Fractured (Not Quite a Billionaire #2) (24 page)

“A minute,” Hemi said, just as I said, “a month.”

“Uh-huh,” Karen said. “See? He’ll take one look at me and want to bring me home to his family’s twelve-room penthouse, except, whoops, he won’t. It’ll be some
other
girl, slim and elegant in her bikini—I need a new swimsuit, by the way, Hope, because have you noticed? Doing a little filling out here—in line to be the next Duchess of Ravenstoke.”

“Uh…” I said. “What about Noah? Has the serial-monogamy wheel already turned? And I think you’re mixing up your fantasies. Your doctor’s a duke now?”

“If you’re going to go,” Karen said serenely, “go big.” With that, she took a huge bite of croissant, scattering flaky crumbs over the tabletop. “Whoops.” She brushed them hastily onto the stone floor of the terrace. “I need to work on my rich-girl manners,” she said once she’d swallowed her bite. Barely. “But seriously. It’d be way more fun to join the Y. They have adult classes too, Hope. Maybe you could sneak me into those and we could do it together. I can give up my dream.”

“No,” Hemi said. “Hope’s learning here, where it’s convenient for her after work. If you want to join the Y and take your lessons there, that’s all right, I guess. You’ll be home for the summer, so you can do it during the day. I’ll arrange it with Charles.”

Karen sighed. “I can just take the subway. And you’re crazy, Hemi. Hope doesn’t look that good in a swimsuit.”

“Yes, she does,” Hemi said. “And no, you can’t.”

“Except I am,” Karen said. “And they’re probably having a sale on burkinis over at Burkas R Us that you might want to check out. That way she could go to the Y like a normal person, but nobody could see her body.”

“Excuse me?” I said. “That isn’t why Hemi doesn’t want me to go to the Y. And of course you can take the subway.”

The atmosphere had gone from “idyllic” to “alarm bells” in about thirty seconds, but fortunately, a melodious chime sounded at that moment.

“That’ll be Josh,” Hemi said, and got up.

“Are you
trying
to provoke him?” I hissed at Karen as Hemi stepped through the terrace doors into the apartment.

“Are
you
trying out for a part in
Taken by the Sheikh?”
she shot back at me. “Hello? It’s the twenty-first century. Women are allowed to vote and everything now. Why don’t you want to join the Y?”

“I am not giving up my independence,” I was starting to tell her, but Hemi was coming outside again, a manila envelope in his hand, and followed by his assistant.

“Karen,” Hemi said, “This is Josh Logan. And Josh, this is Karen Sinclair, my stroppy soon-to-be sister-in-law, who’s going to be emailing you and asking you to arrange for swim lessons and a Y membership any moment now.”

Karen waved her knife at Josh. “Hi. I don’t need anybody to arrange it. I just need somebody to pay for it.”

“Well,” Josh said, “that would be part of the arranging.” He was looking as smooth as ever even in a Sunday-casual golf shirt and slacks, his hair cut as ruthlessly short as Hemi’s. He’d gone to the Te Mana College of Unruffled Manliness, it was clear. He handed Karen a business card and said, “Just let me know when you’re ready,” then turned to me and said, “Whatever either of you need, Hope, please don’t hesitate to ask.” He glanced at my ring, which was a hard thing to miss. “And please let me wish you the best.”

“Thank you,” I said, horribly aware that I was wearing one extremely thin silk robe, Hemi’s gigantic diamond, and absolutely nothing else. I wasn’t going to be standing up, that was for sure. “But I know you’re already busy enough.”

“Not at all,” he said. “Just a question of delegating.”

“Set up accounts for them as well, please,” Hemi told Josh. “Store cards. Bergdorf’s, Saks. Macy’s, Neiman-Marcus. Hope will tell you.”

Hope would? I’d never even been
into
Saks. “You did a great job on the flowers out here,” I said to Josh. I didn’t mention the soundproofing in Hemi’s bedroom, and I hoped desperately that Josh wasn’t thinking about it. Or the soundproofing in Hemi’s office. I knew I was blushing, and I hated it.

“Thanks for this,” Hemi said, raising the envelope a fraction.

Josh seemed to take that as a signal, because he said, “Nice to meet you,” to Karen, and then slipped away as if he’d never been there. He had some special melting-away technique, like he’d mastered the art of invisibility.

“Wow,” Karen said. “Did he go to, like, butler school or something?”

I laughed, glad for the return to normalcy. “I was just thinking that.”

Karen said, “And seriously, store cards? Also, don’t normal people say ‘Congratulations?’ to somebody when they get engaged?”

“Not to the bride,” Hemi said. “To the groom. He’s the one who won the prize, that’s the idea.”

“Huh,” Karen said. “Stupid.” She stood up. “Well, I’m off to Brooklyn. See you guys later.”

“What?” Hemi and I said together.

“I told Mandy I’d come visit her now we’re back,” Karen said. “I want to tell her about New Zealand and everything. Plus I need to ask Mrs. Kim for a reference.”

Hemi had gone still again. “For what? And how were you planning on getting to Brooklyn?”

“For a job, and on the subway, of course.” Karen was making a business of stacking up our plates. “I’ve got all summer left, and you guys are working. When I took a walk yesterday, I saw a few Help Wanted signs, and I thought, well, I’m sixteen, right? Mrs. Kim runs the corner store near our old apartment,” she told Hemi. “And maybe you could give me a reference too. I should have two. I mean, not that you could say much, just that I don’t lie or steal, but whatever. Maybe that’s enough.”

“You don’t need to get a job,” Hemi said. “Or if you do, I can help you get an internship.”

Karen plopped down in her chair again with resignation. “Nope. I want a real job. A regular job. And I want it on the weekend.”

“But why?” I asked. “That’s when we hang out.”

