The Trouble with Valentine’s (13 page)

Hallie held her breath as she eased her hand from his waist and started to inch away from him, watching his face for any signs of waking, but he was sound asleep. There were shadows under his eyes that made him look vulnerable, shadows
along his jaw that made him look dangerous. And a strength in his face that called to her even as she railed against it. What was it about this man that made him so hard to resist?

Because it wasn’t his face and it wasn’t his body, although both were gorgeous. No, it was something far more intrinsic than that, something that called to her very soul. And made it tremble. She backed up some more, felt the edge of the bed with her toes. Almost there. One foot on the floor and now the other as she eased her body from the mattress and stood up. Mission completed.

But she’d taken the sheet with her, which left her with a new problem. To cover Nick up again or not to cover. He didn’t look cold. No goosebumps on that gloriously sculpted chest. Uh oh. She made the mistake of letting her gaze travel down his body and swallowed hard at the substantial bulge beneath his boxers. Never mind if he was cold or not, she needed him covered up. She gathered up the sheet and was just about to float it over his body when some sixth sense made her glance up at his face.

He was awake, watching her through slitted eyes, with a smile on his face and an invitation in his eyes that was practically irresistible. ‘Going somewhere?’ he said.

Hallie dropped the sheet and took a hasty step backwards, almost falling over her feet in the process. ‘I, ah, yes. I thought I’d get up early and go down and see if Jasmine needs a hand with the breakfast preparations.’

Nick’s smile deepened. ‘Good of you,’ he said.

‘Yes, well, things to do.’ Hallie smiled brightly as her heart pounded and her skin tingled at the sound of his sleepy, sexy rumble and with one last wayward glance for the dazzling display of blatant masculinity spread out in front of her she fled to the bathroom before temptation and Nicholas Cooper’s smile got the better of her.

Jasmine hadn’t really expected that last night’s fun in the kitchen would make Kai less reserved around her this morning, so it came as no surprise when Kai refused her help with breakfast preparations and handed her a cup of piping-hot tea instead. She leaned against the counter and blew on the tea gently as she watched him ignore her. No conversation to be had here unless she initiated it, so that was what she did.

‘Is the extra security still necessary?’ she asked.

‘For now.’ This time Kai did look at her. ‘Something feels off.’

‘But you don’t know what?’

‘Not yet.’

‘So where does the extra security fit in with your advice for me to get out and see the world?’

‘I’m working on it,’ was all Kai said.

And eventually Jasmine took her cup of tea to the library, which had for most of her life doubled as her school room. Curiosity led her to the computer, where she typed in the name Jake Bennett Martial Arts Singapore. Several links popped up. One for a karate school. Two were video clip links. Jasmine chose the videos, and was halfway through watching the first one when Kai came in and set a small plate of fruit at her elbow, before shifting behind her for a better view of the screen.

She liked him behind her; he made her feel safe.

He also made her blood quicken and her breath hitch, but those were responses he didn’t want to know about.

‘One of them is Hallie’s brother,’ she murmured.

‘Which one?’

‘I don’t know yet.’ They were both westerners. ‘But he wins it.’

The competitors looked evenly matched, for a time. And then one of them blocked what would have been a crippling blow and it was as if he suddenly stopped holding back. ‘That one,’ said Jasmine.

Ten seconds later it was all over.

‘This is the man who raised Hallie and her other three brothers,’ murmured Jasmine. ‘No wonder she’s fearless.’

‘Does Hallie fight too?’

‘I didn’t ask.’ Jasmine pressed the replay link. ‘Could you take him?’

Kai watched the fight from start to finish. ‘No. I lack the rage.’

‘Isn’t rage a weakness?’

‘Not for him. It’s too much a part of him.’

‘All this you can tell from one fight?’

Kai’s lips tilted ever so slightly. ‘It’s just an opinion.’

‘Will you lend me another opinion, Meng Kai?’ Jasmine turned in the computer chair to look up at him and got caught in his eyes and couldn’t look away. Neither, it seemed, could he.

‘Ask.’

