Found (Not Quite a Billionaire Book 3) (16 page)

Please don’t die,
I managed not to say.
I can’t lose you. Not that.

“I’ll be here,” he said, seeming to understand me without the words. “Now go tell her everything you want her to know, including the hardest bits. It’s all good, my son. You’ve done tougher things.”

Hope walked outside with me for that. I was glad that at least it wasn’t raining, so we could take our time. My pilot was going to be waiting a few extra minutes, but that was what I paid him for.

I tossed my luggage in the boot, then slammed it shut and leaned against the door, wrapping my arms around Hope and giving her a slow, thorough kiss as her own arms twined around my neck.

I could have kissed her forever, and she was the one who broke it off, then brushed her nose against mine in a playful gesture and smiled into my eyes. Her mouth may have trembled a bit around the edges, but her voice was firm when she said, “Take care of yourself, Hemi. And know that I’ll take care of your grandfather. I’ll do my very best, and so will you.”

“I know you will,” I said. “You always do. But it’s not too late to change your mind. Surely you know how much I love you, and how much I’m willing to do to prove it. I can get Koro looked after. Come home with me.”

Her eyes softened, and her hand was on my cheek when she said, “This is better. It’s hard on both of us, but it’s better. You think it’s about you, that you can change, and maybe you’re right. You’re strong enough to do anything. But it
isn’t
about you, not really. It’s about me. It’s about both of us holding strong together, not one person needing to carry the other, or the other person needing to be carried.”

“It’s not you, it’s me?” I said. “Not something any bloke wants to hear.”

“Practice, that’s all. We’ll both practice, and we’ll get better. That’s the point of practice.”

I drove away, in the end, because I had no choice. And I watched her in the rearview mirror, a small, stalwart figure with her hand raised and a smile on her face, until I turned the corner and left her behind.

I didn’t do helpless. Not ever. But I was damned if I could figure out how to do anything else.

Hope

Wednesdays can be weird.

On a wet one ten days later, I woke to news that was either good or bad, depending on your point of view.

I’d got out of bed at six-thirty, but Koro had beaten me. He was in the kitchen with a cup of tea and the newspaper, and not in his robe, either.

“Hey,” I said, going over and giving him a kiss on the cheek, “look at you. Want some help with those buttons?” He was wearing a white T-shirt and jeans, with a flannel shirt hanging open over the shirt. Not quite neat enough for Koro, but major progress from staying in his robe until one of his nephews showed up to help him into his clothes. I knew it must have hurt getting his arm in and out of the sling, but I wasn’t going to mention that. Koro, like Hemi, had pride to burn.

“I’d say no,” he said with the lightening around the eyes that was the Te Mana version of a smile, “but I reckon I’ve used up all my grumpy bugger points already.”

“Never.” I fastened the shirt’s buttons for him and loved that he let me do it. I didn’t suggest that I could help tuck it in. I wasn’t pushing my luck. “Only the tiniest dent in the allowable total, and I’ve practically forgotten it already. How’s the head?”

He flapped his uninjured hand. “I’ll live.” Indeed, he was looking and sounding less foggy day by day, although he still tired much too easily. “Even managed to read a bit of the paper today. Sorry I did, of course.”

I popped a couple pieces of bread into the toaster, then spooned a little chopped ginger into a mug and added a tea bag, hot water, and my spoonful of manuka honey. “Sometimes,” I confessed, “I look at the news and want to pay to put the newspaper
back.
What was it today?”

He didn’t tell me. Instead, he shoved the
Herald
across the table at me. I sat down, took a sip of tea, picked up the paper, and dropped it again. “Whoa.”

Two faces stared back at me, and a shiver went straight down my spine. The first shot, Hemi at his darkest and most formidable, was nothing but a thrill. The one below that wasn’t quite as good, though.

Hemi again. With his wife.

A younger, slimmer, happier man looked back at me, the look on his face one I’d only seen on rare occasions when the two of us had been alone. His arm was wrapped protectively around an absolutely glowing Anika, who stood laughing with one hand holding down the skirt of a full white dress, with the other slim, graceful arm over her head to pull back the sheet of dark hair that whipped around her head like a victorious battle flag. Her smile matched his. Two beautiful people in love.

Hemi and Anika Te Mana in happier times,
the caption read, and I thought,
No kidding.

I read the headline, then.
Cheating, lying, and the odd ménage a trois: Te Mana case takes a raunchy turn.

“Oh, boy,” I muttered, but at that moment, my toast popped up, which delayed things a little bit more.

You don’t think fixing your toast outweighs learning about a critical development in your fiancé’s life? All I can say is, you’ve clearly never been pregnant. Finally, though, I was sitting down again, falling on my toast with my usual starved-dog delicacy and reading between bites.

Sensational new information surfaced yesterday that could threaten Hamilton-based Anika Cavendish’s claim to an estimated 125 million dollars, half the assets acquired by estranged husband Hemi Te Mana during the couple’s seventeen-year marriage, scheduled to end in divorce court in mid-September. The payout, fashion industry sources speculate, could spell disaster for the tycoon’s U.S.-based business empire.

