The Package Deal: Nine Months to Change His Life / From Neighbours...to Newlyweds? / The Bonus Mum

‘No,’ he said. ‘You go first and that’s an order. I’ll grab your manuscript and follow.’

‘It’s not important.’

‘It is. Go!’

‘Blimey,’ the guy said, obviously astounded at the vehemence behind his words. ‘Women and children first? The island’s not sinking, mate.’

It wasn’t, but the memory of Jake was all around him. He didn’t know where Jake was. He wanted Mary safe.’

‘You go first and I’ll bring Heinz and the manuscript up with me,’ he told Mary, and Mary looked at him as if he was out of his mind.

‘You’re the one with the bang on his head and the gammy leg. You’re planning on holding my dog and my book while you air-swing? In your dreams, mister.’

The chopper guy sighed. ‘Quiet dog?’

‘He’s eaten so many dead fish this morning he won’t raise a wriggle,’ Mary told him. ‘But I wouldn’t squeeze him.’

The guy grinned. ‘Name?’

‘Heinz.’

‘I might have known. Okay, boys and girls, I’m taking the dog up while you sort the remaining order between you. No domestics while I’m away. Sheesh, the stuff we heroes have to put up with. Heinz, come with me while Mummy and Daddy sort out their rescue priorities.’

* * *

She went first, clutching the battered quilt. ‘Because Barbara will forgive me everything but losing this.’

He came after, with her manuscript. He’d spent time in choppers in Afghanistan. He didn’t like the memories.

He was hauled into the chopper and Mary was belted onto the bench. She was holding Heinz as if she needed him for comfort. She looked somehow... diminished?

Lost.

She’d come to the island to escape, he remembered. Now she was going home.

He sat beside her but she wouldn’t look at him. She buried her face in Heinz’s rough coat and he thought suddenly of the streams of refugees he’d seen leaving war zones.

Surely that was a dumb comparison—but the feeling was the same.

He touched her shoulder but she pulled away.

‘Um, no,’ she said, and she straightened and met his gaze full on. ‘Thanks, Ben,’ she said softly. ‘But I’m on my own now.’

‘You’re not on your own.’

‘This was a fairly dramatic time out,’ she said. ‘But it was just that. Time out. Now we both have stuff we need to face.’ She shook herself then, and Smash ’em Mary took over. He saw the set of her chin, the flash of determination, the armour rebuilding. ‘What I’m facing is nothing compared to you, but Jake will be okay. I’m sure of it.’

He had no room to respond.

In any other situation he would have...

Would have what? He didn’t know.

For suddenly he was there again, in Afghanistan, watching a bloodied Jake being loaded onto the stretcher, knowing he couldn’t go with the ambulance, knowing Jake’s fate was out of his hands.

Loving brought gut-wrenching pain.

When he was fourteen years old his mother had suicided. That day was etched into his mind so deeply he could never get rid of it.

Pain.

And here was this woman, sitting beside him, hurting herself. He’d forgotten his pain in her body. He’d used her.

He could love her.

Yeah, and expose him—and her—to more of the same? If he did...if he hurt her...

He hadn’t been able to stop his mother’s suicide. The emotional responsibility was too great.

Where was this going? He didn’t have a clue. He only knew that he withdrew his hand from her shoulder, and when she inched slightly away he didn’t stop her.

It was better to withdraw now. Kinder for both of them. He had relationships back in the US, of course he did, but the women he dated were strong, independent, never needy. They used him as an accessory and that was the way he liked it.

He never wanted a woman to need him.

‘We’re heading to Paihia,’ the voice of the chopper pilot told them through their headphones. ‘From there we’ll have people help you, check you medically, find you somewhere to go.’

Mary nodded, a brisk little nod that told him more than anything else that she had herself contained again. She wasn’t as strong as she made out, though, he thought. Strong, independent woman? Not so much.

It didn’t matter, they were moving on.

It was what they both needed to do.

* * *

Paihia. A massive army clearing tent. People with clipboards, emergency personnel everywhere, reminding them both that they were bit-part players in a very big drama.

‘Ben’s hurt,’ Mary managed, as a woman wearing medic insignia on her uniform met them off the chopper. ‘I’m a nurse. He had a dislocated knee that I managed to put back in but it needs checking for possible fractures. He also had a bang on the head. I’ve pulled the cut together with steri-strips but it probably needs stitches.’

