Fractured (Not Quite a Billionaire #2)

by Rosalind James

  “I’m not scared to jump off the side,” I felt compelled to point out. “I’m scared to fall off the twenty-seventh floor.”

  “Ha,” Karen said. Unfortunately, she knew me too well.

  “I meant it,” Hemi told Karen. “But you won’t be going to the Y, and Hope doesn’t need to worry about jumping off anything she doesn’t want to. There’s a pool on the roof of this building, and I’ll be hiring an instructor.”

  “No way,” Karen said, and not in a “No way, you’re kidding, you wouldn’t do that,” kind of way. More in a “No way” kind of way.

  Hemi had been spreading jam onto his croissant, but now, his hand stilled. “Pardon?” he asked, his tone silky-smooth.

  I knew exactly what that tone meant. I was trying to figure out how to step in when Karen answered. “That’s really nice and all, I guess, but I thought about it, and no way am I changing schools, and no way am I not going to the Y. Have you thought about all the social opportunities I’d be missing? All right, I’m not going to meet anybody taking swimming lessons, because I’ll bet everybody else in the class is going to be twelve years old, but what if there’s a really cute guy doing laps in the next lane, and he notices my graceful figure and courage on the high dive and finds himself changing his schedule so he can swim next to me, hoping I can steal away from my teacher and join him to whisper hurried, passionate words of love as we…” She waved her butter knife in the air. “Hang onto the side or something, separated only by a rope and our pasts? My future husband, the love of my life, about to start his pre-med studies at Harvard, and I’ve tragically missed meeting him because rich people don’t take regular swimming lessons.”

  “I had no idea you were planning to marry a doctor,” I said. “I thought you were planning to blaze your own trail. Based on that, I’m thinking it’s going to be in fiction. Anyway, if he’s going to Harvard in the fall, your love affair’s going to have, what, six weeks to flower? Probably not long enough for the love of your life to get going.”

  “Too old for you, too,” Hemi had to point out. I nudged him with my knee, but he went on and said, “Eighteen? No. Not happening.”

  “I’m just giving an example,” Karen said. “A hypothetical example. With a guy two years older, which is not too old. Why can’t I blaze my own trail and have a great love? And how long did you guys know each other before your love affair flowered?”

  “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.

  I took the silken tie of the dressing gown in one hand and tugged gently, unfastening the bow. Then I put a hand on either side of the silken material and drew it slowly apart, and there she was.

  “Stay there,” I told her. “Don’t move.”

  “Hemi.” Nothing but a breath. Protest or invitation, I didn’t care. I was drawing the tie out from the loops of the dressing gown, and she was watching me do it until, at last, I had it in two hands, and I stood to face her. The pink tint was rising in her cheeks, her breasts lifting with each panting breath.

  When I eased the dressing gown off her shoulders and it fell to the ground in a whisper of fabric, she drew in a breath. And when I passed the wide silken tie between her legs, her blue eyes opened wide.

  “It’s been too long,” I told her. “And you need this, don’t you?” I pulled the tie up, gave it an exploratory tug, one hand to the other, and she gasped.

  And then I started to play.

  Hope

  When Hemi told me to stand up, I very nearly couldn’t. And I when I opened my eyes to see him sitting there, looking his fiercest, commanding my obedience…well, it worked. What can I say.

  I was on my feet, rocking some, breathing hard, too aroused to think of anything but my need to be touched, to be finished off.
And knowing that nobody could do it like Hemi. Then he pushed the robe off me, and I knew I was naked, there in the open air, and somebody might see, and I didn’t care. I was aching, and he still hadn’t touched me right, and didn’t he know how much I needed it?

  Then he passed that length of silk over me, the lightest abrasion, as rough-gentle as his tongue could be, and kept doing it, and I wasn’t able to be quiet anymore. He was going faster, and I was spiraling, then he was slowing down and letting me fall back, when that was the last thing I wanted to do.

  “Hemi,” I said when he gentled the touch and slowed so the fabric was barely dragging over me, pure silken torture. “Please. I need…” My legs were trembling, and so was the rest of me.

  “What do you need?” he asked me, his voice as rough as I needed the silk to be.

  “Please,” I said, not caring that I was begging.

  He smiled. “Eyes open,” he told me. “Watch me.”

  I wanted to close them when he started up again. I needed to. But I didn’t. His hard, dark gaze held mine as he stood there, imperious as an Ottoman emperor, and drove me to the brink, then back again, over and over. Until my legs were shaking hard, and I was panting.

  “I can’t,” I managed to say. “I can’t…Hemi.”

  He didn’t smile, and he didn’t soften. Instead, he dropped the silk tie between my feet. “Turn around,” he told me. “Bend over and hold onto the edge of the table.”

  I did it. Of course I did. I needed the orgasm as much as I’d ever needed anything. I was aching, pulsing, throbbing. I needed it.

  A few seconds, and I could tell by the rustle behind me that he was stripping. I wanted to look at him, but my position, face-down, staring at the stone floor of the terrace, was even more exciting than seeing him would have been. I knew it was too open, too vulnerable, and much too subservient. And I loved it.

  He didn’t warn me, and he didn’t go slowly. He lifted my hips in two hands and shoved home, and I cried out.