The Trouble with Valentine’s (5 page)

‘Didn’t you ever get lonely?’ she asked.

‘Nope.’ She looked like she was struggling with the only child concept. ‘I had plenty of friends, plenty of company. And whenever I had any spare time there was always a computer handy and a dozen imaginary worlds to get lost in.’

‘And now you create fantasy worlds for a living. I guess that means you always knew what you wanted to do, even as a kid.’

‘I always did it. Is that the same thing?’

‘Probably.’ Hallie’s smile was wry. ‘With me it was different … every week a new idea … astronaut, race car driver, professional stuntwoman … My family’s still not convinced I won’t change my mind about wanting to work in the art business.’

‘And will you?’

‘Who knows?’ she said with a shrug. ‘I love the thrill that comes with finding something old and beautiful and I love discovering its history and the history of the people behind it. Hopefully I’ll find
work with a respectable dealer in Asian antiquities and it’ll be fascinating but if it’s not … well … I’ll do something else. At least I’ll have given it a try.’

‘You want to make your own mistakes.’

‘That’s it!’ There was fire in her eyes, passion in her voice. ‘Do you have any idea how hard it is to make your own decisions with four older brothers all hell-bent on guiding you through life? I mean, honestly, Nick, I’m twenty-four years old and I’m not a slow learner. So what if I make a mistake or two along the way? I’ll fix them. I certainly don’t need my brothers charging in to straighten me out every time I step sideways.’ Hallie’s chin came up; he was beginning to know that look. ‘I can take care of myself. I
want
to take care of myself. Is that too much to ask?’

‘Not at all. What you want is freedom.’

‘And equality,’ she said firmly. ‘And it wouldn’t kill them to show me a bit of respect every now and then too.’

Right. Nick quelled the slight twinge of sympathy he was beginning to feel for her brothers and concentrated on the bigger picture. Freedom, equality, respect. He could manage that. It wasn’t as if she was asking for the sun, the moon and the stars to go with it.

‘I want you to know that even though I’m paying
you a great deal of money to deceive my future business partner you have my utmost respect,’ he stated firmly. ‘We’re in this together as equals.’

And to the drinks waiter who had appeared at his side, ‘Two single-malt Scotches. Neat.’

P
REPARING THE HOUSE FOR
the arrival of Nicholas Cooper and his wife wasn’t a difficult task. Jasmine often acted as hostess for her father. Anything from arranging dinner parties to organising tickets and dealing with invitations. Personal assistant, Kai had called her more than once, but it was only to humour her. Jasmine contributed so very little to the running of this household, what with the housekeeper who came in three times a week, and the gardener who worked every morning and Kai who saw to the cars and the dozens of other things her father requested of him.

Bodyguard, her father still called him, only Kai had never been just that.

She really didn’t know what he was.

Eleven years old, she’d been, when her father had brought Kai home one night shortly after her
mother’s death. It had been Jasmine’s bedtime and she’d been worried because her father wasn’t home yet. She’d worried about everything in those days.

Her father had called her into his home office and she’d stopped in the doorway, not dressed for visitors but unable to look away from the young man standing so straight and still beside her father. In profile, he’d been the most beautiful boy she’d ever seen, and that included on the television. And then he’d turned to look at her and his face had been so pale and he’d looked so incredibly lost. As lost as she felt.

‘Meng Kai’s going to be living here with us,’ her father had said, and Kai’s lips had twisted into a bitter smile, even as he offered her a small bow. Jasmine bowed back, lower, because Meng Kai was older, maybe eighteen, and Jasmine knew her manners.

She’d looked up at him again, wanting to ask why he was staying with them and for how long, and maybe she
would
ask her father those things when they were alone, but not now. Her father wouldn’t like it if she asked those questions now.

‘He’ll be staying here indefinitely,’ her father said quietly, as if reading her mind, and the utter silence that had followed had been clouded with
an emotion that to this day Jasmine couldn’t quite define. Maybe it had been despair.

‘Did they take Meng Kai’s mother too?’ she’d asked, and her hushed voice had rippled across that silence and made the boy flinch.

‘Something like that,’ her father had offered gruffly – her father didn’t like to talk about what had happened to her mother, Jasmine knew that, but household staff gossiped and Jasmine had big ears and silent feet and she knew full well what had happened to her mother. She knew what loss felt like. And so too – it seemed – did this Kai, who still hadn’t spoken and whose eyes skittered away from hers every time she looked at him.

‘It’s okay,’ she said and stepped hesitantly forward, first one step and then another until she reached his side. She slipped her hand inside Kai’s and frowned when Kai tensed and sent her father a panicked look. Her father looked tense too, but he said nothing, so Jasmine filled the gap. ‘They can’t get us here. We just have to stay away from the windows and not go outside without permission and do exactly what the guards say. You’re safe here. No monsters can get at us here.’

