Page 19 of Wife for a Week

‘Cartier,’ he said, grinning up at her. ‘Bargain. You want one?’

Dammit, she knew this would happen. She was falling for him. ‘That one,’ she said, pointing towards a plain-faced gold watch in the middle of the row. ‘Does it work?’

‘The hands are moving. That’s always a good sign,’ he said as he handed over enough money to buy ten fake watches and waved away the change. ‘Where to now?’ he said, handing her the watch.

‘Back to the Teys’ if this watch is correct. I have to be back by five-thirty if I want the hairdresser to style my hair.’

‘And do you?’

‘Absolutely. I’m off to a ball in a designer gown and there’ll be dancing and music and a countdown to midnight. I want the works. Tonight I’m going to feel like Cinderella.’

‘Does that mean I have to be your Prince Charming?’

‘You can try to be my Prince Charming,’ she countered with a smile. They were standing beside a busy road and a taxi was heading their way in the centre lane. Nick saw it about the same as time she did and stepped to the side of the pavement and raised his hand. The taxi swerved abruptly and shoehorned itself into the side lane to the accompaniment of blaring horns and rude gestures.

‘I think he’s seen us,’ said Nick.

‘Yeah, but do we want to get in a car with him?’ she muttered. The taxi wasn’t slowing down. If anything it was speeding up. ‘He’s not stopping,’ she said and stepped back from the kerb just as someone stumbled into Nick from behind, pushing him onto the road.

‘Nick!’

It all happened in a screaming blur. She lunged for his shirt, caught the very edge of it and heaved him backwards with all her strength as the taxi sped past, mere millimetres from the guttering. There was nothing to break her fall as they tumbled back in a heap, her elbow connecting painfully with the cement, her head hitting it moments later, followed by Nick’s big body pushing every last ounce of breath from her body as he landed on top of her. Then he was on his hands and knees beside her and she was seeing double, triple even. Either that or the entire population of Hong Kong was staring down at her.

‘Hallie. Hallie! Can you hear me?’

Nick’s face loomed above her, a familiar face against a sea of oriental ones, and she clung to it as a shipwrecked sailor clung to a beacon. ‘He wasn’t going to stop,’ she whispered.

‘No. He wasn’t.’ Nick looked almost as shaken as she felt as his hands carefully brushed a stray strand of hair from her eyes. ‘How do you feel? Where do you hurt?’

‘I scraped my elbow,’ she said. ‘I hit my head.’

‘How many fingers am I holding up?’

‘None. Your hands are in my hair.’

‘Right,’ said Nick. ‘How many now?’

‘Two.’ Her head was starting to clear, her vision was returning. She tried to sit up, and was immediately assisted by a hundred helpful hands that didn’t stop at sitting but lifted her gently to her feet. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and, ‘Thank you, again,’ as someone handed her her handbag and the bag with the perfumes in it. There was an animated discussion going on somewhere in the crowd, lots of shouting and hand-waving. Finally a business-suited Chinese man approached them both.

‘You were pushed,’ he told Nick. ‘This man says he saw it.’ He pointed to a wizened little man at the back of the crowd. ‘He says it was a man wearing a red cap, zip jacket, and jeans. A young man.’

Nick nodded, thanked both men.

‘I thought I saw someone push you too,’ said Hallie, ‘but I didn’t see a face.’ She’d been too busy trying to grab him.

‘C’ mon.’ He was leading her towards a quiet doorway of a shop that had already closed for the evening. ‘I think we should get you to the hospital. Get you checked out.’

‘No, Nick! That’ll take hours!’ They’d miss the ball. ‘I fell over and you landed on top of me, that’s all. I grew up playing football with my brothers, I’m used to it.’ Okay, so she was exaggerating. Just a little. He didn’t look as if he was buying it anyway. He lifted her arm for a closer look at her elbow; she turned her arm so she could see it herself. It was a nasty graze. Damn. Hallie scowled. ‘This is so not going to go with my gown.’

‘Be serious,’ he said gruffly. ‘You could have concussion.’ He threaded his hands through her hair and tilted her head forward, examining her skull with gentle fingers.

