Wife for a Week(34)

They left the dresses until last. Hallie’s choice was simple, she would wear the gold gown. Jasmine had a far greater selection to choose from, but by lunchtime they’d narrowed it down to two. A full-length, midnight-blue satin gown with a demure front and next to no back, and a strapless burgundy gown with gold embroidered accents on the bodice. Both were gorgeous. Neither woman could choose between them.

Kai returned in time for lunch and seemed unusually quiet, even for him. When lunch was eaten, the dishes cleared away and the kitchen spotless, he spoke.

‘May I speak with you in private?’ he said to Jasmine.

‘Is this about the crabmeat?’ Jasmine eyed him curiously.

‘No.’

Hallie watched them retreat to John’s office with a nagging sense of foreboding; Kai looked like a man with a lot on his mind. He took off in the Mercedes not ten minutes later and Hallie found Jasmine in her room, standing by the window, her eyes wet with tears.

‘He’s leaving for the Mainland next week and he’s not coming back,’ said the younger girl shakily. She gave a tiny, helpless shrug. ‘I really didn’t think he’d go.’

‘Oh, Jasmine…’

‘I don’t want him to go. I thought I did, but I don’t.’ Fresh tears welled in the younger girl’s eyes before she lowered her head, a silky curtain of hair covering her distress.

‘I thought you felt trapped,’ said Hallie gently. ‘I thought you wanted your independence.’

‘I want Kai.’

‘Because he’s always been there for you. Because he’s safe.’

‘No! Not just because of that.’ And with a sob, ‘I thought he loved me.’

No prizes for guessing who’d put that idea into her head, thought Hallie, and cursed herself for doing so. She’d been thinking about Jasmine and Kai and the situation they were in; thinking that some time apart would benefit them both. ‘Think about it from Kai’s perspective,’ she urged the younger girl. ‘Even if he does love you he’s been your protector now for almost ten years. He knows full well it wouldn’t be fair of him to burden you with his feelings. Not when you’ve had so little opportunity to discover who you are and what you want.’

‘I know who I am,’ said Jasmine with quiet certainty. ‘And I want Kai.’

‘Maybe you do. But wouldn’t you rather come to him as an equal? As a woman he can love and respect rather than a girl he feels he needs to watch over?’

Jasmine was silent. Finally she lifted her head and turned to Hallie, uncertainty in her eyes this time, rather than desolation. ‘Of course I would.’

‘Then maybe this is for the best,’ said Hallie softly. ‘I for one think you’re a very lucky woman. What more could you want than the love of a beautiful warrior who knows what you need and is willing to give it to you even if it means losing you? Don’t you see?’ Hallie tucked the hair that was clinging to Jasmine’s tear stained cheek back behind her ear with gentle fingers tear stained cheek back behind her ear with gentle fingers. ‘He’s setting you free.’




Two hours later, after a shower for Jasmine and a cup of tea for them both, they were once again standing in front of the two dresses that hung from the doors of Jasmine’s wardrobe.

‘Give it a year,’ said Jasmine thoughtfully.

‘Or two.’

‘I don’t think I can wait that long.’

‘I didn’t say you couldn’t see him at all,’ said Hallie. ‘And I definitely didn’t say you shouldn’t give him something to remember you by. Is he coming to the ball?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Jasmine. ‘There’s a ticket for him.’

‘I’m thinking the blue dress. The front is demure, it’s what Kai expects, but then when you turn around and he sees all that skin…bam! How were you thinking of wearing your hair?’

‘Up,’ said Jasmine.

‘Perfect. What about jewellery?’

Jasmine went over to a small wooden jewellery box and lifted out a long silver chain so fine you could hardly see the links. There was a single teardrop pearl a shade lighter than the colour of her skin dangling from it. ‘I thought this. It’s not expensive, more of a trinket really, but it was my mother’s. There’s no clasp; it slips over the head. But it’s too long.’

‘Not if you wear it backwards,’ said Hallie.

‘Oh,’ said Jasmine. ‘Now I’m thinking the blue dress. And I shall ask Kai to dance with me. It’s a ball; people do dance with one another at balls.’