by H. Y. Hanna
“She’s Asian. I’m sure she’ll make an exception if food is involved,” said Leah, grinning. “Besides, we can’t just stay here. What are we going to do in bed all day?”
“Oh, I can think of lots of things to keep us busy,” said Toran with a wicked grin, as he pinned her down.
Leah felt a familiar tingle at his touch. She was tempted—oh, so tempted—but even as she slid her arms around Toran’s neck, her stomach protested again. This time it was more like an indignant snarl.
“Okay, you win,” said Toran, chuckling and sitting up. “Even I don’t think I can compete with that.” He reached over to the bedside table and picked up his mobile, switching it back on. It hummed for a moment, then beeped with a new message. Toran glanced at it, then tossed it back on the bedside table. “So my contact in Geylang has finally decided to talk to me. Well, he can wait… I’m going to jump in the shower. Want to join me?” He winked at her.
“Maybe later,” said Leah lazily. “I’d love to try out that bath this evening…”
She stretched luxuriously again as Toran left her and went into the bathroom. A minute later, Leah heard the powerful blast of the shower turning on. The thought of the hot, rushing water made her sit up, suddenly eager for a refreshing shower too. She caught sight of her trolley case in the corner of the room again and smiled to herself; Julia might be a bossy pain sometimes, but she definitely thought of everything. It was nice to have fresh clothes to change into—only another woman would have thought of that.
Humming to herself, Leah slid to the edge of the bed and was about to get up when Toran’s phone beeped again on the bedside table. Leah glanced at the screen. She didn’t recognise the name of the contact, but the message on the screen showed a familiar name.
“BLACK BUDDHA INTERESTED IN YOUR OFFER.”
Leah frowned, picking up the phone and studying the screen. She remembered Toran talking about his Geylang contact the day they were in that teahouse in Chinatown—the man who could have the answers to the mystery behind his parents’ fatal car crash.
Except… Leah’s frown deepened. She was sure she had heard that name somewhere before. She closed her eyes, trying hard to remember, as something stirred deep in her memory. Where had she heard that name before?
The answer came to her suddenly and she jumped off the bed, her heart thumping. She ran across the room to her trolley case, opened it and fumbled through, searching until she found the bundle of her father’s letters. With trembling hands, she pulled off the elastic and fanned the letters out onto her lap. Carefully, she leafed through them until she came to a page where a familiar name leapt out at her. Leah stared down at the creased paper.
The writing was weak and shaky, so different from her father’s usual firm, slanting scrawl, and there were pale brown stains on the page, like splotches of spilled liquid. He was drunk when he wrote this, she thought suddenly. The sentences were long and disjointed, with several words barely legible. Halfway down the page was the passage with the familiar word she remembered:
…when it’s late and I’m alone, I hear your mother’s voice, Leah. She talks to me. She wants to know why. And I can’t tell her why. I don’t know why myself. Ah Song brought the news last night and all I could think was: what have I done? I made a terrible mistake with Black Buddha—I didn’t realise the price I had to pay—but it’s too late now. Nothing can bring them back and no one can know the truth about the accident. It’ll be buried anyway—the riots are keeping everybody busy—and by the time he gets back in the country, it’ll be forgotten. But I can’t forget, just like I couldn’t forget the first time. And she still keeps asking me why! What do I say? I don’t know what to say to her… and yet I want to answer her, to keep her beside me. Anything to keep her beside me…
Leah drew a shuddering breath. It was the tormented ramblings of a broken man—but the words betrayed the shocking truth. No, she thought wildly. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be true. She had thought her father was talking about one of his antiques, the first time she had read that passage. He had been an avid collector and she had assumed that “Black Buddha” was a rare Chinese antique he had gotten on a special deal. Now the words took on a whole new meaning…
She read the passage again. “Ah Song brought the news last night”. She remembered the old driver’s visit to see her in London, his cryptic comments about her father and Toran. What did Ah Song know? She had to find him and ask him, she thought.
Standing up, Leah walked over to the windows and pushed the curtains back. She stared out unseeing at the panoramic view below her. Her stomach churned as Toran’s words about “no more secrets” came back to her. She didn’t want any more secrets between them either. But could she risk telling Toran the truth—that her father might have been responsible for his parents’ deaths?
He never needs to know, a small voice whispered in her head.
Yes, thought Leah. They were starting afresh, they were looking to the future, not the past. What was the point of raking it all up again? Telling Toran wouldn’t bring his parents back. What you don’t know can’t hurt you, she reminded herself desperately.
In the bathroom, she heard the shower turn off. Toran would be out any minute now. Leah walked back to the case, thrust the letters inside, and slammed the lid down. Then she took a deep breath and walked into the bathroom to join him.
“I thought we could order room service—and maybe open that bottle of Dom Pérignon. Nothing like a champagne breakfast to toast a new start,” said Toran with a smile as he saw her. He was just stepping out of the shower stall, the water droplets glistening on the muscles of his body. He reached for a fluffy, white bath towel from the rail. “What do you think?
Leah pinned a smile on her face. “I think that’s a great idea. Yes, a new start.”
