Page 28 of Fractured (Not Quite a Billionaire)
“Oh,” I said with absolute certainty. “I would. I will. And you’ll love it.”
I couldn’t win in every way with her, it seemed, but I could still win in one. And I was going to take it.
Hope
My fiancé was still married to somebody else. There would be no dress, no wedding, and no honeymoon, and we had to explain that to my sister, and to Hemi’s grandfather, too, over the lamb chops and roast vegetables he’d cooked in the warm, steamy kitchen of the little house on the hill.
“Not divorced after all, eh,” Koro said calmly, spearing another cube of roasted kumara. “That’s a pity.”
“You could say that,” Hemi said, the faint flush on his cheekbones and the rigidity of his posture telling me what his expression didn’t. “And before you say anything—I know it’s my fault. My carelessness.”
“Nah, mate,” Koro said. “It’s life. You had other things to think of, and you didn’t know everything then that you know now.”
“That nobody can be trusted,” Hemi said. “That you always have to doublecheck. And I didn’t.”
“Thatsomepeople can’t be trusted,” Koro said. “Best forgive yourself, eh. I don’t see you brooding over your mistakes, my son. Don’t start now. And I know,” he added when Hemi didn’t answer, when he got that little bit more still instead, “that it’s worse to admit to them in front of the people you love. It’s worst of all to feel you’ve let Hope down. But that’s where the mana comes from, in accepting what’s happened, in standing up to it instead of hiding from it. If you look at Hope, you’ll see her trying to tell you that you haven’t let her down, and that she’ll wait for you. If she wasn’t willing to do that, she wouldn’t be the woman you know she is.”
“I will,” I said through a throat that had tightened. “I’ll wait.” I took Hemi’s hand under the table and tried to tell him so that way, since he would still barely look at me.
He had no reason to feel ashamed, and he felt it anyway. That was why he hadn’t wanted to admit this to anybody, even his grandfather. But then, I knew how high he set the bar.
I squeezed his hand until he finally, reluctantly, looked at me. I asked, “Isn’t there a Maori proverb about aiming high? Didn’t I read that?’
“Whaia te iti kahurangi ki te tuohu koe me he maunga teitei,”Hemi said. “Aim for the highest cloud so that if you miss it, you will hit a lofty mountain. Have you been studying, sweetheart?” He managed a smile, too.
“I was thinking about it during the drive,” I said. “I was remembering that when I read it, I thought of you.” I tried my best to let him know I meant it, and hoped it was working.
Steadfast. That was what Hemi was, underneath all the reserve and all the darkness. That was what I loved so much about him. Well, then, I was going to have to be steadfast, too. Which meant kicking my insecurities to the curb and believing. Not easy.
“Well, I’m bummed,” Karen said into the silence. “I mean, that’s great and all that everybody loves everybody, but notice who still isn’t a bridesmaid? Me.”
Everybody laughed, and the tension broke. I kept hold of Hemi’s hand, looked into his grandfather’s wise old eyes, and thought,Bride or not, wedding or not, I’m a lucky woman.
And you know what’s terrible? That whole dinner, while I was wrestling with the most important commitment of my life—in the back of my mind, I was hearing,Do you fancy trying something a bit more…adventurous?And knowing—knowing—that Hemi was hearing it, too, no matter how seriously he talked to his grandfather or how sweetly he smiled at Karen and told her she’d still be my maid of honor, because he wasn’t going to have it any other way.
It was the way he’d turned the tables on me, the way he’d grabbed me and kissed me, not to mention the way he’d touched me, back there in the dark. Or maybe the way he’d made me think he was going to do something else, something we shouldn’t have been doing in public, and then hadn’t. He’d just stood up with me in his arms, set my feet back on the muddy ground, and said, “Think about that, then. I’ll give you three hours or so to wait for it, and then…you’ll see.”
Or the way, right now, that he was holding my hand under the table as we sat over the remains of our dinner and a second glass of heady, spicy New Zealand Pinot Noir, and I let the rich taste, surely more blackberry and cherry than grape, swirl down through my body and into my bones. And as I felt Hemi’s thumb stroking over the side of my index finger. Such an innocent caress, and such a dangerous result. I shifted under the table, crossing my legs, and his dark gaze rested on me for a long instant even as he continued his conversation.
“So,” he said. “We’re back to the original plan, then. I’ll take Hope and Karen down to Queenstown for a bit, I’m thinking, for the skiing.”
“Uh…Hemi,” I said. “Needless to say, we don’t know how to ski.”
“Time to learn, then,” he said. “I was thinking about Aussie and the Great Barrier Reef as well, but we’ll save that for when you’ve both learned to swim. You can enjoy yourself from the first with skiing, but I think swimming could require a bit more time.”
“Do we get to learn how to swim, too?” Karen asked happily. “Awesome. I’m liking this new-life thing a whole lot, so you know. And Hope wouldloveseeing the Great Barrier Reef. That’s snorkeling, right? Looking at fish? She loves wild animals.”
Hemi’s thumb took another leisurely journey, and he said, “She does, eh,” then stood up, pulling me with him. “I’ll remember that, and I’ll make some bookings tomorrow. I may not be marrying this girl on Saturday, but I’m going to give her the holiday of her life all the same.” He looked at me. “Why don’t you go have a bath? It’s been a bit of a long day.”
I could feel my color rising as I said, “That would be nice. Iamreally tired.” I considered yawning, then abandoned the idea. “Well,” I said lamely, “I’ll say goodnight, then.”
Hemi didn’t follow me. He didn’t come in, either, while I undressed in the bedroom and slipped into my robe, another Shades of V extravaganza in thin white silk. And when I came back from my embarrassingly hasty bath with my skin clean, creamy-soft, and scented with the manuka honey body butter Hemi had bought me…he still wasn’t there.
I turned off the overhead light and turned on the bedside one, and then I sat with my back against the headboard, opened a book on my e-reader, tried to read it, and waited.
It was probably only ten minutes or so, but it felt like forever, and I was starting to feel stupid. Was Hemi talking with his grandfather? Had all of that at the dinner table really just been him being sweet and nothing more?
Love is more than sex,I told myself.And men can’t necessarily do it every day, let alone twice a day. He’s thirty-seven. That probably makes a difference, too.