‘We’ll take it from here,’ the medic said. ‘And you?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Can you come this way, sir? Would you like a wheelchair?’

‘I don’t need help,’ he growled. ‘I need to find my brother.’

‘Your brother is?’

‘Jake Logan. One of the yachties.’

‘You’re part of the round-the-world challenge?’ Her face cleared. ‘Thank God for that. They’ve lost so many, the organisers are frantic.’

That was a statement to make him feel better. Not.

‘Jake...’ he managed.

‘The organisers have evacuated all survivors to Auckland,’ she said. ‘I don’t have names.’ She hesitated. ‘We’re sending a chopper with a couple of patients needing surgery in about ten minutes. If you let me do a fast check on your leg and head first, I can get you on that chopper.’

He turned and Mary was watching, still with that grave, contained face. The face that said she was moving on.

‘Go, Ben,’ she said. ‘And good luck.’

‘Where can I find you?’

‘Sir...’ the woman said.

The chopper was waiting.

‘I need an address,’ he told Mary. ‘Now!’

‘Email me if you like. I’m MaryHammond400 at xmail dot com.’

‘MaryHammond400?’

‘There’s so many of us I got desperate.’

‘There’s only one of you.’

She smiled. ‘It’s nice of you to say so but there are millions of Marys in the world. Good luck with everything, Ben. Email me to let me know Jake’s safe.’

‘I will. And, Mary—’

‘Just go.’

‘Give me the quilt,’ he told her, and she blinked, and he thought bringing the quilt into the equation, a touch of practicality, threw her.

‘You want it for a keepsake? You can’t have it.’

‘I’ll have it restored for Barbara and send it back to you,’ he told her. ‘And I don’t need keepsakes. Thank you, Mary 400. Smash ’em Mary. Mary in a million. I don’t need keepsakes because I’ll remember these last few days forever.’

* * *

She watched the chopper until it was out of sight. She hugged Heinz. She felt...weird.

She should feel gutted, she told herself. She felt like the man of her dreams was flying out of her life forever.

Only he wasn’t. She even managed a wry smile. He’d been a dream, she decided, a break from the nightmare of the past. She was glad she’d made love with him. Abandoning herself in his body, she’d felt as if she’d shed a skin.

Was she now Mary 401?

‘What can we do for you, Miss Hammond?’ Another official with a clipboard was approaching, bustling and businesslike. ‘Your American friends who own the island are frantic. We’ve fielded half a dozen calls. Would you like to ring and reassure them?’

‘I’ll do that,’ she said, still feeling weird. ‘I’ll tell them their quilt’s safe.’

‘Is there someone else we can contact? You live in Taikohe. Can someone collect you?’

‘Are the normal buses running?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Then I’ll take a bus.’

‘I’m sure we can arrange someone to drive you. We have volunteers eager to help.’

‘Thank you but no.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I need to put this behind me. Somehow life needs to get back to normal.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

New York

‘MR LOGAN, THERE’S a Mary Hammond on the line, asking to see you. I told her you were fully booked but she says her business is personal. She’s only in the country until Monday.’

Ben was knee deep in futures. The negotiations were complex and vital.

His secretary’s words made the figures in front of him blur.

Mary Hammond.

Mary.

‘Put her through.’

‘She doesn’t wish to speak to you on the phone,’ Elspeth told him. ‘She specifically said so. She’s asking for a personal interview. Will I tell her no?’

His pen jabbed straight through a certificate with three wax seals on it. Three rather important seals, one of which was from a head of state. It didn’t matter. ‘I can see her now.’

There was a moment’s silence while Elspeth returned to the outside line. His pen snapped.

‘She can be here in an hour,’ his secretary said, coming onto the line again. ‘She’s across town.’

‘I’ll send a car.’

‘She’s disconnected. Shall I delay the Howith negotiations?’

‘Yes.’

‘Will you need fifteen minutes? Half an hour?’

‘I’ll need the rest of the day,’ Ben snapped. ‘Cancel everything.’

His secretary disappeared, off to tell some of the world’s top financiers that currency crises would have to wait. By the end of the day rumours would be flying. Ben Logan didn’t miss appointments, not at this level.

