Page 81 of Fractured (Not Quite a Billionaire)
There was more than one way of losing a child.
Karen’s welfare is all that matters,I told myself fiercely. Not your ego. Not your need to be right, or your need to be the most special person in the world to her. Hemi is wonderful, and he loves her, too, so now she has two people, and that’s nothing but good.
“All right?” Hemi asked. I’d barely noticed when we’d crossed the street, but we were in Central Park now, and thankfully in the shade.
He took my hand, and I said, going for casual, “Sure. And I haven’t held hands with you since New Zealand, you know? It’s nice.”
He glanced down at me and said, “I really have been neglecting you, eh.”
I hesitated, but hewastoo busy, I’d said half an hour, and there was no time like the present. Anyway, I had a feeling this was going to take more than half an hour.
How did I say this, though? Somehow.
“You haven’t been neglecting me,” I said. “You’ve had a lot to do, and a lot on your mind. I get it. But there’s something else. You want to have the right to make decisions for Karen, and I need the right to make a decision, too. For myself.”
“Oh?” His voice was still perfectly calm, but the hand holding mine surely wasn’t as relaxed as it had been a second ago.
“I need to leave Te Mana,” I said, and his hand jerked.
“No,” he said.
“Hemi. You don’t get to say ‘no.’ Not about this.”
His profile was set, and he’d picked up the pace, skirting an elderly lady with a Shih Tzu and three kids eating ice cream, forcing me to scramble to keep up. “Why?” he asked.
“Because…” It was hard to walk this fast and talk, too. “I’m in too privileged a position, that’s why. Nobody will tell me the truth about me or my work, because they’re afraid of you. I don’t have enough to do, and nobody’s going to push me so I can learn, and I’m an outsider.”
“Then tell them you need more to do. And of course you’re an outsider. It’s been two weeks.”
I sighed. “I know you think I’m some scared little puppy. But I did that. And I said I didn’t have to go home at five, that I wanted to stay, butsomebodyseemed to have already told them differently, and guess whose name is on the paycheck?”
“I don’t think you’re a scared puppy. If you have a problem with your supervisor that you can’t solve, go to Henry.”
You see how tricky this was? I couldn’t reveal who’d said what, and have Hemi step in. How would that make anything better? “I’m in a no-win situation there,” I tried to explain. He was walking so fast, and I was trying not to pant. I passed a couple eating gelato. One of them had lemon ice. Man, that sounded good. I wanted to stroll and eat gelato, not speed-walk and argue. Maybe I should drop it and casually suggest…
Ha. Like that would work with the Human Guided Missile.Finish it.“People either treat me with kid gloves, or they’re…envious and bitter, and they probably have a right to be.”
“How do you know?”
“Trust me. I know. And, no, I’m not going to tell you how, other than to say that nobody else leaves at five o’clock, and everybody knows that I do, and everybody knows why. Sure, it’s been two weeks, but I’ve been at the company almost a year, and I’m more isolated now than I ever was. And I know that sounds like whining. I get that. I appreciate that you’ve wanted to give me something to do that would…that would challenge me, but this isn’t it.”
“Tell me why,” he said, “and I’ll fix it.”
“No. You won’t. If you stepped in, what good would it do? It would only make it worse. And all right,” I said when he didn’t answer. “I’m going to tell you what I’m most worried about.” I clutched his hand more tightly. I was starting to feel a little faint. It was too hot out here, and I was too nervous. I should have worn a hat, I thought fuzzily.
Hot. On my head. “Maybe we should sit down for a minute,” I said.
“I’d rather walk.”
“Uh, Hemi.” The world was going alarmingly black around the edges, and I stopped right in the middle of the sidewalk as bicycles and pedestrians veered to avoid us. ”I need to sit,” I managed to say in a voice that was coming from somewhere down a tunnel. “Please.”
He swore, and then he was walking me across to a bench and setting me down on it. “All right?” he asked.
“Uh…sure.” I put a shaking hand up to my forehead. The cold sweats had started up again, just like the day before.
“Bottle of water?” he asked.
“Please.” I just wanted him to leave.
