of a one-hundred-and-seventy-year-old colonial hotel with views of the South China Sea stretching out forever, and with the single morning waiter much relieved they were only there for coffee.

Albeit a pricey coffee from one of the most exclusive plantations on the planet.

Audrey smiled at him—pretty, but each one getting progressively emptier as the morning wore on. As though she were already on that jet flying away from him.

‘Eggnog, Oliver? At eight in the morning?’

‘Eggnog
coffee
. And it’s Christmas.’

And he wanted to spring into her mind whenever she smelled cinnamon. Or a coffee bean. Or the ocean.

‘Can I ask you something?’ she said after stirring hers for an age.

He lifted his eyes.

‘Is this hard for you?’

Her clear, direct eyes said
be honest
and so he was. Or as honest as he knew how to be, anyway. ‘You leaving in a few hours?’

‘All of it. Knowing what to do. Knowing how to deal with it. Or is this just par for the course in your life?’

He took a deep breath. Whatever he said now would set the tone for how the rest of the morning went. How they parted. As friends or something less. Carelessness now could really hurt her. ‘You think that last night happens for me all the time?’

‘It might.’

‘It doesn’t.’

‘What was different?’

He fought to keep his expression more relaxed than the rest of his tight body would allow. ‘Fishing for compliments?’

His cowardice caused a flush of heat in her alabaster cheeks. Of course she wasn’t. She was Audrey.

‘I don’t know how to go back from here, Oliver. And I know that we can’t go forward.’

‘Depends on how you define forward.’

‘I define it as progress. Improvement.’ She took a breath. ‘More.’

A rock the size of his fist pressed against the bottom of his gut.
Forward
just opened up too much opportunity for hurt for her. This was Audrey. With all kinds of strength yet as fragile as the gold leaf they’d eaten back at the restaurant. She deserved much better than a man who had no ability to commit.

He wasn’t about to risk her heart on a bad investment. On
more.

‘Then no. We can’t go forward.’

Those enormous, all-seeing eyes scrutinised him but gave nothing away. ‘Yet we can’t go back.’

‘We’re still friends.’

‘With benefits?’

‘With or without. I’ll always count you as a friend, Audrey. And I don’t have many of those.’

‘That’s because you don’t trust anyone.’

‘I trust you.’

Her eyes reflected the azure around them. As crisp and sharp as a knife.

‘Why do you?’

‘Because you’ve never lied to me. I’d know if you did.’

‘You think so? Maybe I’m just really good at it.’ Because she’d been lying for eight years denying the attraction she felt for him and he’d missed that. ‘So, do I see you more or less in the coming year? What’s the plan?’

Less than once? Was she talking about not coming next Christmas? A deep kind of panic took hold of his gut and twisted. The same agony he’d felt last year when she didn’t show. He struggled against it.

‘What makes you think I have a plan?’

‘Because you’re you. And because you had hours while I was sleeping to come up with one.’

He shrugged, a postcard for nonchalance. ‘You weren’t interested in sexting.’

How could she find it in herself to laugh while he was so tight inside? Even if it was the emptiest he’d ever heard from her. ‘I’m still not.’ She locked eyes with his. ‘So am I right to sleep with other men, then?’

The blood decamped from his face so fast it left him dizzy. ‘I didn’t realise there was a queue.’

She leaned onto her elbows on the table. ‘Just trying to get my parameters. Will you be sleeping with anyone?’

‘Audrey...’

‘Because Christmas is a long time off.’

Wow, he was like a yo-yo around her. Excited now that Christmas—a Christmas that might include both of them—was back on the radar. But the roller coaster only decreased his control of this situation.

‘Warming to your newfound sexuality?’

Her eyes finally grew as flat and lifeless as he feared they would around him. ‘Yes, Oliver. I want to give it a good workout with anyone I meet. Maybe even the waiter.’

He stared her down. ‘Sarcasm does not become you.’

She lifted both brows.

‘What the hell do you want from me, Audrey?’

‘I want you to say it out loud.’

‘Say what?’

