Page 20 of Wife for a Week

‘I’m always serious,’ said Kai. And with his next breath, ‘Let me know if you still wish to attend the ball tonight and I’ll arrange extra security.’

Nick had taken the news that someone could be trying to kill him surprisingly well, thought Hallie as she watched him pace their guest room not ten minutes later. ‘Do you have any idea who would want to kill you?’ she said thoughtfully.

‘No.’

‘Maybe it’s someone who doesn’t want you going into partnership with John. Maybe they’ve invented a game just like yours and will lose everything if they don’t stop your product from hitting the market.’

‘Hallie…’ he began warningly.

‘Or a resentful distributor who failed to get your business,’ she said. ‘How many did you reject before you decided to go with the Tey Corporation?’

Nick rolled his eyes. ‘A few, but I really don’t think—

‘Or a woman scorned. There’s a thought. I bet there are plenty of those.’

‘I do not scorn,’ he snapped. ‘I just…’

‘Leave?’

‘Yeah, and, since we’re on the subject, I’m terminating your contract. I’m sending you home.’

‘Oh?’ She was prepared to be calm, at least for now. ‘And why is that?’

‘I don’t want you involved in this. I want you back home and safely out of the way.’

Now he was definitely starting to sound like her brothers. And she’d had such high hopes for him too. ‘What happened to we’re in this together as equals?’

‘It stopped when I found out someone was trying to kill me. You didn’t sign on for this, Hallie. I don’t want you involved.’

‘I want to stay and help,’ she said stubbornly.

‘No,’ he said, equally stubborn. ‘You can’t help with this.’

‘I did today.’

‘And look what it got you! A busted elbow and a concussion headache!’

‘I do not have a concussion headache,’ she said indignantly. ‘It’s just a normal one.’

‘Look…’ His expression softened. ‘You saved my life today; don’t think I don’t appreciate it, but I don’t want you getting hurt again. Not because of me.’

‘Fine,’ she said, waving him towards the telephone. ‘Book the plane seat.’

Five minutes later he slammed the phone down in frustration. ‘You knew there wouldn’t be any seats available,’ he said accusingly.

‘Of course I knew. It’s Chinese New Year. Everyone’s travelling to visit their families. I’m betting you couldn’t get plane tickets back to the UK any earlier than the ones we’ve already got.’ Nick’s scowl told her she was right. ‘Cheer up, Nick. It’s not that bad. You’re the one they want dead, not me. And they only might want you dead. We’re not exactly sure about that yet. I’m probably not in any danger at all.’

‘If I had any sense I’d call one of your brothers to come and get you.’

‘Well, you could,’ she said doubtfully. ‘But then you really would be a dead man.’ She glanced at her watch and groaned. ‘What are we going to do about this ball? Do you still want to go? Because if you do, we’re going to have to start getting ready.’

‘Do you?’

Hallie shrugged. She did want to attend the ball. Badly. But not if it was going to put Nick in danger. This one was his call.

‘We’re probably jumping to conclusions about someone trying to kill me,’ he said at last.

‘This is true.’

‘Kai did say he’d arrange extra security.’

Also true.

‘And I’ll be damned if I’ll stop living before I’m dead!’

She liked his attitude, she really did. ‘So we’re going?’

‘Yeah,’ said Nick. ‘We’re going.’

Hallie showered quickly, shrugged on a borrowed robe and slipped down to Jasmine’s room to get her hair done and give her the perfume. When she returned she found Nick already dressed for the ball, a handsome heartbreaker in an elegant black dinner suit that looked tailor-made for him and probably was. She should have been more immune to his looks by now, desperately wanted to be, but there was something about the combination of dark hair, dark suit, and a snowy white shirt that made her breath catch in her throat. And then he spoke.

‘Shouldn’t you be getting ready?’ he said.

And the spell was broken. ‘Keep talking,’ she ordered, scooping her gown from the closet on the way through to the bathroom. ‘I’ll be ready before you’ve finished your spiel about how bad mannered it would be to be late. Which we won’t be.’ She left the bathroom door ajar as she slipped her robe off and slid the dress over her head—all the better to hear Nick’s disgruntled mutterings by, and he didn’t disappoint.

