She could appreciate him like this. His regular features were enough to make him good-looking, but they also had a mobility that was constantly intriguing. His eyes could be bland and conventional, or wickedly knowing in a way that gave him a disconcerting charm. She wondered if there was anyone he regretted from his own past. A warm-natured man in his thirties, with a deep belief in the value of romantic love, had surely not reached this point without some sadness along the road.
She began to muse on the subject, wondering if there was a way to question him without revealing too much interest. There wasn’t, of course, and an alarm bell sounded in her head. This was just the kind of atmosphere she’d learned to fear-seductive, romantic, lulling her senses and her mind in dangerous harmony.
It was time for common sense to take over. In a few minutes she would suggest that the evening should end soon, phrasing it carefully. She began to plan the words, even deciding what she would say when he protested.
Lang was beckoning to Wei, paying the bill, and ordering him to stop giggling and make himself scarce. Wei departed jauntily. Olivia took a deep breath to make her speech.
‘We’d better go,’ Lang said.
‘Pardon?’
‘We both have to work tomorrow, so I’ll get you home quickly. I’m sorry to have kept you out so late.’
‘Don’t mention it,’ she said faintly.
On the journey she wondered what was going to happen now. Lang had recognised that she wasn’t ready for a decision, while subtly implying that he was attracted to her. He was charming and funny, with a quiet, gentle strength that appealed to her, perhaps because she could sense something quirky and irreverent beneath it.
A light-hearted flirtation could be agreeable, but if he wanted more, if he planned to end the evening in her arms-or even in her apartment-what then? A gentle letdown? How did you half-reject someone you more than half-liked? Again she began to think about what she would say to him.
When they arrived, he came with her to the apartment block.
‘How far up are you?’ he asked.
‘Second floor.’
He rode up with her and came to her door.
‘Lang?’ she began uneasily.
‘Yes?’
She lost her nerve. ‘Would you care to come in for a drink?’
‘I certainly want to come in, but not for a drink. Let’s get inside and I’ll explain, although I’m sure you know what the problem is.’
Once inside he took off his jacket and helped her off with hers.
‘You’ll need to remove your blouse as well,’ he said, beginning to work on her buttons.
‘Lang…’
He took no notice, opening the buttons one by one until he could remove the blouse, revealing her as he had the day before. She was astonished at his effrontery. Did he think he could simply undress her, seduce her, do as he liked with her?
‘Now let me look at that arm,’ he said.
‘My arm?’ she echoed, thunderstruck.
‘That’s why I came to find you tonight, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, yes-I remember.’
She had a horrible feeling that she sounded idiotic, but that was how she felt. He hadn’t come here to seduce her, but to tend her. Her wild thoughts had been nonsense. She felt herself blushing from head to toe.
Then she thought she caught a gleam of mischief in his eyes, although it was gone before she could be certain.
With her blouse removed, he held her arm up, moving his head this way and that without appearing to notice anything but her injury. He had no eyes for the peachy, youthful glow of her skin, the way her waist narrowed and the lamp threw shadows between her breasts. It was almost insulting.
‘This is the last time it will need covering,’ he said. ‘It’s healing nicely.’
He’d brought a small bag in with him, and from it he took replacement dressings. He covered the grazes lightly, and fixed everything in place.
‘Now get a good night’s sleep,’ he instructed.
Then he was heading out of the apartment, without having touched her, except as a doctor.
‘Wait,’ she said desperately. ‘What did you mean about “the problem”?’
He paused in the doorway.
‘The problem,’ he said, ‘is that you’re still my patient. Later…’
‘Later?’
His gaze moved over her slowly, lingering just a little on the beauty he had so dutifully ignored.
‘Later you won’t be. Goodnight.’
The school term was nearly over. Olivia was busy writing reports, talking to parents and consulting with the headmistress, who looked in on her on the penultimate day.
‘I’m just making plans for next year,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I’m so glad you’re staying.’
‘Staying?’ Olivia echoed vaguely.
‘You originally came for six months, but when I asked if you were going to stay on you said you would. Don’t you remember?’
‘Oh, yes-yes.’
‘You really sound in need of a holiday,’ Mrs Wu said kindly.
‘It’s just that I’ve been wondering if I should go home.’
‘But you can do that and still come back next term. From all you’ve told me about Norah, she wants you to stay here and spread your wings. I hope you come back. You’re doing such a good job. But you’ve got my number if you have a last-minute change of mind.’
Olivia went home, thoughtful. Everything that had seemed simple only a short while ago had suddenly become complicated.
It was true that Norah showed no sign of wanting her early return. Only last night she’d been at her most lively, talking furiously about Melisande’s latest lover.
‘You mean, Freddy?’ Olivia had queried.
‘No. Freddy’s finished since she caught him sleeping with a pole dancer. It’s your father.’
‘Mum and Dad? What are they playing at?’
‘I gather he went to see her, seeking solace from a broken heart.’
‘I thought you said he’d made some girl pregnant.’
‘He thought he had, but apparently it’s not his, so he went to cry on your mother’s shoulder because, and I quote, “she’s the only one who understands”.’
‘Give me patience!’
‘That’s what I said. Anyway, it seems that they looked at each other across the barrier of years, heart spoke to heart as though time and distance had never been…’
‘What?’
‘I told her to get out before she made me ill. It’s just her putting herself centre-stage again, as always.’
Olivia had had to agree. She’d seen, and suffered from, enough of her parents’ selfish grandstanding to dismiss this great romance as just another show in the spotlight.
You could say much the same of all great romances, she thought. Her father would let her mother down again, because that was what men did. It was what Andy had done. And who cared if Lang called her or not?
Several days had passed since their last meeting. After talking so significantly he had fallen silent, and with every passing hour Olivia had condemned herself more angrily as a fool.
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been warned, she told herself crossly. When Andy had appeared in her life, she’d abandoned the caution so carefully built up over a lifetime because she’d convinced herself that this man was different.
But no man was different, as she’d learned in anguish and bitterness. She’d vowed ‘never again’, but then she’d been tricked into ignoring those resolutions because Lang had charmed her.
No, it was more than charm, she admitted. It was the sense of quiet understanding, the feeling that his mind and heart were open to hers, and that she would find in him generosity and understanding.
Heart spoke to heart as though time and distance had never been.
Her mother’s melodramatic words shrieked a warning in her head. She and Lang had met only a couple of times, and came from different worlds, yet time and distance did not exist, hadn’t existed between them from the first moment.