“Nine weeks.” I tore my mind away with a major effort from the places he’d sent it. The man could talk dirty like nobody I’d ever imagined.
Tonight. I knew I was shuddering again, and knew he saw it, and that he knew exactly why. “It looks like a little person now, I guess,” I said, returning to the point under discussion. “A very tiny person.”
“And it’s made you sick. You’ve lost weight. Too thin here.” He ran a slow couple of fingers from my collarbones down to the edge of my neckline as if he didn’t know how sensitive that spot was. Liar.
“Also normal,” I said. “Though I guess I need to make a doctor’s appointment, now that I’m here. So what do you think?” I moved on, because we didn’t need to go back into Hemi Te Mana Protectiveness Mode at this moment, where he’d, what? Arrange for daily checkups? Hire a nutritionist and a chef? “Do you want a boy or a girl?”
“Doesn’t matter, surely. Whatever it is, the deed’s done. And I’ll be rapt about either one, no worries.”
“Huh,” I said in surprise. “I thought men always wanted a son. But that was what I told Guy. Karen’s dad. He only wanted a boy, and he was positive he could get one. He insisted that my mom buy only boy clothes. You never saw a girl baby with so many outfits featuring dogs and fire trucks and dinosaurs. Why are dogs a boy decoration? I told him the baby was already made, and he said, ‘Anything can happen.’ Dumbest thing I’d ever heard. I already knew about chromosomes, and I was nine. But then, he was an idiot.”
Hemi was smiling again. “The brains must’ve come from your mum, then, because you got them too, I’ve noticed. But I’d love a daughter, and I’d love a son. In fact, since we’re meant to be communicating here, and this one has been a curious hole in our negotiations, I’ll tell you that I’d love two or three. Four, if you’re willing. I want all the babies you’ll give me, and I’ve been thinking about that since well before I asked you to marry me.”
I was going to be a mother. I was going to make Hemi a father, too, and he was going to be such a good one. “Was that supposed to be another thing I didn’t need to know?” I asked him, staying sassy with an effort. “Didn’t work out so well, did it?”
“No, because you surprised me. I didn’t even have to bring it up.”
“Antibiotics,” I explained. “Apparently they interfere. And apparently we’re both fertile.”
“Well, that’s good news, anyway. Since I’m betting you’ll make me some pretty good babies, and I want to keep you doing it. So. Do we get to go home, so I can watch the process and keep you as spoiled and satisfied as I want you? Whilst remaining fully independent, of course,” he added, not entirely convincingly.
“Ah. Well, no.” Here we were. The tricky part. “I don’t think that would be a good idea. This is all so new. I’m just figuring it out, and it’s too easy, when everything we have is yours, and it’s all on your schedule and your rules, for me to feel like I have to fit into that. I want to do it differently, but I think I need . . . practice first. And time to figure out my future.”
“Practice.” He wasn’t inscrutable now. His face was hard. “What kind of practice?”
“Well, here’s Koro. Probably going home tomorrow, and he needs somebody to stay with him, right, while he’s still fragile? What if that somebody was me?”
“I can hire somebody. And you know the whanau will be coming round as well.”
“He’ll hate you hiring somebody. And of course they can all come around. But he’ll need somebody to sleep there, don’t you think? And I’ll bet he’d like it to be me. Keeping his eye on you and me, giving me advice on how to deal with your highhandedness? It’d make him feel useful, and he’d be useful, because I could use all the advice I can get.”
“You think you’re helping your case,” he said. “You’re not. You and Koro? How’m I meant to stand up against that?”
I turned toward him a little more and put my hand on his cheek. I loved him so much it hurt, but that wasn’t enough. “Hemi,” I said, keeping it soft. Keeping it loving, because that was what it was. “I want to work this out. I want it more than anything. But I also need to see if we can do it without sex, or without so much sex, because it’s so easy to take all our . . . frustrations there, to do all our communicating that way, and not talk enough. Especially since that’s all I want to do right now. I’m dying for you, and I’m guessing you’re dying for me, too. But I need to know that you will talk to me, and that I can hold my own. I need to get clear, and I need to get strong, and that’s so hard to do with you right there.”