But, then, Ben Logan had never been visited by the woman who’d saved his life.

He sat and stared at his desk and all he saw was Mary.

He should have flown back to the Bay of Islands to say goodbye, he conceded. He’d done all he could do, but still...

The days after the cyclone had been a blur. Getting off that chopper in Auckland. Walking over to that damned list.

Seeing Jake’s name on the safe side.

Then he’d found Jake himself, in the admin office of the chopper company. He’d been shouting, offering to pay whatever it took, his entire fortune if necessary, to hire a chopper and head out to sea to personally look for Ben.

The look on his face when Ben walked in had been indescribable.

And then, of course, other things had superimposed themselves. Jake had insisted on doctors, on getting his knee checked.

Then a pub, late at night, and Jake saying quietly, ‘Tell me about our mother.’

He’d remembered then the words he’d hurled at Jake as he’d forced his twin into being the one to leave the life raft. He’d finally thrown his mother’s suicide into the equation.

‘This is reality, Jake, not some stage play where you can play the hero. Face it now and move on. You’re just like Mom. She couldn’t face reality. Why do you think she killed herself?’

Until then it had been Ben’s secret. Jake had been told she’d accidentally overdosed. Only Ben had known the truth, and twenty years on he hadn’t enjoyed sharing.

They’d talked into the night, and drank, and things hadn’t gotten easier. The pain of their mother’s death was still bitter. Love... Ben didn’t do it. He wouldn’t. He never wanted that kind of pain again.

There was a reason the Logan boys walked alone. Jake had tried and failed at marriage. The Logan men weren’t meant for the soft side.

So even though he’d meant to go back and see Mary, in the end he’d decided it’d be better, kinder even, to make a clean break. The storm had only been that: a storm. It was over.

Except that the aftermath of that storm would be in his office in less than an hour.

Mary.

He hadn’t quite managed to put her out of his head. On his laptop was a YouTube file, the final of the two top New Zealand roller-derby teams.

Smash ’em Mary was front and foremost, rolling for Taikohe. She was as she’d said, little, quick and smart, dodging girls twice her size, moving with lightning speed, taking her team to a win.

She’d played wearing fierce, warrior-woman make-up, black tights and purple socks, a tiny halterneck top and a short, short skirt.

The documents in front of him were important. He needed to concentrate.

He ended up watching the roller derby match, one more time.

* * *

If she didn’t do this now, she never would.

It was crazy to come to the other side of the world just to talk to him. A telephone call would have worked, but it had taken courage to pick up the phone. Too much courage. She had to watch his face, she told herself, and in the end she’d decided it was the only way.

After all, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t had money for the fare, and that by itself needed personal thanks. Because three weeks after the storm a lawyer had appeared at the door of her cottage.

‘Miss Hammond?’

‘Yes?’

‘Mr Ben Logan has sent me,’ he told her. ‘I’m Frank Blainey, QC, a lawyer specialising in defamation cases. Mr Logan has briefed me on a coroner’s case that’s put your career in jeopardy. He asked me to investigate. Miss Hammond, I’ve done some preliminary groundwork and frankly I’m appalled. Acting under Mr Logan’s instructions, I’ve taken witness statements from individual members of your family, including your father, and from neighbours and colleagues.

‘Because I’ve moved fast and interviewed in isolation, there’s a clear case that we can take back to court. You have grounds for suing for perjury and defamation.’

She’d stood on the doorstep and forgotten to breathe. ‘What...what...?’

‘Take your time. It’s big to take in, but I believe we’ve solved your problem.’

‘Ben...Ben Logan?’

‘He instructed me.’

‘But I can’t afford a QC.’ It was a confused wail and the lawyer smiled.

‘You have the Logan billions behind you. Whatever it takes, were Mr Logan’s instructions, but in the end it’s taken very little. You could have employed a lawyer yourself and got the same result.’

‘But they’re my family,’ she whispered. ‘My dad... I couldn’t get up in court and call them liars.’

‘Even when they are? Even though it has the potential to ruin your career?’

‘I can’t...’

