Fractured (Not Quite a Billionaire #2) (42 page)

“I do not want to know this,” Walter said.

“Too bloody bad. You’re hearing it. I want to know who she’s brought home, and what she did when they got there. I want her past partners, and I want them talking. I want it all, and I want her to know I’m getting it. She wants to talk about my private life, take half the money I earned after she cheated on me with my friend and then dumped me? She wants to shame my fiancée and ruin me professionally? She wants to put lies out there? I’ll put the
truth
out there, and I’m not the one living on an island with four and a half million people who don’t have enough to read about. The world’s a big place with a short memory. New Zealand isn’t.”

“And what about Hope?”

“Do everything you can do to keep her out of it. She hasn’t done anything wrong, and I want her
out
of it. Whatever it takes.”

Hope

There could have been better ways to get the news.

Hemi had come home late the night before; so late, in fact, that I’d been asleep. And on Friday morning, he was gone by the time I got up.

He hadn’t exactly frozen me out since Saturday, when I’d told him I was quitting. He’d just been his most remote self. Except in bed, where he’d been his most
demanding
self. But then, Hemi won. That was his thing, and he needed it. As long as he kept it to that one area, I was happy to help him do it.

He’d have to adjust on the work front, though, and that was all there was to it. I wasn’t giving in and staying on in a situation that made me unhappy, not when there was no real reason to stay. If I became unhappy and resentful, I’d take it out on him whether I meant to or not, and that was no way to begin a marriage. Object lesson one: my own mother. Instead, I’d communicated honestly, and now, I was following through.

Adult relationship. Yeah. That. Easier said than done.

Today, I was dressed like an adult, too, in a severe black suit and pumps I’d bought on Sunday, an outfit that said
Job Applicant
as if I were wearing it on a name tag. Only a few days after starting to send out my resume, and I was getting ready for my first interview, with another one lined up for Tuesday. Things were looking up.

I’d thought long and hard about what to tell Simon. In the end, I’d walked into his office and said, “I’ll be in about ten-thirty tomorrow morning. I have a job interview.”

What was he going to do? Fire me?

I’d been right, because he’d just looked twitchy and said, “Fine.” And had probably done a fist-pump the minute I’d left the room.

I’d have given my two weeks’ notice, except that I’d remembered how fruitless my last job search had been. My
eternal
job search, right up until Hemi Te Mana had seen me crawling on the floor and had decided that my future position was going to involve working under him.

So to speak.

But that had been then, and this was now. I’d been at Te Mana for nearly a year, and that carried some serious cachet. I’d worked for a top fashion photographer for four long years before that, too. Never mind that I didn’t have a bachelor’s degree or more than one reference, and that it was from Nathan.
Somebody
would want me, especially once I started going on the interviews.

I had killer shoes, after all, and in fashion, appearance was everything.

The designer was minor, and the location nothing like Te Mana. More like Violet’s setup in Auckland, a converted warehouse in the Garment District. But the air was alive with energy as staffers walked through the small reception area, heels clicking on the tiled floor, their glances at me sharp and curious, their clothes as funky and edgy as the company. A fairly new company, but an up-and-coming one, where I could help out and hopefully grow along with them. A job as a publicity and marketing assistant, too, and I knew how to do that. I
did.

Yeah. I’d just keep telling myself that. And what I didn’t know, I’d learn.

I checked in with the receptionist and waited ten minutes, then fifteen, and nobody came. But then, that was probably what happened when you weren’t being interviewed on orders from the boss.

After twenty minutes, I was thinking about a polite inquiry when a youngish brunette came out from the back, dressed in super-skinny black jeans, a draped gray top, and heels, instantly making me feel overdressed in my severe suit. “Hope?” she said. “Audrey Ballesteros. Come on back.”

When I did, though, and was seated across from her at a table in a tiny conference room, out of the bustle of the single big open-plan office, she didn’t start doing anything I’d call an “interview.” Instead, she looked at me, laughed a little, and said, “I don’t really know where to start.”

I said, “Well, me neither. Interviewing is awkward, isn’t it?” I smiled, already liking her, and thought,
Maybe. Maybe.

“Especially today?” she said. “I thought it was a risk, but now…I’m sorry, I didn’t think you’d come.”

What?
“Maybe,” I said slowly, the cold starting to creep down my spine, “you’d better tell me what you’re talking about.”

She studied me, her expression quizzical. Her eyes were almost gray, I noticed inconsequentially, trying to focus on anything but the lightheadedness that was threatening once again. “You don’t know,” she finally said, “that the word on the street is to steer clear of you?”

Oh, man. I was going to have to put my head between my knees again. “What?” I whispered.

Martine.
She’d gotten her revenge after all.

