His Until Midnight (8 page)

‘I’m so sorry, Audrey. You don’t deserve this.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me sooner?’ she whispered.

‘Because I knew how much it would hurt you.’

She spun. ‘You preferred to leave me in a marriage where I was being made a fool of?’

‘I couldn’t be sure you didn’t know.’

She couldn’t prevent the rise in her voice. ‘You thought I might
know
and
stay
?’

Like his mother? Was that what his upbringing taught him?

‘I couldn’t be sure,’ he repeated. ‘It’s not an easy subject to raise.’

Which would explain why half their day had gone by before he elected to mention it.

‘Is
this
why you didn’t come to his funeral?’

‘I’ve explained why—’

‘Right. In case you couldn’t keep your hands off me.’ She snorted. ‘I didn’t actually believe you about that.’ The hurt she was feeling had to go somewhere, and Oliver was right there.

‘Well, you should, because I meant every word. Why do you think I sent your favourite flowers and not his? I wanted to be there for
you
.’

‘Just a shame that Blake didn’t share your enthusiasm for me or he may not have felt the need to stray.’

Ugh. Even the word sounded so wretched. And even though her head knew that
Blake
was the one who’d been so sad and weak, it didn’t stop her from feeling like the pathetic one.

‘So you and he...’ Oliver risked.

She spun around. ‘Did we have a rich and fulfilling sex life? Apparently not. I knew I didn’t rock his world but I didn’t realise I’d driven him to such desperate lengths.’

‘It wasn’t you, Audrey.’

‘It was at least half me!’

He crossed to her, took her hands from around her ruined blouse and cupped them. ‘It wasn’t you at all.’

‘Well, it wasn’t Don bloody Juan. He seems to have had no problems in that regard.’

‘I swear to you, Audrey, there was nothing you could have done differently.’

‘How would you know? Did he—?’
Oh, God.
‘Did he talk to you about our sex life, or lack thereof?’

Yeah, that would be the final humiliation. Oliver could add
dud lay
to her mounting debit column.

‘No. He did not. But he did talk quite freely about his other...encounters. Until I shut that down.’

She sunk onto an ottoman and buried her face in her hands. ‘I feel like such a fool. How could I not have seen?’

‘He didn’t want you to see.’

‘Then how could I not have guessed?’ She shot back up onto her feet. ‘We lived such separate lives but I was with him every day—surely I should have at least suspected?’

‘Like I said, you look for the best in people.’

‘Not any more,’ she vowed.

‘Don’t.’ He crossed to stand in front of her. ‘Don’t let him change you. Your goodness is why people will judge him for this, not you.’

People?
Her face came up. ‘How many people know?’

He dropped his eyes to the carpet. ‘A few. I gather he wasn’t all that subtle.’

A sudden image of Blake with a buxom post-adolescent on each arm strolling through inner Sydney filled her mind and thickened her throat. Everything she wasn’t. Young, stacked, lithesome and probably the kind of performer in bed that she could never hope to be.

And so public... Maybe he wanted to be caught? Wasn’t that what the experts said about men who had affairs? And maybe she would have caught him out if she’d been paying the slightest bit of attention to her marriage.

Reality soaked in as the tears dried up. She’d set herself up for this the day she gave her work and her friends and her hobbies more importance than her marriage.

She straightened on a deep inward breath.

‘Audrey...’ Oliver warned, his voice low. ‘I know what you’re doing.’

She tossed back her hair. ‘What am I doing?’

‘You’re tallying up the ways this is your fault.’

He knew her so well. How was that possible?

‘Do I need to say it again?’ he growled.

‘Apparently you do.’

He stared at her, indecision scouring that handsome face. Then he stepped forward and took her hands again, squatting in front of her. ‘Audrey Devaney, this was
not
your fault.’

He spoke extra-slowly to get through her hysteria.

‘There was nothing in this world that you could have done to change this—’ he tightened his hold on her hands so much she actually glanced down at his white knuckles ‘—short of changing gender.’

Her tear-ravaged eyes shot back up to his one more time. Utterly speechless. But then denial kicked in.

