Page 45 of Fractured (Not Quite a Billionaire)
“No. They’d already left me.”
The truth sat there, bald and unadorned, and finally, she said, “But Hemi—you’re beautiful. That’stheirloss.Theirmistake. Their…sin, because if you don’t love your child, if you don’t protect your child—that’s a sin. And I don’t think I should meet your parents.”
She was done crying. Now, she just looked fierce. Strong.
Stalwart,I thought. That was the word. An old-fashioned word for an old-style woman. I said, “You’d do better, eh. You alreadyhavedone better. You’ve got loyalty to spare.” I almost added the next thing, but I didn’t.And I want you to have my children.
Why didn’t I say it? Because I feared it as much as I wanted it, maybe. This thing between us was too new, too precious, and she wasn’t my wife. I had her, but I didn’t. I smoothed my hand over her hair, then stood up, went into the dressing room, took a tiny packet out of a drawer, and brought it out into the bedroom together with a few other items.
I gave her the keys first. For the building, the mailbox, and the door of the apartment, which Josh had had duplicated a few days earlier. Two sets. “One for you, and one for Karen,” I told her. “And then there’s this other thing as well. I have one of these for Karen as well, but this one’s yours. A bit of New Zealand, a bit of Maori mana, and maybe something more. The bag”—I indicated the tiny drawstring pouch of woven material—“is a kete. A flax basket.”
She opened it and carefully drew out what lay inside. A fantastical, swirling shape, like a much-embellished letterS,carved of rich rose-flecked greenstone and hung from a plaited black cord. Small in scale, but perfect in its artistry. Just like Hope.
“It’s your pendant,” I said when she was holding it. Not dangling it from its cord the way another woman might have, but cradling it in her palm like the treasure it was. “You can’t marry a Maori if you don’t have a pendant, and this one’s a manaia. Head of a bird, body of a man, tail of a fish. It’s meant to represent spiritual power, and a guardian. An ancestor, one who’s gone but is still watching over you.”
“Hemi…” Her eyes were shining again. Tears, but something more. Happiness, maybe. Happiness, I hoped.
I smiled at her, my chest aching hard, and then I drew the two knots in the cord apart, put it over her shining blonde head, and tightened it until the small pendant rested between her collarbones and shone there, graceful and solid. “Pounamu,” I told her. “Jade from the South Island, and the most precious thing there is.Ahakoa he iti he pounamu.‘Although it is small, it is greenstone.’ A treasure given from the heart.” My throat was closing, but the words managed to come out, and I couldn’t have held them back. “You won’t want to wear it all the time, of course. Just when you need to remember that I’ve got you, and I’m holding on. That your mum’s still there in you, still watching over you. When you need to remember that you have a power and a light inside you that nothing and nobody can ever put out. Those times when you most need to know that, when it’s hard to believe—you could wear this, and touch it, and remember.”
She was in my arms again, and I was smoothing my hands over her back, kissing her hair, knowing that I didn’t deserve her and that I was going to keep her anyway, because my sister and my mother and Anika were all right. I was a selfish bastard. But I was a bastard who would die for her.
I held her and knew it, and I could’ve sworn that my own pendant, my hei toki, pulsed against my skin.
Eventually, she sat up again, and I showed her how to loosen the cord so she could examine the shape, could trace her fingers over its swirling lines. I could feel the way she delighted in its smoothness, in the rightness of the carving, exactly as I had. “How did you know to buy this one?” she asked.
“If I’m forced to confess,” I said, “I bought two. This one, and a koru, the spiral that represents new growth, the head of the fern. That’s the feminine energy, nurturing and strength, birth and rebirth. That was right, but this is better. Your pendant should be about what you need most, and you don’t need to be reminded to be strong and nurturing, or to pick yourself up and start again. You need to be reminded that there are people who love you, and that you’re special. Your mum may be gone, but her love is still there. If you wear her here, you can feel her protection and her love. And you can feel mine.”
I got up and pulled her with me. I should have been embarrassed, but I wasn’t. “Let’s go take Karen her pendant. She gets a hei matau, a fish hook. For strength and good luck and safety over water, eh. So when she needs to build her hut on that desert island, she knows she can do it, because I will have taught her. We’ll give it to her, and then we’ll find a spot for your terrible blanket, and we’ll move you in. We’ll go for a walk and buy some flowers to put in your vase and do a bit of a shop, and we’ll cook dinner and watch a movie, all of us together. And you and Karen can start to believe that you’re home.”
Hope
When I woke the next morning in Hemi’s enormous bed, I remembered the opening of the superhero movie we’d watched the night before: a comic-book character waking in an unfamiliar world.
Unfortunately, that was all Ididremember. Well, I remembered drinking a couple glasses of truly delicious white wine with dinner, and it going straight to my head, and snuggling on the black leather couch with Hemi and Karen. And that was about it.
Now, I was naked, I had a headache, and I had a few questions.
I found a couple Tylenol in the bathroom cabinet Hemi had assigned to me and into which I’d unpacked the toiletries I’d brought from the apartment yesterday, brushed my teeth and washed my face, and started feeling slightly more human. Then I pulled on my robe and went in search of Hemi.
I found Karen first, reading on the couch. I said, “Good morning” to her and didn’t get much in return, because she was engrossed in her book. No surprise there. And after that, I found Hemi in his office. At least, I found his back. He was fully dressed and staring at a bank of monitors with only his fingers moving, every line of his hard body spellingConcentration.
I hesitated in the doorway, then said, “Good morning.”
He swiveled in his chair and frowned at me, and I wondered if I should have left him alone. Then his face cleared and he said, “Morning. Good sleep?”
“Yes. At least—I must have.” We weren’t on vacation anymore. Was I not supposed to disturb him? I’d never even been in this room.
“How about coming in here and giving me a proper good morning, then?” he asked, which answered that question. When I did come in, though, he didn’t say anything. Instead, he pulled me down into his lap, got a hand behind my head and another one on my waist, and kissed me. The moment his lips settled over mine, the hello-baby kiss turned into something sweet and slow and hot, one of the many things Hemi Te Mana did better than anyone else in the world, and I was melting.
“What a pretty girl I’ve got,” he murmured at last, his lips brushing my cheek while his fingers stroked the back of my neck, sending tingles down my spine. “And what a lucky fella I am, eh.”
“Mm.” I moved in a little closer, just because his hand was so deliciously possessive. “But how did I get to bed? That’s what I’m wondering.”
“I carried you. You were asleep.” His thumb was tracing my cheekbone now, and how far gone was I, that his thumb felt that good?
“But I woke up naked.” I remembered undressing. Vaguely.
“Helped you with that, too. And yes, I enjoyed it.”
