Found (Not Quite a Billionaire Book 3) Read Online Free

just to look at? Because it’s no good for her for others to do things for her. She has a strong mind. A strong will. She will push. You need to push back.”
    “No worries. I got that.”
    “And now go,” she ordered.
    I looked at her and said, “Maybe I won’t. Reckon I need to push back.”
    “Not with me. Me, you need. Go.”
    Well, she was right about that.
    My conversation with Charles was considerably shorter. When I got into the car five minutes later, I said, “I want you to drive Karen more. Wherever she wants to go. And teach her to drive. Take her to get the . . . permit, or whatever it is, and then practice with her every day.” I’d have Josh check into it and ring Karen with the details. For the LASIK surgery as well. Get that scheduled, and until then? I’d keep her busy.
    “OK,” Charles said.
    “You won’t be driving Hope for a bit longer,” I said.
    Nothing at all for a long minute, then he asked, “She OK?”
    “Yeh. But she won’t be back for a bit, so when you take Karen . . . the Y’s all good, and so is her friend’s. Mandy’s. Otherwise, check with Inez before you drop her off.”
    His eyes flicked to mine in the rearview mirror. “Guys?”
    “Yeh. Could be.”
    He nodded, and that was that. Problem sorted. Pity nothing else today would be that easy.

 
    Hemi

    For the rest of the day, I put my head down and worked. I put out fires, I reviewed the revised marketing plans for the Paris show and the launch of the Colors of the Earth line. I focused. I dealt. And I tried not to think about Hope.
    I’d told Josh first thing what to do about Karen—the driver’s license, the eye surgery—and then I’d set Karen aside. It was done, and I didn’t do worry. Except that I did. From three o’clock on, when her plane would have landed, I waited for a message from Koro, or, better yet, one from Hope. And heard nothing.
    She’ll be waiting until she gets to Katikati, I told myself. You’ll hear then.
    Surely I would. Because last night, on the way home from the airport, I’d arranged for flowers to be delivered to Koro’s house. Lavender roses, to be exact. I’d done what I hadn’t managed since she’d moved in with me. I’d told Hope she mattered.
    Had I felt self-conscious typing the message into the box, knowing that some florist in Tauranga would be printing my words onto a card? Had I felt raw, and exposed, and much too clearly revealed? Yeh. I had. But I always did what was necessary, and I had a feeling this was necessary.
    She might need me to let her go. She also needed to know that I still loved her, that I wanted her, and that I wanted our baby, too. And I needed to tell her.
    The rest of it, I’d wait to tell her on the phone. I needed to hear her voice, to hear her response, and I needed her to hear mine when I told her how I felt.
    I’d asked the florist to make the delivery that afternoon and had paid extra to make sure it happened. I wanted those roses on Koro’s table when Hope walked in the door. I wanted my note to be the first thing she saw. I knew she’d have to text me when she got them, because I knew my Hope.
    Except she didn’t. Five o’clock came and went, and then six o’clock did. I finally gave in and texted Koro, You and Hope get home all right? and got no reply. Probably still teaching me a lesson, because he had to know I’d be concerned.
    Or half out of my mind.
    Then it was seven-thirty, and I texted Karen and packed up to go home. It was Women’s Wednesday, the sacrosanct evening when Hope and Karen would watch a movie while they ate dinner on the couch, with popcorn for dessert. Another thing I’d stopped sharing in once I’d achieved my objective and they’d moved in with me. This would be Karen’s first Wednesday without her sister, though, and I needed to go home and do that with her. It would make Hope feel better, and it would make Karen feel better, too. It might even make me feel better, come to that.
    Karen was