Chapter Two
Orson
I feel a little lightheaded.
I follow Scarlett along the corridor, my gaze sliding down the curves outlined beneath the short sundress. She’s tiny—to me anyway. I’m six two and big all over, and most women look small to me. She’s wearing flat sandals, so she’s maybe five foot two or three at most, but everything is in proportion, and she’s super cute.
The moment where she took the dress out of her bag and tugged it down over her tight cycling jumpsuit in the lobby was one of the most erotic things I’ve seen in a long time, and it made me hard immediately. The scene was totally incongruous with the professional business atmosphere of the firm, and it made me feel as if I was on the beach, watching her get dressed after a swim.
I couldn’t stop staring at her. The dress is above the knee, made of a flowing material, and cream with tiny red flowers all over it. Her sandals are made from leather straps with a white and red leather flower on top of her toes. Her hair is in a simple braid, and it doesn’t look as if she’s put on any makeup—no eyeliner, mascara, foundation, or even lip gloss. And I’m pretty sure she’s wearing a real fucking rosebud in her hair.
I honestly can’t remember the last time I saw a woman like this. Every day I’m surrounded by businesswomen. In the office they all wear suits, smart blouses, and skirts or wide-leg trousers; their hair has highlights and lowlights and is styled to perfection; their makeup is faultless, with not a freckle or a blemish in sight. The women staying at the Midnight Club walk around in designer swimming costumes or expensive day dresses, and in the evening, they wear sparkling, tight gowns that have clearly cost a fortune. But Scarlett takes the words fresh and relaxed to a whole new level .
“After you.” Jack gestures for Scarlett to precede him into his office. She walks in, and I follow her. Jack set up this law firm with a friend, and so his office is one of the largest in the building, with large windows that overlook a walled garden, an expensive-looking wooden desk in front of us with a black leather chair, and a dark-gray sofa and chairs on the far side.
“Please take a seat over there,” he says, gesturing to the sofa and chairs as he collects a few papers from his desk.
Scarlett and I walk across the room, and she lowers herself onto one of the corner seats of the three-seater sofa. I sit at the other end, and she glares at me, presumably for not taking one of the chairs. I know that although her father was Pakeha or white, her mother was Māori, and this is reflected in her light-brown skin, dark-brown hair, and brown eyes. Her icy glare should have turned the blood in my veins to ice, but those eyes are far too dark and passionate for that.
“Did you know that the word scarlet comes from the Arabic word siklat ?” I ask.
She blinks. “No.”
“ Siklat refers to silks dyed red with insects called kermes. Red symbolizes wealth and power. And passion and love in cultures all around the world.”
Her cheeks gradually take on a reddish hue. Jesus, is she actually blushing? I didn’t think women did that in this day and age.
Half of me expects her to tell me to fuck off. Instead, though, she says, “Mahuika is a Māori goddess of fire. When I was young, I used to wear red all the time because I wanted to be like her. So everyone started calling me Scarlett, and it stuck.” She narrows her eyes at me. “Don’t you dare make a joke about me being a scarlet woman.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
She keeps her eyes on mine. Oh… her lips have curved up, just a fraction. Or did I imagine it? Too late—she tears her gaze away as Jack comes over and sits in one of the armchairs, and the moment’s gone.
He puts a folder on the table. On the front is a label that reads ‘Blake Stone / Kahukura.’
“I’m going to take some notes, if that’s okay,” she says to him. When he nods, she opens the bag she was carrying on her bike and extracts a notebook. Not a laptop, but a proper old-fashioned spiral-bound notepad .
“Want a quill pen with that?” I ask, amused. “Why don’t you just take notes on your phone?”
“I don’t have one.” She flips the pad open and clicks the button on the end of her ballpoint pen.
“You don’t have a phone?” I’m completely baffled. My friends and everyone I work with are glued to their phones twenty-four-seven. “My whole life is on my iPhone. I’d be lost without it. How do you cope?!”