‘I’ve been thinking about what I might want from this life. Where I might go. What I could do. I’m thinking of going to university in Singapore. Or even Shanghai.’

‘To study what?’

‘Life,’ said Jasmine. ‘And a communications degree.’

‘Have you spoken to your father?’

‘Not yet. I need to know if you think I’ll need a bodyguard in this new life of mine before I approach him.’

‘Your father will want to set you up securely, yes.’

‘That goes without saying. What do
you
think I need security wise? Please, Kai. I need honesty from you on this, not just what you think my father will say. You’ve been part of my family for close to ten years now. You know things I don’t. Have I ever been in real danger?’

‘After your mother first died, yes. Lately, no. Your father has made it his mission to forge alliances that strengthen your safety and his.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning no criminal organisation known to me would touch you for fear of the retribution that would follow.’

‘Criminal organisations fear my
father
?’

‘They do now. Money is always power. Your father has a great deal of money. And as I said, alliances have been forged.’

‘With
criminal
organisations?’

‘With other powerful business dynasties, yes.’

‘Why did I not know this?’

‘You’ve never asked.’

Jasmine’s world was cracking wide open and
she didn’t like the colour of what she found inside. She was still sitting looking up at him and it made her feel like a child. She stood up. Kai stepped back. Satisfaction flickered deep inside. Maybe he should be scared of her, of the truths she could drag out into the light. Wisdom suggested that maybe she should be scared too, but Jasmine didn’t back down. She was so tired of being protected from the truth. ‘So why do we have you?’

‘Your father lost something very valuable. He demanded something of equal value in return from those who were ultimately responsible for your mother’s death. A firstborn son – given freely. One charged with protecting his daughter.’

‘
You?
’

Of all the reasons she’d ever contemplated when it came to Kai’s continued presence in her life, this hadn’t been one of them.

‘Me,’ offered Kai quietly.

‘Your
father
was responsible for my mother’s death?’

‘In my father’s defence, he was dealing with a takeover bid at the time. He did not authorise your mother’s kidnapping. The perpetrators were family nonetheless. In order to avoid wholesale slaughter of our family, reparation was made.’

‘You,’ she said again.

Kai shrugged. ‘In
your
father’s defence, he has treated me like a son. Had I wanted to study, I could have studied. I’m privy to all your father’s business dealings. I represent him in some of them. They’re all legal, by the way. Should I want out of my family’s business, your father has given me a way out.’

‘And do you want out of your family business?’ she asked faintly.

Kai’s lips twisted briefly. ‘I am still my father’s loyal son.’

‘Kai, I don’t even know what that
means
.’

‘It means I do as I’m bid.’

And presumably had no say in the matter. ‘Does this … arrangement have an expiry date?’

‘Your father may choose to release me. He hasn’t yet.’

‘My father will release you,’ she said fiercely. ‘I’ll
make
him release you.’

‘Leave it.’

‘How can I
leave it
if you’re here against your will because of some crazy deal made by two stubborn old men? If you wanted me to leave it, why even
tell
me?’

‘You asked if I thought you needed a bodyguard once you leave your father’s house. Recent events notwithstanding, I don’t think you do. Between
your father’s reach and mine, you could study in either Singapore or Shanghai and still be fully protected. You don’t need me at your back – not in person. You never have.’

‘So I’m free.’

‘As free as you want to be.’

‘And you’re not.’

Kai said nothing.

‘Can’t you see how wrong this is? What they’ve done to you?’

The ghost of a smile flashed across his features. ‘Better this than dead. And there would have been a
lot
of dead. In serving your family I also serve my own. Reparation has been made. It continues to be made.’

‘My father is a monster.’ Jasmine felt hollow. ‘And so’s yours.’

‘When you are older you will understand.’

‘What? That it’s perfectly all right for an innocent man to pay for another’s mistakes?’

‘That honour has been served.’ Kai’s tone was implacable. ‘Let it go, Jasmine. You’re not a part of this. Keep it that way.’

Not a part of this? ‘How can you say I’m not a part of this, Kai? I’ve been a party to this for almost ten years.’ She wanted to push at him and beat on him, cling to him and take him with her into the pit
of despair that opened beneath her feet. ‘How can I not be a part of this when they gave me you?’