Kai had looked down at her and there’d been a world of pain in his beautiful black eyes as he’d replied, ‘I know.’

‘Kai’s a bodyguard,’ her father had said finally. ‘He’ll see to your protection.’

There had been bodyguards on the grounds and in the house for weeks – at least half a dozen of them at any one time. Jasmine didn’t know why they would need any more, or why her father would choose a bodyguard so young.

She did know – instinctively – that Meng Kai was special. ‘Are you like Bruce Lee?’

‘No one’s like Bruce Lee,’ Meng Kai said.

‘Jackie Chan?’

‘No.’

Jasmine eyed him speculatively. ‘Maybe if you smiled.’

But Kai hadn’t smiled. Not during those first few months. Not for a very long time, and then only rarely.

Meng Kai had moved into the apartment above the garage, he’d had free rein of the house. It hadn’t been long before the housekeeper and the gardener and Jasmine’s tutors all answered to him. Jasmine had answered to him too – such a timid little thing she’d once been. No thought of disobedience – if Kai or her father told her to do something, Jasmine did it. So eager to please. So damn lonely, only Kai hadn’t wanted to be friends with her. Not at first.

And then the levee had given way and all of a sudden Kai had unbent – though only with her – and Jasmine had taken full advantage of his change of heart. Kai become her confidante, her sounding board, the big brother she’d never had. Kai was comfort, he was protection, and most of all he was
hers
.

To all intents they’d been family, Jasmine thought grimly, returning to the now just long enough to place new toiletries in the guest bathroom. Father, older brother, younger sister.

And then Jasmine had turned sixteen and Kai twenty-four, and Kai had fought hard for Jasmine to have more freedom, more friends. ‘She’s too sheltered,’ Kai had said bluntly, during one of his rare arguments with her father. ‘You have to give her room to grow. You
can’t
make her world this small.’

‘She has everything money can buy,’ her father had countered.

‘She needs
freedom
. We both do. She can’t continue to look to me for all those things you don’t allow her to experience any other way. Send her to school. Let her make friends. Widen her focus.’

Part of her had applauded Kai’s words. Part of her had been fearful. To this day, Jasmine didn’t
know which emotion would have won out, because her father had been immovable.

Jasmine’s home-schooling would continue as usual. Her strictly regulated social outings would continue, as usual.

And no matter what Kai had said about needing
his
freedom, Kai had stayed too.

On the morning of Jasmine’s seventeenth birthday, Kai had taken her to the flower market. She’d thought of the trip as a birthday outing, at first. Thought that Kai had wanted to please her, and he
had
pleased her. He’d bought her street-stall food and given her one of his rare, unguarded smiles when she’d purchased a fake jade turtle on a leather band and slipped it over her head.

She’d been truly happy in that moment; and Kai had reached out to untwist the little turtle and his knuckles had brushed her skin and his eyes had met hers and then he’d withdrawn his hand slowly, almost casually, and put his hand to the back of his head as he’d turned away.

Such a fleeting touch shouldn’t have had the power to throw Jasmine’s world into chaos. Kai had always been beautiful to her. He’d always been her hero.

But just for that moment in time she hadn’t thought of him as a brother.

She’d bought flowers for the household after that and had them delivered, and she’d tried not to dwell on Kai’s touch and the awkwardness that followed. Such an innocent, everyday touch. Kai had meant
nothing
by it. Nothing at all.

Kai hadn’t wanted to go to the nearby bird market but Jasmine had persisted and finally got her way. Walk it off, she told herself. Focus on something else, something other than Kai. She’d heard that sentiment just days earlier, when Kai had confronted her father, and all of a sudden she saw a
reason
behind Kai’s impassioned words on her behalf.

A reason she barely knew how to acknowledge.

Morning had flowed around them, warm and bright as they’d made their way on foot to the bird market. Early morning, full of bright-eyed songbirds in their tiny bamboo morning cages. Plain little things, some of them, until she closed her eyes and listened, and then the beauty of the sound had taken her breath away.

So many birds, so many cages; all sorts of birds and everything one could possibly think to feed them. Expensive, the best of these birds. Doting owners who lavished their attention upon them. It had been such a welcome distraction from the memory of Kai’s touch. Something else to think
about besides the smooth weight of the little plastic turtle against her skin. Jasmine had loved strolling through the bird market.

Kai, upon reflection, had not.

‘What do you see?’ he’d asked as they reached the end of one crooked alley way and turned to step into the next. ‘Why do you like it?’

‘I like it because there’s life here, and celebration, and beauty and sound and old men whose smiles fill their faces when their favourite songbird sings. There’s colour here, and frenzy. A social structure built around these alleyways. Why wouldn’t I like it?’

‘Have you ever wondered,’ he said, and his voice was low and rough and he would not look at her, ‘what they’d sound like if they were free?’

