“And you don’t do sex.” If only his eyes weren’t so intense. “First time for everything, eh.”
The buzz that had begun the moment I’d seen him again was so strong now that I had to shift, trying to soothe it. I looked at him, and knew he saw it, and knew I didn’t care.
“So…” he prompted. “Is that a yes?”
“Yes,” I told him, even though it wasn’t the word I’d come up here to say.
Who was I kidding? “No” was a word you said on the phone. You showed up in person to say “yes.” And I’d showed up.
“And by the way,” I said, trying to force myself back into some measure of composure, “the flowers are beautiful. Thank you.”
He didn’t answer, just reached behind him for a bag I hadn’t seen, because he’d set it behind another rock, and handed it to me.
I knew without looking what it was. My shoes.
“You don’t have to tell me you’re wearing them,” he said. “You don’t have to show me you’re wearing them. But I’d like you to take them back.”
An Elderly Suitor
I took the shoes. And I took the date. But I took my sister, too.
Because if Hemi was going to be that sweet, and that sexy? I was going to be toast. And I wasn’t about to take the plunge unless I thought there could be something more between us than short-term sex, however much I wanted it. Or at least I should see if I could be with him twice in a row without walking out on him before I contemplated compromising all my principles.
So, yeah. My strength didn’t look quite up to the task. If I wasn’t going to be a butterfly, I needed reinforcements.
Of course, Karen wasn’t one bit excited when I broached the subject of our day out to her after we’d finished our Women’s Wednesday date on the couch. Movie and popcorn, as always.
“I’m supposed to spend my whole Saturday going to the park with you and some guy?” She looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. “Why?”
“Because…” I stumbled a little over the answer. “Because I want to go, but I’m a little…nervous. It would be better if you came, too. And besides, he invited you.”
“Why would you be nervous to go to the park, during the day? And what kind of guy invites your sister to go out with you? The 1950s called, and they want their romance back. Oh, wait. I think that was the 1920s.”
“Could you go back to being eleven, please?” I asked, trying to laugh. “And thinking I was perfect?”
“What, like, be an idiot?” She eyed me suspiciously. “Just how nerdy is he? Or is he super old?”
“What?”
“Hope. Come on. He’s taking you to the park. To look at flowers. No, wait. Even worse. To look at roses. With your sister.”
“And that makes him nerdy? Automatically? Maybe he’s in touch with his feminine side.” I had to smile at that idea. There were lots of words I’d use to describe Hemi—I’d sure thought of a lot of them—but “feminine” wasn’t one of them. “And, OK,” I said, “yes, he’s quite a bit older than me.”
In fact, I wasn’t sure exactly how old Hemi was, other than old enough to have run Te Mana for the last eight years. I hadn’t wanted to keep researching him once I’d actually met him. Or once I’d actually slapped him. Or rather, I had wanted to research him, and that was why I hadn’t. If you see what I mean.
Oh, man. You see why I needed my sister along?
She sighed. “I knew it. Hope—no offense, but you’re kind of hopeless. Hey. I made a joke. Get it? But anyway. The guys at school say you’re cute, even though you’re short and, you know, you and I—we don’t have a figure or anything. I mean, I hope I’m going to eventually, but I think you’re—”
“Yes,” I said. “Thank you very much. As everyone who’s dried laundry in this apartment knows, I’m a 32B, and the rest of me isn’t any curvier. Thank you for reminding me.”
“So OK, you aren’t going to be on anybody’s list or anything,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean you have to go out with a boring old guy. All right, your dinner thing last weekend didn’t go too well, but why don’t you go to a club or something with a girlfriend? If you went dancing, you might be able to hook up with somebody hot. Some guys like girls who are, you know, kind of…small. At least they don’t mind. Necessarily. That’s what my friend Sean says.”
I thought about checking into Sean. I should check into Sean. Tomorrow, I’d check into Sean. “Because—” I gave up. “Just come with me, all right? The roses are supposed to be really beautiful, and he’ll take us out to lunch afterwards, I’ll bet.”
