“Here,” I said. “I mended it for you. That is, I had it mended. When I saw that you’d broken it and left the pieces on the counter, I thought, what could make Hope do that? What would she have to be feeling not to even try? It wasn’t right to forget what your mum said, sweetheart. I thought maybe I could help you remember.”
“She said . . .” Hope’s hand was shaking on the vase as she traced the crack, stained with brown no longer.
“She said,” I reminded her, the tenderness aching in my chest, “that a crack is just a place where something got loved extra hard, and somebody cared enough to mend it.”
“You remembered.” It was nearly a whisper.
“I did.” I couldn’t imagine why I’d been nervous about this. I knew how to make Hope happy. Nobody better at it, because nobody could possibly love her more. “A broken vase can be mended, and so can a broken heart. It just takes somebody who cares enough to do it.”
We took our shower together, in the end, because I didn’t want to wait through two of them to go to bed with her, and I was pretty sure Karen and Koro weren’t going to fall over with shock that we were retiring early. Afterwards, I took Hope’s flower-scented lotion and rubbed it into her skin while she stood on the bath mat and let me do it.
At last, after weeks of wishing, I was touching that sweet swell of belly. I was smoothing lotion into the body that cradled my son or daughter, murmuring words to Hope that might embarrass me to remember in the morning, and completely unable to care. Telling her she was beautiful, body and soul. Telling her how lucky I was to have her, and how hard I was willing to work to keep her.
We made the quick journey to the bedroom to the welcome sound of the TV. Koro and Karen were watching an action film, and I hoped the explosions were loud and frequent. I closed the bedroom door behind us, pulled off my trousers and tossed them over a chair, dropped the rest of our clothes onto the rug, and went to Hope where she was pulling back the duvet on the bed.
She smiled over her shoulder at me, and then she was shrugging out of her dressing gown and kneeling naked on the bed to light the candles.
There would be no screen substituting for my presence tonight, or for hers. Tonight was all for us, and we took it.
We took our time, and we gave each other our very best. Long, slow, deep kisses and gentle, stroking hands, hers exactly as avid as mine. Sighs and murmurs, sweet words that we both needed to hear. And more.
The catch in her breath when I touched her breast, and the shock it gave me, as sharp a pleasure as any boundary I’d ever pushed. The look in her eyes when she shoved me gently over to my back, the soft touch of her lips working their way down my body with her hands following behind. The softness of her cornsilk hair between my fingers, and the dark, nearly desperate thrill of her lips and tongue finding me at last, pleasuring me every bit as well as I’d ever pleasured her, and more. The helpless surrender when I abandoned all effort at control, and the astonishing absence of fear, of uncertainty, of pride.
Nothing about loving Hope could scare me, not anymore. It wasn’t possible.
And, finally, after she’d pleased me and I’d pleased her, after we’d slaked the first desperate hunger of nearly four weeks without each other . . . that final slow, sweet slide into her willing body. The way she closed around me, my perfect fit. The choked, gasping cry she gave when I began to move, the eager way her legs came up to wrap around my back, the hunger in the hands clutching at my shoulders. As if she couldn’t get close enough. As if she needed all of me inside her, as if she cradled my very soul. The bliss of rocking her to slow, sweet fulfillment, taking care of her every single step of the way.
Watching her underneath me, listening to her sighs, her moans, inhaling her scent, taking all of her and feeling her take all of me. Flowers and softness and strength. A willow, not an oak. The strength to bend without breaking, to hold without grabbing.
The strength to love a man who was too hard to love. The endless patience to fit my broken pieces together again and make me whole. Hope, my unlikely, incompatible, perfect match.
And when she was crying out beneath me, completely unable to keep herself from doing it . . . in that last second where I could still form a thought, I gave thanks for the thing I’d never dared to believe in. For the impossible.
That Hope had brought me to this place. And that I’d been willing to go.
Hope
Some men are good at loving. Others are great at it.
Hemi and I made love twice more that night, and by the time we finally got out of bed the next morning, we may almost have been satisfied. Body and soul, because, wow—Hemi did “love talk” almost as well as he did dirty talk. I’d known there was a reason he was so successful. He was one fast learner, and he was nothing if not devoted to his work.
