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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