‘No—’

‘I think he’d known a really long time,’ he went on, calmly. ‘I think he knew when we were growing up, I think he knew when you guys first started dating and I think he knew when he walked down the aisle with you. But I also think he just couldn’t be on the outside what he didn’t feel on the inside. Not long term.’

‘You’re defending him?’

‘I’m defending his right to be who he truly was. But, no, I’m not defending his actions. Cheating is cheating and he was hurting someone I care deeply about. That is why I ended my friendship with him.’

‘And he knew that?’

‘He got a very graphic farewell visit.’

‘You were in Sydney? Why didn’t you tell me?’ Although the answer to that was ridiculously patent. To someone whose brain cells weren’t in a jumbled pile. ‘Sorry. Don’t answer that.’

Just then the tiniest knock came at the big brown doors. Almost like a kitten scratching. Oliver crossed to it and pulled one open and one of the stunning staff from earlier drifted in. She held a neat fold of gorgeous blue silk, threaded through with silver.

‘A change of clothes for you,’ Oliver explained. ‘Your suit will be laundered onsite and returned to you before you leave tonight.’

The girl smiled, revealing flawless, tiny teeth to go with the hourglass figure and hand-span waist, and nudged the clothes towards her. Audrey felt foolish being treated with such kid gloves, so she took the clothes, thanked the girl and turned to go find a bathroom.

‘Second on the right,’ Oliver called after her.

It was a matter of only minutes for her to strip out of her ruined business suit and into the dress that the girl had clearly picked up in the boutiques on street level. Three-quarter length, with the high collar and short sleeves typical of Chinese fashion and accentuating every curve. The depth of the blue was truly stunning and the threads of silver cast a glow that refracted up to include her face.

Which only served to highlight the tear-struck devastation there. As if things weren’t bad enough.

She sagged down onto the broad bath edge and slumped, exhausted, against the cool of the tiled wall.

Blake’s secret life certainly explained a lot. His at times enigmatic behaviour, which she’d chalked up to business tensions. His emotional detachment, never rude but always a few degrees...separated. And their lacklustre—and downright perfunctory—sex life.

Technically correct but lacking any real heart.

Turned out there was a very good reason for that.

And
she
wasn’t
it
.

Her relief at that far eclipsed the shock of discovering her husband was gay. How sad that Blake hadn’t ever managed to reconcile that part of his life. That he felt the need to lie to everyone around him even while it ate him up inside.

And how sad that she couldn’t have been there for him in his struggle. Because she would have. Her feelings for him might not have been traditional or immense but they were genuine, even when she didn’t always like the things he did. If he’d confided in her, she totally would have supported him. Even as she left him.

Because hiding inside a marriage was no way to be happy.

Audrey looked back up into the mirrors lining the far side of the bathroom and practically heard them whisper...

Hypocrite
.

She’d held onto her fair share of secrets, too, within their marriage. Not quite as destructive as Blake’s, but then again her secrets weren’t quite as colossal as his.

She tilted her head slightly back in the direction of the living room. Towards Oliver.

Not quite.

Thanks to China and its quirks, Audrey knew exactly what she’d find under the bathroom sink. A small refrigerator loaded with bottles of water and, on the left, a stack of dampened, refrigerated towels. Manna during Hong Kong’s steamy wet season. Stocked just because during the dry. A lifesaver now.

She pressed the topmost wet towel to her flushed face, trying to restore some semblance of order.

‘Audrey?’ Oliver murmured through the door.

She opened it just a crack.

‘I thought you might want this?’ He squeezed her purse through to her.

‘Thank you. Um...here...’ She bundled up her skirt and blouse and passed the whole wad back through the gap. ‘So she doesn’t have to wait.’

As his fingers closed around the clothes they brushed against hers, static sparking in their wake. Except it couldn’t be static because she was standing on tiles and the corridor was bamboo-floored. She curled her fingers back into her palm as she pulled it back into the bathroom.

Oliver murmured and was gone.