“We weren’t allowed individual phones when we were kids,” she says, “and you don’t miss what you’ve never had.”
“What if you want to look anything up on the internet?”
“I can use the computers in the commune library.”
I’m stunned. I’m constantly checking financial data, reading the news on Reddit, writing business emails, looking at my calendar, or talking to friends on Snapchat. “Aren’t you on Instagram or TikTok or anything?”
“I’m not interested in social media,” she says. “I don’t share my generation’s interest in taking photos of every aspect of their mundane lives and sharing them with the world.”
My lips curve up. “What if you need to text or call your friends?”
“They all live in the commune.”
“And how is life in Brigadoon?”
She blinks, confused. I guess she hasn’t seen the movie about the mysterious Scottish village that appears for only one day every hundred years. Do they even have TV over there?
Jack clears his throat. “Let’s move on. Okay, Scarlett, first of all, I’d like to say I’m very sorry to hear about your father’s passing. Our sympathies here at the law firm go to you and your family, and everyone else Blake was close to at the commune.”
“I second that,” I say.
She looks at me. “Oh, really?” Her voice is flinty. “You’re so sympathetic toward us that you want to exploit us in our moment of grief?”
Ouch. “I apologize if that’s how it comes across. But we’d heard that local iwi had expressed an interest in the land, and we wanted to put in an offer before you made a decision.”
It’s a complicated story. The land on which the commune sits originally belonged to Blake’s Māori wife, Amiria. A river serves as the border between their land and the land my father inherited, which he offered as the site for the Midnight Club. The river culminates in a waterfall that tumbles into a large pool known as the Waiora, which is Māori for ‘healing waters’. On a sunny day, rainbows can occasionally form in the falling water, which is why Blake called the nearby commune Kahukura, which means rainbow in Māori.
Māori consider the site wahi tapu , which means they think of it as a sacred, almost supernatural place where their tūpuna or ancestors would bathe, believing that the waters cleansed and healed their bodies and sustained their spirits at the same time. The retreat that the commune runs uses the pool’s supposed healing properties in their treatments.
Technically, Blake’s land extends in a loop around the pool. But because our land runs right up to the edge of the rest of the river, we’ve always maintained our side of the pool, and he never contested that—why would he, when we spent decent money to make his land look good? We created a neat gravel path to lead from the resort down to the pool, and because our guests often go on walks and like to explore the grounds, we’ve erected some seating there so people can sit and admire the waterfall.
“That’s right,” Scarlett says. “Local iwi have raised the issue of who owns the Waiora now my father has passed. We discovered that because my father never transferred ownership to the commune, the land is technically mine. But we all make decisions together at the commune, and I’ll be reporting back to the Elders later.”
“I understand the cultural significance of the site,” I say. “We’d like to offer to buy the Waiora so we can develop the land in a respectful way.”
“Respectful?” Her eyes blaze. “You want to exploit and commercialize something natural and pure.”
I frown. “It’s an underdeveloped site that’s going to waste. I want to make it beautiful and functional. I promise I’ll honor the space and make sure it’s safe and secure.”
If her spine gets any more rigid, it’s going to snap. “I don’t want it to be safe and secure,” she says, her voice hard. “It should remain untouched and wild. It’s a tranquil place where vulnerable people can find clarity and peace. It’s not underdeveloped, and it’s not going to waste. It’s a sacred place of healing. You can’t disturb the god of the waters.”
That pushes me over the edge, and my patience—which hasn’t been great lately anyway—snaps. “Oh, come on. I accept it’s a peaceful place and that people enjoy meditating and other crazy stuff there, but let’s keep your batshit religion out of it.” Out of the blue, a stab of pain runs from my shoulder down to my elbow like lightning, and I twitch irritably. “I don’t want my chakras located, and I don’t need to know if the moon’s in Uranus. I just want to talk business.”
Silence falls in the room.
Jack rests his head on a hand and massages his brow.
Scarlett looks astonished, as if she doesn’t believe that someone would ever say anything like that to her.