I say “almost satisfied,” though, because we weren’t permitted to find out how long we’d have stayed in the too-small bed that had become a world in itself. Instead, I was jolted awake from sleep by somebody banging on the door.
“Hey, you guys,” I heard while I was still coming out of the fog. “I’ll mow and everything, but I’m not rototilling. I mean, Koro says I’m not. He says rattle your dags, Hemi.”
“Ugh,” I moaned, rolling over. “Is it morning?”
“Sleep,” Hemi ordered, proving that Command Central was up and running again. “You don’t need to do this.”
I climbed out of bed, and if my legs were still a little wobbly—well, yours would be, too, if you’d been through what I had during the past—I checked my phone. Whoops. Twelve hours.
“Nope,” I said. “I’m all good, see? Ready to be a hardworking Kiwi. All set to till the soil.”
I didn’t do that much tilling, though, and neither did Karen. Surprise. Karen did mow the lawn as she’d been doing since the first week, when Matiu had shown her how. Hemi, meanwhile, moved Koro’s chair under a huge old apple tree so he could supervise, then worked a huge, unbelievably noisy cultivating machine in satisfactory agricultural fashion, tramping up and down while he turned over a sizeable patch of dirt until the muscles stood out on his arms and his T-shirt clung damply to his back.
Not that I was looking. Well, peeking, maybe, in between trips to the shed to bring out the endless sets of filled egg cartons that were Koro’s seed trays, which Karen and I had helped him plant, water, and nurse into proud little leaf-bearing seedlings over the past few weeks.
“This is, like, score,” Karen had said happily when the first hopeful green shoots had poked up. “Much nature. Maybe I’m not going to die on the desert island after all.”
“As long as you’ve got vegetable seeds in your pockets,” I’d said.
“Way to rain on my Earth Girl parade,” she’d said, making me laugh. “Better be nice to me. You’re going to need me on our island. I’ve got way more skills than you.” Which was sadly true.
Here on our much bigger island, meanwhile, Hemi finished tilling, cleaned the machine and put it away, then started breaking up dirt clods with a hoe as if he weren’t a very rich man with a very large staff. After watching him for a minute—there’s only so long it takes a person to carry trays—I went to the shed, found a second hoe, and came out to join him.
It smelled suitably rich and loamy out there, although the agricultural peace was somewhat spoiled by the dull roar of Karen’s lawnmower in the distance. Still, the sun felt good, and the teamwork wasn’t bad, either.
Of course, the second I had that thought, Hemi looked up and said, “No.”
I didn’t stop. It was oddly satisfying to watch the heavy clumps of black dirt break up under my hoe. “Yes,” I said without looking up. “I’ve been riding my bike and swimming like you wouldn’t believe. You wait until Eugene feels my bicep next time. I’m going to get a gold star.”
Hemi was beside me just that fast, reaching out to grab the handle of the hoe. “No. This is too hard.”
He expected me to let go, but I didn’t. I hung on until he let
go.
“Ha,” I said. “I knew you weren’t about to jerk me off my feet. You’re too easy to read. And I can do this. If I get too tired, I’ll stop. Trust me to know my own body, OK?”
He wasn’t happy, it was obvious. In fact, he opened his mouth at least twice and then shut it again both times.
I said, “Good job suppressing that,” and got his best hard stare for my pains, then a reluctant almost-smile. But he didn’t grab the hoe again.
I was pretty tired, I’ll admit, by the time we had the whole plot smoothed out and half of it planted. Karen came to help once she finished mowing, and even Koro got out of his chair to crouch in the dirt, scatter seeds, and ease seedlings as tenderly into the dirt as if he’d been tucking babies into bed. He didn’t listen to Hemi telling him not to do it, either.
“Poor you,” I told Hemi when he’d given up yet again. “You’re going to have to go back to all those people whose paychecks you sign to get your own way.”
“Why did I ever want a saucy girl?” he muttered. “That’s what I’m asking myself.”