It took two more towels and some hasty repair work with the travel make-up from her purse until she felt vaguely presentable again. She combed through her chaos of hair, pulled the snug blue dress down the few inches it had ridden up with all her fussing and turned to the door.

Ready or not.

NINE

Ginger fingers with lemon spritzer

‘How are you
doing?’

It took Oliver a moment to speak after she emerged and when he did there was a hint of tightness to his voice. Uncomfortable at the idea of picking up the conversation where they left off, perhaps, given how hysterical she’d been.

Well, that was over.

The beautiful hostess had departed with her things and so they were alone again, but Audrey wasn’t about to resume their previous discussion. She ignored his question and wandered straight past him into a kitchen that looked as if it had been shipped direct from a magazine. And also as if it had never made so much as a cup of coffee. And why would it when the residences in this building were fully serviced by maids and room service?

‘Why do you suppose they need two sinks?’ she mused.

Excellent. Displacement conversation.

There were dual sinks on opposite sides of the kitchen. Neither of them overlooked the magnificent view, so they clearly weren’t for standing at doing dishes.

Oliver moved up behind her. ‘Maybe the wealthy entertain a lot? Need the catering facility?’

She turned. ‘You say that like you’re not one of them.’

‘Entertaining is really not where I spend my money.’

‘You entertain me every Christmas.’

‘You’re an exception to the rule.’ He watched her as she trailed a finger along the granite bench tops, drifting slowly amongst all the polished surfaces. ‘That dress looks—’

He struggled for words and she hoped whatever he was trying not to say wasn’t
ridiculous
. Or
absurd.
Or
try hard
.

‘—like it’s part of your skin. It fits you perfectly.’

It shouldn’t, given she was taller by a foot than the average Chinese delicacy. She glanced down at her legs where the dress stopped awkwardly halfway up her calves. ‘I think it’s supposed to be longer.’

‘It doesn’t matter. It looks right on you.’

She bowed in a parody of the cultural tradition and as she came up she saw the burst of dark intensity in his gaze. She swallowed with some difficulty. ‘That’s because you haven’t seen me try to sit down in it, yet.’

But that wasn’t nearly as difficult as she feared. The dress shifted and gave in all the right places as she sank down onto the edge of the expensive nine-seat sofa running around the far edges of the living space.

‘Are we going to ignore it, Audrey?’ Oliver said, still standing a few feet away.

It.
The proverbial elephant in the room. ‘I’m not sure there’s much more to say.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘Just like that? You’ve filed it away and dealt with it already?’

No, she’d filed it away
un
-dealt with. As was her wont. She smiled breezily. ‘I really don’t want to have to reapply my make-up a second time.’

Oliver stared down on her. ‘It bothers you that little?’

Oh, where to begin answering that question? Her tight smile barely deserved the title. ‘Many things about what he did will always bother me. It bothers me that I misread our marriage so much. It bothers me that he respected it little enough to cheat in the first place. It bothers me that he respected
me
little enough to do it and be so public about it.’

‘But not that it was with men?’

She stared. ‘You said it yourself. It wasn’t
me
. It wasn’t Audrey Devaney that he felt the need to stray from; it wasn’t
his wife
that he couldn’t stomach. It was all of us. My whole gender. There’s no better or cleverer or funnier or sexier woman that might have been more suitable than me. His choice means my only lack was a Y chromosome.’

‘You don’t lack anything, Audrey.’

Get real
.

She leaned forward. ‘You know my school experience. That led me to bury myself in study during university and not long after graduating I met Blake.’ And Oliver, but that wasn’t going to help make her point. ‘So my entire sense of who I am romantically—’ she couldn’t even bring herself to
say
‘sexually’ ‘—was from him.’

A man who was just going through the motions for appearances’ sake.

‘I thought it was
me
. I thought I was to blame for the lack of passion in our marriage. That I didn’t inspire it, that I wasn’t worth it.’

That she couldn’t feel it.

