Nikki Logan - His Until Midnight

What would Oliver say if he knew she’d clung to Blake’s conversation specifically to avoid having to engage with his more handsome friend again? Or if she confessed that she’d been aware of every single move Oliver made until the moment she left her phone number with Blake and fled out into the Australian night.

He’d probably laugh.

‘I’m sure it did no permanent damage to your self-esteem,’ she gritted.

‘I had to endure his gloating for a week. It wasn’t every day that he managed to steal out from under me a woman that I—’ His teeth snapped shut.

‘A woman that what?’

‘Any woman at all, really. You were a first.’

She shook her head. ‘Always so insufferable. That’s why I gave my phone number to him and not you.’

That and the fact she always had been a coward.

He settled back into his sofa. ‘Imagine how different things would be if you’d given it to me that day.’

‘Oh, please. You would have bored of me within hours.’

‘Who says?’

‘It’s just sport for you, Oliver.’

‘Again. Who says?’

‘Your track record says. And Blake says.’

Said.

He sat forward. ‘What did he say?’

Enough to make her wonder if something had gone down between the two friends. She hedged by shrugging. ‘He cared about you. He wanted you to have what he had.’

The brown flecks amid the green of his iris seemed to shift amongst themselves. ‘What did he have?’

‘A stable relationship. Permanency. A life partner.’

Would he notice she didn’t say ‘love’?

‘That’s rich, coming from him.’

‘What do you mean?’

He glanced around the room and shifted uncomfortably in his seat before bringing his sharp, intent gaze back to her. Colour stained the very edge of his defined jaw. Audrey reached up to press her hand to her topknot to stop the lot falling down with the angle of her head. The pins really weren’t doing their job so she pulled them out and the entire arrangement slid free and down to her shoulders.

His expression changed, morphed, as she watched, from something pointed to something intentionally dull. ‘Doesn’t matter what I mean. Ancient history. I didn’t realise old Blake had such passion in him.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Such possession. I always got the impression that your marriage was as much a meeting of minds as anything else.’

Heat raced up from under her linen collar. What’s wrong, Oliver, can’t imagine me inspiring passion in a man? ‘You hadn’t seen us together for years,’ she said, tightly.

Why was that?

‘My business relies on my ability to read people, Audrey. I hung out with you guys a lot those few years before your wedding. Before I moved to Shanghai. The three amigos, remember? Plenty of opportunity to form an opinion.’

Did she remember...?

She remembered the long dinners, the brilliant, three-way conversations. She remembered Oliver stepping between her and some drunk morons in the street, once, while Blake flanked her on the protected side. She remembered how breathless she felt when Oliver would walk towards them out of the twilight shadows and how flat she felt when he walked away.

Yeah. She remembered.

‘Then you must recall how partial Blake was to public displays of affection.’ Oliver used to get so embarrassed by them, looking away like the fifth wheel that he was. Hard to imagine the confident man that he now was being discomposed by anything. ‘Wasn’t that sufficient demonstration of his feelings?’

‘It was a demonstration all right. I always got the feeling that Blake specially reserved the displays of affection for when you were in public.’

Mortification added a few more degrees to the heat that was only just settling back under her jacket. Because that was essentially true. Behind closed doors they lived more like siblings. But what he probably didn’t know was that Blake saved the PDAs up most particularly for when Oliver was there. Scent marking like crazy. As though he was subliminally picking up on the interest she was trying so very hard to disguise.

She breathed in past the tightness of her chest. ‘Really, Oliver? That’s what you want to do today? Take shots at a dead man?’

Anger settled between his brows. ‘I want to just enjoy today. Enjoy your company. Like we used to.’

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.