Taylor Smith - Liar's Market

When the door chime sounded a few minutes later, her maid emerged from the kitchen to answer it. Alex turned away from the city lights, leaning against the terrace’s wrought-iron railing to face the richly furnished living room. The back of her silk dress draped to the cleft of her buttocks, and when the metal railing touched her bare skin, a shiver ran up her spine as if a shadow had passed over her grave. But then the maid opened the heavy, carved mahogany front door, and in spite of Alex’s momentary chill of apprehension, a musical laugh escaped her lips. He was such a poseur, this one.

Dressed in an impeccable black tuxedo, he stood in the doorway, one elbow propped up against the door-frame, ankles crossed casually, doing his best Cary Grant, sophisticate-about-town imitation. In one arm, he clutched a sterling silver ice bucket with carved jade handles. Two champagne flutes dangled precariously, upside down, their flimsy stems threaded between the fingers of his other hand.

He glanced around in confusion for a second, seeking her out on the deep, tufted sofas and then over by the marble fireplace mantle. Every highly polished surface in the room held dense arrangements of birthday roses and lilies sent by less favored admirers, many of whose invitations she’d turned down in order to spend her special night with him.

When he finally caught sight of her out on the terrace, he grinned and strode across gleaming cherry wood floors. It was Dom Perignon in the silver bucket, she noted, tiny beads of condensation on the black bottle sparkling under the soft overhead lights. The exquisite flutes dangling between his fingers looked like Baccarat crystal.

Behind him, the maid remained at the entrance, staring, her mouth as open as the still yawning door. She was new, not yet accustomed to the kind of men Alexandra entertained. Still, you’d think the fool had never seen a man in a tuxedo before.

“Shut the door,” Alex snapped in Cantonese. “Then go back to the kitchen.”

“Oh, yes, madam! So sorry.” The maid closed the door with a soft click of the latch, then shuffled away on slippered feet.

Alex turned her attention back where it belonged, on this silly, adorable, handsome man, as he leaned down to give her a kiss.

“Happy birthday, darling,” he said.

He was almost a foot taller than she, and trimly built. Still, her small body and his large one fit together very nicely, she thought. He was quite a decent dancer, too. They would make a striking couple out on the floor at Fantin-Latour.

“You look good enough to eat,” he added.

“Yes, please,” she said demurely.

His grin widened. “Bad girl. Later. First, champagne, then dinner. After that, we’ll see what else we can do for you.”

He set the flutes on one of the low, glass patio tables. When he uncorked the bottle and poured the bubbles into the thin crystal, Alex pretended not to see the blue Tiffany box peeking out of his tuxedo jacket pocket. It didn’t do to show too much excitement over such things or men might think you could be bought like some thoroughbred race horse—or worse, Kowloon whore. And Alexandra Kim Lee was certainly not that. She was a businesswoman, first, foremost and always.

He handed her one of the glasses, and the flutes chimed softly as the rims touched. “Many happy returns of the day, Alexandra.”

“Thank you.” She took a sip, savoring the perfect bubbles. Then she glanced over the rail once more. “Your car didn’t wait?”

“I told the driver to park off to the side. Our reservation is for nine o’clock. I hope you don’t mind not rushing right out.”

She leaned back and studied him over the rim of her glass, smiling. “Not at all. The champagne is perfectly chilled, and I was just thinking what a lovely evening it was for enjoying the view.”

“Gorgeous,” he said, but he wasn’t looking at the city or the harbor lights. “It’s so quiet up here. And it’s good to have you all to myself for a bit before we head back down into the heat and madness. It’s an exciting city, Hong Kong, but it can be a little exhausting with all that frenetic bustle down there.”

“Well, then, you should think of this as your refuge. Just you and me, all alone, floating on a cloud.”

“And the maid.”

She waved a delicate, dismissive hand, and her fine, woven gold bracelets sparkled.

He reached for the bottle and topped up their glasses. “Cheers, then. Here’s to refuge in the clouds.”

“Chin-chin,” she said.

He moved beside her and they stood quietly, gazing down on the glistening city. A swath of swirling blue draped the star-dappled sky, a reflection of lights on the warm haze. Alex felt his hand come to rest briefly on her shoulder, then move slowly, sensuously down her back, raising a pleasant thrum on her skin.

“There’s another reason I wanted a little time alone with you,” he said quietly.

“Really?”

“Yes. I wanted to ask you something. Maybe now’s as good a time as any.”

“What did you want to ask me?”

“Well,” he said, withdrawing his hand and looking down at his glass, suddenly boyish and coy. “I’ll tell you in a minute. But before I do, I have a little surprise.”

Aha, she thought, the Tiffany box. “Would it be a birthday surprise by any chance?”

“I think you could call it that.” He took her glass from her hand and set both flutes aside on the low table. Then he lifted her fingers to his lips. “You’re so very lovely, you know that?”

“Thank you. You’re sweet.”

He studied her face for a long moment and then, to her astonishment, he dropped to one knee. Alex’s smile remained fixed, but inside, she felt a frisson of panic. The little blue Tiffany box in his pocket—it was probably the right size to hold a ring case.

Oh, please, don’t tell me he’s going to propose.

They hadn’t even known each other all that long—not that longevity meant anything in cases like this. Last year, Hans Dietermann, chairman of the board of München Deutsche Bank, had proposed to her during their first dinner together, only a few hours after they’d met. Then, as now, it was out of the question.

She touched his shoulders, a queen signaling her knight to rise. “Darling,” she protested gently.

“Shhh, don’t speak. Let me. What I wanted to say…”

She sighed and leaned back against the railing. What a way to ruin a perfectly good birthday.

His fingers slid lightly down the sides of her dress, as if he could find the words he needed written there in silk-stranded Braille. He leaned his head toward her knees, meekly, almost penitently, hands resting on her calves.

“What I wanted to say, my love, is this…”

He paused and exhaled heavily—working up his courage, she thought. Really, it was too tiresome. She wondered if it was too late to accept one of those other birthday dinner invitations. Finally, he found his voice again and looked up at her, a mischievous expression rising on his handsome face—handsome but not irresistible.

“You’ve been talking to people you shouldn’t,” he said, “telling tales out of school, bad girl. It’s made your masters very angry.”

This was not what she’d expected, but she had no more than a split second to even begin to comprehend his meaning before his grip tightened on her legs. He stood abruptly, and in one smooth movement, flipped her backward over the railing.

Shocked breathless, she made not a sound falling the two hundred and eighty-three feet to the pavement below.

He heard a faint thud as she landed, but didn’t bother to look over the railing. What would be the point?

Instead, he dusted off the knees of his tuxedo pants, then picked up his champagne flute and downed the last dregs, slipping the drained glass into his jacket pocket next to the empty blue Tiffany box. He’d seen how her pupils had expanded when she’d spotted that stupid prop. He knew it would distract her.