‘Well, I can,’ he said, gently but firmly. ‘And I have. Mr Logan seems to think you might not want to go to court again. If you don’t wish it, I’ve arranged it another way. The witness statements are contradictory. I now have two colleagues’ legal opinions that you have no case to answer.

‘With your permission we’ll present that to the nurses’ registration body, together, if you wish, with your sworn statement that you don’t wish your family to be put on trial for perjury. That will protect your job.

‘As well as that, you’ve suffered significant financial and personal loss because of their perjury. Your stepmother has agreed to write this cheque on the grounds that you take it no further.’

He handed her the cheque. She looked at it and gasped.

‘My father...’ she managed.

The lawyer’s tone gentled. ‘I believe your father is appalled at the lies that have been told about you.’ He hesitated. ‘I don’t believe he has the strength to stand up against your stepmother. He would wish to apologise but I doubt he will. He sees this cheque as an apology and he hopes you’ll take it.’

It let them off the hook, she thought. She thought of all the lies, all the hurt.

Her father saw this cheque as an apology?

Standing there before the lawyer that Ben had sent, she thought suddenly that she’d never felt so alone.

Ben hadn’t come to see her. He’d sent a lawyer.

Her father hadn’t come to see her. He’d sent a cheque.

She was used to being alone, though. She could do this. She’d stood in the sun and forced herself to think of the ramifications of this money. Of the steps this lawyer—under Ben’s instructions—had taken to help her.

‘Ben asked you to do this?’

‘He was aware you might think he has no right to interfere. I’ve done nothing except examine evidence in the public domain and present it to your family.’

‘But on Ben’s instructions.’

‘On Mr Logan’s instructions.’

It felt weird. It felt wrong. She was being paid off.

By Ben as well as her family?

It was a dumb thing to think. Unfair. But she stared at the cheque and thought of the difference it could make.

And she thought about a faint blue line—and she knew she needed to talk to Ben regardless.

‘I’ll tell Mr Logan you’ll accept?’ the lawyer asked.

‘Thank you,’ she said faintly. ‘But I need to thank Mr Logan myself.

So a month later, here she was, in Manhattan, in Logan House, a building whose foyer looked as it it’d swallow half of Taikohe. To say it was intimidating was to put it mildly.

‘Mr Logan’s waiting.’ An efficient-looking woman in a crisp grey suit was waiting to escort her upstairs. ‘There’s to be no interruptions under any circumstances,’ the woman told the receptionist. ‘Mr Logan’s orders. He’s out for the rest of the day.’

‘If he’s busy...’ Mary faltered.

‘He’s not busy for you, dear,’ the woman said, and led the way.

Dear...

Did she look like someone who needed TLC?

‘I bet she doesn’t address company moguls as dear,’ she muttered under her breath.

She should have dressed up more. She should have...turned corporate?

She was wearing her weddings and funerals suit. It was a bit old. She should have worn more make-up. She should have bought new shoes.

It didn’t matter. She didn’t belong here, no matter what she wore, and she wasn’t here for corporate reasons.

The lift stopped at the highest floor. The door slid open, and the woman put a gentle hand in the small of her back to guide her out.

Bet she didn’t do that to company moguls either.

But maybe she needed it. ‘I don’t...’ To say panic was setting in was an understatement. ‘I shouldn’t...’

‘Mr Logan’s waiting,’ the woman told her. She swung open the inner doors—and Ben was rising from a massive desk, walking forward to greet her.

Ben?

The last time she’d seen this man he’d been battered and wounded. He’d been in pain and he hadn’t been sure if his twin was dead or alive. She’d held him in the storm and they’d taken and given comfort to each other.

But now...

This guy was a suit plus. No one she’d ever met wore a suit like this. It was deepest black with a fine grey pinstripe, and it fitted him as if it was moulded onto his beautiful body. It screamed quality, as did his gorgeous blue tie and the crisp white linen beneath it. Even his shoes screamed quality.

He was clean-shaven. His dark hair was neatly cut and immaculately groomed.

His shadowed grey eyes surveyed her from the toes up and she was reminded suddenly of an eagle, his fierce, intelligent eyes capable of seeing things no man should see.

She was imagining things. He was scaring her.

She shouldn’t have come.

And then he smiled, striding towards her with his hands held out, and with his smile suddenly he was the Ben she’d held. The Ben she’d made love to.