Jasmine would have gone to confront her father right then and there but for the hand Kai wrapped around her upper arm. He stepped in close and there was no wrenching away. Jasmine knew from yesterday’s sparring exercise exactly how that would turn out.

‘Settle,’ he whispered, with his lips to her ear. ‘Don’t challenge your father over this. He has too much to lose. He won’t back down. He can’t.’

‘He will. Let you go or lose me; those are my terms.’

‘Only a child would judge things so simply. Are you still a child, Jasmine? Or would you rather I saw you as an adult?’

She turned her head and caught his swift expulsion of breath and wanted to chase it right back to his mouth, so firm and fine and close. ‘I hate you.’

‘No, you don’t,’ he muttered, and then with a stifled curse, he touched his lips to hers, soft and fleeting, and the desire that raced through her – hot on the heels of fury – now wasn’t that a fine sensation.

She might have gasped. He might have hesitated before transferring his lips to the curve of her
lower lip and then gently, ever so delicately, wetting it with his tongue.

Kai’s kisses weren’t as good as his kisses in her dreams – they were better. Jasmine tilted her head slightly and positioned her lips more fully against his and his taste, when finally his tongue curled around hers, was sharply perfect.

Mine. That thought sang through her, dark and disturbing.

More. She wanted it, put her hand over his heart in search of it as his hand came up to cup her jaw and tilt her head for better access.

More bruising now, his mouth against hers, and she wanted that force, returned it, tasting deep inside his mouth and then she closed her eyes and sucked gently on his tongue and his heart kicked at that so she did it some more.

When he wrenched away from her she let him go, eyes half closed and her heart thundering in her chest as if she’d climbed a thousand stairs.

‘How can you still want me?’ he asked harshly, as if he’d run those thousand steps right along with her. ‘Knowing who I am?’

‘How will I ever
not
want you?’ she accused right back at him. ‘Knowing what you are.’

H
ALLIE EYED JASMINE’S FACE
and mouth curiously when Jasmine entered the breakfast room but opted to comment on the delights of chilled red dragon fruit rather than Jasmine’s dishevelled appearance, and for that Jasmine was grateful.

‘Like kiwi fruit only better,’ said Hallie, before scraping the last of the flesh from the fruit and swallowing it with a satisfied sigh. ‘Do you have any plans for today?’

‘Apparently I’m supposed to settle.’ Kai’s words, not hers.

‘Settle for what?’

‘Exactly.’ Why had Kai kissed her exactly? To confirm what he already knew? That she was halfway to being in love with him? To remind her that she was no longer a child? Or maybe he’d thought
that a kiss between them wouldn’t work the way it had.

Rapture or despair? Because both were right there, waiting for her to choose.

She couldn’t help the choked laughter that bubbled from her lips. Grow up, Kai had as good as told her. Grow up and step into the real world.

‘Jas?’ said Hallie quietly. ‘Everything okay?’

Her mother used to call her that. Hallie didn’t know. Couldn’t know.

‘Jasmine?’

‘Jasmine is better,’ said Jasmine faintly. ‘My mother used to call me the other.’

‘Jasmine it is.’ Hallie Bennett-Cooper understood. ‘How can I help?’

‘Just talk.’

‘About what?’

‘University. Living abroad. Brothers. Marriage. Anything.’

And, obliging guest that she was, Hallie did, while Jasmine turned her attention towards the little things that made up her days. The clearing away of food, the replacing of spent incense sticks, taking receipt of the dry cleaning that was delivered to the door, welcoming the gardener who came twice. Mid-morning saw her and Hallie back
in the library, Hallie browsing through a collection of books on Chinese art while Jasmine arranged two upcoming social events for her father.

‘Gaps,’ said Hallie suddenly.

‘Gaps?’

‘I’m watching you run your father’s household, taking on some of the duties that your mother would have performed, and it reminded me of the gaps that have to be filled when a family member isn’t there any more. In our family, Jake tried to fill them all.’