He didn’t say anything at all, and I waited, then waited some more. Finally, he said, “I want to say, ‘Absolutely not.’ I know that’d be wrong, but I can’t think what else to say.”
“Because you only know how to be in charge. That’s why.”
He was all the way past “hard” now. He was scowling, but somehow, it didn’t intimidate me as much as it might have. “I’m hating this.”
I had to laugh a little at that, and to give him a kiss, too. He hadn’t kissed me yet, and I needed to brush my lips over his, to feel that electric zing as every nerve ending lit up from my mouth to my toes. I needed to feel his hand coming out to hold me at my waist, because he couldn’t help it any more than I could help touching him.
It was only a moment, but it was a good one. I pulled back and said, “Well, how about if I had Karen, too? I miss her like crazy, and that way, you could have your orderly life back for a while, and we could both think about how we’d . . . how we’d work better together. We could talk. We could work it out without the sex there to make us think we’d solved something we hadn’t. Koro’s in the cast until around the last week of September, they say. We could use that as a rough time frame, don’t you think?”
“Karen’s school has to start up before then. When?”
“Early September, right after Labor Day. So I send her back, if you’re willing to take her. It would still get us through that first month with Koro, which is when he’ll need the most help. And then I could be there to make sure he was all right at night.”
“Karen has this fella,” he said, surprising me. “Noah the Unattached Buddhist. Had him at the house the night you left, in fact, while I was going after you. Gave her the biggest love bite on her neck you ever saw.”
“Oh,” I said. “Wow. All right. That’s not too surprising, I guess, even though she didn’t tell me. Huh. She’s catching up fast.” Too fast for me.
“I wasn’t sure what to say about that,” he said. “Told her he couldn’t come over when she was alone, but about the ‘why not’ of it . . .”
“Hemi Te Mana at a loss,” I teased. “Not being able to make a decision.”
He was half-scowling, half-smiling. “It wasn’t funny. Bloody uncomfortable, tell you the truth. She asked why she shouldn’t have sex, since I’d probably done it when I was younger than her, and with girls her age. Couldn’t come up with a proper answer for that one.”
“So how old were you?” I glanced at him sideways from under my lashes.
“Not telling,” he said promptly. “And I never wanted to hurt anybody, but now? I wonder. I probably did. Not ‘hurt’ hurt,” he went on hastily. “Not if . . . anyway. Just that I was never serious about anybody. I didn’t do force, and I didn’t do coercion. Then or now.”
“Except for telling women who worked for you that you wanted to fuck them,” I pointed out.
“Ah. That was an experiment.” His smile was a bit sheepish. “We’ll call it a fail, eh.”
“You read me wrong.”
“I saw the response to me. Didn’t see the rest of the woman. My loss.”
“Mm. But Karen. I’ll have to think about that. How to talk about it. Birth control. Responsible choices. But I think it’d help if you tell her what . . . what boys can be like, maybe. I think you’d have more impact. Though you know you’re going to get the rolling eyes.”
“I can do that, rolling eyes and all. Nobody
better for the job, sadly. But we’re off the subject.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t think we are. I want to stay for a while, and I’d like Karen to stay with me. That way, I can see if I can get a short-term job, too. I’d love to work for somebody who liked me, and to feel like I was being . . . at least satisfactory. My pride’s kind of bruised, you know? Battered, you could say.” I tried to joke, even though it was no joke at all. I’d spent five years working for bosses who’d belittled me and told me I was nothing. If that was them, I needed to change the pattern. If it was me, I needed to know why, so I could fix it.
Hemi said, “Not many short-term marketing jobs in Katikati.”
“Nope. But there are some jobs I could do, I’ll bet. And I need to find one.”
I’d found a piece of bark and was busy shredding it, because I was nervous again. Not Hemi, though. He just got more still. I knew he was processing, deciding, all those scarily fast neurons zipping around his brain and drawing conclusions. Finally, he said, “I still want to say ‘absolutely not.’ You have no idea how much.”