Three days after the marathon shopping trip, Hallie boarded a plane to Hong Kong. She’d been manicured, pedicured, pampered and polished and was corporate-wife chic in her lightweight camel-coloured trousers and pink camisole. Her shoes matched her top, her handbag was Hermès, and Nick was at her side, thoroughly eye-catching in a grey business suit and crisp white business shirt minus the tie. She was the woman who had it all and it was all pure fantasy.

That didn’t mean she couldn’t embrace the moment.

Wispy streaks of cloud scattered the midday sky, their seats were business class, the take-off was perfect, and Hallie relaxed into her seat, prepared to be thoroughly indulged, only to discover that any woman sitting next to Nick was more likely to be thoroughly ignored. That or she was currently invisible to the women of the world as they dimpled, sighed, primped and preened for him.

The flight attendants settled once the flight was underway and went about their business with efficient professionalism, but the encouraging smiles of the female passengers continued. One innovative young lady even managed to trip and fall gracefully into Nick’s lap amidst a flurry of breathless apology and a great deal of full body contact.

‘Do women always fall over their feet trying to get your attention?’ she asked once the woman had gone.

‘Actually, she fell over
my
feet,’ said Nick. ‘They were sticking out into the aisle. It was
my
fault she landed in my lap.’

‘And her breasts in your face? That was your fault too?’

Nick shrugged, trying to look a picture of innocence
and failing miserably. ‘She was trying to get up,’ he said in her defence. ‘These things happen.’

‘So I see.’

He was used to it, Hallie decided. He was just plain used to women falling all over him. ‘You know, you’d save yourself a lot of unwanted attention if you wore a wedding ring,’ she said. She was wearing one, along with the terribly traditional diamond engagement ring. As far as the world was concerned she was well and truly taken. Nick’s hands, however, were ring-free.

‘I wasn’t wearing one last time I visited,’ he countered. ‘It’d seem a bit strange if I turned up wearing one now.’

‘No it wouldn’t, considering what happened.’ She was beginning to sense some reluctance here. ‘Say we really were married, would you wear a ring then?’

‘You’d have to insist.’ He slid her a sideways glance. ‘You would too, wouldn’t you?’

‘Absolutely.’ She held her left hand up between them, angling her fingers so that the diamond sparkled in the light. ‘Some people actually respect the sanctity of marriage and
don’t
hit on a person wearing a wedding ring.’

‘Funny,’ he said dryly. ‘You don’t look that naïve’

‘Hah. It just so happens I don’t think I’m
being
naïve. But I do concede that if you never wear one we’ll never know.’

The clumsy young thing was back, all purring solicitousness as she asked Nick if she’d hurt him, if he was feeling all right, and was there anything, absolutely
anything
, she could do for him.

Honestly!

‘Oh, I think we’ve got it covered.’ Hallie smiled, sharp as a blade, as her hand- the one with those shiny rings on it – came to rest high on Nick’s trouser clad thigh. Nothing subtle about that particular manoeuvre; she was claiming ownership and the other woman knew it. ‘On second thoughts, darling, you feel a bit cold,’ she said to Nick as she squeezed gently and slid her hand a fraction higher up his thigh. Muscles jumped beneath her palm even as the rest of him went absolutely still. ‘Would you like a blanket for your lap? There’s one in the webbing in front of you.’

With an annoyed pout and a narrow-eyed glare for Hallie, the other woman made herself scarce. Not that Nick noticed. His
wife
had his attention now. His complete and utter attention.

‘What are you doing?’ he rasped.

‘Practising.’

‘For what? The mile-high club?’

Hallie’s smile widened. Really, his imagination was so delightfully easy to manipulate. ‘I’m practising my possessive moves for when I meet Jasmine.’

‘Well, would you mind practising with your hand somewhere else? I’m not made of stone.’

This was debatable. Right this minute, Nicholas Cooper’s thigh was hard as a rock. ‘Sorry, my mistake. I thought we agreed on physical contact in public places,’ she said as she withdrew her hand, reached for the blanket and draped it across his knees. She shouldn’t bait him; she knew it. But she couldn’t resist. ‘This is a public place,’ she said sweetly. ‘And we did have an audience.’

‘You know you’re right. You’re absolutely right,’ he said. He flicked off the overhead light, brought her hand back to his thigh and drew the blanket over his lap with a smile that was pure challenge. ‘Feel free to continue.’

Okay, so there was a slight chance she’d been asking for it. Now
he
was asking for it and she was tempted, very tempted, to deliver. But if she did, things would get out of hand. Or out of trousers and into hand, so to speak, and heaven only knew what would happen after that. Come to think of it, she had a pretty good idea what would happen after that …

And what if they were caught?

They’d be thrown off the plane in disgrace. A big red ‘deviant’ stamp would appear in her passport and then Interpol would sign her up for sexual misconduct reform school and Tris would find out and, oh, the horror …

Nick wasn’t the only one with a vivid imagination.