“Mm,” she said, her eyes so soft. “I love growing your baby.”
“Love you, sweetheart,” I told her.
In another minute, we’d disconnected, and my screen was dark. And if my heart ached as much as everything else did, that was because Hope touched all of me. Body and mind. Heart and soul. She touched it, and she took it.
She was mine, and I knew it. But the biggest surprise, the truly shocking development? I was hers just as much. And more.
Hemi
The bombshell my brand-new—and much more aggressive—New Zealand attorney had dropped into the midst of the Kiwi media three days earlier had probably had some effect there. I didn’t know for sure, and I didn’t care. Having it picked up by a few U.S. outlets, though, especially the fashion media—that had worked. The natives were growing much less restless both inside and outside the company.
I had this. A month ago, I’d felt the control slipping from me like sand through my fingers. Now, although the storm was still raging, I was driving my ship again. I had a steady hand on the tiller, and more importantly, a steady mind.
If Anika insisted on going to court after all, it wouldn’t matter. It would cost me, but I was going to win. I knew it in my bones.
People called me lucky, but they didn’t realize it wasn’t luck at all. It was preparation, and it was ruthlessness. If you were always willing to take it one step further than the other bloke, if you were willing to go to the mattresses and he knew it, if your reputation was that you hit first and hit hard, you became a much less attractive target.
Softness and indecision were the killers. That was why I didn’t do them.
On the phone that Friday morning, Walter said, “I’m surprised they haven’t made a settlement offer yet. We could approach them instead, though it wouldn’t be my preference.”
“No,” I answered immediately. “The one who blinks first is the loser. I don’t blink first. If Anika smells blood, she’ll be in for the kill. There’ll be no blood in this water but hers. Those stories won’t have been fun for her whanau to read, and they won’t have helped her anywhere else, either.”
“In my experience,” Walter said dryly, “people who do things like this aren’t too worried about the reactions of their family.”
“Ah,” I said. “But then, you aren’t Maori.”
I’d been working even longer hours than usual these past few weeks, for the simple reason that I didn’t enjoy coming home. Which was why a full twelve hours had passed since that early-morning conversation with Walter when I opened the door to the apartment.
I took off my shoes and slid them into their spot in the oversized entry closet. Hope’s neat little five-and-a-halfs stood like soldiers in the back row, and Karen’s larger shoes were just as meticulously arranged.
No mess anymore for Inez and Hope and me to barely keep on top of. No blaring television or godawful music to greet my arrival, no irritation to rise instantly, full-blown, the moment I stepped through the door. Order and silence, and that was all.
No Hope to keep me company on her kitchen stool while I ate dinner, with Karen adding her saucy contributions and making us both laugh. No sleepy lover to raise her arms to me from our bed, pull me in for a kiss, and let me know she’d welcome so much more. No sweet, soft body to wrap myself around as I fell asleep, and nobody to hold safe through the night. Nobody at all.
I stepped into the living room, dim in the gathering twilight, my hand going automatically to the rocker switch on the wall.
The hair rose on the back of my neck.
I didn’t turn on the light. I backed up fast.
Home invasion. Get out.
I was already grabbing the handle of the front door when I heard it.
“Hemi. Wait.”
It wasn’t a home invasion after all, except it was. It wasn’t Hope, coming home because she’d missed me as much as I’d missed her, and she couldn’t live without me anymore. It was Anika, and she was sitting on my couch.
I walked back into the living room showing no rush, no alarm, and flipped the light switch.
There she was, wearing a yellow-flowered wrap dress and high-heeled sandals, ankles crossed and hands folded in her lap, looking like the bloody Duchess of Cambridge.
“I’m sorry to startle you,” she said. “And you’re going to say I shouldn’t be here,. I’m sorry about that, too. But you wouldn’t have let me in, and I needed to see you.”
“You’re right.” I read the slight widening in her eyes, the parting of her mouth, the indrawn breath of surprise and relief. And then I went on, standing absolutely solid, radiating the stillness and control that were my most potent weapons. “I wouldn’t have let you in, and I’m going to say you shouldn’t be here. Suppose you tell me how you got in and why you came.”
