Fractured (Not Quite a Billionaire #2) (44 page)

Why did she have to
come?
Leaving her behind had never occurred to me.

“Oh,” she said, reading my expression. “Maybe Hemi will kick me out, you mean?”

“Of course he won’t.” I knew that for sure. He’d want Karen, if only to hold onto me. I touched the pendant at my throat again.
When you need to remember that I’ve got you, and I’m holding on.

Hemi loved me, I knew he did, even if he didn’t always know how to do it right, even if he was confused about how to show it. And he loved Karen, too. He always had. We just had to find our way, that was all.

Surely.

Inez came in, holding a tall glass frosted from the freezer, full of lemonade poured over ice cubes and garnished with a sprig of mint. She set it onto a coaster in front of me and said, “Drink.” An announcement, or an order. Probably an order.

“Thank you,” I said. “This is the best thing I’ve seen all day.”

She smiled her closed-off little smile, then told Karen, “Listen to your sister. She knows how to be a lady,” and I about fell off the couch.

“Nice,” Karen said, but not until Inez was out of earshot, I noticed. “If I wanted to be a
lady,
I’d be all set. It’s, like, the nineteenth century in here.”

“So come with me.”

She hesitated, studying me through the thick eyeliner that I still couldn’t get used to. “Do you really need me to?” she finally asked. “I know you’ve always taken care of me, especially when I was sick, and that’s great and all, but…wouldn’t it be easier if you didn’t have to do it anymore?”

Just like that, I was losing my bearings, the vertigo taking hold again. I clutched the icy glass for support, took a sip, and hauled myself back. “No,” I managed to say. “It wouldn’t. I love you so much, baby.” I put my hand to my forehead again. I was choking up. I was losing it. “You know I do. I’d…I’d miss you so much.”

I couldn’t help it. I put the glass down, reached for her, grabbed hold, and held on, not caring if I were messing up her carefully mussed short hair or smudging her horrible pale lipstick.

“I love you too,” she said after a minute, her voice coming out muffled against my shoulder. “But I don’t want to go if I don’t have to. Couldn’t you, like, take a little vacation? Not do all the drama? And call me if you really need me to come?”

No,
I wanted to say.
Don’t leave me alone.
I’d never been alone. Never ever. It wouldn’t be a vacation. It would just be
alone.
The very thought panicked me.

But…if she were here, she had Hemi, and Inez, too, and Charles.

Charles?
Giving her driving lessons? How had
that
happened? In any case, though—she had supervision here, and she needed supervision. What would happen when I was out looking for a job? What would happen if I
got
a job? What about
her
job, Friday and Saturday nights, riding the subway to Brooklyn after midnight, walking home? I didn’t know how long any of this would take, and I didn’t want her to be alone.

It was just for a little while. It had to be.

Just to show Hemi? No. Surely not. It was more than that. Just to show
me
that I had a choice. Just to get back on track.

“Right,” I finally said, pulling back from her and grabbing for my lemonade again. “I’ll go by myself for now. It’s probably just for a week or two. But if Hemi’s not OK with that, if he seems not OK at
all,
or if you aren’t OK, you call me, right?”

“Sure,” she said.

“And I’ll call you every night. You can come see me, too.”

“Hope.
It’s not like you’re going to
Europe.
You’re going to
Brooklyn.”

I stood up, taking my lemonade with me like a life preserver. “Right, then. I’m going to take a shower, and then I’m going to pack my suitcase and go.” Which sounded horrible. “And Inez is right,” I added. “Your skirt’s too short, and that top’s not all right. If you’re going—where?”

Just like that, her mood had flipped, and she’d folded her arms across her no-longer-small breasts. “To the Y. Do you want to see my permission slip?”

“No,” I said. “I want to see your
outfit.”

Hemi

The meeting didn’t end for an hour after Hope had left. When it was finally over, Blake hung back, looked me over, and said, “You’re sweating this too much. Not like you. What’s up with that?”

I didn’t show vulnerability. That was a sure way to get taken down. If he’d noticed…I said, “I’m all good.”

“Hmm,” he said. “Not so much.” At my sharp look, he added, “Sorry, man. Body language is my life. Or it used to be, anyway. It’s the girl, huh? You think she’s going to walk if you lose?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Yeah. Thought that was what you were worried about, because I knew it wasn’t the business, not all of it. That’s the nice thing about money. If you lose some, there’s always more of it out there, and it’s always the same. Nice and green. Women, now…not so much. Well, I guess you know her, right? If she’d walk, she’s the wrong one anyway. You get that big rock back and move on. And if she wouldn’t—she just passed the acid test. Nothing like getting the ‘for worse’ out of the way up front before you start making babies. The woman who sticks with you after you blow out your knee? That’s the one you want. Ask the expert.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “I’d say let’s go to dinner and catch up while I’m in town, but I’m guessing you’ve got your hands full with somebody else right now, so I’ll just say good luck, man. Give me a call if you want to run something by me, talk it out. Media and all that.”