‘You didn’t take on any household duties in your family?’ asked Jasmine curiously.

‘No. I was the youngest. And then Jake got married and his wife tried to mother us and take on the household duties and, boy, did
that
not work out. And then Ji left and it still took me years to realise that the best part of Jake had gone with her. Jake stayed with us because we had no one else, and we let him because we were too young and too blind to realise what it cost him.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘You told me to talk. I have been but I’m all out of small talk. I’m up to the spilling of confidences. Other people’s confidences, at any rate. Would you rather I stopped?’

‘No!’ Jasmine shook her head as if embarrassed.
‘No, I like hearing it. I like the comparison. I would hear more of the nature of gaps.’

‘You know how sometimes you just want to go back in time and redo something, only this time you’d do it all differently?’ said Hallie. ‘Whenever I think of Jake’s ex I want to go back and do it all differently.’

‘You should write to her. Tell her your regrets.’

‘No. It’s too little too late. Besides, I don’t even have an address for her.’

Hallie deserved the look Jasmine sent her.

‘Would you help me look for one?’ asked Hallie suddenly. ‘As in now? Today? Because I’ve tried to find Ji online before but she’s Chinese and I come unstuck with the language.’

‘Of course.’ It would help take Jasmine’s mind off other things. ‘What’s her name?’

‘Jianne Xang. Bennett,’ Hallie added as an afterthought.

Twenty minutes later they had an address and Jasmine wrote it out carefully on a thick vellum envelope and then Hallie dictated her childhood address and Jasmine wrote that one on the back before handing the envelope to her with a flourish.

‘I feel like a child again,’ said Hallie shakily. ‘About to beg forgiveness.’

‘I felt like that yesterday,’ said Jasmine. ‘Today I’m a disillusioned old woman.’

‘What happened to glories of young womanhood?’

‘I appear to have skipped them.’

‘That’s too bad.’ Hallie held up the envelope. ‘I’m going to put this upstairs. Come with me and tell me if the gown I plan to wear tonight is appropriate. I’m pretty sure the young woman in you will know.’

The young woman in her did know. The gown was glorious and Hallie was going to look stunning in it.

And then they rustled through Jasmine’s closet and she didn’t have a thing to wear.

She didn’t want to look fresh and pure and youthful. She needed a colour that would hold up against Hallie’s gold and a cut that would showcase what womanly curves she’d managed to acquire.

‘How much time do we have before your father and Nick get home?’ asked Hallie after rifling through Jasmine’s closet as well and coming up empty.

‘I’m not sure. I believe it depends on how long the lawyers take. Today everyone is in the same room. Nick and his representatives, my father and
his. Together they will work through the contract, making changes along the way.’

‘Sounds very collaborative. Is that how it’s always done?’

‘This close to closure, yes.’

Jasmine waited for Hallie to pump her for more information, but Hallie just nodded and for that Jasmine was grateful. She’d have liked Hallie a lot less had she begun to pump Jasmine for information regarding her father’s business.

‘Do we have a driver who is
not
Kai who could take us gown shopping?’ asked Hallie and Jasmine smiled. This almost felt like friendship. And she badly needed a friend right now.

‘We still have the extra security,’ said Jasmine. ‘Why don’t we ask?’

The clothing store Jasmine took them to didn’t do price tags. They did private viewings, three sales assistants for every customer and one customer at a time, and they did accessories and shoes and if it wasn’t for Jasmine’s innate poise and comfort in such a place, Hallie would have been out of there within thirty seconds of walking through the door.

Shopping with Clea had been upmarket but fun.

Shopping in hushed and deferential silence was
no fun at all, especially when there seemed to be a look but don’t touch policy in place and hardly any clothes on display.

‘Are you sure we’ll find what we’re looking for here?’ Hallie eyed the red beaded confection wrapped around a dressmaker’s dummy with scepticism. Clea would have loved it. Hallie loved the colour. But it was an older woman’s choice. They all were. ‘Music would be good,’ she murmured and one of the saleswomen nodded and shortly thereafter, soft music began to play, the remaining sales staff asked Jasmine what she was after and gown after gown started appearing from behind closed doors.