“Please,” she said, “sit down. I used to love you looming over me, but you’re scaring me now.”
“Good.” I made no move to sit. She thought she could invite me to be at home in my own home? But then, Anika had never been short of confidence. “I’m still waiting. How?”
She sighed, her hands twisting together a bit more. “I had a mate call the front desk and be you. They don’t know one Maori voice from another. And I was desperate.”
I was going to have to set up a code word, I thought grimly. This had never occurred to me. Bloody stupid, especially with Hope and Karen living here, easy targets. I’d take care of that the minute I got Anika out of here. “They let you in because you were my . . .”
“Sister. I used my old passport with your name. I’m sorry, Hemi. I truly am. But I had to do it, don’t you see? How else was I going to tell you what you’ve . . .” Her beautiful throat worked hard as she swallowed, and her mouth quivered. Even as I watched, a tear escaped one lustrous eye and traced a shining path over a sculpted cheekbone. “What you’ve done to me,” she whispered. “How much it . . . hurts.”
I shouldn’t answer that. I did anyway. “You enjoy being hurt. You always have.”
“Not like this. Never like this. You know the difference. You of all people. You always checked in. You always made sure I was all right. This time, you hit me so hard, and then you kept hitting. My job . . . my mum. My grandparents. My Koro . . . he cried, Hemi. He’s eighty. He cried. He has to go to church tomorrow. He’ll hold his head up, but he’ll be dying inside knowing everybody’s heard that, that they’re talking about him, wondering what’s wrong with our whanau that I turned out this way. And it hurts me to hurt him. It hurts like no whipping you ever gave me.”
I told myself not to wince, and I even managed it. “I never did anything you didn’t want.”
“Except this. I didn’t want this. You were kind. You were a gentleman, deep down, and I knew it. You made me feel safe. I used to laugh at you for it, I know, but underneath—I loved it. How could you have changed this much? How could you have turned into this man?”
“I warned you. Reckon you’ve found out why you shouldn’t have done it.”
“I can’t help who I am. I can’t help my tastes and my desires, just like you can’t help yours. Do you have to punish me for them, too? Haven’t you punished me enough?”
Breathe in. Breathe out. When I was sure I could do it calmly, I said, “That’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it. Do you think I’d ever have talked about what you enjoyed, what we did together, what you did afterwards? Never. Especially not about the way you cheated. I could barely even tell Hope. If anyone else knew, it was because of what you said. You didn’t care who knew. You didn’t mind taunting that neighbor of yours, or telling Vi, knowing she’d tell me. That’s why you told her, I’d bet, so she would tell me, to punish me for going to New York. You didn’t mind sleeping with my bloody roommate. You say you hurt? How d’you think it felt to know all that? That you didn’t love me enough to stay with me, and you were laughing behind your back at me with my mates? Shagging my mates? How many of them? How d’you imagine that felt? My wife.”
“You’re right. I’ve been such a fool. I’ve been so wrong.” More tears were flowing now. Unlike Hope’s, though, Anika’s face didn’t become blotchy when she cried. Her shoulders didn’t heave, and her body didn’t shake. She didn’t lose it entirely when, with all her courage, she couldn’t hold it in anymore, couldn’t keep me from seeing her pain. No, Anika was a different animal entirely. A few silver streaks down her perfect skin, a quiver of her gorgeous mouth, and that was all.
She went on, a hitch in her voice. “All I’ve wanted was what was rightfully mine. Three years together means I get half. It’s fair. It’s the law. All I asked for was what was mine.”
“No.” I let the word hang there, flat and hard. “It wasn’t three years, and you know it. You don’t deserve a thing, and your tears won’t work on me. Get out of my house.”