‘That this is it. That there is no more. I need to hear it in your voice. I need to see the words forming on your lips.’

There wasn’t enough air to speak. So he just stared.

‘Because otherwise I will wait for you. I’ll hold this amazing memory close to my heart and, even though I won’t want it to, it will stop me forming new relationships because I’ll always be secretly hoping that you’re going to change your mind. And call. Or drop by. Or send me air tickets. And I’ll want to be free for that.

‘So you need to tell me now, Oliver. For real and for certain. So there is no doubt.’ She took the deepest breath her twisted chest could manage. ‘Should I be planning to spend any more time with you this year?’

* * *

‘Have I offered you a future?’

A punch below her diaphragm couldn’t have been more effective. But it didn’t matter that she couldn’t answer, because Oliver’s question was rhetorical.

They both knew the answer.

‘I don’t do relationships, Audrey. I do great, short, blazing affairs. Like last night. And I do long hours at the office and constant travel. My driver sees more of me than most of my girlfriends do.’

Did he use the present tense on purpose?

‘But I’m the woman against whom you measure others.’ The words that had been so romantic last night sounded ludicrous in the cold, hard light of rejection.

‘You are. You always will be.’

‘But that’s still not enough to pierce your heart?’

‘What do hearts have to do with anything? I respect you and I care for you. Too much to risk—’

‘To risk what?’

‘To risk you. To risk hurting you more than I already have.’

‘Shouldn’t that have been something you thought of before you let things get hot and heavy between us? Do you imagine this doesn’t hurt?’

Shame flitted behind his eyes. ‘You knew the score.’

‘Yes, I did. And I went ahead anyway.’ More fool her. ‘But something changed in me in that stupid armchair this morning. I realised that one day every eight years is not enough for me. I realised I
am
good enough for you. I am just as valuable and worthy and beautiful as any of the other women in your life. And most importantly I am not broken.’

He didn’t respond, and the old Audrey crept back in for a half-heartbeat. ‘Unless you’re a much better liar than I believed?’

No. You couldn’t fake the facial contortions and guttural declarations Oliver had made. They were real.

A fierce conviction suffused his face. ‘You are not broken.’

‘So how do you feel that some other man is going to enjoy the benefits of your...training? How will you feel when you imagine me with my thighs wrapped around a stranger instead of you? When I let someone other than you deep inside me? When I choke on someone else’s name?’

His nostrils flared and he gritted words out. ‘Not great. But you’re not mine to keep.’

‘I could be.’ All he had to say was ‘stay’.

‘No.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I don’t want you to be mine.’

I don’t want you.
Something ruptured and flapped wildly deep in her chest. ‘You wanted me last night.’

‘And now I’ve had you.’

Her stomach plunged. Was that it? Question answered? Itch scratched? Challenge conquered? ‘No. I don’t believe you. You respect me too much.’

‘You were a goddess, Audrey. Chaste and unattainable.’

And now she was what...? Fallen? But then something sank through the painful misery clogging her sense. One word. A word she’d used herself. On herself.

Unattainable.

And she realised.

‘You thought I was safe.’

His eyes shifted out to sea.

‘You thought I was someone you could just quietly obsess on without ever having to risk being called on it. Someone to hang this ideal of perfection on and excuse your inability to commit to anyone else, but utterly, utterly safe. First I was married and you could hide behind a ring and your own values. Then you thought I wasn’t interested in that kind of relationship with you and so you just got to brood about it like some modern-day Heathcliff, torturing yourself with my presence once a year.’

Something on the distant horizon sure had his focus...

‘But what’s a man to do when the woman he’s been wanting for so long throws herself at you? You broke your own rule.’

His gaze snapped back to hers. ‘I should have been stronger. You were vulnerable.’

‘Oh, please, I think we’ve established that there is no pedestal strong enough to take me and all my foibles. I was pissed off but I wasn’t vulnerable. I knew exactly what I was putting my hand up for. And you made a move long before you told me about Blake. So it was hardly reactionary.’