“Uh…Hope,” she said. “It’s when you and
Hemi
hang out. Like, say, today?”

“But…” I began to say.

“Plus, I need my own money. And before Hemi says I don’t, and before
you
ask if I sure I’m well enough—yes, I do, and yes, I am. And besides, Koro says I can come live with him for the summer,” she finished in a rush, probably seeing the same tension in Hemi that I did.

“What?”
Hemi asked.

Karen was sitting up straight, none of her usual easy-breezy manner evident. “He said if it got hard to be with you guys, or if you wanted to be alone, he’d buy me a ticket, and I could come spend the summer—wait, I mean the winter—with him. And that he’d teach me to fish, and cook, and use tools, and everything. Which would be pretty awesome.”

“He said that, did he.” Hemi sounded grim, and he looked that way, too.

“Yes,” Karen said. “He did.” She was staring at Hemi, and it was a faceoff. If ever a woman had two immovable forces in her life, I was that woman.

“OK,” I said. “Time out.” Hemi was about to say something, but I put a hand on his arm to stop him. “First—sure, you can get a job. I had a job when I was sixteen, so why shouldn’t you? And second, of course you can go visit Mandy, but you have to ask me, not tell me, and I have to call her mom. I’m still your guardian, and you’re still sixteen. And third, I get that it feels awkward, and that we’re all still figuring this out, but I love you, and I want you, and if you went to New Zealand, I’d miss you like crazy.”

Karen looked down at the table for a minute, and then looked up and straight at Hemi. “So I’m going,” she said. “To Brooklyn, I mean. Not to New Zealand. Not now.”

He didn’t say anything, but his jaw had tightened. I waited a moment, then said, “Be back by five, please. Good luck with the job search.” And then I got up, went around the table, bent, and kissed her cheek. “We’ll talk later,” I promised. “It’s a change, that’s all. And change is hard.”

Hemi

Once again, I’d copped it from both sides. I’d planted flowers for Hope.
Flowers.
All right, I’d had them planted, but it was the same thing. And what had she done? She’d put her hand on my arm to stop me telling Karen that Charles was driving her to Brooklyn. She’d let me know that Karen would be getting a job, and that
she’d
be deciding that. I couldn’t even trust my own grandfather, it seemed.

I heard the faint sound of the front door shutting, and still I waited before I turned my head to look at Hope. She was standing next to Karen’s place, one hand on the chair back, poised for action as if I’d have jumped up and wrestled Karen to the ground to keep her from leaving.

“Hemi…” she began, but I was done talking, and done listening, too. It was warm out here, even in the shade, and that dressing gown was clinging to her. Her pale skin shone against the deep vee of the neckline, and even as I looked at her, those two hard points appeared beneath the white silk.

We hadn’t made love since before we’d left New Zealand. The first night here, she’d fallen asleep the minute she’d gone to bed, and last night, she’d fallen asleep before that. In the mornings, of course, there had been Karen. I finally had what I’d needed all along, Hope in my bed every night, but I’d barely been able to touch her, and she wasn’t my wife.

It hadn’t been one bit easy to resist last night, whatever I’d told her. When I’d helped her take off her soft top and shorts, I’d thought it was going somewhere. I’d laid her down on the bed, unfastened her bra and pulled her thong down her slim thighs, and she’d sighed and turned toward me, one hand opening, then curling closed along with her eyes. My hand had drifted down her hip, over her bottom, and I may have done a bit of touching. Just to see if she’d wake up, or maybe just because I’d needed to.

But I hadn’t done more than that, had I? I’d undressed and climbed into bed, tugging her close, spoon fashion, and she’d murmured something, had taken hold of the arm I’d draped across her body, clung to it…and then had fallen all the way asleep again, leaving me hard, aching, and thoroughly unsatisfied in a way I didn’t accept. Except that I had to.

I’d held her safe all night all the same, and been glad to do it. But last night was over, I’d been looking at her all morning, and I was done waiting.

She opened her mouth to say something again, and I didn’t let her. Instead, I took her hand and tugged her closer, then jerked hard so she spilled into my lap with a surprised gasp.

“Hemi,” she said again, and I laid my fingers lightly over her mouth.

“No more talking,” I told her. And then, because her mouth was one of nature’s perfect creations, I ran my index finger slowly over the sharply indented top bow of it, then the plump lower. Her mouth parted, just like that, and I smiled.

She wanted to be kissed. I knew it. So I didn’t do it. Instead, I nudged the fabric of the robe gently apart and traced its edge. Softly, fingers against silken fabric and silkier skin. Up and down, in the spot where she was so sensitive, between her breasts.

“So pretty,” I told her. “Do you want to be touched, sweetheart?”

“Yes,” she sighed. “Please.”

I didn’t, not quite yet. I kept that one hand tracing, and with the other hand, I pulled her hair back from her neck, brought her close, and bit. I got the moan I needed, so I kept doing it. Licking at her, kissing, sucking, giving her gentle love bites, and then not being quite so gentle. I knew I’d be marking her skin, and I didn’t care. I was easing her dressing gown off her shoulder, exposing her breast, tracing closer, then closer still. Circles and spirals, as if I were painting her, tattooing her to match my own moko. Making her mine. She was draped across my arm in the same way she had been on that rock in Waihi, breathing hard, and this time, I wasn’t stopping.

When I bit down on her earlobe and, at the same moment, took one of those sweet peaks between my fingers and squeezed, she jumped and moaned. And that was when I lifted her, set her on her feet, and said, “Stand up, sweetheart. Open your eyes.”

She was rocked, but she obeyed. In this one way, I could get what I needed, and I was taking it. All of it. Her eyes opened, her mouth parted, and she was standing there, barefoot and half-naked, waiting for me.