“Hemi . . . please.” She’d slipped off the couch, but she wasn’t doing what I’d have expected. She wasn’t coming to me and wrapping her arms around me, drawing me into the dark seduction that was her lush body, her twisted mind, her rich voice begging me, “Do it again, Hemi. Harder.” Instead, to my horror, she was sinking to her knees.
“I’ll do anything,” she said. “Anything you say. I’ll beg. I’m begging now. Please stop. Let’s settle. I’m in so much trouble. On the townhouse, the job, everything. I didn’t want to tell you, because I know how you can’t stand weakness. But I’m going to lose my house, and if you go on like this, I’m going to lose everything. My job. My whanau’s good opinion. Everything. Please, Hemi. Give me something, and I’ll leave you alone. Help me.”
“No.”
“Please. I’m begging you.”
“I noticed. But you don’t seem to realize the most important thing.”
“What’s that? Tell me, and I’ll do it. Please.”
“That I don’t care.”
Hope
We developed a pattern, Hemi and I, after that first adventurous evening. During one call, we talked. Practicing our communication, and he was even willing to do it.
During the next call, we . . . went deeper. Call it “dinner” and “dessert.” On the dessert nights, the date nights, we took turns sharing our fantasies, and I found myself saying things to him that I could never have imagined saying to a living soul. And let’s just say he said more. He saw my bid and raised it, every single time.
I was a dirty girl, you bet I was, but Hemi put me to shame—in all sorts of ways. And whether I was talking or he was, I somehow always ended up performing for him. The combination worked like crazy, too. Well, for me, anyway.
Which was why, after our third date night, I spoke up. “I never get to watch you, though. When is it your turn?”
I got his real-deal smile for that. “Baby, it’s always my turn. There’s no way in the world that you could enjoy watching me as much as I love watching you.”
“You may not know me as well as you think you do.” I went for severe. Not easy when you’re sprawled naked on your back across rumpled sheets, your body spelling out, “This woman has had several major orgasms!” on every inch of flushed skin. I did my best anyway, though. “When you’re out here, I get a turn. That’s a dealbreaker.”
“It’s a big ask,” he said with a sigh, “but I may be willing.”
I was smiling when I hung up. Hemi Te Mana, giving up control. How about that?
Saturday. Only four days to go, and then he was coming back after nearly four weeks apart. Back to pick up Karen, and back to see Koro.
And me, of course. And me.
Our communication was improving every day.
On Friday morning, I woke up and reached a hand out for my chips, trying not to move so much as my head.
I was taking my first tentative nibble of ridged potato chip—yes, it’s weird, but the salt helped the nausea—when it hit me.
Hey. I was barely sick. The nausea had been slowly improving over the past couple weeks, and this morning, instead of practically holding my breath while I sipped water and established my credentials for the World Championships of Slow Chip Consumption, I was inhaling my measly four chips and digestive biscuit and looking for more.
I wasn’t sick, but I was starving. I’d lost six pounds in the past thirteen weeks, and I wanted those pounds back.
Fried chicken. That was what I wanted. Right the hell now.
No butler magically appeared to bring it to me, so I got out of bed, pulled on my robe, and went out to the kitchen. Eggs would do. Eggs and . . . spinach. And mushrooms. And cheese. Honey, this baby was going to be doing some growing, and so was I. When I’d taken my belly pictures this last week, I’d been able to inventory my entire rib cage, but that was about to change.
I was cooking a huge panful of eggs and vegetables, nibbling on a piece of cheese to tide me over for the next three minutes, when Karen showed up in the doorway.
“Hey,” she said, blinking at me. “What is this? Dawn of the Walking Dead? You’re dealing with food smells now? Pod person much?”
“We do it because we can. Suddenly.” I tipped my eggs out onto a plate and added two pieces of toast that I buttered extravagantly. “Oh, sorry,” I realized. “Want some?”
“Yeah,” she said, and I suppressed a pang and divided my bounty onto two plates. Probably pushing my luck anyway, eating all that. The food had to stay down to do me any good.