‘Mary,’ he said, with all the welcome in the world. ‘Smash ’em Mary, here in my office. I’m honoured.’

He hugged her fiercely but briefly and then held her at arm’s length to look at her. Once more she got that sensation that he could see far more than she wished to tell him.

Ben.

She wanted a longer hug but after that one brief hold he was back under control.

How could she think she knew this man?

‘Thanks, Elspeth,’ Ben said.

And she thought, This guy really is a billionaire. Those two words had been a dismissal to his secretary, mild and brief, but the authority behind them had been absolute.

He was a man in command of his world—and what a world!

In the last weeks she’d looked him up on the internet—of course she had. His brother Jake the actor was famous. Ben seemed to fly under the radar but his business credentials were so impressive they’d made her gasp.

She thought of the cheque her father and stepmother had given her and what a difference it was making in her life.

This guy’s fortune was enough to make her eyes water.

How could she possibly tell him what she needed to tell him without him taking it the wrong way? And what was the wrong way anyway? She was in uncharted territory.

His secretary had disappeared. They were alone in his half-acre office, with the view that looked right out over the harbour to the Statue of Liberty. Mary had been in town for twenty-four hours, working up courage to come and see him. She’d queued to climb the Empire State Building to see all over New York.

She needn’t have bothered. The view from Logan House was almost the same.

‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’ he said, and she struggled to get her words in order. She was here for a reason and she needed to get it right.

‘I need to thank you.’

‘I believe you’ve already thanked me,’ he said gravely. ‘Both through my lawyer and through the very nice card you sent me.’

‘You make me sound like a ten-year-old writing thank-you notes.’

‘I kept the card,’ he said. ‘I believe I’ll always keep the card.’

There was a statement to take her breath away.

He was still holding her hands. Just holding...

‘It’s me who thanks you, though,’ he said. ‘You saved my life. I’ll owe you forever.’

She gulped. The feel of his hands holding hers was doing strange things. She felt...she felt...

Stop it with the feeling, she told herself. Just say what she needed to say.

‘I can’t tell you how grateful I was to hear that Jake was safe,’ she managed.

‘You never doubted it.’

‘I never admitted to you that I doubted it.’

He smiled, but his smile didn’t reach his eyes. It was a smile that said there was trouble somewhere.

Trouble? What could be wrong in this man’s perfect world?

‘Is anything wrong?’ she asked. ‘With Jake, I mean?’

‘What should be wrong? He’s fine.’

‘It’s just...you look...’

‘He’s fine,’ he said, almost roughly. But she knew there was something.

How did she know this man so well, this man in his billionaire’s office with his billionaire’s suit? She thought, He has the hawklike, all-seeing eyes but two can play at that game. Reading minds.

She knew this guy. Inside he was just...Ben.

The thought settled her. It was okay. Underneath the glossy exterior he was still the man she’d held until the terror had faded.

She had been right to come.

‘How’s Heinz?’ he asked.

‘Probably bored. My next-door neighbour’s looking after him. How’s the knee?’

‘You came half a world to ask about my knee?’

‘No.’ It was time. She released his hands and took a step back. She wanted to watch his face when she said what she had to say.

She was here for a purpose. Do it.

‘Ben,’ she said, and then she paused.

‘Mary?’

Say it.

‘I came to tell you I’m pregnant.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

HE DIDN’T GET his face right fast enough.

He didn’t know how to.

Mary had stepped back so she was standing against the closed doors. She was pressing herself hard against the doors, her chin tilted, almost defiant.

That was an appalling suit she was wearing, he thought irrelevantly. She’d looked better in torn jeans.

Pregnant.

The word seemed to echo round and round the massive office. Deals were done in this room that affected the finances of the world. Yet nothing had ever been said in this office that seemed more important than this.

Pregnant.

‘It’s okay,’ she said, hurriedly now as if she needed to clear whatever it was she saw on his face. ‘I’m not here to sue you for half you own. I don’t even want acknowledgement if you’d rather not. I just thought...I needed to tell you.’

‘But I thought...’ He was having trouble getting his voice to work. ‘I thought...’ But he hadn’t thought. That was how it had happened—thought had been shelved. Their mating had been born of primeval need, with no thought of consequences.