The Trouble with Valentine's

CHAPTER FOUR

PREPARING THE HOUSE FOR the arrival of Nicholas Cooper and his wife wasn’t a difficult task. Jasmine often acted as hostess for her father. Anything from arranging dinner parties to organising tickets and dealing with invitations. Personal assistant, Kai had called her more than once, but it was only to humour her. Jasmine contributed so very little to the running of this household, what with the housekeeper who came in three times a week, and the gardener who worked every morning and Kai who saw to the cars and the dozens of other things her father requested of him.

Bodyguard, her father still called him, only Kai had never been just that.

She really didn’t know what he was.

Eleven years old, she’d been, when her father had brought Kai home one night shortly after her mother’s death. It had been Jasmine’s bedtime and she’d been worried because her father wasn’t home yet. She’d worried about everything in those days.

Her father had called her into his home office and she’d stopped in the doorway, not dressed for visitors but unable to look away from the young man standing so straight and still beside her father. In profile, he’d been the most beautiful boy she’d ever seen, and that included on the television. And then he’d turned to look at her and his face had been so pale and he’d looked so incredibly lost. As lost as she felt.

‘Meng Kai’s going to be living here with us,’ her father had said, and Kai’s lips had twisted into a bitter smile, even as he offered her a small bow. Jasmine bowed back, lower, because Meng Kai was older, maybe eighteen, and Jasmine knew her manners.

She’d looked up at him again, wanting to ask why he was staying with them and for how long, and maybe she would ask her father those things when they were alone, but not now. Her father wouldn’t like it if she asked those questions now.

‘He’ll be staying here indefinitely,’ her father said quietly, as if reading her mind, and the utter silence that had followed had been clouded with an emotion that to this day Jasmine couldn’t quite define. Maybe it had been despair.

‘Did they take Meng Kai’s mother too?’ she’d asked, and her hushed voice had rippled across that silence and made the boy flinch.

‘Something like that,’ her father had offered gruffly – her father didn’t like to talk about what had happened to her mother, Jasmine knew that, but household staff gossiped and Jasmine had big ears and silent feet and she knew full well what had happened to her mother. She knew what loss felt like. And so too – it seemed – did this Kai, who still hadn’t spoken and whose eyes skittered away from hers every time she looked at him.

‘It’s okay,’ she said and stepped hesitantly forward, first one step and then another until she reached his side. She slipped her hand inside Kai’s and frowned when Kai tensed and sent her father a panicked look. Her father looked tense too, but he said nothing, so Jasmine filled the gap. ‘They can’t get us here. We just have to stay away from the windows and not go outside without permission and do exactly what the guards say. You’re safe here. No monsters can get at us here.’

Kai had looked down at her and there’d been a world of pain in his beautiful black eyes as he’d replied, ‘I know.’

‘Kai’s a bodyguard,’ her father had said finally. ‘He’ll see to your protection.’

There had been bodyguards on the grounds and in the house for weeks – at least half a dozen of them at any one time. Jasmine didn’t know why they would need any more, or why her father would choose a bodyguard so young.

She did know – instinctively – that Meng Kai was special. ‘Are you like Bruce Lee?’

‘No one’s like Bruce Lee,’ Meng Kai said.

‘Jackie Chan?’

‘No.’

Jasmine eyed him speculatively. ‘Maybe if you smiled.’

But Kai hadn’t smiled. Not during those first few months. Not for a very long time, and then only rarely.

Meng Kai had moved into the apartment above the garage, he’d had free rein of the house. It hadn’t been long before the housekeeper and the gardener and Jasmine’s tutors all answered to him. Jasmine had answered to him too – such a timid little thing she’d once been. No thought of disobedience – if Kai or her father told her to do something, Jasmine did it. So eager to please. So damn lonely, only Kai hadn’t wanted to be friends with her. Not at first.