“Oh,” I said, “I think I have some idea.”
“But it won’t work.”
“No. It won’t. I think this is our best way forward. I think it’ll help both of us to . . . renegotiate from a more level position.”
“Right, then. Rules?”
He was going for it. I couldn’t believe it. He really did care enough. Half of me wanted to throw myself into his arms and tell him that was enough, and to please take me home right now. The other half reined Miss Undisciplined in and said, “If you wanted to come visit, that would be awesome. I know you’re so busy, and everything’s so hard right now. That’s what keeps getting in my way. I keep thinking, ‘Hope, he’s so busy and under so much stress. You can’t ask any more of him.’ And then I feel . . . last on your list. So I’m going to tell you. I’d love you to visit. I’d love to hear from you in between. I’d love you to talk to me.”
“Texts,” he said. “Emails. Phone calls. All the things I stopped doing once you were in my bed every night.”
“You think you’re jumping through hoops. I can see how you could think that.”
He smiled suddenly, and I was so surprised that I dropped my piece of bark. “Sweetheart. If we ever buy you a car? Let me do the negotiation, eh. Because you’re rubbish.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “Seems like I’m getting what I asked for.”
“Yeh.” He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and smiled down at me, his eyes so warm, and I was melting once again. “But the car salesman isn’t going to be hopelessly in love with you.”
Hope
Did he kiss me then? Of course he didn’t. He had a plan, I could tell, and it was going to be worth waiting for.
Have you ever wanted to be swept off your feet? I had. I did. I was a sucker for it, in fact, and Hemi could sweep like nobody’s business.
We walked back along the beach, and he asked, “All right?” I guess I’d gone too quiet.
“Sure.”
“You’re worrying. Don’t worry. We’re going to be all good, you’ll see.”
“I’m not worrying. I’m just . . . I’m . . .”
He looked down at me, his expression impossible to read. “Hope,” he said softly, “what are you?”
“I’m a dirty girl,” I said with a sigh. “I should be having elevated thoughts about love and life and motherhood and my higher purpose and all that, and I’m not. Maybe you should be the one thinking twice.”
There was a light in his eyes now that I could read just fine. “You need to be straightened out?”
That gave me such a hard rush, I nearly shuddered again. “Maybe.”
He sighed. “And here I was, planning to be nothing but tender and adoring with my sweet little pregnant bride.”
“You were not,” I said, trying not to laugh. “You are a dirty liar.”
He laughed out loud himself. “Well, mostly I was.” He let go of my hand and gave me a light slap on the bottom that made me jump.
“Hey,” I said. “I thought we weren’t doing that anymore.”
“Just a tap.” He was still smiling. “If a man can’t give his woman a little tap on the bum when she needs it, what’s the point in living?”
“There is so much wrong with that statement.” I tried to frown at him, but it wasn’t working.
“Well, you can tell me tonight,” he said. “Maybe. Or could be all you’ll be able to say is ‘Please.’ We’ll see which it is.”
Which was all wonderful. And then we went back to the hospital.
When we walked into Koro’s room, Karen was still there, and so were June and Tane. And Daniel, sitting at his father’s bedside.
It was odd, really. He looked like Koro, and he looked like Hemi. Tall and broad-shouldered, with strong features and bronzed skin. And yet he looked nothing like them. He had none of their power, none of their force of personality. None of their strength.
Even as I was thinking it, I felt Hemi tensing up beside me. Koro, though, merely said, “There you are. Good. Take Karen home, and the rest of you lot can go on as well. I need to rest for a bit, especially as I’m meant to be going home tomorrow.”
“About that,” Hemi said. “What do you think about Hope staying with you?” Which tells you all about Hemi and how hard he was trying. He hadn’t wanted me to stay, but he’d listened to me, he’d agreed, and now, he was jumping straight in to help me do it.
“Thought she was staying,” Koro said. “Thought that was the whole idea. Were you thinking I’d tell her to go on home with you? Not until she’s ready.”
