Page 3 of Fractured (Not Quite a Billionaire)
I tried to remember what she’d said, what she’d done when I’d made our announcement, and couldn’t. All I’d thought about was how I felt. “That’s it, isn’t it,” I said slowly, not wanting the words out there, and knowing they needed to be. “You’ve changed your mind. You’ve had a night to sleep on it, and you’ve decided you can’t. I thought you just wanted to be quiet this morning, but it’s more than that.”
Her eyes had widened as I spoke, and now, she put a hand on my arm. “Hemi, no. It’s not that. I’m not—I’m—it’s what Karen said about college. Everything. How does this change things? We need to work all that out first. We need toknow.We need to figure out what we’re doing.”
“No,” I said. “We don’t. We need to get married, and everything else will take care of itself.”
“Will it?” Her hand was still there, tight around my forearm, like she was hanging on, when that was the last thing she was doing. When she was cutting me loose. “How?”
“What do you mean, how? I’ll tell you how. I’ll take care of you, and I’ll take care of Karen. And whatever else needs to be done, I’ll do it.”
I waited, but she didn’t say anything, just sat there. “Well?” I demanded.
“There’s so much wrong with that,” she said, “I can’t even tell you. That’s a one-way street.”
I would have said something. What, I don’t know. But Karen came back into the kitchen then. “Sorry, guys,” she said. “I just have to get a jacket. It’s starting to rain.”
“Right.” I stood up and pulled Hope with me. “We’re out of here.”
“What?”she said.
“Going to a hotel for the day—and the night as well,” I decided. “We’re going to fix this. Go get dressed and pack a bag. Right now.”
She wasn’t moving. She was folding her arms across her chest. “You are ordering me,” she told me through her teeth.
If she’d been scared before, she wasn’t scared now. And she ought to be, because I was furious.
“Well, yeh,” I said. “I’m ordering you. I’m saying, pack a bag so we can go work this out until we’re done. If you don’t want to change and don’t want a bag, I’ll take you as you are.” I knew she was naked under the dressing gown, and having her naked during our “negotiations” would work for me. “I’ll carry you out to the car if I have to, but we are leaving. Now.”
Hope
“No,” I told Hemi.
“No? Are you sure you want to say that to me?”
Hemi, unlike most men, didn’t shout. Instead, his voice tended to get quieter and more controlled—if more Maori—the angrier he got. Which didn’t mean he looked any less powerful. Or call it what it was. Menacing.
And despite that…
I’d been scared plenty in my life. You bet I had. But about one thing, he’d been right. I’d never been scared that he’d hurt me.
So I didn’t run away, not this time, and I didn’t walk out. I was dimly aware of Karen moving behind me, ducking out the back door, but I didn’t acknowledge her. Instead, I took two steps around the table, put my hands on Hemi’s forearms, looked up into his forbidding countenance, and said, “Hemi. I love you so much, and I want this to work between us more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life except for Karen to be well. I’d do almost anything to make that happen. But I know that—Ifeelthat—” I had to stop and breathe before I went on. I had to trust that I was right, and it was so hard to do. “That we have to be equal partners, and that’s going to be tricky, especially for you, but for me, too. I can’t let you run me over, because then I won’t be happy, and I won’t be able to make you happy.”
“It’d make me happy right now for you to do what I say,” he muttered, but his face wasn’t quite so hard now. He felt, under my hands, like he wanted to hold me. So I found my courage and went for it.
“What would makemehappy,” I said, “would be for you to put your arms around me and tell me you love me, and that you’re willing to work this out with me.”
“That’s what I just said.”
“No. You saidyou’ddo it. There’s a difference. Please, Hemi. Please hold me, because I’m so scared and sad right now.”
His face twisted, and just like that, his arms had gone around me, and I was home. I wrapped my own arms around his neck, pressed my face into his broad chest, inhaled the clean, warm scent of him, and said, “Thank you.”
“Aw, sweetheart.” His dark-chocolate voice went straight inside me and settled there. “You frustrate the hell out of me. What am I going to do with you?”
“Love me, I hope.” The words came out a little tight, because that was how my throat felt. “Talk to me. Work with me.”
“Right. Tell me how.”
The relief was trying to make me shake. “I don’t know how. And I know I didn’t listen well enough last night, and that I embarrassed you just now in front of your grandfather, but it’s not going to work if I start out feeling wrong—or with you feeling wrong, either. I think it has to start with you listening to me and me listening to you. It starts with talking over our future, and Karen’s. What do you think?”