“So how did it go last night?” I asked. “Have fun?” She’d gone to the movies in Tauranga with Tane’s son Nikau, her sort-of-almost cousin, and some of his friends.
“Pretty good, but I still can’t wait to go home.” She focused on her eggs, and so did I. “This has been all right. I mean, Koro’s great and all, but I miss my friends back home. Plus my laser surgery. Me with no glasses. Me hot. Imagine the intriguing possibilities.”
I looked up from my own laser focus—on my plate—and studied her. She was chewing toast with honey with what I could swear was an innocent expression.
“Are you mad at me for not coming home for your surgery?” I asked, sticking one cautious toe into the water. Maybe, with all my self-improvement efforts and the endlessly distracting business of being pregnant, not to mention the looming figure of Hemi behind it all, I hadn’t focused enough on her.
It had been such a relief to have all this extended family around. I hadn’t realized the weight I’d carried until some of it had been lifted. All this past month, I’d had Koro here being her grandfather and Tane and June welcoming her into the fold as if she—we—really were their family. Not to have to be both mother and father to her, not to have to solo-parent a teenager when I’d barely stopped being one myself—it was different, and it was pretty great.
She waved her toast around as she chewed, which could have meant anything. “Nah,” she finally said. “The recovery time for LASIK is a day. And, what? Your eyes sting? Compared to a brain tumor? Not even close. What was that thing you said? I’m either going to die, or it’s an inconvenience. This is a minor inconvenience. This is a mosquito bite, and then I have perfect vision and no glasses. Yay.”
“You remember that? What I said?” I didn’t feel like quite such a bad parent-surrogate, suddenly.
“Sure I remember. You’ve always been there for me. I get that, Hope. You don’t have to be there anymore. I’m sixteen. Plus, I’ll be with Hemi, the world’s most authoritative man. Born to boss. I don’t need both of you doing it. Talk about overkill.”
“Sixteen going on thirty,” I said, and she grinned cheerfully at me and took another bite of eggs.
“So are we being hot
for anybody in particular, or just on general principle?” I probed as lightly as I could manage, since we were having a Bonding Moment. “Noah, perhaps?” I didn’t add “The Unattached Buddhist,” Hemi’s nickname for him. Hemi could keep the eagle eye on them and be the bad guy. He was tailor-made for it. It was my job to remain her confidante. That sharing-responsibility thing again.
“Could be,” she said.
“You been emailing with him? Still an item?”
“Yeah. And this year, I’ll be a sophomore. With hair. Also boobs and no glasses. And he’ll be a senior, which is really hot, you know? Although last night, I’m telling you, this guy Michael? He’d totally have gone for it. And he’s Maori, which is cool.”
“Uh-huh.” I did my best casual impression. “But you didn’t?”
She heaved a martyred sigh. Whoops. Not casual enough. “No Aunt Bea. I exercised my freedom of one-hundred-percent choice and decided that I wasn’t making out with a random guy who stared at my boobs, especially not when I was going home two days later and I sort of had a boyfriend. Plus,” she added just as I was giving her major maturity points, “I swear Nikau told him to back off. Like—drew him aside and talked to him. What is it with the guys in this family?”
“Nightmare,” I agreed solemnly. “Could be Nikau thought his friend wasn’t good enough for you, what with the boob-staring and all.”
“Which was totally my choice, not his. It’s, like, 1902 around here. I’m not even his cousin, except that he thinks so. Nikau’s pretty hot himself, if you didn’t notice, but forget that, because I’m in the whanau now, so that’s a no. And it goes way beyond that. It’s like I’m, I don’t know, precious or something. Off limits. Even Matiu’s in love with you and never even looks at me. It’s like I’m not here. I might as well go home.”
I laughed in shock. “Wow. That’s ridiculous. He is not.” I’d known she had a crush. It would have been hard to miss. She was sassier than ever when Matiu was around. I’d seen Matiu be kind about it, too, which was nice of him—but then, I was sure he was used to it. But in love with me? Not hardly.
Found (Not Quite a Billionaire Book 3) Page 14