Everybody was looking pretty interested. I said, “I’d like to stay with you, and I’d like to help out. Thank you.”
“Oh,” June said, giving me a curious glance. “Well, that makes life easier. I was just on the phone with the others this morning, trying to work out a schedule.”
“Nobody has to work out a schedule,” Koro said. “I won’t be helpless.”
“You’ll need some help in the bath and all,” June said. “At least at first. In and out, with the dizzy spells, the arm. D’you want Hope doing that? Better be me, I’m thinking.”
Koro scowled at her. “Not showing you my bare backside, thank you very much.”
She laughed, not one bit fazed. “I’ve got two sons. There’s nothing you can show me that’s going to be a surprise, or that I haven’t seen too much of.”
Koro was still frowning, and Tane said, the amusement clear to see on his face, “I’ll come help with the bath, eh. Or Matiu will, if I can’t. No worries. As I’m guessing Hemi’s going to be taking that jet of his home, off to do important things.”
“No choice,” Hemi said.
“Always got a choice, haven’t you,” Daniel said. “Whanau comes first, mate.”
Hemi seemed to get bigger before my eyes, and I could tell that only his willpower was holding him back. Time to step in. I said, “Nobody knows that better than Hemi, wouldn’t you say?” and gave Daniel my best innocent look. “He’s in a pretty critical place with the business, yet he came all this way. Because of Koro, and to be with me. We’re expecting a baby, you see.”
I said it to take the spotlight off Hemi. Besides, surely Hemi’s father would want to know he would be a grandfather.
For a moment, it seemed to be working, as June let out an exclamation and gave me a quick hug, while a smile spread across Tane’s face before he was pumping Hemi’s hand and slapping him on the back. Koro just looked thoroughly satisfied.
Daniel didn’t do any of that. He looked me up and down, long and slow, and then he looked at Hemi. “Expecting a baby, and she’s staying here? Not going home to be with you?”
“Not for a bit,” Hemi said, his face and voice equally expressionless. “Koro needs the help just now, and Hope’s right. It is a critical time for me.”
“If you’re going to be a dad,” Daniel said, “maybe you should start acting li
ke a family man for once. Take Koro back to New York with you, get him looked after properly, and this time, see your woman goes with you as well, where she belongs.”
I truly thought for a moment that Hemi was going to jump across the space between them and throttle his father. He didn’t, of course. He just gathered his energy into himself and stood motionless.
“He didn’t suggest that,” Koro said, “because he knew I’d say, ‘Like bloody hell I’m going.’ I’ve been to New York. Catch me spending my time in the Big Smoke where I can’t hear the birds and can’t catch a fish, everybody talking on their phones night and day and never bothering to look up at the people around them, and nobody who’ll answer a civil “Morning” from a stranger. I’ll stay here with my whanau, thank you very much, and if Hemi wants to see me, he can visit. I reckon you couldn’t keep him away.”
I thought Hemi was going to say something about me, but he didn’t. He just stood there, betraying none of the vibrating tension I knew he was feeling, and stared at his father. It was a pretty scary look.
“Sounds like you’ve all decided already,” Daniel said. “As usual. I’d best be off. I promised a mate my company for the All Blacks match tonight. He’s just come out of the program, and only a month sober. Keep him from going to the pub, back with the old crowd. Temptation’s a hard thing, eh. Old patterns.”
He shook hands with Tane, then turned to Hemi and said, “Walk me to my car, mate.”
Hemi said, “Aren’t you going to say goodbye to Hope and her sister?”
“Course,” Daniel said. I held out my hand, but he grabbed me instead, pulled me in, and held me too tight, smothering me with the smell of cigarettes. My stomach instantly rebelled, and I stiffened in the grip of his clutching hands.
I hated being grabbed by big men, especially when they wouldn’t let me get away. And if you think that’s what Hemi did, you don’t understand my boundaries and the way Hemi watched for and respected them. Or the way his father didn’t. All I can say is, my body knew the difference.
Found (Not Quite a Billionaire Book 3) Page 6