‘I’m way ahead of you,’ he said.
‘I mean, it’s only for a few more days, I’m sure it’s doable. That way you get to concentrate on your work and I get the money to finish my diploma.’
‘Exactly. Thanks, Hallie,’ he said with a relieved smile.
‘Don’t smile,’ she warned him. ‘My resolve is not altogether reliable. I’m also thinking I should be more supportive. More corporate wife. What can I do?’
‘Just what you have been doing. Keeping the conversation easy, finding common ground. In that regard you’re doing fine.’
Uh, oh. A compliment. Dangerous ground. She hurried on. ‘And I’m not sure where I should sit at dinner. Beside you? Opposite you? Where?’
‘Beside me,’ he said. ‘John says the restaurant we’re going to doesn’t look like much but it has the best chilli crab in Hong Kong. I hope you like it hot and messy.’
She did. Hallie felt her mouth begin to water. Dinner didn’t sound very corporate at all. It sounded like fun. She looked down at her black trousers and pink shirt. The trousers were fine. The shirt was a problem. Chilli crab juice splattered over pink silk was not a good look. ‘Maybe I should change clothes.’
Or maybe she could try to be a tidy crab eater, she thought with a sigh as John, Jasmine and Kai joined them.
‘I thought we might travel to the restaurant by ferry,’ said John with a smile. ‘Consider it an old man’s indulgence. I delight in being out on the harbour at night.’
‘He delights in showing our city off to visitors is what he really means,’ whispered Jasmine to Hallie with a grin. ‘But it’s a journey you won’t forget, I promise you. Shall we go?’
The ferry crossing was every bit as magical as Jasmine had promised, with Hong Kong Central on one shore and Kowloon on the other, each of them trying to outshine the other with their neon-draped skyscrapers and their laser displays that lit up the night. The harbour itself was vibrant with activity; the playful breeze and the gentle slap-slap of waves against the boat a sensual delight. But it was the skyline that truly dazzled her, the thousands upon millions of lights that turned the busy harbour into fairyland.
‘You’ve made John’s night,’ said Nick. ‘Just watching your face was enough.’
‘Nick, it’s so beautiful.’
‘Yes, it is,’ he said quietly. But he wasn’t looking at the lights of Hong Kong. He was looking at her.
Disconcerted, Hallie clasped her arms around her waist and looked away.
‘Cold?’
‘No.’
But he pulled her closer anyway, so that his warmth was at her back and his arms were around her waist, and she let him because they had an audience.
Because it felt right.
The restaurant was nothing more than daytime pavement converted by plastic tables and chairs into a night-time eating area. Large bins of live crabs, their pincers tightly tied, lined one side of the makeshift square, bamboo growing in tubs lined another. The shopfront made the third side of the square. The fourth side was the gutter. It was badly lit, full of people, had no tablecloths whatsoever, and, more importantly, loads of paper napkins.
A ragged waiter hurried over to greet them and escorted them to a vacant table only to discover the tabletop sticky with beer. He skirted around it with an apologetic smile and showed them to an adjacent table. Bottled water arrived not thirty seconds later, along with cups for everyone. Chopsticks and crab-claw crushers appeared in front of each person. There was no menu. The restaurant served crab; that was all it served.
‘Cooked any way you like,’ the waiter assured them.
They ordered a chilli crab platter along with beer and white wine, and Hallie sat back to wait while her stomach growled and her mouth watered with every fragrant, steaming platter that emerged from the shopfront doorway.
‘You’re drooling,’ said Nick. ‘A good husband would point this out to his wife.’
‘I am not drooling,’ she said indignantly. ‘I’m embracing the atmosphere.’ As for him being a good husband…Ha! She wasn’t even going to start thinking along those lines. As soon as this week was over she’d probably never see him again. She would do much better to think about that.
Another waiter emerged from the doorway, steaming crab platter in hand, and wove his way towards them, turning at the last minute to deliver the tray to the people who’d arrived just after them and been seated at the sticky table. ‘Damn,’ she muttered. ‘So close and yet so far.’
‘You’re really not a half measures kind of girl, are you?’ Nick was looking at her with a sort of wry resignation.