Jasmine smiled. ‘Better?’

‘Much,’ murmured Hallie. ‘I’m all for broadening my horizons, and this … this definitely qualifies. ‘Let’s find you the perfect gown.’

The sales staff tried – they did try – but so many of the gowns they brought out for Jasmine to see were simply too loud, too sophisticated or too much of a fashion statement.

‘Not flattering,’ she said of a black sheath with a low-cut neckline, for Jasmine simply didn’t have the curves or the confidence to pull off such a combination. ‘No,’ she said to the next one, and no again to the one after that.

‘No,’ said Hallie with a shake of her head for a strapless red gown with gold embroidered accents on the bodice.

‘This is very nice,’ protested Jasmine.

‘It is. But I’ve seen what else is in your cupboard and this is too much of a departure from it. Trust me; this is a mistake I’ve already made. I wasn’t allowed to
wear
half the clothes I bought home from my first solo shopping trip.’

Two of the three sales assistants glared at her. Hallie addressed her next words to the third woman. ‘This dress is beautiful, yes, and it does look flattering on, but more than anything else, we need something stunning, simple and
subtle
. Miss Tey is a widower’s daughter. Let’s not give her father reason to send the dress back.’

The next dress they brought out was a full-length midnight-blue gown with a sweetly demure neckline and next to no back. It fitted Jasmine to perfection.

‘Hair up,’ directed Hallie with a hand gesture that signified as much. Within moments, the sales staff had Jasmine’s long hair wound around into a roll and secured with chopstick-like hairpins with pearls dangling from the ends. Everyone but Jasmine stood back and nodded. Jasmine looked at herself in the full length mirror and frowned.

‘It’s so plain.’

‘Understated,’ said Hallie firmly. ‘Not plain. Turn to the side and look,’ said Hallie. ‘Better?’

Jasmine turned. ‘Yes.’

‘Now from the back.’

Jasmine turned again and looked over her shoulder at the mirror and gasped.

‘Bingo,’ said Hallie.

This was the one.

They returned to the Tey residence just after two. No sign of anyone else yet. Time enough for Hallie relax and watch the sheen of misery fall back over Jasmine’s eyes.

‘I thought I chased that away,’ she murmured around a steaming cup of green tea.

‘Chased what away?’

‘The sadness.’

‘You did, for a while.’ Jasmine’s lips curved into a regretful smile. ‘And I am grateful.’

‘Want to tell me what’s troubling you?’

‘I can’t,’ said Jasmine.

‘Any plans for Kai at the ball?’

‘Not yet.’ Jasmine chewed on her lower lip. ‘Hallie, what would you do if you found out that someone in your family had been lying to you by omission? Keeping ugly truths from you? What if
they turned out to be … less honourable than you believed them to be?’

‘People often lie,’ said Hallie carefully. ‘Sometimes they do it to protect another person’s feelings; sometimes it just seems like a good idea at the time.’

Never again was Hallie going to pretend to be someone’s wife for a week. Not even if they offered her planet earth as compensation.

‘I don’t mean the little things,’ said Jasmine. ‘What if it’s a lie that changes the fabric of your world?’

‘Then I guess after I’d stopped beating on them that I’d have to ask them why they did it.’

‘And if you didn’t like the answer?’

‘Guess I’d have to beat them up some more.’

‘Could you ever turn away from them? From Nick?’

‘No.’ Hallie thought about it a moment more. ‘No. My family may not be perfect but neither am I. They’re mine. I’m theirs. I wouldn’t turn away.’

‘Okay,’ said Jasmine raggedly. ‘Okay.’

The defeat in the younger girl’s voice set the hair on Hallie’s arms standing on end. ‘Jasmine?’

Hallie waited until Jasmine had lifted her gaze from the intricately patterned carpet that graced the floor between them.

‘You know how I said yesterday that you should make up your own mind rather than listen to some clueless stranger’s advice, particularly when that clueless stranger has no real grasp of the bigger picture?’

‘I remember.’

‘That advice still stands.’