Page 47 of Fractured (Not Quite a Billionaire)
“Stop,” I said. “Please. Stop.” I was half-rising, and Hemi had a hand around mine.
“Never mind,” he said. “Karen, come sit down and eat your breakfast.” She looked startled, and I wondered if I should step in, but I didn’t. I was glad he was getting her away from the edge.
“Let me guess,” Hemi said to me. “You have falling nightmares.”
I scooped berries onto my plate. I’d showed him all my weak places yesterday, and I couldn’t stand to show him more today, yet I’d been doing just that. “Maybe,” I said, as lightly as I could manage. “I try not to remember bad dreams. No point. They’re over.”
Hemi didn’t say anything, just studied my face a moment, then began to eat his own eggs. Karen asked me, “What are you going to do about swim lessons, then? What if they make you dive off the board in order to pass?”
“I guess I’ll deal with that when I come to it.” I didn’t say,Then I won’t pass. Not skiing was bad enough. I wasn’t going to add not diving to my list a few days later. I was brave about plenty. Just not about diving and skiing. Or heights.
“Did you mean it about the lessons?” Karen asked Hemi. “Because I looked it up on the Y’s website yesterday, and it’s two hundred dollars apiece, and that’s just to get to Advanced Beginner. Which Hope isn’t going to make it to, not if she’s scared to jump off the side.”
“I’m not scared to jump off the side,” I felt compelled to point out. “I’m scared to fall off the twenty-seventh floor.”
“Ha,” Karen said. Unfortunately, she knew me too well.
“I meant it,” Hemi told Karen. “But you won’t be going to the Y, and Hope doesn’t need to worry about jumping off anything she doesn’t want to. There’s a pool on the roof of this building, and I’ll be hiring an instructor.”
“No way,” Karen said, and not in a “Noway,you’re kidding, you wouldn’t do that,” kind of way. More in a “No way” kind of way.
Hemi had been spreading jam onto his croissant, but now, his hand stilled. “Pardon?” he asked, his tone silky-smooth.
I knew exactly what that tone meant. I was trying to figure out how to step in when Karen answered. “That’s really nice and all, I guess, but I thought about it, and no way am I changing schools, and nowayam I not going to the Y. Have you thought about all the social opportunities I’d be missing? All right, I’m not going to meet anybody taking swimming lessons, because I’ll bet everybody else in the class is going to be twelve years old, but what if there’s a really cute guy doing laps in the next lane, and he notices my graceful figure and courage on the high dive and finds himself changing his schedule so he can swim next to me, hoping I can steal away from my teacher and join him to whisper hurried, passionate words of love as we…” She waved her butter knife in the air. “Hang onto the side or something, separated only by a rope and our pasts? My future husband, the love of my life, about to start his pre-med studies at Harvard, and I’ve tragically missed meeting him because rich people don’t take regular swimming lessons.”
“I had no idea you were planning to marry a doctor,” I said. “I thought you were planning to blaze your own trail. Based on that, I’m thinking it’s going to be in fiction. Anyway, if he’s going to Harvard in the fall, your love affair’s going to have, what, six weeks to flower? Probably not long enough for the love of your life to get going.”
“Too old for you, too,” Hemi had to point out. I nudged him with my knee, but he went on and said, “Eighteen? No. Not happening.”
“I’m just giving an example,” Karen said. “Ahypotheticalexample. With a guy two years older, which isnottoo old. Why can’t I blaze my own trailandhave a great love? And how long did you guys know each other before your love affair flowered?”
“A minute,” Hemi said, just as I said, “a month.”
“Uh-huh,” Karen said. “See? He’ll take one look at me and want to bring me home to his family’s twelve-room penthouse, except, whoops, he won’t. It’ll be someothergirl, slim and elegant in her bikini—I need a new swimsuit, by the way, Hope, because have you noticed? Doing a little filling out here—in line to be the next Duchess of Ravenstoke.”
“Uh…” I said. “What about Noah? Has the serial-monogamy wheel already turned? And I think you’re mixing up your fantasies. Your doctor’s a duke now?”
“If you’re going to go,” Karen said serenely, “go big.” With that, she took a huge bite of croissant, scattering flaky crumbs over the tabletop. “Whoops.” She brushed them hastily onto the stone floor of the terrace. “I need to work on my rich-girl manners,” she said once she’d swallowed her bite. Barely. “But seriously. It’d be way more fun to join the Y. They have adult classes too, Hope. Maybe you could sneak me into those and we could do it together. I can give up my dream.”
“No,” Hemi said. “Hope’s learning here, where it’s convenient for her after work. If you want to join the Y and take your lessons there, that’s all right, I guess. You’ll be home for the summer, so you can do it during the day. I’ll arrange it with Charles.”
Karen sighed. “I can just take the subway. And you’re crazy, Hemi. Hope doesn’t look that good in a swimsuit.”
“Yes, she does,” Hemi said. “And no, you can’t.”
“Except I am,” Karen said. “And they’re probably having a sale on burkinis over at Burkas R Us that you might want to check out. That way she could go to the Y like a normal person, but nobody could see her body.”
“Excuse me?” I said. “That isn’t why Hemi doesn’t want me to go to the Y. And of course you can take the subway.”
The atmosphere had gone from “idyllic” to “alarm bells” in about thirty seconds, but fortunately, a melodious chime sounded at that moment.
“That’ll be Josh,” Hemi said, and got up.
“Are youtryingto provoke him?” I hissed at Karen as Hemi stepped through the terrace doors into the apartment.
“Areyoutrying out for a part inTaken by the Sheikh?”she shot back at me. “Hello? It’s the twenty-first century. Women are allowed to vote and everything now. Why don’t you want to join the Y?”
“I am not giving up my independence,” I was starting to tell her, but Hemi was coming outside again, a manila envelope in his hand, and followed by his assistant.