And then the levee had given way and all of a sudden Kai had unbent – though only with her – and Jasmine had taken full advantage of his change of heart. Kai become her confidante, her sounding board, the big brother she’d never had. Kai was comfort, he was protection, and most of all he was hers.

To all intents they’d been family, Jasmine thought grimly, returning to the now just long enough to place new toiletries in the guest bathroom. Father, older brother, younger sister.

And then Jasmine had turned sixteen and Kai twenty-four, and Kai had fought hard for Jasmine to have more freedom, more friends. ‘She’s too sheltered,’ Kai had said bluntly, during one of his rare arguments with her father. ‘You have to give her room to grow. You can’t make her world this small.’

‘She has everything money can buy,’ her father had countered.

‘She needs freedom. We both do. She can’t continue to look to me for all those things you don’t allow her to experience any other way. Send her to school. Let her make friends. Widen her focus.’

Part of her had applauded Kai’s words. Part of her had been fearful. To this day, Jasmine didn’t know which emotion would have won out, because her father had been immovable.

Jasmine’s home-schooling would continue as usual. Her strictly regulated social outings would continue, as usual.

And no matter what Kai had said about needing his freedom, Kai had stayed too.

On the morning of Jasmine’s seventeenth birthday, Kai had taken her to the flower market. She’d thought of the trip as a birthday outing, at first. Thought that Kai had wanted to please her, and he had pleased her. He’d bought her street-stall food and given her one of his rare, unguarded smiles when she’d purchased a fake jade turtle on a leather band and slipped it over her head.

She’d been truly happy in that moment; and Kai had reached out to untwist the little turtle and his knuckles had brushed her skin and his eyes had met hers and then he’d withdrawn his hand slowly, almost casually, and put his hand to the back of his head as he’d turned away.

Such a fleeting touch shouldn’t have had the power to throw Jasmine’s world into chaos. Kai had always been beautiful to her. He’d always been her hero.

But just for that moment in time she hadn’t thought of him as a brother.

She’d bought flowers for the household after that and had them delivered, and she’d tried not to dwell on Kai’s touch and the awkwardness that followed. Such an innocent, everyday touch. Kai had meant nothing by it. Nothing at all.

Kai hadn’t wanted to go to the nearby bird market but Jasmine had persisted and finally got her way. Walk it off, she told herself. Focus on something else, something other than Kai. She’d heard that sentiment just days earlier, when Kai had confronted her father, and all of a sudden she saw a reason behind Kai’s impassioned words on her behalf.

A reason she barely knew how to acknowledge.

Morning had flowed around them, warm and bright as they’d made their way on foot to the bird market. Early morning, full of bright-eyed songbirds in their tiny bamboo morning cages. Plain little things, some of them, until she closed her eyes and listened, and then the beauty of the sound had taken her breath away.

So many birds, so many cages; all sorts of birds and everything one could possibly think to feed them. Expensive, the best of these birds. Doting owners who lavished their attention upon them. It had been such a welcome distraction from the memory of Kai’s touch. Something else to think about besides the smooth weight of the little plastic turtle against her skin. Jasmine had loved strolling through the bird market.

Kai, upon reflection, had not.

‘What do you see?’ he’d asked as they reached the end of one crooked alley way and turned to step into the next. ‘Why do you like it?’

‘I like it because there’s life here, and celebration, and beauty and sound and old men whose smiles fill their faces when their favourite songbird sings. There’s colour here, and frenzy. A social structure built around these alleyways. Why wouldn’t I like it?’

‘Have you ever wondered,’ he said, and his voice was low and rough and he would not look at her, ‘what they’d sound like if they were free?’

Three days after the marathon shopping trip, Hallie boarded a plane to Hong Kong. She’d been manicured, pedicured, pampered and polished and was corporate-wife chic in her lightweight camel-coloured trousers and pink camisole. Her shoes matched her top, her handbag was Hermès, and Nick was at her side, thoroughly eye-catching in a grey business suit and crisp white business shirt minus the tie. She was the woman who had it all and it was all pure fantasy.