‘You’ve got five minutes,’ he warned, but she was already up to make-up and she only needed two. Shoes next, dainty stilettos that added a good couple of inches to her height. Next a dab of the perfume Nick had given her at her pulse points and finally her wrap, amber-coloured silk a couple of shades lighter than her gown, and she was done.

One minute remaining. Time to see if Nick approved of the way the corporate wife was packaged. She entered the bedroom regally, only to find him staring out the window, trying hard to exude manly patience. ‘I’m ready,’ she said.

He turned, studied her from head to toe, and the purely masculine appreciation in his eyes was immensely gratifying. ‘You’re beautiful,’ he murmured. ‘But you’re not ready.’

‘I’m not?’

‘You forgot your jewellery.’

She had her rings on, didn’t she? Yep. Hard to miss them. ‘I really hope you’re not talking about the watch you bought me today.’

Nick pointed towards a grey velvet case on the counter.

‘Oh. You mean that jewellery.’ The jewellery she’d never seen. The jewellery he’d chosen without her. ‘I forgot about it.’

‘You forgot about it?’ Nick appeared disbelieving.

‘Maybe if I’d seen it I wouldn’t have,’ she told him sweetly.

‘You can see it now.’

Hallie walked over to the counter and her hands came up, seemingly of their own volition, to stroke the long velvet box, but then she hesitated.

‘What now?’ said Nick.

‘I’ve seen the necklace Jasmine’s wearing tonight and it’s very simple,’ she said with a frown. ‘I wouldn’t want to go overboard in comparison.’

‘Maybe this is simple too,’ said Nick. ‘Why don’t you open it and see?’

Why didn’t she? She was nearly bursting with curiosity, wondering what he’d chosen and whether she’d like it. Worried that she wouldn’t. More worried that she would. There was only one way to find out. Hallie opened the box with careful hands. And gasped.

The necklace was like a pearl choker in design, but where the pearls would have been there were diamonds, big carat-sized diamonds that glittered brilliantly in the light. As far as jewellery went it was exquisite, eye-pop-ping even, because Hallie was pretty sure hers were halfway out of her head. But it wasn’t simple.

‘Do you like it?’ he asked.

‘Are you serious? It’s absolutely gorgeous.’ He was taking it from the box, and putting it around her neck, his fingers warm and gentle against her skin as he fastened the clasp.

‘It suits you. I knew it would.’ He steered her towards the bathroom. ‘Go take a look in the mirror.’

Hallie went and looked, made a minute adjustment to its position. There, now it was perfect and now she was thinking Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s or Grace Kelly in anything, both of them as redheads, of course.

‘What do you think?’ said Nick from the doorway. He was leaning lazily against it, his smile indulgent and his eyes dark.

‘It probably wouldn’t do to bring it all this way and not wear it,’ she said, while the diamonds around her neck blazed with every movement she made. They probably wouldn’t overshadow Jasmine’s teardrop pearl all that much, she decided, a touch desperately. The diamonds were stunning in a different way, that was all. They might even complement Jasmine’s pearl.

‘There are earrings to match.’

‘Oh, well…’ May as well do things properly. A minute later she was wearing them too. ‘Do you think it’s too much?’

‘You could always take the dress off,’ he muttered. ‘That’d work.’

‘Focus,’ she said sternly. ‘You’re losing sight of the rules.’

‘You don’t say.’

‘You can look all you like,’ she said generously. ‘You even get to touch providing we’re in a public place and have an audience. You just don’t get to take at the end of the evening. It’ll be character building.’

And with a final sweep of the bedroom for the silk purse that matched the wrap, she headed for the door.

The ballroom at the Four Winds hotel was where British Colonialism met Asian Affluence and a spectacle of such unbridled opulence that it left Hallie gaping. There were champagne-glass pyramids complete with nervous waiters, elaborately costumed opera singers with faces whiter than snow. There were five-tier chandeliers and peacock feathers by the bucketful. There was a dance band over by the dance floor, and there were Hong Kong’s finest—dressed in their finest—mingling graciously.

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