Wife for a Week(35)

Nothing wrong with the younger girl’s feminine instincts, thought Hallie, and nodded enthusiastically. ‘A slow dance,’ she said. ‘A waltz, so he has to put his arm around you and touch all that skin.’

Jasmine smiled slowly.

Hallie smiled back. Kai was toast.



Nick and John returned earlier than expected around mid-afternoon.

‘We’re almost there,’ said Nick when Hallie dragged him into the garden to get the low-down. ‘John has his lawyers working on the documents now. I’ve faxed them through to mine, but I can’t see any problems. All we have to do is sign them.’

‘And you’re happy with the deal?’ she asked him.

‘It’s a little less than I was hoping for in some respects, a little more in others. I think John feels the same way.’ Nick shot her a weary smile. ‘I have a new appreciation for haggling as an art form, but in the end we got there. It’s a fair deal. We both stand to make a lot of money.’

‘So tonight we celebrate.’ Hallie looked at him in concern. He didn’t look as if he felt like celebrating. He looked exhausted. ‘Are you going to make it through to midnight? Why don’t you go upstairs and rest for a while? Take a nap.’

‘I would, but the bed upstairs holds a few too many memories of you in it. I won’t rest if I go up there and I sure as hell won’t sleep.’

‘Are you flirting with me?’

‘Nope.’ He eyed her darkly, a man too tired and tense to bother with the niceties. He needed rest, needed to sleep, but if that wasn’t an option the next best thing he could do was take a break. From his work, from the strain of pretending to be married to her, and from the Teys, nice as they were.

‘Come into the city with me, then. I have to find a New Year’s gift for Jasmine. It’ll do you good. Do us both good.’

‘How do you figure that?’ he asked.

‘I want to relax and be myself for a while. Not Hallie Cooper, corporate wife. Not Hallie Bennett, partner in lies. I just want to be me. I want you to be you.’

‘Time Out,’ said Nick.

Exactly. Trust a man to use a sports metaphor to describe a burgeoning identity crisis, but whatever worked. ‘So what do you say?’



Twenty minutes later they were standing on a chaotic sidewalk in downtown Hong Kong, Kai having dropped them off and Nick having assured him that they’d catch a taxi back. He was tired, he was irritable, and denying his fierce sexual attraction to Hallie really wasn’t working for him, but there was no denying her suggestion they take a break was a good one. ‘Do you have anything particular in mind as a gift for Jasmine?’ he asked her.

‘I’m sure I’ll know it when I see it,’ she said blithely.

Nick groaned. This was bad. This was going to take for ever.

‘I am open to suggestions,’ she added.

There was a god.

‘Perfume,’ he said firmly, not two minutes later as they stood at a department-store perfume counter. ‘We’ll get her some perfume.’

‘Predictable,’ said Hallie with a sigh.

‘Reliable,’ he corrected, and, staring at the dazzling selection of perfumes on offer, ‘You choose.’

‘I’ll have to smell them first and find the one that fits Jasmine best. Of course, I already know what half of them smell like so it shouldn’t take too long.’

Maybe perfume hadn’t been such a fast and easy solution to the gift-buying problem after all, thought Nick gloomily as Hallie picked up a nearby tester bottle and sniffed.

‘This one’s too overpowering. Jasmine’s far more delicate than that,’ she said with a grimace, hastily returning the bottle to the counter and picking up another. ‘And this one’s too old-fashioned.’ She moved along the counter to the next cluster of little glass bottles, plucked one from the middle and handed it to him. ‘Try this one.’

He took it, sniffed it. ‘Nice.’ But Hallie rejected it.

‘It is nice, but it’s all top note, there’s no depth. It’s too chaste. Jasmine’s a woman, not a girl.’

‘Maybe she could wear it in one of her more girlish moments,’ he suggested, and stifled a sigh at Hallie’s measured, ‘No.’ This was going to take for ever.

The next one was nice too. Hell, they were all nice, but according to Hallie they just weren’t right. And then Hallie pointed towards a small vial high on a shelf and the salesgirl obligingly got it down for her. She lifted the stopper, took a deep sniff of the perfume and sighed happily. ‘This is it,’ she said. ‘This is Jasmine.’

Nick took it and smelled it. Nice. Why it was Jasmine and the others weren’t was beyond him, but if Hallie was satisfied, so was he. ‘I see what you mean,’ he said, with a nod for good measure.