‘It was weak.’

‘Damn straight it was. And it still is if you’re unwilling to just say “it’s been fun, but it’s over”.’

‘That’s what you want?’

‘That’s what I need if I’m not to spend the next twelve months suffering death by a thousand cuts. Because if you don’t say it—
and mean it
—I won’t believe it. I know myself too well.’

He marshalled himself visibly. ‘It
was
fun, Audrey. And it
is
over. Last night was a one-time thing. And it’s not because of any lack on your part or because it didn’t measure up compared to anyone else. It’s because that’s how I roll. I don’t do relationships and nothing and no one can really change a man’s nature.’

‘Not even a paragon?’

He shuddered a deep breath and his voice gentled. ‘Not even a paragon.’

‘So what will you do for the rest of your life? Be alone?’

‘I’ll find another Tiffany.’

‘Someone to
settle
for?’

‘Someone I can’t hurt.’

What did that
mean
? ‘You think the Tiffanys of this world don’t have feelings?’

‘She was as hard as I am.’

That stopped her in her tracks. ‘Why do you think you’re hard?’

‘Because I can’t—’ But he wouldn’t let himself finish that sentence.

Love?
Was that what he’d refused to say aloud? Well, she wasn’t about to be the first. ‘You think you
can’t
be in a relationship just because you
haven’t
been in a successful one?’

‘I’m not afraid to acknowledge my weaknesses, Audrey. I just don’t do commitment.’

She sat back hard into her bamboo-woven chair. ‘What if it’s weakness not to even try?’

Two lines cut deep between his eyebrows. ‘It’s not just about me. It’s not some lab experiment or computer formula. There’s another person there. A living breathing feeling person existing in a marriage that’s not healthy for them.’

Marriage? Wait... How had they got there?

‘But it’s okay if she’s...hard?’ she said. Wasn’t that the word he’d used?

‘If she knows the score. Accepts it.’

‘Accepts what?’

‘The limitations of the relationship.’

‘Oliver, I really don’t understand—’

‘Do the maths, Audrey,’ he grated. ‘You’re a smart woman.’

She was, but clearly not in this. ‘Are you talking about a relationship without commitment?’

‘Commitment
traps.
’

She flopped back into her chair. ‘Who? You?’

‘Her.’

Wait... ‘Is this about your mother?’

‘She was trapped with a worthless human being because of her feelings for him.’

‘She made a conscious choice to stay, Oliver.’

‘There was no choice. Not back then.’

Did he fear love because he’d seen his mother suffer at the hands of an unfaithful husband? ‘I can’t imagine her being a weak woman.’

He blinked at her. ‘What? No.’

‘Then she made her own choices. Informed choices. She stayed because she wanted to. Or she decided he was worth it.’

‘If not for me she could have walked. Should have.’

Did he hear his own Freudian slip? He blamed his mother for toughing it out with a serial cheater. ‘It was the eighties, Oliver, not the fifties. She could have left him, even with a child in tow. Plenty of women did.’

‘She wanted me to have a father.’

‘Then that was her conscious decision. And it was a noble one. She loved him. And you.’

There. She said it aloud. The L word.

‘Love trapped her.’

There was that word again. Maybe it wasn’t about the love, maybe it was about the trapping.

‘So, this is about your father?’

‘If she’d cared as little as he obviously did the whole thing wouldn’t have hurt her so much.’

Someone I can’t hurt.

Oh.

A wash of dreadful awareness pooled in her aching chest and gut. She had to force the words across her lips. ‘You don’t want to repeat your parents’ marriage. Where one person has feelings the other doesn’t.’

This was his way of telling her he didn’t—couldn’t—love her. And this was why another Tiffany was a better bet for him.

‘I don’t ever want you to feel the way she felt.’

Trapped. In a one-sided relationship.

‘You assume it would be that way.’

‘I know myself.’

He meant he knew his feelings. But she was desperate enough to push. ‘So you just avoid any kind of commitment just in case? What if I’m the exception?’

‘You deserve someone who can be everything you are.’