That didn’t mean she couldn’t embrace the moment.

Wispy streaks of cloud scattered the midday sky, their seats were business class, the take-off was perfect, and Hallie relaxed into her seat, prepared to be thoroughly indulged, only to discover that any woman sitting next to Nick was more likely to be thoroughly ignored. That or she was currently invisible to the women of the world as they dimpled, sighed, primped and preened for him.

The flight attendants settled once the flight was underway and went about their business with efficient professionalism, but the encouraging smiles of the female passengers continued. One innovative young lady even managed to trip and fall gracefully into Nick’s lap amidst a flurry of breathless apology and a great deal of full body contact.

‘Do women always fall over their feet trying to get your attention?’ she asked once the woman had gone.

‘Actually, she fell over my feet,’ said Nick. ‘They were sticking out into the aisle. It was my fault she landed in my lap.’

‘And her breasts in your face? That was your fault too?’

Nick shrugged, trying to look a picture of innocence and failing miserably. ‘She was trying to get up,’ he said in her defence. ‘These things happen.’

‘So I see.’

He was used to it, Hallie decided. He was just plain used to women falling all over him. ‘You know, you’d save yourself a lot of unwanted attention if you wore a wedding ring,’ she said. She was wearing one, along with the terribly traditional diamond engagement ring. As far as the world was concerned she was well and truly taken. Nick’s hands, however, were ring-free.

‘I wasn’t wearing one last time I visited,’ he countered. ‘It’d seem a bit strange if I turned up wearing one now.’

‘No it wouldn’t, considering what happened.’ She was beginning to sense some reluctance here. ‘Say we really were married, would you wear a ring then?’

‘You’d have to insist.’ He slid her a sideways glance. ‘You would too, wouldn’t you?’

‘Absolutely.’ She held her left hand up between them, angling her fingers so that the diamond sparkled in the light. ‘Some people actually respect the sanctity of marriage and don’t hit on a person wearing a wedding ring.’

‘Funny,’ he said dryly. ‘You don’t look that naïve’

‘Hah. It just so happens I don’t think I’m being naïve. But I do concede that if you never wear one we’ll never know.’

The clumsy young thing was back, all purring solicitousness as she asked Nick if she’d hurt him, if he was feeling all right, and was there anything, absolutely anything, she could do for him.

Honestly!

‘Oh, I think we’ve got it covered.’ Hallie smiled, sharp as a blade, as her hand- the one with those shiny rings on it – came to rest high on Nick’s trouser clad thigh. Nothing subtle about that particular manoeuvre; she was claiming ownership and the other woman knew it. ‘On second thoughts, darling, you feel a bit cold,’ she said to Nick as she squeezed gently and slid her hand a fraction higher up his thigh. Muscles jumped beneath her palm even as the rest of him went absolutely still. ‘Would you like a blanket for your lap? There’s one in the webbing in front of you.’

With an annoyed pout and a narrow-eyed glare for Hallie, the other woman made herself scarce. Not that Nick noticed. His wife had his attention now. His complete and utter attention.

‘What are you doing?’ he rasped.

‘Practising.’

‘For what? The mile-high club?’

Hallie’s smile widened. Really, his imagination was so delightfully easy to manipulate. ‘I’m practising my possessive moves for when I meet Jasmine.’

‘Well, would you mind practising with your hand somewhere else? I’m not made of stone.’

This was debatable. Right this minute, Nicholas Cooper’s thigh was hard as a rock. ‘Sorry, my mistake. I thought we agreed on physical contact in public places,’ she said as she withdrew her hand, reached for the blanket and draped it across his knees. She shouldn’t bait him; she knew it. But she couldn’t resist. ‘This is a public place,’ she said sweetly. ‘And we did have an audience.’

‘You know you’re right. You’re absolutely right,’ he said. He flicked off the overhead light, brought her hand back to his thigh and drew the blanket over his lap with a smile that was pure challenge. ‘Feel free to continue.’