“You can tell me to stop,” Karen said. “I mowed. I deserve a break.”
“Nah,” he said. “It’s good for you.”
“Nice,” she said.
Koro looked thoroughly satisfied, but all he said was, “Go get us some water, Karen.”
She gave a huff. “See, Hemi? Koro cares about me. He sees I need a break. Do I want to go home with you? That’s what I’m asking myself.”
“Yeh,” Hemi said. “You do. Because you want your LASIK surgery.”
“Fine,” she said. “Bribe me.”
“Thanks,” Hemi said. “I will. Meanwhile, go get your sister and Koro a glass of water.”
It wasn’t too much longer, though, before I stood up, put a hand on my back, carefully did not sway on my feet, and said, “You know what? I think I’m done,” and saw Hemi blow out a breath. “Congratulations on holding back, though,” I told him. “You encourage me strangely.”
“Pushing,” Karen muttered, and I laughed and said, “Always,” and Hemi shot a look at me that told me that was exactly what I was doing.
As for me? I went into the house, took a much-needed shower, lay down for a nap, and thought, before I fell asleep, That’s how you do it, girlfriend. And that’s what Hemi gets for sending you to the Te Mana School of Negotiation.
That night, we had a hangi at June and Tane’s: an entire meal slow-roasted for hours under burlap sacking in an earthen pit without which any Maori home apparently would be incomplete. Well, any Maori home except one in Manhattan. I mostly spent my time tucking into succulent lamb and chicken, silken potatoes, kumara, and pumpkin, and thought how grateful I was not to be sick anymore. Meanwhile, Hemi talked to an incredible number of relatives, the “big whanau” that gave “extended family” a whole new meaning, Koro looked happy, Karen flirted with cousins she knew and cousins she didn’t and glanced sideways at Matiu too much, and Matiu didn’t come anywhere remotely close to Hemi or me. Which could have been the “she’s-mine” way Hemi’s hand kept going to the back of my neck, the alpha male testosterone waves that were practically pouring off him, or simply Matiu’s good sense. However it was achieved, family harmony was preserved and Koro was happy, which was what mattered.
The next morning, things took another turn. Hemi looked at me over breakfast and said, “Time to buy you some jeans you can button, I reckon, which means we’re shopping today. In Auckland.”
“Oh?” I took another hopefully-dainty bite of pancakes, caramelized bananas, and maple syrup, as a woman does who’s trying not to turn off her beloved for good by putting her face down onto the plate and shoveling everything in. “I’d say something snippy about your high-handed ways, but as it happens, I’d really like some jeans I can button. Plus, you’re much less restrained than I am, and I admit to some reprehensible pleasure of my own along those lines.”
“Which is a roundabout way of saying,” Hemi told Koro, “that Hope loves it when I buy her pretty things and spend too much money on her, but she reckons she shouldn’t.”
“Concussion’s all better, my son,” Koro said with a twinkle in his eye. “I don’t need you to explain what she said.”
“Ha,” Karen said with satisfaction. “Owned.”
“Are you OK staying here?” I asked Karen. “It’s your last day, so maybe you’d rather come to Auckland with us. We could get Tane or June to bring Koro his dinner.”
“No, we couldn’t,” Hemi said. “We’re going out to dinner as well, and then we’re staying over. It’s you and me today. Or mostly, because I invited Violet to have dinner with us. But I’m not leaving you tomorrow without knowing that I can look after you and that you’ll let me do it.”
“Sounds like a non-negotiable deal,” I said, attempting to find something wrong with his plan and failing completely. Violet? I’d love the chance to say “thanks” to Violet for that newspaper quote, not to mention pumping her about Anika. In the ladies’ room, maybe . . .
“That would be because it is,” Hemi said. “You said I took you for granted once I had you in my . . . apartment, and you were right. I’m not taking you for granted anymore, though. If you want me to set aside time for you, you’d better let me show you that I’m willing to do it, or I’m likely to fall back into old habits. That starts today.”
“Very forceful,” Karen said. “Very manly. Notice how I’m not acting all hurt that you don’t want my company, Hemi. Probably because being with you guys while you’re in makeup mode isn’t exactly my favorite thing. That’d be some fun day for me.”