A seed of guilt blooms in my chest and spreads through me. I shift in my chair and roll my right shoulder with a wince. “I’m sorry,” I say grumpily. “I came off my motorbike a few weeks ago, and I’m in pain this morning. It’s no excuse for being rude, though. I apologize.”
She blinks, and then her gaze skims down my body, as soft as a brush of her hand would be. I wait for her to say, ‘Good, I’m glad it hurts,’ or something similar.
Instead, she says, “I saw the graze on your temple and wondered how you got it.”
“He had a concussion,” Jack says, because he knows I wouldn’t have admitted it.
She frowns. “Are you getting headaches?”
I give a terse nod.
Sympathy flickers on her face. “I’m sorry I banged my bike into your knee.”
Surprised, I say, “That’s okay. My knees are fine. Well, they were.”
Her lips twitch. Then she says, “I’m very sorry to hear you had an accident. What happened?”
“Another driver took his eye off the road to check his phone, swerved across the road, and rammed my motorbike.”
“Orson’s dog was in the carrier on the back of the bike,” Jack says. “Unfortunately he was killed.”
Her eyebrows lift, and her mouth opens. “Oh no.”
As always, when I think about Doyle, my throat tightens, and I have to swallow hard.
“I’m so terribly sorry,” she says, and she rests a hand on my arm. “I know dogs are a man’s best friend.”
I look down at it, shocked that she’d offer me comfort after I’ve been so rude to her. This girl has just lost her parents, and she’s being kind enough to console me on the death of my dog .
She has light-brown skin, and her hands are smooth and unlined, with short, neat nails, absent of fake painted talons or French polish. She squeezes my arm lightly, then removes her hand, although her gaze lingers on mine. I’m so taken aback, I don’t know what to say.
“Why don’t we start again?” Jack asks. “So, about the sale…”
“I’m here to gather information,” Scarlett interjects, “and take it back to the Elders for discussion. But I can tell you now that I am vehemently opposed to the sale of the Waiora, and I will fight that every step of the way.”
“Let me explain our plans,” I say, “and maybe you’ll change your mind. We’d like to offer fifteen million dollars for the Waiora and the strip of land surrounding it.”
Her eyebrows rise. I know that the Elders would have had the land valued, just like us, and she would know it’s worth around ten million. So fifteen is a very generous offer.
I continue, “Along with that, I’d give the commune permanent access to the Waiora in the form of a right-of-way easement. We would also invest a significant amount of money into developing the area to make it safer and more accessible. We’d create well-signposted walking paths from both the resort and the commune that lead to a paved area around the pool with seating and sheltered areas, bathroom facilities, a changing room, maybe even a small cafe…” I stop as Scarlett inhales, her eyes widening. “Don’t pop a blood vessel,” I say sarcastically. “Everything would be negotiable. Let me show you the plans.”
“I don’t want to see the plans.”
I ignore her, take the roll of paper from Jack, and spread it out on the table, holding it down both ends with books. “Look,” I say, directing her gaze down. “These would be the paths, and there would be a safe paved area on either side of the pool here and here. I’d also suggest a bridge across the top of the waterfall where the stepping stones are now. You must have noticed that some of the stones are uneven. It won’t be long before a kid falls in and goes head first over the waterfall.”
Her gaze skims across the plan, and she studies it silently for a while. I let her look, glancing at Jack, who lifts his eyebrows, suggesting he’s glad she’s considering it, at least.
“What are those?” she asks stiffly, pointing to a series of circles on her side of the pool on the right .
“I thought it would be cool to create a series of nooks for you. Maybe like small gazebos, covered over to provide some shelter for when you take groups down there. They’d be private, and fitted with whatever you’d like to make it pleasant there, like outdoor cushions, fairy lights, as much kale as you can eat…” I’m half-teasing.
But her eyes flare. “Fairy lights? Kale? We’re not running a mind, body, and spirit fair. The retreat is a serious place for women and children to escape from abusive relationships and to recover and heal.”