Okay, so there was a slight chance she’d been asking for it. Now he was asking for it and she was tempted, very tempted, to deliver. But if she did, things would get out of hand. Or out of trousers and into hand, so to speak, and heaven only knew what would happen after that. Come to think of it, she had a pretty good idea what would happen after that …

And what if they were caught?

They’d be thrown off the plane in disgrace. A big red ‘deviant’ stamp would appear in her passport and then Interpol would sign her up for sexual misconduct reform school and Tris would find out and, oh, the horror …

Nick wasn’t the only one with a vivid imagination.

Feigning nonchalance, Hallie withdrew her hand from his thigh and reached for her glass of water. She was flustered; she was aroused; she was totally out of her league.

She was enjoying every minute of it. ‘Actually, I’ve changed my mind,’ she said.

‘Good call.’ He exhaled deeply.

‘After all, it wouldn’t do to forget that this is strictly a business arrangement.’

‘Exactly.’

Exactly. The sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach was not disappointment. Nick was her employer, nothing more, and only for one week. After that it was contract fulfilled and goodbye. Surely she could resist his considerable charms for one lousy week.

All she needed was a more professional approach.

‘So how do you want to approach this business of being married?’ she said crisply. ‘Are we aiming for warm and fuzzy or a fiery attraction of opposites?’

‘Think of yourself as a cross between a personal assistant and a German Shepherd,’ he said. ‘Supportive, loyal, and when necessary, extremely protective.’

A German Shepherd? Ugh. This new approach worked fast. ‘Anything else?’

‘Are you sure you couldn’t manage a simper?’

‘Positive.’

Nick sighed. ‘Just be yourself then. That’ll work too.’

‘Oh.’ And after a moment’s reflection, ‘That was a nice thing to say.’

‘You realize that was almost a simper?’

‘It was not.’

Nick’s answering smile was suspiciously gleeful as he flicked on his overhead light, reached for the in-flight paper and snapped it open, effectively ending the discussion.

Hallie glared at the back page of the paper. It was shaking ever so slightly. He was laughing at her, dammit. ‘That was not a simper.’

‘If you say so, dearest.’

A fiery marriage, she decided. A constant battle of words and of wits and it was a damn good thing this marriage was only going to last a week.

Any longer and she’d probably kill him.

Twelve hours and several time zones later, they touched down at Chek Lap Kok International Airport, collected their luggage, and met up with the Teys’ driver, who went by the name of Kai. They followed the silent Jet Li lookalike through the streamlined arrivals terminal, out through the huge automatic opening glass doors, and they were in Hong Kong.

‘Phew.’ Wide-eyed at the sleek steel-and-glass building they’d just emerged from, Hallie paused to gather her composure. ‘It’s cooler than I thought it would be.’

‘It’s winter,’ countered Nick. ‘If you want hot and humid, we’ll have to come back in September.’

‘Ah.’

They followed the Teys’ driver towards an illegally parked Mercedes and Hallie began to watch their guide with increasing interest. Maybe it was the easy, graceful way he moved or the way he seemed to know what was happening around them without ever seeming to notice. Maybe it was the way he loaded their suitcases into the trunk as if they were empty, which was definitely not the case. Maybe it was simply that he was gorgeous, with a quiet intensity about him that drew the eye, but … no. That wasn’t it either. He reminded her of someone.

He reminded her of Tris.

‘This is the Teys’ driver?’ she whispered to Nick ‘I’m guessing that’s not all he is.’

‘No,’ agreed Kai in a soft, cultured voice as he shut the trunk and opened the car door for her. ‘I also cook.’

‘Nice.’ Hallie smiled at the man. ‘But you can’t fool me. You’re security.’ High-end protection with supernatural hearing and a penchant for kitchen knives. Lucky for Nick she’d had years of experience when it came to outwitting suspicious, eagle-eyed men whose mission in life was to serve and protect. At least this one wasn’t related to her. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

‘And you, Mrs Cooper.’