She shuddered in a breath. ‘All those tears you just witnessed thirty minutes ago, all that devastation...? That was because the only man I’ve ever been intimate with preferred other women to me. Because that’s how much of a dud I was in bed. But here I sit, just twenty minutes later, tearless and comparatively whole. I’m not mourning my marriage, I’m not cursing Blake’s cheating, I’m not even cursing him.’ She lifted wretched eyes to his. ‘What does it say about me that my first reaction on hearing about all those men was
relief
? Vindication. Because that meant it wasn’t
me
. That maybe I’m not broken.’

‘I think it says you’re human, Audrey. Which I know won’t please you. You’re a perfectionist and you like things to be orderly.’ He peered down on her. ‘And you’re certainly not broken.’

She shot to her feet. ‘Words. How would you know? Maybe a hotter woman might have been able to satisfy him.’

Oliver smiled. ‘Pretty sure it doesn’t work like that.’

‘My point is that Blake is still my only reference point. So, really, we know nothing. I could still be a dud.’

Jeez, with self-belief like that who needed enemies?

Oliver folded his arms and calmly watched her pace. ‘You haven’t been involved with anyone else since he died? It’s been eighteen months.’

‘I’ve been too busy shoring up my life,’ she defended, instantly conscious that maybe it was just further evidence of her lameness. Shoring up her life and conveniently returning directly to type. Her barricaded-up, risk-averse type.

‘Audrey, think. You’re missing something obvious—’

‘Apparently I’ve been missing it for years!’ That her husband wasn’t into women. She spun on him. ‘And why the hell does this amuse you?’

‘—
I’m
attracted to you.’

Pfff.
‘You just think the dress is hot.’

Yet her pulse definitely spiked at his words. But, once again, words were cheap.

‘I do think the dress is hot but she had a similar one on, too—’ he nodded to the front door where the beautiful china doll had just departed ‘—and I wasn’t attracted to her. And you weren’t wearing it earlier and I was definitely attracted to you then.’

‘You’re Oliver—
The Hammer
—Harmer. You’d be attracted to anyone.’

His fists curled that little bit tighter. ‘You’re going to need to find one slur and stick to it, Audrey. Either I’m guilty of swimming too exclusively down the beautiful end of the gene pool or I’ll do anything in a skirt. Which is it?’

‘I didn’t say you couldn’t slum it from time to time.’

That actually seemed to make him mad. For the first time today. ‘I think you’d say anything to win an argument.’

Yep. He absolutely had her number there.

Well... Whatever. ‘You being attracted to me is a comment on your general randyness not on my abilities—’ or otherwise, a little, inner voice whispered ‘—in the sack.’

He laughed but it no longer sounded amused. ‘Careful, Audrey. That sounds an awful lot like a challenge.’ He stepped closer.

She tossed her head. ‘How like you to read it that way.’

‘Why are you so angry at me?’

‘Because you’re here,’ she yelled. ‘And because you kept this from me for so long. And because you’re—’

Part of the bloody problem
.

If not for the extraordinary chemistry she’d always felt around Oliver she might never have noticed it missing from her marriage. But she forced those words back into her throat before they spilled out, and let the tension out on a frustrated grunt instead.

‘Because I’m what?’

‘You’re pushing me.’

‘I’m trying to support you. I’m listening. And letting you vent. How is that pushing?’

‘You’re riling me up intentionally.’

‘Maybe that’s because I know what to do with you when you’re angry. I felt powerless when you were so upset. I’ve never seen you like that before.’

And she’d be damned sure he never would again. Her chest heaved beneath the sensual silk. And some of her confusion billowed out.

‘But that fire in your eyes and the sharpness of your words...?
That
I know.’ He slid one arm around behind her and pulled her hard up against his chest. ‘That and this feeling that I get when you’re on fire.’

He took her hand and pressed it over his left pectoral muscle. His heart hammered wildly beneath it. ‘Feel that? That’s what you do to me. So please don’t tell me I’m not attracted to you.’

She bent back as far as she could in his hold. Eyed him warily. Even as her own pulse began to gallop. ‘You’re just mad,’ she muttered.

‘Woman, you have no idea.’

