Page 46 of Fractured (Not Quite a Billionaire)
“But you didn’t…” I began.
He sat back. “Didn’t what?”
“Well…naked.” I tried to laugh, but I needed to know. That was the thought that had troubled me on waking. The point where “possessive” turned into something worse.
His face had settled into harder lines, and his thumb wasn’t on my cheek anymore. “No,” he said flatly. “I didn’t have sex with you while you were asleep.”
“Sorry. I just…” I started to get up, but he tightened his hold.
“You’re always telling me I need to share,” he said. “Now I’m tellingyou.Share. Why would you ask that?”
“I just…” I tried to shrug. “I don’t know what the rules are for this. I’m feeling disoriented, I guess, wondering if this can really be my life, and feeling so ungrateful for wondering. Like you took the goldfish out of the little bowl with its one goldfish buddy and its piece of plastic seaweed, and you put it into an aquarium with all the big fish and the fancy plants, and I’m swimming around the castle and wondering if I should try going through that window, if that’d be an adventure, or if I’d get stuck. It’s just…it’s odd, waking up here, in your place.” I gave up trying to explain it and sighed. “Gift horse, meet mouth. I know.”
One of his arms held me more tightly to him, and his hand smoothed down my back. As always, it was as if that hand had some kind of sedative in it, the way he had me relaxing into him.
When he spoke, his voice was gentle. “Nah. You won’t get stuck, or if you do, you’ll give a yell, and I’ll come pull you out by your…fin.” When I smiled, he did his own almost-smile and said, “You wouldn’t be a goldfish, either. An angelfish all the way, that’d be you.”
I nearly tipped off his lap at Karen’s voice from behind me. “And…awkward once again. I ask myself—do I check if we’re ever having breakfast? Do I pretend you guys aren’t making out? Do I just eat cereal and forget it? Or what?”
“You ask if we’re having breakfast,” Hemi said as I jumped off his lap, flashing Karen pretty well in the process. Of course, we’d shared a bed since she’d been little, so that wasn’t exactly a newsworthy moment. “And I tell you, yes, we are. Straight away.”
Which was how I ended up eating breakfast on Hemi’s terrace. I didn’t change first, either, because it was July-warm outside already, and I didn’t have anywhere I had to go or anything I had to do before the workweek began, other than unpack and explore my new neighborhood. Inez would be taking care of everything else, Hemi had said.
You could call it different. Or you could call it bizarre, because Hemi had been wrong. I wasdefinitelya goldfish.
It was so odd not to have to rush to get my chores done, not to mention having Hemi there to hand me my cup of coffee, made from a machine so complicated I hadn’t mastered half its secrets, and then having him reveal a basket of croissants delivered from a French bakery that morning. He scrambled eggs while I sliced strawberries and tossed them in a bowl with the fresh raspberries and blueberries we’d bought the evening before, and Karen set the table. Not at the sarcophagus this time, because Hemi said, “We’ll use the terrace, eh.”
“Oh,” Karen said, “theterrace,”and made a comical face at me.
Hemi’s lips twitched, but all he said was, “I have it. We may as well use it. Every Kiwi would rather sit outside. Surely you’ve learned that by now.”
We went outside, and he was right. There were no birds, and in that way, it wasn’t a bit like New Zealand. And yet, it was. We were in the midst of one of the largest cities on Earth, but up here, trees in tubs offered dappled shade, and a fountain trickled water music onto moss-covered rocks, competing with the echo of traffic far below. Two cushioned chaises sat to one side inviting you to lounge, while a glass-topped dining table near the French doors to the living room was surrounded by six natural wicker chairs softened by overstuffed cushions in a variety of bright hues.
There was something new about the table, too. It had a pergola built over it now. I’d noticed the wood-framed structure yesterday, but I hadn’t realized that the terra cotta pot at each corner held jasmine that had begun to twine up the wooden supports.
“Oh,” I said, touching one of the star-shaped perfumed blossoms as I stood beside the table holding my bowl of berries. “Nice.”
“Not grown up yet,” Hemi said, which was true. The vines reached only my shoulder height, leaving the overhead wooden frame of the arbor bare. “But I thought you’d like it.”
I barely heard him, because I was finally registering something else I hadn’t before. The square planters near the terrace railings, and what they now held.
“You have roses,” I told Hemi. “When did all this happen?”
“While we were gone,” he said. “Go look.”
“The eggs will get cold,” I said. I sat down, but my eyes strayed to the planters all the same. He’d had roses planted. That was…nice. White, lavender, yellow, and red. Purity, enchantment, friendship, and passion. All the best things. “I could have cut my own flowers yesterday and put them in my mother’s vase,” I told Hemi. “Except, um…”
“Hope hates heights,” Karen informed Hemi. “She won’t go to the edge, because she doesn’t want to look over.”
“I don’t want to lookthrough,”I said. The walls around the terrace weren’t stone, like you’d expect. They were some kind of Plexiglas. They wereclear.And we were on the twenty-seventh floor.
“Is that true, sweetheart?” Hemi asked.
“That would make anybody nervous.” I picked up a croissant and dipped the special spoon into the pot of extra-special jam. “But the roses are beautiful. Why did you do that?”
He looked at me, not smiling. “Why do you think?”
“It doesn’t makemenervous,” Karen said. She hopped up and went over to the edge of the terrace, stood between two planters of roses, and leaned against the glass, waving her arms behind her, over the edge. “Whee!”
