Page 52 of Love Is: Two Bodies One Soul

ChapterSixteen

Lily Chan’swas not like any Chinese restaurant Lexie had been in before. It was plain and functional, with vinyl covered two and four-seater tables and ordinary, basic wooden chairs. Not a tasselled lantern or Chinese dragon painting in sight.

A delighted and diminutive man in checked pants and sparkling-white chef’s top burst from the back room. ‘Owen, my friend! Where have you been? Long time since you come to Lily Chan’s.’ His pleasure at seeing Owen was overwhelming.

The two men embraced, and Owen said something unintelligible. The chef laughed, and slapping Owen heartily on the back, he showed them to their table before he disappeared back to the kitchen.

Lexie leaned across their table and whispered, ‘What did you say to him?’

‘Just hello.’ Owen smiled and tidied the cutlery at his place.

‘Was that Chinese you were speaking?’

‘Cantonese.’ He shrugged, then changed the subject. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve already ordered our food.’

Before Lexie could say if she minded or not, two girls arrived with various bowls and placed them on the table. A handsome young man followed with a tray of small dishes and laid them out before Lexie and Owen. More Cantonese was shared between Owen and the young man before the three went away.

‘It’s a family business,’ Owen explained, offering rice to Lexie. ‘They are Chan’s children.’

‘Who is Lily?’

‘His mum, she died a few years ago.’

‘And you know them well?’

‘Yes, I used to come here a lot.’

As they enjoyed the meal, their talk rambled on (sticking to safe topics), like how long Lexie had run her own business, where Owen had met George, what they liked to do when not working, and favourite foods.

Owen learned that Lexie had worked as a photographer’s assistant then had the opportunity to buy the business when she was just twenty three. She was vegetarian, liked to keep fit by jogging and swimming, that she enjoyed reading and hiking.

Lexie learned Owen had met George at university, where they had both been taking the degree course in medieval history. Owen also liked to hike, something he’d got from his father, now dead. Killed in service. He was a soldier.

That had been a tense moment, when Lexie thought she had veered into sensitive territory. But after a moment of thoughtful contemplation of his rice, Owen had gone on to tell her he also read a lot and his top favourite food was smoked salmon, but mostly he was relaxed about what he ate.

‘When you’ve grown up on breakfast cereal, toast, soup or baked beans, you learn not to be fussy,’ he said, giving her a shy grin.

‘Wasn’t your mum a good cook?’ Lexie asked, thinking of her own mum and the fabulous food always on offer back in Sussex.

‘She wasn’t a cook at all.’ Owen scowled.

Suspecting this small fact about his childhood was an unintentional slip and one Owen might already regret, Lexie changed the subject.

‘This morning, you said the Blanchard brother’s stopped George from thinking about what I’d done. What did you mean?’

‘The brothers are selling WIV.’

‘Was that what you were talking about with Kate?’

‘Yes, but she’s the only one I’ve told except you. It’s not general knowledge yet.’

‘Why, though, when George is trying so hard to make WIV a success?’

‘They don’t want to keep the magazine. It’s obvious now. No matter what George does, they won’t stop moving the goalposts on him, and fighting them is just extending the torture. It’s just a guess on my part but I think they hired him as a patsy. They won’t want anyone to think they’d made a bad investment, so they’ll transfer blame in the guise of bad management onto George.’

‘A buyer might come forward,’

Owen looked up from his food, scepticism written all over his face.

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