“Probably,” I said, thinking once again how much my life had changed in a single short year. “Too bad I’ve got a fatal weakness for forceful and manly. And yes,” I told Hemi. “Oddly enough, I find that I’d be willing to go to Auckland and be hopelessly spoiled. Thank you for thinking of it.”
Koro didn’t say anything. He just did his benevolent-ancestor look and ate his pancakes.
I drove all three hours to Auckland, and Hemi let me do it. He didn’t even grab the armrest or press his foot obviously into the floor as if there might be an extra brake pedal there. Instead, he asked, once we were on the highway, “What kind of feedback do you want?”
I shot a lightning-quick glance at him, then resumed my Death Stare on the road. “That wasn’t what I thought I’d hear.”
“Reckon you may not know as much about me as you think you do. No point in my letting you drive if I put you off while you do it. Tell me your expectations, and I’ll tell you if they’re acceptable to me. If they’re not,” he said, anticipating my next question, “we negotiate.”
“All right, then." I slowed for a logging truck ahead of me and thought with a flutter of nerves about overtaking. “I’d like you to tell me if you think I’m doing something wrong, or not doing something I should. Like if I should be going faster, you can say, ‘Speed limit’s a hundred,’ or whatever. Calm, the way you do. If I should be in a different lane, you can say, ‘You can move over now.’ Just don’t yell at me and make me nervous. What do you think?”
“I think I can do that,” he said. And he did. I was sure he’d had to exercise some powerful self-control, but then, Hemi had some powerful self-control. All the same, when I pulled into the parking garage in Auckland’s Newmarket district after the most harrowing driving I’d ever done and inched the SUV into a spot that I’d have sworn was too small for it but Hemi said wasn’t, I turned off the car, handed Hemi the keys, put my face against the steering wheel, and had to take a moment.
“All right?” Hemi’s hand was on my back.
I nodded without lifting my head, he said, “Eh, sweetheart,” and I sat up and tried to laugh.
“One more checked off the list,” I said. “And next time will be easier.”
“You were brilliant,” he said. “The motorway, Auckland, and all. Ready for New York, I’d say.”
I laughed for real this time, though it still wasn’t qu
ite steady. “Admit it. You were two seconds away from telling me to pull off and let you drive.”
“Could be. But I stayed two seconds away. And you’ve got courage to burn.”
“OK.” I reached into the back for my purse. “Please take me to buy clothes and keep saying nice things to me. In another hour or two, I might stop shaking. And thank you.”
“For what?”
“For loving me enough to keep your mouth shut.”
After that, it was lunch, during which I calmed down, and then it was shopping. Hemi took me first to EGG Maternity, which he’d clearly checked out already. At least, he seemed to know exactly what would work for me, because he went through the place like a Bloomingdale’s after-Christmas sale shopper on steroids, handing item after item to the bemused clerk, who looked as if she didn’t know what to make of him. Within an hour, I was outfitted as well as I could be, at least for this stage of the affair.
“We’ll do it again at six months,” Hemi informed me, watching, his eyes full of pure satisfaction, as I modeled a filmy blouse printed with camellias—a blouse I wanted to wear right now, because it made me feel pretty instead of pudgy, and graceful instead of awkward and off-balance. “This is the in-between stage.”
“Let me guess,” I teased. “Josh has become a pregnancy expert.”
“Nah. I have. Google is my friend.”
I stopped in the act of pulling on a stretchy red tee that promised to show off my growing bump in an entirely satisfactory fashion. “Really? You’ve been looking things up?”
“I have. I may have mentioned that I wanted this baby, and that I wanted you. If I haven’t, let me mention it now.”
“Huh.” It was a thought I could live with.
I wore my favorite outfit out of there—the flowered blouse and skinny jeans, though I craved kicky ankle boots to an unhealthy degree—and felt all the thrill of actually needing maternity clothes and wearing them, and of knowing that Hemi was just about as excited about it as I was.
Found (Not Quite a Billionaire Book 3) Page 17