“Thanks.” He was one of the few men I’d actually have trusted to do it. Not in any kind of competition with me, and as deceptively sharp in business as he was apparently easygoing. Not to mention somebody who understood the double-edged sword that was celebrity.

“Hey,” he said. “What are friends for? Catch you later, then. Hang in there.”

He took off, and I headed back to my office, where Josh materialized, as usual seeming to appear out of nowhere.

“Simon called from Marketing,” he said. “Saying that Hope quit, and she’s gone.”

Hemi

I rang Hope. No answer, so I left a voicemail. “Call me,” I said, then tried to think of what else, but couldn’t.

I realized only then that I had three missed calls on my phone, and my heart leaped for a moment, then settled down. Two from Karen. One from Inez.

Inez? Inez never called me. Inez didn’t have questions. She thought she knew all the answers already. For that matter,
Karen
never called me.

I tried Karen first. No answer there, either. What was going on?

My feet wanted to carry me out the door and straight home, but I couldn’t do that. For one thing, I didn’t even know that Hope was there. For all I knew, she’d walked out of here and down the street to McDonald’s and applied for a job, just to show me that I couldn’t tell her what to do.

Couldn’t she see that I just wanted to look after her? Didn’t she know that I needed her
here?
It wasn’t like I hadn’t told her so. She said I didn’t share? I’d shared that. I’d
explained.
I was sure I had. And she hadn’t listened. So much for sharing.

There was another reason, too. I had responsibilities, and despite what Hope might think, it wasn’t just about money. Thousands of employees paid their bills with Te Mana paychecks. Their children went to the doctor on Te Mana benefits. If I was juggling all the time, it wasn’t just my own future or my own fortune I was keeping up there. And that was before you talked about my mother, my father, my sister. Koro. And Karen.

And Hope.

Focus, then.

I didn’t. I rang Inez.

“Good,” she said when she picked up, not even bothering with a hello. “You have called at last.”

Was I going to get it from every direction today? Apparently so.

“What is it?” I asked.
Oh, bugger,
I realized.
Karen. Something with Karen.

“Hope has left the apartment,” she said.

“For where?” So she
had
gone home, and had left again. So?

I heard her sharp sigh. “You are not understanding. She has left with her suitcase.”

“For where? Where did she go?” I stood in front of the bank of windows and looked at Manhattan, but I didn’t see a thing.

“She didn’t say.”

I closed my eyes and swore silently, then opened them again when Inez said, “But Charles might know.”

Charles? Why Charles? She wouldn’t run away from me and ask my driver to take her. I knew Hope better than that. This was all some ridiculous, over-the-top declaration of independence, and she’d have taken the subway for it. I was surprised she’d even packed. Probably took only what she’d brought with her. That suitcase probably held her horrible afghan, her cracked vase, and Target’s spring line. From a year ago.

I focused on that. I didn’t go any further with it. I’d solve this. That was what I did.

“When I saw her packing,” Inez said, “I called Charles to come and wait outside. I thought you would want that. He did not call me back, so I am thinking he found her.”

“Right,” I said. “Thanks,” I added belatedly. “What about Karen?”

“She would not go with Hope. No suitcase. She went to the Y.
After
her sister made her change her clothes.”

Next thing. Do the next thing.
I rang Charles.

“Yeah,” I heard.

“Do you have Hope with you?” I asked.

“Not any more.”

His silence was an asset. Usually.
“Did
you have Hope with you?”

“Yeah. I did. She didn’t want me to take her, but Karen got in first.”

A dissertation, for Charles. “Where?”

“Outside the apartment. To go to the Y.”

“Not
Karen.
Hope. Where did you take her?”

“To the apartment.”

I was actually going to lose my mind. “What? You took Karen to the Y, and then you took Hope back to the apartment? Then why the hell did Inez call me?” Was this some kind of female conspiracy they’d cooked up between the three of them to make me sorry? All right, I was sorry. And bloody furious, too. Both things. Hope didn’t play games. Why was she playing this one, just when I most needed her?

“To her apartment, I mean,” Charles said. “Hope’s. And Karen asked me if I’d teach her to drive.”

What?
“I don’t expect you to teach her to drive,” I said, even while the cold truth hit me straight in the solar plexus.

Hope had left me.

“I said I would,” Charles said. “I like Karen.”

He did? “Right,” I said. “Fine. Whatever you like.”

“I told Hope to call me,” he said. “If she needs a ride anywhere else. That neighborhood isn’t great. She said she was—”

“Fine,” I said. “I know. She said she was fine.”

“Yeah,” he said. “She did.”