“Oh, joy. Color me excited. Maybe I’ll get to push his wheelchair. Anyway, I’ve got homework.”
“You don’t even know that yet,” I pointed out. “It’s Wednesday.”
“Trust me. I’ll have homework that’s better than going to the park with you and your elderly boyfriend. Or whatever he is. Your elderly…suitor.”
“Nice job on the vocab. Bring your homework along, then, since it’ll be so boring. You can sit on a bench and read, and if we do go to lunch, you can solve equations while we play Scrabble and argue in hushed tones about acceptable two-letter words, and he consults his pocket dictionary.”
“Wow,” she said, rising from the couch with a sigh. “You’re kind of my role model, you know that? Adulthood is just looking better and better.”
When the buzzer sounded on Saturday morning, I jumped, then went to the intercom and pressed the button.
“Yes?” My voice came out much too high, but fortunately—or unfortunately—it wasn’t Hemi who answered.
“This is Charles. Here for you.”
“His name is Charles?” Karen asked in disbelief. She shoved her black-framed glasses up her nose, stood up, picked up her backpack, and sighed. “OK. Here I am. Sacrificing myself to Charles. Because I am such a good sister.”
I smoothed my hands down my yellow flower-patterned sundress, buttoned to the hem with tiny yellow flower buttons. Which I’d worn because it was my favorite, and because it was simple.
Truth in advertising. Hemi was going out with one totally unimpressed fifteen-year-old in baggy shorts and a T-shirt, and one short, 32B, broke woman from Brooklyn who was up to his weight in absolutely nothing except her determination not to be a butterfly. Let’s see what he made of that.
“His name isn’t Charles, actually,” I told Karen as I picked up my bag and locked the apartment door behind us. “That’s his driver.”
“His driver? So he’s, what, old and rich?”
“He’s—never mind. You’ll see.”
Of course, I should have told her who he was. But I hadn’t. Anyway, it would probably only be for today.
Then why are you going?
Never mind. I hurried down the last of the four flights with Karen following behind.
I was prepared for the black Mercedes double-parked outside, and for the man in the black suit holding the passenger door for us. At least I’d thought I was. Hemi had told me he’d be sending a car for me. And I’d get used to the idea that I was being chauffeured. Sometime. Maybe.
What I wasn’t prepared for was Hemi.
“Holy shit,” Karen breathed beside me. Because as it turned out, she wasn’t prepared for Hemi either.
It’s just a T-shirt, I told myself desperately. It’s hot. Which was way too true.
He was leaning against the back fender of the gleaming expanse of sleek black German automobile, the dark sunglasses he wore against the glare of midday making his expression impossible to read. His powerful arms were crossed over his chest, the ridges of muscle on his forearms standing out in stark relief against his bronzed skin, with a good six inches of swirling deep-blue tattoo showing beneath the sleeve of his chocolate-brown T-shirt.
All in all…it was a whole, whole lot of “all in all.”
He straightened as we approached, came forward, put a hand on each of my shoulders, and bent to kiss my cheek. It was nothing but casual, and it wasn’t one bit casual.
I felt the touch of his hands, his lips, like they were branding me, because he was. I knew it, and I could tell that he did, too.
I trembled, and knew he felt it, but he just stepped back, took off the sunglasses, and said, “Got a good day for it, eh.”
“Yes,” I managed to say. “Karen, this is Hemi.” I looked at him, willed him not to take it any further, not to give her his last name. The minute he said “Te Mana,” she’d make the connection, and somehow, I didn’t want that to happen. I didn’t want her to know that he was…not even my boss. My CEO. But still, I knew I wanted her to meet him as…him. As a man. The same way I wanted to see him.
Well, a man with a gorgeous Mercedes and a driver. And the best tattoo I’d ever seen in my life. And let’s just not discuss his body. Or his face. Or how he moved, and how he looked at me. But other than that.
“So…not…old and nerdy!” Karen hissed in my ear as Hemi stepped back.
