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

‘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.