***
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Read the final part of Leah and Toran’s story in
TENDER BETRAYAL
(The TENDER Series ~ Book 3)
READ NOW: Amazon | Amazon UK
Read an excerpt from Tender Betrayal:
Dinner was a bit subdued that evening and Leah felt like she and Toran were still tiptoeing around each other. As she prepared dinner in the open-plan kitchen, she looked up to see Toran sprawled on the lounge suite, idly watching CNN news on TV, and felt a rush of warmth at the domestic intimacy of the scene.
She had never thought that they could get here one day—sharing their lives, looking forward to a future together. Somehow, after everything they’d been through, the mundane, simple pleasures of everyday life seemed more precious, more valuable, than grand gestures of romance. Stability and love was something Leah had never had in her home life and now that she had found it with Toran, she was desperate not to lose it.
And she knew she could lose it all if she told Toran the truth.
Leah sighed as she stirred the pasta through the salted water. She wanted to keep her promise to Julia; she wanted to make a clean breast of it to Toran, but she kept putting it off, telling herself that she was waiting for the “right moment” to bring the subject up. Several times already this evening, she had opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again.
When they finally sat down to eat, Leah told herself that she would definitely speak now, but somehow she kept thinking, “After the next mouthful… After the next mouthful…” And then before she knew it, the meal was over and Toran was helping her to clean up in the kitchen. They stood side-by-side at the sink, their hands almost moving in unison as they cleared plates and cutlery, and stacked them in the dishwasher. And still Leah could not get the words out. They sat like a painful lump in her throat, choking her.
When Toran drifted back in front of the TV, Leah followed and sat down next to him, although her eyes hardly took in what was playing across the screen. She was feverishly rehearsing what she was going to say, trying
different combinations of words, different ways of broaching the topic, but no matter how she spun it, there was just no getting away from the awful truth: that her father could be responsible for his parents’ deaths.
She was just thinking about getting up to make a cup of tea—she would talk to him after she had the tea, she promised herself—when Toran suddenly reached for the remote and muted the TV. He turned to her, his green eyes troubled.
“Leah, what is it?” he asked gently. “You’ve hardly said a word all evening and you’ve been acting strange all day. There’s obviously something bothering you.”
Leah sat up straighter and unclenched her hands. She licked her lips. “I—”
The door buzzer rang.
Leah sagged again as Toran got up to answer the door. Saved by the bell. Literally. She heard the murmur of conversation and recognised the other voice as that of Mrs Chang, an elderly widow who lived on the floor below. A minute later, Toran strode back into the living room.
“It’s Mrs Chang. She’s got a problem with her modem—I’m going to pop down and take a look.” He leaned over and brushed his lips against hers. “We’ll talk when I get back.”
Leah nodded, watching silently as Toran’s tall figure left the room. Then she heard the soft thud of the front door closing. She let her breath out, leaning back against the couch cushions.
The next moment, she jumped as a sudden ringing erupted next to her. She looked around. It was Toran’s mobile phone, which he had left on the coffee table. It vibrated against the table surface as it rang again and again. Leah hesitated, leaning forwards to look at the screen. The number looked vaguely familiar. Where had she seen that number before?
She hesitated and was just about to reach for the phone when the ringing stopped. A “MISSED CALL” message flashed up in the corner of the screen. Then it beeped again. The icon for a new answerphone message flashed in the other corner.
Leah bit her lip. She glanced at the front door, then back at the phone. On an impulse, she reached out and picked it up. She knew Toran’s passcode to unlock the phone—she had seen him key it in often enough—and her fingers hesitated over the keypad.
What am I doing? she asked herself. She’d always despised women who sneakily accessed their boyfriend’s or husband’s phones without permission. Even if they did find evidence of cheating, she always thought it was sad and pathetic that they had to resort to such underhanded measures to check up on their partners. If they felt that they had to do that, then there was no point in the relationship anyway, she had always claimed self-righteously.
So what was she doing now? Wasn’t she contemplating doing something similar?
But it was as if her hands had a life of their own. Even as she condemned the action in her mind, her fingers were already keying the numbers in. The phone was unlocked and she was retrieving the message before she realised what she was doing. Leah held the phone up to her ear and listened, her heart thumping. A robotic voice announced that there was one new message and then a different voice—rough and low—sounded in her ear.
“Black Buddha has decided to accept your offer. Go to Lau Pa Sat tomorrow at 6 p.m. Stall 72.”
Click.
Slowly, Leah lowered the phone to her lap. She stared at it blindly. This must be the contact that Toran had been talking about: the source of information about his parents’ accident. The possible witness.
Leah exhaled shallowly. Here was a chance for Toran to find out everything about the accident—to find out the truth. She felt her stomach muscles clench involuntarily.
Then she raised the phone and looked at the message again. Slowly, deliberately, she brought up the menu and pressed “DELETE”. Then she went into the Settings and cleared the call log. Leah returned to the main screen, locked the phone again, and laid it carefully back on the coffee table, exactly where it had been before. She kept her mind blank, refusing to think about what she was doing.
