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Authors: Rosalind James

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Found (Not Quite a Billionaire Book 3)

BOOK: Found (Not Quite a Billionaire Book 3)
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Text copyright 2016 Rosalind James

 

All Rights Reserved

 

Cover design by Robin Ludwig Design Inc.,
http://www.gobookcoverdesign.com

 

Formatting by Dallas Hodge,
Everything But The Book

 

I'd lived my life on two principles: discipline and control. Until now.

There's that phrase, though. "How's that working out for you?" The answer, when it came to Hope Sinclair, was, "not so well." She might be little, she might be sweet, and she might be young, but if I'd thought she'd be compliant anywhere but in bed, I'd learned my lesson.

To keep her, I had to let her go. To hold her, I had to turn her loose. To have her in my life, I had to accept that she was nine thousand miles away in New Zealand, in my grandfather's house in Katikati, surrounded by the loving members of my Maori whanau and much too close to the not-so-loving ones.

All of that was killing me. On the other hand, I thought it might be working, so I was going to do it. No matter what.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

For Rick,

who is nothing like Hemi.

Author’s Note

Table of Contents

Contents May Shift During Flight

Not Desperate

How to Love

The Wages of Pride

The Sharp End

Inconvenient Emotions

Still Paying

No Cinderella

Rubbish at Negotiation

Same Old Story, Same Old Song

Whatever You Fancy

Feet to the Fire

Wairua

Coming and Going

Comparisons

Another Fabulous Growth Opportunity

Alpha Tendencies

Closer All The Time

Sweet Anticipation

Surprise Package

An Unexpected Visitor

Sixteen Going on Thirty

What We Have Now

A Woman’s Heart

Mending the Broken

The Te Mana School of Negotiation

Mermaid Out of Water

How Forever Feels

Attitude Adjustments

Right Speech

Something That You Do

A Different View

Right Choice

Naked Ambition

Maori Mana

Threads of Silver

Threads of Gold

Links

Acknowledgments

T
HE
E
SCAPE
T
O
N
EW
Z
EALAND
S
ERIES

Reka and Hemi’s story:
JUST FOR YOU

Hannah and Drew’s story:
JUST THIS ONCE

Kate and Koti’s story:
JUST GOOD FRIENDS

Jenna and Finn’s story:
JUST FOR NOW

Emma and Nic’s story:
JUST FOR FUN

Ally and Nate’s/Kristen and Liam’s stories:
JUST MY LUCK

Josie and Hugh’s story:
JUST NOT MINE

Hannah & Drew’s story again/Reunion:
JUST ONCE MORE

Faith & Will’s story:
JUST IN TIME

Nina & Iain's story:
JUST STOP ME

 

T
HE
N
OT
Q
UITE
A B
ILLIONAIRE
S
ERIES
(H
OPE AND
H
EMI
)

FIERCE

FRACTURED

FOUND

 

T
HE
P
ARADISE
, I
DAHO
S
ERIES
(M
ONTLAKE
R
OMANCE
)

Zoe & Cal’s story:
CARRY ME HOME

Kayla & Luke’s story:
HOLD ME CLOSE

Rochelle & Travis's story:
TURN ME LOOSE

Hallie & Jim's story:
TAKE ME BACK

 

T
HE
K
INCAIDS
S
ERIES

Mira and Gabe’s story:
WELCOME TO PARADISE

Desiree and Alec’s story:
NOTHING PERSONAL

Alyssa and Joe’s story:
ASKING FOR TROUBLE

 

Hope

It was raining on the day I ran away from home.

Well, storming, more like. Or let’s tell it like it is. The gods had decided to dump every bit of their accumulated wrath on the southern Pacific, and I was smack in the middle of it. My doom was coming complete with driving rain, lightning, and turbulence that rocked the Air New Zealand Boeing 777 as if it were a crop duster.

Hemi had told me that the silver fern painted hopefully onto the tail of my deathtrap stood for new beginnings and rebirth. As I clutched the armrest and was grabbed painfully by my seatbelt and slammed back down again into the narrow Economy seat, it felt more like the end of everything. At least the end of the breakfast I’d forced down an hour earlier, when my life hadn’t seemed about to end. When it had just seemed miserable.

I’d left my fiancé. I’d left my sister. I’d left
both
my homes: the we’ll-call-it-a-one-bedroom-and-get-more-for-it Brooklyn apartment that had housed me for twenty-five years and my sister Karen for all her own sixteen, and the however-many-bedroom-I-can’t-count-that-high penthouse on Central Park West where Karen and Hemi still lived. To come here. And, apparently, die. Along with my baby.

Did I mention I was pregnant? Well, I was. I’d run, and I’d taken Hemi’s baby to New Zealand along with me, and he’d be furious, and so upset, and . . . I couldn’t think about that now. I had enough to deal with at the moment. I couldn’t imagine our baby was enjoying the ride, either.

Did eight-week fetuses get airsick? Probably not. But its mother sure was.

You see how I was trying to maintain. To be rational. To be normal. Not to be a hysterical, nauseated, overemotional, terrified wreck. And that—that moment right then, when I was climbing on top of it all, rising above, when we were either going to land or going to die, and nothing I could do would influence the outcome—that was when Sean, the formerly sweet, contented, chubby-cheeked toddler beside me, threw up into my lap.

BOOK: Found (Not Quite a Billionaire Book 3)
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