I realized that Charles was still patiently holding the car door, but I’d hesitated a moment too long, and Karen was climbing in. Charles snagged her backpack from her in a deft motion and set it on the front seat, and that left me, inevitably, moving over into the middle seat. My usual spot anyway. Perils of the petite.
“We could have her sit in front,” Hemi murmured in my ear as he slid in beside me. “Give us a bit of privacy, eh.”
“Or we could have you do it,” I said.
Was I cool, or what? Well, no, I wasn’t, but I was doing an awfully good job of pretending, for somebody whose side was pressed up against way too much hard male flesh. “Not starting out too well, are you?” I managed to say.
“Dunno.” When I sneaked another peek at him, he had that hint of a smile around his eyes. “Waiting for you to tell me. I’ll hear soon enough, I’m thinking.”
Karen was nudging me again from the other side. “You could have told me.” It was a whisper, but I was sure Hemi had heard. “Is this the guy you went out with on Sunday? I thought you weren’t going to see him again!”
“OK.” I signaled with two hands. “Time out.” I looked at Hemi. “This is the ‘time out’ sign,” I informed him. “In football.”
The crinkle was still there around his eyes. “Thank you,” he said solemnly.
“This is ridiculous,” I said. “I can’t hiss at everybody all the way to the Botanical Gardens. And, yes,” I told Karen, “this is who I went out with Sunday night.”
“When you came home at nine,” she had to point out. “And said it was—what was that? Oh, yeah. A disaster. And were crying.”
“I was not crying.”
“Sure you weren’t. It’s a really small apartment,” she told Hemi. “The bathtub’s in the kitchen. She was totally crying in there.”
“Yeh,” he said, serious now. “I’m sure she was. But your sister has a forgiving nature, eh.”
He didn’t even have to lean forward to talk to Karen, I realized. What was I doing with a man who topped me by a foot? And outweighed me by…what?
“Right,” Karen said dubiously. “You made her cry, and Hope hates to cry. And you’re too big for her.”
The exact same thought I’d just had. Oh, no. We weren’t going there.
“Karen—” I began to say, but Hemi was too fast for me.
“Or could be I’m exactly the right size for her,” he said.
“Yeah, right,” Karen said. “How tall are you? And how much do you weigh?”
“Karen,” I said. “No.”
“I’m an idiot savant,” she told Hemi. “I’m allowed.”
“You are not,” I said. “That’s ridiculous. Why did I think today would be easier if I brought my sister? I am two seconds away from opening that door and pushing you out.”
Hemi was actually laughing a little now. “Better for me that you did, though,” he said. “As it meant you’d actually come, and we’ve already established that I only care about myself. I’m about six foot three and two hundred twenty pounds, give or take a pound. Course, I normally weigh myself in kilos, but I reckon that’s about it.”
“You’re allowed to say in kilos,” Karen said. “And meters. I can convert. Except that you already told me, so it’d be cheating.”
“Because you’re an idiot savant.”
“She is not an idiot savant,” I said. “She’s just rude. Well, the idiot part, maybe.” I loved my sister more than anything. Except right now.
“How much does Hope weigh?” Hemi asked.
“And you’re rude, too,” I told him. “Because you’re ignoring me. And absolutely not,” I told Karen for good measure. “Ab-so-lute-ly not.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “We don’t have a scale. I know she’s five-two, though.”
“She already told me that,” Hemi said. “Seems she’s got a bit of a thing about height, eh. What do we think? Haven’t picked her up—sadly—but I’d say, mmm…” He wrapped his hand around my wrist, the fingers overlapping by inches. “A hundred pounds? Small frame.”
“Not your business,” I managed to say.
I could tell that he had his fingers on my pulse on purpose, that he was all but counting the beats of my telltale heart, and with every moment he held me, they were coming faster, giving away more.