He released her then and turned and crossed to the window. ‘Audrey. You kill me. You have so much yet you don’t value it. You don’t see it.’ He plunged both hands into his pockets as if to keep himself from reaching for her again. ‘And I sit here every damned Christmas, wanting you, and wondering if you’d recognise the signs, if you had even the slightest clue that you were affecting me that way.’

Silence fell heavy and accusatory. But his outburst was enough to finally get the message through.

He was serious. He was actually drawn to her.

What the hell did she do with that?

‘I’m sorry, Oliver.’

He turned back, all the anger gone now. ‘I wasn’t angling for an apology. I’m angry
for
you, not
at
you. That everything in life has led you to have such little faith in yourself despite all the amazing things you are. And I’m mad at myself that—despite everything my head tells me, despite the total lack of signals from you—my body just doesn’t get the message.’

Her chest tightened like a fist.

No, he wasn’t angry. He was hurting.

A lot.

‘You never let on.’

‘If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s command over my baser instincts.’

She wet her lips and chewed them a little bit. This was Oliver: a man she cared for and respected. A man she’d been harbouring any number of inappropriate thoughts about for years. And he was telling her that the attraction was mutual.

‘How could there be signals...?’ she started.

He raised a hand to stop her. ‘I understand, Audrey—’

‘No, you don’t. I meant how could I give you signals, when I was married and I knew how strongly you felt about fidelity? Above all else, I didn’t want you to think badly of me.’

Not you.

He stared. ‘Why would I?’

‘You would have. If you could have seen into my head and read my thoughts sometimes when I was with you.’

Or lots of times when she wasn’t.

He hadn’t been moving before but somehow his body grew more still. Still and dangerously alert. ‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m saying that the absence of signals is a reflection of my great need for your good opinion.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Not my actual feelings.’

The shame in his gaze dissipated, heated and evaporated by the desire that took its place. But still he didn’t move.

‘You’re not married now,’ he murmured. ‘And I’m hardly in a position to judge you given some of the fantasies I had when you were my friend’s bride.’

Her breath tightened and ran out.

He was right. There was nothing stopping them. Blake was gone, and any loyalty she’d ever felt for him had dissolved the moment she discovered his serial infidelity. Oliver wasn’t seeing anyone. She wasn’t seeing anyone. They were both here in this amazing, private place. And she wouldn’t see him again for twelve months.

And no one but them would know.

There was no reason in the world that she shouldn’t cross the empty space between them and put her hands on Oliver Harmer as she’d been dreaming of for years.

And that freedom was completely and utterly terrifying.

She crossed to the window, instead, stared out at the view. All those millions of people just going about their business, oblivious to the torment happening at the top of one of the hundreds of buildings lining their harbour.

‘Did you just weird yourself out?’ he murmured from behind her.

Right
behind her.

He read her like a book. There wasn’t a person alive who knew her as well as this man she only saw once a year. She smiled. ‘Sure did.’

She could feel him there, his heat reaching out for her, but not touching. Just...teasing. Tormenting. Tantalising.

But she couldn’t turn around to save her life. She clung to the ant-sized community far below them and used them as her anchor. Before she floated up and away on this bliss.

‘It doesn’t have to be weird,’ he whispered. ‘We’re still the same people.’

That was exactly what made it weird. But also so very exciting. As her pounding pulse could attest.

‘But you have to want it,’ he breathed. ‘And you have to think about it. I need you to make the conscious decision.’

‘You want me to make the first move?’ Please, no...surely?

‘I want you to be certain.’ His words brushed her ear.

She steadied herself with hands on the window, either side of her body, her hot palms instantly making a thermal handprint on the cool glass.

‘What if I’m no good?’ She hated how tiny her voice sounded.

The chuckle that rumbled in his chest so close behind her was almost close enough to feel. ‘Audrey, I’m not even touching you and it’s already good.’

He leaned more of his weight into her, pressing her to the window and the hard tension in his body gave his words veracity. The contrast of the cool glass to her front and his big, hot body at her back made her breath shudder in her throat.

‘Let me show you.’ His knuckle came up to stroke her hair back from her face, back over her shoulder. And it was that—more than anything he could have said or done—that convinced her.