don’t know. I’m going to eat.’
Concentrating on her chopsticks, she didn’t see the uncomfortable look that came over Lang’s face.
‘This food is nice,’ she said after a while. ‘But not as nice as at the Dancing Dragon.’
To her surprise he didn’t respond to the compliment. He seemed sunk in thought, and strangely uneasy.
‘Is everything all right?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he said with an effort. ‘There’s something I have to tell you.’
There was a heaviness in his voice that filled Olivia with foreboding.
‘I must admit that I’ve been putting this moment off,’ Lang continued awkwardly. ‘I was afraid it would make you think badly of me. I know I’ve done wrong, but I didn’t want to risk not seeing you again.’
Now she knew what he was trying to say: he had a wife.
Impossible. In that case he would never have taken her to the Dancing Dragon where they would be seen by his family. But perhaps the family’s attitude had simply been curiosity that their foreign relative was playing around. She tried to recall exactly what they had said, and couldn’t.
‘Will you promise to let me finish explaining before you condemn me?’ he asked.
By ill luck, Andy had said much the same thing: ‘If only you’d let me explain properly, it really wasn’t my fault…’
A chill settled over her heart.
‘Go on then,’ she said. ‘Tell me the worst.’
Lang took a deep breath and seemed to struggle for words.
‘The fact is-’ he began, stopped then started again. ‘When we met-’ He was floundering.
‘Look,’ she said edgily, ‘why don’t we just skip it and go home?’
‘Don’t you want to know what I have to say?’
‘I probably already know what you’re going to say,’ she observed with a faint, mirthless laugh.
‘You guessed? I don’t see how you could have done.’
‘Let’s say I have a nose for some things. Call it my cynical nature.’
‘I don’t think you’re as cynical as you try to pretend.’
Her temper flared. ‘And I don’t think you know anything about me.’
He stared. ‘All right, don’t jump on me. I’m harmless, I swear it. I’ll believe that you’re anything you say-hard, cynical, unfeeling…’
‘Ruthless, unforgiving, cold-hearted,’ she supplied. ‘I’m glad you understand.’
‘I wish you hadn’t said unforgiving,’ he observed gloomily.
‘Well, I did say it. I never give second chances. Now, if we’ve got that settled, what were you going to confess? Something unforgivable, obviously.’
‘Well, you might think so.’
Her dismay increased. ‘All right. I’m listening.’
‘It’s like this. When we met in that clinic-I wouldn’t normally be there. I work in another part of the hospital, and I’d just started a vacation. But a friend who does work in the clinic got a stomach upset and had to take time off. They were short staffed, so I filled in.’
‘But what’s so terrible about that?’ she asked, trying to think straight through the confusion of reactions storming through her.
‘The thing is, he was back next morning. I did try to persuade him that he needed another day off, but he got an attack of heroics and insisted on returning.’ Lang sighed and added distractedly, ‘A man can’t trust his friends for anything, not even to be ill when he needs them to be.’
‘What on earth are you-?’
‘So when I came to see you next day I wasn’t working in the clinic any more, and strictly speaking you were no longer my patient.’
Olivia stared at him in mounting disbelief. ‘Are you saying…?’
‘That I lied to you,’ he said mournfully. ‘I approached you under false pretences, claiming that you were my patient when you no longer were. I deceived you.’
Olivia met his eyes and drew a quick breath at what she saw there, a look of suspiciously bland innocence that masked something far from innocent. This man wasn’t worried about being in trouble. He was inviting her into a conspiracy.
‘You’re overdoing it,’ she said wryly.
‘No, honestly! On the pretext of medical privilege, I gained access to your body.’
‘To my-? Oh, yes, you saw my bare arm, didn’t you?’ she said sardonically. ‘How could I have forgotten that? Shocking!’
‘It was a little more than your arm,’ he reminded her. ‘If you want to report me to the medical authorities, well, I’ll just have to accept it, won’t I?’
‘And if I kicked your shins you’d just have to accept that, wouldn’t you?’ she said sweetly.
‘It would be my just deserts.’
‘Don’t get me started on your just deserts or we’ll be here all night.’
‘Would we? Tell me more.’
‘Let’s just say that you’re a devious, treacherous-I can’t think of anything bad enough.’
‘I’ll wait while you think of something. After all, it was shocking behaviour on my part.’
‘I didn’t mean that. I meant just now, making me think-’
‘What?’
She pulled herself together. ‘Making me think it was something really serious, instead of just fooling.’
She could barely speak for the confusion of relief and fear that warred in her: relief that he was a free man, fear that it mattered so much. She tried to bring herself under control lest he guess the truth.
Or did he already know? He was watching her intently but cautiously, as though trying to discover something that was important to him.
‘I wanted to see you again,’ he said simply. ‘And that was the best excuse I could find.’
The storm died down. The relief was still there, but now tinged with laughter. The world was bright.
‘Well, I guess I’m glad you thought of something,’ she admitted.
He took her hand. ‘So am I.’
‘I’m still annoyed with you, but I forgive you-on a purely temporary basis.’
‘That’s all I ask.’
‘So what is your job in the hospital?’
Lang shrugged. ‘I fill in a lot, do the stuff nobody else wants.’ He squeezed her hand gently. ‘Sometimes I get a good day.’
He didn’t pursue the subject and she was glad. The attraction between them was growing slowly, delicately, and she liked it that way. Any sudden movements might be fatal.
He was looking down at her hand, rubbing his fingers against it softly, and she had the feeling that he was uneasy again.
‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘What terrible crime do you have to admit now?’
‘We-ell…’
‘Be brave. It can’t be worse than you’ve already confessed.’
‘The fact is there have been some repercussions to the other night. Wei, the great blabbermouth, went home and sounded off to my family, telling them all about you.’
‘But he doesn’t know anything about me-unless, of course, you’ve told him, which would be another abuse of medical privilege.’ She considered him, her head on one side. ‘You really are proving to be a disreputable character. Interesting, but disreputable.’
‘This time I plead not guilty. Anything I know about you-which is frustratingly little-I keep firmly to myself. Wei’s method is to invent what he doesn’t know. The family’s curiosity is aroused, and now there’ll be no peace until I take you home for dinner.’
‘Let me get this straight. You want to take me home just to save yourself from nagging?’
‘That’s about the size of it.’
‘It’s got nothing to do with wanting my company?’
‘Certainly not,’ he said in a shocked voice.