Jack massages his brow again.
I knew the commune ran a retreat, but I hadn’t looked into it, and I’d assumed it was some hippie bullshit thing where they all sit around chanting and striking bells or dancing naked under the moonlight.
Not that I’m against watching someone like Scarlett Stone dancing naked under the moonlight…
She’s still glaring at me. I clear my throat. “I’m sorry, I’m sure the work you do is useful…”
“You throw apologies around like they’re tennis balls, but you don’t mean them,” she says heatedly. “We had a mother turn up yesterday with her thirteen-year-old daughter. The woman’s husband beat her so badly he injured her arm, and he sexually abused his daughter. The two of them are physically and emotionally scarred, and absolutely terrified.”
I blink, thrown by her passionate retort, as well as what she’s saying.
“The Women’s Refuge sends women like this to us,” she continues, “so they can spend some time recovering in a place that’s an escape from the harsh world they’re used to. I’m in charge of the healing program at the retreat. Yes, we hold yoga and meditation classes, but that’s so we can teach them techniques to control their fear and anxiety, which help to lower blood pressure, and I also teach self-defense. We are all vegetarian, but that’s because a vegetarian diet has lower levels of saturated fat and cholesterol, and more fiber, potassium, and vitamin C than other eating patterns, and we’re trying to help them heal. We want them to feel better about themselves, and to be able to return to the real world feeling more confident and in control. So I’d appreciate it if you aren’t facetious and stop mocking what I do.”
When she finishes, her cheeks are flushed again, and her eyes are blazing. Fuck me, she’s beautiful .
Shame spreads through me. I’ve insulted her twice now, and that would be unforgivable even if she wasn’t obviously doing worthwhile work. Why has my father never told me what they do at Kahukura? Does he know? I can’t believe he doesn’t, but he’s always spoken about Blake Stone with derision, and calls the commune a ‘crystals-and-kumbaya retreat.’ I’ve felt vaguely exasperated at the thought of having a cult-like settlement next to the Midnight Club, and I have to admit that part of the reason I wanted to develop the Waiora was so we could keep our half separate from the ‘tree-hugging, granola-munching patchouli brigade’, as Dad has called them in the past.
Now, I’m disgusted with myself for insulting the valuable work she does. She would have no idea that the Midnight Circle—the consortium of rich men and women who run the group of Midnight Clubs, of which I am a part—meets regularly to decide which charities we should spend the profits from the clubs on. Although we’re ruthless in business, I’m proud that we’re all driven by altruism, compassion, and a desire to change lives.
And now look at me—insulting this beautiful young woman and the honorable work she does.
I fucking hate myself sometimes.
I look down at the plan on the table, and see us through her eyes for the first time—as a faceless corporation taking over a smaller but well-meaning establishment, like a huge new supermarket putting the local Farmers’ Market with its organic fruit and vegetables out of business.
I’m not prepared to give up on my idea. But I’m not going to achieve anything by acting like this. What’s the fable about the wind and the sun trying to remove the traveler’s cloak? Proving that gentleness is more powerful than force?
Thoughtfully, I reach out, pick up the plan, and roll it back up. Then I throw it like a dart so it lands in Jack’s rubbish bin.
I turn toward Scarlett, lean forward with my elbows on my knees and my hands clasped, and look into her startled eyes. “I’m truly sorry,” I say, injecting as much feeling as I can into my words. “I’ve been extremely rude and thoughtless.”
She narrows her eyes. “So walking in and throwing money at me didn’t work, and now you’re going to try to win me around with charm? I wasn’t born yesterday, Mr. Cavendish. ”
“Call me Orson, please. And no, I’m not trying to charm you, I’m attempting to be sincere.”
“You’re trying to tell me you’ve changed your mind about developing the site?” She gives a short, humorless laugh. “I don’t believe you. Why do you have to change anything? Why can’t things just stay the way they are?”
“Because progress is good, when it’s done the right way.”