Except for what Audrey said next. “Look.” She sighed. “Hemi Te Mana is a very powerful man. And especially now that the whole story’s out…at this point, we’d not only be going up against him, we could be making ourselves look foolish, too. And I should have just told you that the position’s filled, I know. I thought maybe you could pull it off, that we’d go for shock value and get people taking your calls that way, get ourselves some real publicity. No such thing as bad publicity, right? But now that I’ve met you, I’m not getting that vibe from you, that you could pull it off. I’m sorry. And I know,” she said with another laugh that I would’ve enjoyed under other circumstances, “that’s too blunt. My unfortunate nature, but then, why beat around the bush?”

I set one palm on the table to steady myself. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Please explain.”

“You haven’t read the news today, I guess.”

“No. I was getting ready for this.” For my interview. For my
chance.

“Uh-huh.” She turned around behind her, grabbed a newspaper from the top of an untidy stack, and put it down in front of me. “Maybe you ought to take a look.”

Hemi

I was in a meeting, and not one I was enjoying, though that wasn’t the point. Today, like yesterday, was all about damage control. At this particular moment, it was an emergency session with my hastily assembled board of directors.

For the thousandth time, I was grateful that I’d kept the company privately held. No outraged, panicked shareholders’ groups to deal with, at least. No publicly traded stock to take a plunge, although the value of my own shares would be suffering a loss in value I didn’t want to think about.

I didn’t have to, though. The value of my shares only mattered when I sold them, and that wasn’t going to be happening.

“The personal attacks are just a smokescreen, of course,” Jeannine Robinson, my Vice President of Finance, was saying now. “But they could still be damaging if they affect public confidence.”

“PR firm,” I said. “We’re on it.”

“A statement in every employee’s inbox wouldn’t come amiss right now, either,” she said, “to address the personnel issue.”

“Aw, BS,” Blake Orbison said. “Let ‘em talk.” An ex-NFL player who now owned a string of sports-themed bars and restaurants and licensed franchises to over a hundred more, Blake was always the wild card among the outside directors, but he brought a freewheeling entrepreneurial mindset I appreciated. “What did his ex say? That he’s a stud. Not going to hurt him with men
or
women. Look at the guy. And what did
he
say? That he had every reason to think he was divorced, and that she was banging anything in pants herself. And even if he cheated—so what? He’s not running for office.” He told me, “Do an interview and a shirtless photo shoot showing off the tat, and you’re all good. Arms folded. Black background. You’re wounded but strong. Might as well be printing money. Best favor she ever did you.”

“There’s that matter of sexual harassment,” my COO, Franklin Curry, said dryly.

“Sexual harassment my ass,” Blake said. “He’s marrying the girl, isn’t he? Photo shoot, man,” he told me. “With the girl. Even better. You’ve got your arm across her chest from behind, staring hard into the camera. You’re protective, and she’s in love. She’s little, right? Man, you’re golden. Every man wants to be you, every woman wants to do you, and all of a sudden, you’re
better
off.”

“Not the definition of sexual harassment,” Jeannine said, looking like she wanted to climb across the table and slap him. “Whether you marry her. And for your information, not every woman carries her brain betw—” She cut herself off. “And last I checked, a female who’s reached twenty-five is a woman.”

“Whatever,” Blake said.

I stepped in before the word
Neanderthal
could be uttered. “Moving on.”

That was when Hope walked into the room. Little, yes. In love, maybe not so much.

“Excuse me,” she said, but that wasn’t how she sounded. She was in a tailored black suit and graceful black heels, her hair up in a twist, not looking one bit like the soft, sweet little thing I loved to watch underneath me, her breath coming hard in the candlelight, or the laughing girl who sat on a stool in my kitchen and twisted my heart into a knot.

“Could you wait until we’re done, please?” I asked, projecting every bit of calm I had. What the hell had Josh been doing, letting her walk in like this?

“No,” she said, then told the others, “Excuse me. It’s an emergency, I’m afraid. Could you give us a minute?”

They looked at me, not at her, and I could tell that was infuriating her more. “Ten minutes, please,” I said, then picked up my phone and rang Josh. “We’re taking a ten-minute break,” I told him. He’d take care of them. The way he
hadn’t
taken care of Hope.

They filed out, Blake sauntering out last, all blue jeans and half-smile, pulling the door shut behind him after one last amused look at me. Bastard.

“Sit down,” I told Hope when they were gone. “It’s not really on to interrupt a board meeting, you know. Some of them have traveled to get here, and this is a bit important itself.”

I could have asked what was wrong, but it was clear to me that she wasn’t unhappy, or panicked, either. She was angry, and I didn’t really have to guess why.

“I’m sorry,” she said, not making the first move to sit down. “Maybe you should have thought of that and told me ahead of time that you’d be in the
paper
this morning, and so would I. Maybe you could have told me, while you were at it, that you were facing a crisis, so I could have known, and so I could have helped you. The way people normally communicate with their
partners.”