Mrs Cooper. Oh, hell. This was it.

For the next five days she was Mrs Nicholas Cooper.

The drive to the Tey residence was a silent one. The driver drove, Nick brooded, and Hallie grew wide-eyed again as they entered the neon-lit tunnel that would take them beneath Victoria Harbour and across to Hong Kong Island. Awe at the tunnel added to her anxiety about meeting the Teys and set her stomach to churning. Funny, but she’d never actually thought posing as Nick’s wife was going to be hard.

Until now.

Finally, they shot out of the tunnel into real light again, skirted Hong Kong Island’s central business district, and started weaving their way up a long, steep slope; towering apartment blocks giving way to luxury villas that grew bigger and grander the higher they climbed.

‘How do I look?’ she asked as the Mercedes pulled into a paved driveway and swept through no nonsense wrought iron security gates that closed behind them.

‘Beautiful.’ Nick took her hand in his and, with a reassuring smile, brushed her knuckles with his lips. ‘You look beautiful.’

‘Not helping,’ she warned, rapidly withdrawing her fingers from his grasp.

‘Beddable,’ he said next, which earned him a glare.

They were as ready as they were going to get.

Nineteen-year-old Jasmine Tey stood at her bedroom window and waited for her father’s guests to arrive with a mixture of anticipation and terror. Nicholas and his wife would arrive within the hour, their room was ready, refreshments were ready and Kai had gone to collect them from the airport. Everything was as it should be except for the butterflies in her stomach that would not be still and the suffocating fear that within this next hour Kai and her father were going to find out about her late night visit to Nicholas’s room, and once that information came out …

If that information got out …

Because Jasmine’s current mission in life was to prevent that information from coming to light. She had to get Nick off somewhere by himself and apologise and beg his pardon for her earlier behaviour. Somehow, she had to swear him to silence on the matter and she had to do it fast.

Because Kai and her father; they could never know.

Jasmine turned away from the window at the sound of her father’s footsteps, slid damp palms down the front of her pretty silk sundress and offered up a smile.

‘Everything ready for our guests’ arrival?’ he asked from the doorway.

‘Yes, Father.’

Her father’s eyes were smiling and wise. They’d always been wise. They’d always looked on her with love and delight and Jasmine never wanted that to change.

‘I wonder what his wife will be like,’ he said.

‘Me too.’

‘He didn’t mention her last time he was here,’ her father said next.

Jasmine offered up a composed smile – a smile that pretended indifference when it came to Nicholas and his rarely mentioned wife. No secret shame here, nothing to worry about at all. ‘He did to me.’

Nicholas’s wife was a vibrant, bright-eyed woman not that much older than Jasmine. She had a wide warm smile, golden-brown eyes and the most amazing dark red hair … Jasmine tried not to stare at her hair and did a poor job of it as her father moved in to welcome Nick and they shook hands and clasped shoulders and then Nick turned to his wife and put a gentle hand to the small of her back.

‘I’d like you to meet my wife, Hallie Bennett-Cooper,’ said Nick and Jasmine stood back, making herself as small as possible, and let the introductions continue until her father beckoned her forward.

‘My daughter, Jasmine,’ said her father and she put on her best social smile for Nick and Hallie Bennett-Cooper both. Nick’s eyes were still smiley; he was still very handsome.

Best of all, he didn’t look angry or wary and when he opened his mouth the words that came out were, ‘Lovely to see you again, Jasmine’ and not ‘don’t enter my room uninvited this time.’

Not that he would have said that. Not in front of people, surely. Nicholas Cooper was an English gentleman. Wasn’t he?

‘Welcome,’ she offered, and dragged her gaze away from Nick and turned her attention to his wife – hoping upon hope that Hallie Bennett-Cooper would attribute Jasmine’s lack of speech to English-as-a-second-language problem rather than an acute attack of embarrassment and guilt.