“Which means you weigh more than twice as much as she does, and you’re more than a foot taller,” Karen said, completely oblivious to what was happening in my body, to the effect of Hemi’s steady gaze on me, that warming of his eyes. And that hand around my wrist. She sighed. “Hope’s going to hate that. Which is really too bad, because this is a great car. I can’t believe she’s even letting you take her to the, whatever. The park. Plus you made her cry, and like I said—”
“She hates to cry,” Hemi finished. He hadn’t let go of me, either, Or rather, he had. He’d unwrapped his fingers from around my wrist, but somehow, he was holding my hand, swallowing it up in his, running his thumb slowly over my forefinger and the sensitive web between it and my thumb, and I was heating up from that. From him touching my hand.
“But you see,” he told Karen, “I’m not going to be making her cry again. Or if I do…” That thumb was moving again. “Only if she wants it.”
Before I could react to that, could ask him why on earth I’d want to cry, he was saying, “And as for my…size...we’ll have to see if I can convince her that it might…work.”
I could see, out of the corner of my eye, that he was looking down at me. But I couldn’t look up at him. I sat, frozen, knowing I was blushing, and that I should pull my hand away. That I should stop this right now.
And then it got worse, because I caught myself shifting on the seat a little as his thumb continued to move, as those wayward thoughts continued to arrive, as the heat, the electricity spiraled down my body. All the way down my body. And I could tell he noticed.
“Anyway,” Karen said, completely oblivious, “all of that, and she’s still going out with you again. Maybe it’s the car. Or the tattoo. It’s really hot, though, so I guess I can see why. Why do you have such a huge tattoo? How far does it go?”
“Karen,” I managed to say. “No. It’s personal.”
“It is,” Hemi said. “Personal. And it goes all the way.”
The Language of Flowers
Charles pulled into the parking lot of the Botanical Gardens, and Hemi said, “Right. Roses,” and climbed out of the car.
Charles was holding the door, but it was Hemi’s hand taking mine again as I got out. I could feel that my dress was riding up, and he must have noticed, but he kept his gaze on my face, and I appreciated it. Of course, then he put his sunglasses on again, and I couldn’t tell where he was looking.
He let go of me and put a hand out for Karen, but she didn’t take it. She said, “Is this some kind of old-timey chivalry thing?” and hauled herself out, taking her backpack from Charles with a “Thanks” that at least saved me from wanting so sink through the ground.
“Karen,” I said helplessly, feeling my color rising as
it had all morning. “Please. What’s Hemi going to think?”
“That I’m honest?” she said. “And able to get out of a car by myself?”
“No worries,” Hemi said. He told Charles, “I’ll ring you. Thanks.”
Charles nodded and climbed back into the car again, and Karen said, “You say ‘thanks’ to your chauffeur. That’s pretty cool.”
“I’m a Kiwi,” Hemi said. “A New Zealander. We tend to be polite. And democratic, you could say.”
“Oh, is that what you are.” I muttered it under my breath, but he heard it.
“Most of the time,” he said, and I must have shot him a pretty skeptical glance, because he laughed, then dropped his voice to murmur, “Except when I’m…not. There are times when a command works so much better, eh.”
“See, Hope,” Karen said. “You don’t have to be polite all the time. I told you.”
“That’s not what Hemi’s talking about. So what do you think? Shall we go see some roses? Or are we going for the walking-out deal again? You’re getting a little close,” I told Hemi. “I’m just saying.”
“That’s what I’m hoping,” he said, beginning to walk up the path with me.
“Really?” Karen asked, hustling along behind us. “You want her to walk out?”
“No,” Hemi said. “I want to get close.”
“Oh. Flirting.” Karen sighed. “I never get flirting. It’s kind of stupid anyway, don’t you think?”
“I always did,” he said. “Inefficient. But your sister’s bringing me around to her way of thinking. Seems I’d forgotten about the subtler pleasures.”
That got me turning to look at him again. “Didn’t we talk about not flirting?”
“No,” he said. “We talked about not pushing it. And I thought you wanted a date. Dating is flirting, least the way I remember it. But I’m keeping it on this side of the line, aren’t I.”
“That ‘command’ thing?” I didn’t want Karen to hear this, so I kept my voice soft, which was a mistake, because he had to lean toward me to hear it. “Not so much.”
Fierce (Not Quite a Billionaire) Page 8