‘Ow!’ She winced when he hit the spot that had connected with the concrete.

‘It’s swelling,’ he told her. ‘You’re going to have an egg.’

‘I’m also going to have the services of a hairdresser. You’ll never know it’s there. Really, Nick. I’m okay.’

His eyes were dark and searching as his hands moved from her hair to frame her face. ‘You scared me,’ he said simply. And lowered his lips to hers.

He was very gentle, very careful, and Hallie trembled at the tenderness she found in his embrace. She closed her eyes, lifted her hands to his shoulders, and opened her mouth to him, revelling in his warmth and the dark, delicious taste of him. He took his time, such an agonizingly long time he took before his tongue touched hers and duelled. There was no rush, no haste and he built that kiss so slowly and surely that stars exploded in her head for the second time that afternoon. Here was what she’d been waiting for all her life. Passion laced with sweetness. Strength tempered by caring, and she wound her arms around his neck and drank in that sweetness and that strength with no thought for anything but the aching need to have it.

It was Nick who broke the kiss, his breathing ragged as he rested his forehead against hers. ‘We have an audience,’ he muttered. ‘And we’re in a public place. The way I figure it, we’re still within the rules here.’

‘Lucky us,’ she whispered. It didn’t feel as if they were still working within the rules. It felt as if they were breaking every last one of them.

He stepped back, seemingly reluctant to let her go. ‘Do you want to see a doctor?’

It was a question, not an order, and drove home the point that for all the similarities between Nick and her brothers, in this he was quite, quite different. Seeing a doctor was her call, her choice to make and she made it. ‘I’m fine,’ she said firmly. ‘Just fine.’

‘C’ mon.’ Nick didn’t know whether to curse her stubbornness or applaud her spirit. ‘Let’s get you home.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘WHAT happened?’ cried Jasmine when she opened the front door to them, sweeping them through to the sitting room and settling Hallie into the nearest chair. ‘Stay there,’ she ordered and disappeared at a run. When she returned she had Kai and a first-aid kit with her and Nick almost sighed his relief as Jasmine fished cloth and antiseptic from the kit and set to work on Hallie’s elbow. She’d scared him half to death when he’d seen her lying there on the pavement looking so small and broken and only half conscious, and her decision not to consult a doctor didn’t sit well with him. ‘She hit her head as well,’ he told Jasmine.

Jasmine’s gaze flew to Hallie’s eyes. ‘We need a torch,’ she said firmly. ‘We need to check her pupils for dilation.’

‘I’m not concussed,’ protested Hallie. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Don’t argue,’ he said. ‘Just let her check.’ And with a wry smile, ‘For my sake if not for yours.’

‘You are as bad as my brothers,’ she grumbled.

‘Yeah, but my delivery’s far better.’

‘What happened?’ Kai asked him quietly.

‘I was trying to hail a taxi and stood a little too close to the kerb. Hallie pulled me back and we fell.’

‘You were pushed,’ said Hallie, and to Kai, ‘Someone pushed him off the kerb and into the path of an oncoming taxi. I only saw a big jacket and a cap but there was an old man there who saw his face. He said it was a young man and that he did it deliberately.’

‘You were pushed?’ asked Kai.

‘Someone stumbled into me,’ he countered. ‘I don’t know that it was deliberate.’

Hallie stared at him defiantly. ‘If it was an accident, why didn’t he stick around to make sure you were all right?’

‘Maybe he was too scared to.’

‘Did you get the old man’s name?’ asked Kai.

‘I didn’t think it was necessary,’ said Nick. ‘Why?’

‘I checked on the sick diner from the restaurant. He’s in a coma. The doctors suspect some kind of poison. I took the crabmeat to a private lab for testing, but so far the tests have been inconclusive. If it does contain poison it’s a rare one.’ Kai paused. ‘There is another disturbing fact about last night’s incident,’ he said quietly. ‘The platter was not meant for that particular party. It was meant for us. And if it is as I suspect and only the topmost portion of crab was poisoned, that means it was meant for you.’

‘What? You’re saying someone’s trying to kill me?’ Whatever direction he thought Kai’s conversation was going to go, this wasn’t it. ‘Are you serious?’

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