“You just want to commercialize something that’s sacred to me.”
“No, I want to preserve it and make it safe. And I have an idea.”
Jack’s eyebrows rise, but he doesn’t say anything, trusting that I know what I’m doing.
I continue, “My suggestion is that the Midnight Club still purchases the Waiora for fifteen million dollars, but afterward we place the land into a stewardship trust co-managed by the Midnight Club, Kahukura, and local iwi. The Club would retain certain rights to protect our investment, but we would ensure that the trust allows for regulated access for everyone, including the general public, as well as safe walking paths, a secure bridge, and some level of maintenance. We would be free to make respectful developments to our side of the site, but because we would own the land, we’d also agree to pay for any improvements you felt appropriate for your side, like the nooks we mentioned. Those developments would be up to you. If you wanted to keep it as it is, that would be your decision.”
Silence falls again in the room. Scarlett is breathing fast, but she’s not immediately refusing.
“How do I know that ‘respectful development’ won’t alter the spiritual nature of the Waiora?” she asks.
“You’d have to trust me.”
She snorts.
My lips curve up. “Look, let’s be honest. We would gain legal access, control development, and strengthen the resort’s appeal without steamrolling local interests. We might even score some good PR for preserving a sacred site. But the trust would make sure the Waiora was protected from over-commercialization, and that it remains sacred and stays under shared guardianship.”
She looks at Jack and says, “Did you know about this?”
“No,” he says. “But Orson has a head for business and finance, and you can trust him. With the fifteen million he’s offering? I have to say, it’s a win-win for the commune, and it’s a very generous offer. ”
She studies her notepad, but she doesn’t write anything down.
I know she won’t be able to give me an answer today because she’ll need to talk to the Elders. I’m sure she wants to reject my offer, but I’m also convinced the commune would benefit greatly from a cash injection, as Jack said there have been rumors of it having financial difficulties.
“Can I make a suggestion?” I ask. “Would you meet me at the Waiora and let me show you the kind of developments we’re suggesting? We’ll take a walk around the site, and you can explain to me what you do there. We can discuss what we’d like to do with our side, and how that might impact on your business.”
It was the right thing to say. She looks slightly mollified and says, “Maybe.”
“How about midday tomorrow? Would that suit you?”
She gives a stiff nod.
“All right, I’ll meet you there,” I say.
She puts her notepad and pen back in her bag, then gets to her feet.
I hand her a business card. “In case you need to contact me.” Then I extend my hand. “Thank you for coming. I really am sorry about your parents.”
She slides her hand into mine. “And I’m sorry about your dog.”
As her warm fingers close around mine and our eyes meet, I experience the same feeling that I had when I did a charity parachute jump last year—the sharp intake of breath you take before you freefall, and the uncomfortable flip in my stomach, thrilling and terrifying at the same time.
Then she withdraws her hand, says goodbye to Jack, and walks to the door.
“Midday tomorrow at the Waiora,” I call out.
She nods, then disappears down the corridor.
I watch her go, then look at Jack. He’s smirking. “Orson Cavendish falling for a sweet summer child,” he says, “who would have thought it?”
“Shut up.”
“Don’t worry. It happens to the best of us.”
I scowl and rub my shoulder. “Don’t mock a man in pain.”
“Have you still got a headache, too? Sit down and I’ll get you a couple of painkillers. And then we’d better discuss that plan you just came up with. Your father won’t be happy with it—you know that, right?”
“He left the details up to me,” I say stiffly.
He holds up a hand. “I know. I’m just saying, he won’t like the idea of Blake’s family having any control over the developments. I’ll get the pills and a cup of water.” He leaves the room.
I sit back down with a scowl. Yeah, she was hot, but I’ve hardly fallen for her. No way would I ever be interested in a girl from Brigadoon who wore real flowers in her hair and didn’t even own a phone.
I think of the way she pulled the dress over her cycling jumpsuit and blow out a long breath. Women were put on this earth to torture us.
I’m not going to give her another thought.