Found (Not Quite a Billionaire Book 3)
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.
Contents May Shift During Flight
Another Fabulous Growth Opportunity
The Te Mana School of Negotiation
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
)
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.