She was sitting curled up, seemingly engrossed in an American sitcom, when Toran came back a few minutes later.
“Is Mrs Chang all right?” Leah looked up at him with a bright smile.
Toran paused and eyed her for a moment, then replied slowly, “Yeah, she’s fine. She plugged the wrong cable in by mistake. I’ve sorted it for her now.”
He settled back down next to her, his hand going out to caress her bare arm. The touch of his fingers sent a tingle of pleasure through Leah’s body. She shifted so that she could lean into him. She saw surprise flash through Toran’s green eyes, before he slid his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close against him. They sat for a moment in silence while canned laughter drifted from the TV screen.
Then Toran cleared his throat and said, “So about… what we were talking about before Mrs Chang called—”
“Yes, I’m sorry,” Leah interrupted him quickly. “I… I know I’ve been a bit preoccupied lately. I don’t know. Maybe it’s the living together… I think I’m just taking a bit of time to get used to it. You know, personal space and all that. I’d been so used to living alone for so long—”
“I thought you had a flatmate in London,” said Toran dryly.
“Oh, er… yeah… right…” Leah stammered. “But I meant, like… well, you know… since I was sent off to boarding school in the U.K., I’ve just got used to being on my own and not having any family or close friends nearby…”
She knew that it was lame and she could see the quizzical light in Toran’s eyes. Any minute now, his sharp journalist brain would kick into gear and start digging for answers. But to her relief, after another moment of looking at her searchingly, Toran let the subject drop.
“I suppose it’s an adjustment,” he said, with a small smile. He reached out and brushed a strand of hair back from her temple tenderly. “But if you’ve got anything that you want to talk about, Leah, you know I’m here to listen.”
Leah swallowed and nodded. “I know, Toran.”
“Good.” Toran gave her a wry smile. “I’ve got several interviews lined up for tomorrow and I need to do some on-site research for my latest feature, so I probably won’t be back till late. That should give you some ‘personal space’.”
“Actually, I’ve got something on tomorrow evening too… Uh… It’s something Julia’s organising,” said Leah brightly. “I’m not sure when I’ll be back either.”
“Oh? Well, I hope you enjoy yourself.”
Toran turned his attention back to the TV screen and, after a moment, Leah did the same, allowing her body to relax slowly against him. Her mind, though, was still churning. It was frightening how easy it was to lie—and once she started, it was as if something compelled her on, putting more false words into her mouth.
I will tell Toran everything, Leah vowed. This was just a temporary delay. She had already kept so much from him—a bit more now wouldn’t make much difference. And besides, it made sense that she should find out the full picture before she spoke to him. Wasn’t it better that she had all the details first before she told him everything?
READ MORE: Amazon | Amazon UK
Books in This Series:
TENDER DECEIT (Book 1)
TENDER TREACHERY (Book 2)
TENDER BETRAYAL (Book 3)
Other Books by H.Y. Hanna
www.hyhanna.com/amazon-authorpage
A Scone To Die For (Oxford Tearoom Mysteries ~ Book 1)
When an American tourist is murdered with a scone in Gemma Rose’s quaint Oxfordshire tearoom, she suddenly finds herself apron-deep in a mystery involving long-buried secrets from Oxford’s past.
Armed with her insider knowledge of the University and with the help of four nosy old ladies from the village (not to mention a cheeky little tabby cat named Muesli), Gemma sets out to solve the mystery—all while dealing with her matchmaking mother and the return of her old college love, Devlin O’Connor, now a dashing CID detective.
But with the body count rising and her business going bust, can Gemma find the killer before
things turn to custard?
READ MORE: Amazon | Amazon UK
Tea with Milk and Murder (Oxford Tearoom Mysteries ~ Book 2)
While at an Oxford cocktail party, tearoom owner Gemma Rose overhears a sinister conversation minutes before a University student is fatally poisoned. Could there be a connection? And could her best friend Cassie’s new boyfriend have anything to do with the murder?
Gemma decides to start her own investigation, helped by the nosy ladies from her Oxfordshire village and her old college flame, CID detective Devlin O’Connor. But her mother is causing havoc at Gemma’s quaint English tearoom and her best friend is furious at her snooping… and this mystery is turning out to have more twists than a chocolate pretzel!
Too late, Gemma realises that she’s could be the next item on the killer’s menu. Or will her little tabby cat, Muesli, save the day?
READ MORE: Amazon | Amazon UK
About the Author
H.Y. Hanna is an award-winning mystery and suspense writer and the author of the bestselling Oxford Tearoom Mysteries. After graduating from Oxford University, Hsin-Yi tried her hand at a variety of jobs before returning to her first love: writing. She worked as a freelance journalist for several years, with articles and short stories published in the UK, Australia and NZ, and has won awards for her novels, poetry, short stories and journalism.
A globe-trotter all her life, Hsin-Yi has lived in a variety of cultures, from Dubai to Auckland, London to New Jersey, but is now happily settled in Perth, Western Australia, with her husband and a rescue kitty named Muesli. You can learn more about her and contact her at: www.hyhanna.com.
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