Cavendish’s suit, which is not yet scheduled for trial, took an unexpected turn when a University friend of the couple alleged a sexual relationship between Cavendish and star witness Beauden McAllister.

The length of time the couple lived together remains at the heart of the dispute. A couple is required to split their property evenly only if they share the same residence for three years or more. McAllister, Te Mana’s former roommate, is reported to have sworn under oath that Cavendish moved into Te Mana’s apartment while the two men were still sharing a room in a flat near Auckland University. Other witnesses are expected to testify that the couple did not start living together until they rented their own flat, starting two years and ten months before the couple separated, with Te Mana moving to the United States while Cavendish stayed behind in New Zealand.

Kiwi designer Violet Renfrow, friendly with both Te Mana and Cavendish in Uni days, has now alleged that McAllister was having a sexual relationship with Cavendish soon after Te Mana left New Zealand, which could cast doubt on the truth of McAllister’s testimony. According to Renfrow, “I popped by the flat one morning to consult with Anika on a project we were doing together. It was just a couple weeks after Hemi left, but she came to the door in a shortie robe and nothing I could see under it. I could see Beauden McAllister, Hemi’s old roommate, behind her pulling his shirt on. And after he left and I asked her about it? She laughed and said, ‘If Hemi cares, he knows what to do about me. But come on, Vi. You know and I know that he’s not coming back. Life’s short, and Beaudie’s hot. What, do you want to play, too? He’d be game.’ That was the part that surprised me most. Not that she’d cheat—that didn’t surprise me a bit—but that she’d be so open about it, to the point of asking me to join in. She didn’t care whether I told Hemi. I think she wanted me to. She wanted to hurt him for leaving her, and she had her ways to pull a man in and get him to do what she wanted. So, no. Trust Beauden to tell the truth about her I would not.”

Cavendish’s neighbors, meanwhile, report even more startling activities at the tidy townhouse in Hamilton’s stylish centre that Te Mana’s wife has owned for the past five years. “There were noises coming from over there that you wouldn’t want your children to hear, let’s just say,” said one former neighbor who asked to remain anonymous. “There’s kinky, and then there’s the kind of thing she got up to. We didn’t want to pry into her business, and we try to think the best of our neighbors, but when you hear what we heard—well, there’s not much else you can think, and it becomes your business.

“I hope I’m as tolerant as the next woman,” the former neighbor continued, “but when we’d finally had enough, we slipped a note under the door asking for a little respect. She came over afterwards and told me off like I’ll never forget. Had a look on her face that chilled my blood when she said, ‘Your hubby must have drilled a hole through the wall, from the interest you’re taking. Is it you that’s jealous or him? Looking for lessons, is he? Next time, we’ll take care to make it better.’ Live and let live is one thing, but if she was married when she did all that, those weren’t the vows I took. I know what I’d call her, and it isn’t ‘wife.’”

There was more. What Hemi’s attorney had said, what Anika’s had said in response, and how nobody’s behavior mattered, because the law only cared whether Hemi and Anika had lived together for three years. And about the suppression order Anika’s attorney had requested to avoid further trial by public opinion. A case of too little, too late, it seemed to me.

I was still working my way through all that, taking another sip of tea to calm myself and thinking what a bad enemy Hemi would make, when Koro shook his head and said, “Hard to read. I hate to see her bringing shame to herself and her whanau like that, however much it’ll help Hemi.”

I couldn’t meet his eyes. Instead, I buried my face in my mug. What would Koro think if he knew the kinds of things Hemi and I did together?

No matter how filthy those things had been, I’d never
felt
dirty, except in the most delicious, intensely secret way. It had always felt like Hemi alone knew the woman beneath my innocent exterior, as if he and he alone was in charge of bringing her out, playing with her, and putting her away, secret once more.

I’d said I didn’t want to be Hemi’s doll, and I’d told the truth. I did enjoy being his plaything at times, though.

See? It even
sounds
dirty. How could you explain that to anybody, let alone a man in his eighties? Especially your incredibly inventive lover’s beloved grandfather?

Koro had been watching me, to my disquiet. Now, he spoke again. “What two people get up to in the privacy of their bedroom—that’s between the two of them. But when you go about shaming your husband to his friends or embarrassing an innocent neighbor who just wants a bit of peace, that’s different. Secrets are all good. Every couple should have a few. What good are they, though, if they don’t stay secret?”

I dared a glance at him, and he said, “That’s why you have marriage, eh. So you have somebody to keep your secrets. She didn’t keep his, but I’m guessing he’ll do better this time.”

“Yes,” I said. “He will.”

He did smile, then. “That’s enough of that, I reckon. This will pass, and it’ll be a memory to talk about together, another brick for the two of you to build on. They won’t all be smooth, and they shouldn’t be. You can’t get a good grip on smooth. You need the rough times as well. That’s where you both see what you’re made of. That’s what gives you faith.”