Chapter 16 #2
Dan followed her out, past the beanbags on the deck and a sleeping dog, to a bench by the tennis courts. The thwack of balls and muttered swearing carried on the breeze. Lucy noticed that Dan positioned himself so he could see Augi just inside the library. He had it bad.
‘So,’ Dan said, leaning back, one arm along the back of the bench as if he had all the time in the world which perhaps he did now. ‘What’s up?’
‘Oliver’s not demolishing the hotel,’ Lucy said.
Dan blinked. ‘He’s what?’
‘He’s renovating it instead. Strengthening it. Keeping it.’
Dan stared for a moment, then let out a low whistle which had the dog looking up briefly before settling back down again. ‘That’s… not what I expected.’
‘Neither did I.’ Lucy’s hands curled around each other in her lap.
‘Why? Has he declared undying love for you and MacLeod’s Cove community?’
Lucy blanched. ‘Nope. Not at all. Not even a little bit. And he won’t because it would be totally out of character. And I’m not interested anyway.’
‘Then what are you interested in?’
‘When I asked Oliver why the change of mind, he said his reasons were “commercially sensitive”.’ She made the air quotes. ‘And I thought you might know what’s going on behind the scenes.’
Dan’s mouth tightened. ‘I only know what I found out last time you asked. He needed proof that he’d completed a project with community engagement so he could win the tender for the real prize — the Wellington waterfront development.’
‘So if he’s changed course here, what does that mean for the other project in Wellington?’
Dan sat upright and pulled his phone from his pocket. ‘I don’t know. But I bet Tim will.’
He stood and walked away, speaking in a low voice as he paced near the fence. Lucy watched him, heart thudding, because she already suspected the answer.
When Dan came back, his face had changed.
‘He’s withdrawn everything,’ Dan said. ‘Wellington. All of it.’
Lucy felt the ground tilt. ‘All of it?’
Dan nodded. ‘Tim remembered because everyone was so shocked. Oliver’s pulled his applications. Consents. The lot.’
‘Why?’ Lucy heard her own voice, thin with disbelief.
‘No reason given.’ Dan shoved his phone back in his pocket. ‘But — there’s more.’
Lucy’s fingers tightened on her own knee. ‘Go on.’
Dan hesitated, as if he didn’t like the softness creeping into his own story. ‘Well, you know Augi said that Oliver’s father sold off some of the waterfront land?’
Lucy nodded.
‘Well Tim said the mayor reckoned Oliver had bought it back as some kind of way to reclaim the family’s name after all his father had done to bring dishonour to it.
Oliver had planned to name the hotel after his grandfather, who’d created the family fortune in the first place.
A pillar of the community by all accounts. ’
Lucy swallowed hard. She’d known there had been grandparents. She hadn’t realised how much of Oliver’s drive was tied to them.
‘But he could’ve carried on with Wellington even if he renovated the hotel,’ she said. ‘Couldn’t he?’
‘You’d think so.’ Dan’s gaze went distant. ‘Unless he lost interest. Or…’ He gave a humourless half-laugh. ‘Or desire.’
Lucy stared at the tennis court fence, seeing nothing. A change that big didn’t come from nowhere.
And then she heard a quiet voice behind them.
‘I think I might know why.’
Lucy turned.
Augi stood there, hands loosely clasped, face composed. Dan had already gone still — as if her arrival had rearranged the world.
Lucy rose. ‘Why?’
Augi’s gaze held hers. ‘I think you got to him, Lucy. You, Kate and everyone. I think you all showed him something he’d never been shown before. Or never been receptive to before.’
Lucy cocked her head in query. She thought she knew what Augi was saying, but she needed to hear the words.
‘You showed him himself. And he didn’t like what he saw.’
Lucy’s throat tightened.
Augi took a breath, as if she wasn’t used to saying so much out loud. ‘He thought he was building a legacy for his grandparents. But he realised he was using his father’s methods to do it.’ Her mouth tightened. ‘That would have frightened him.’
Lucy’s pulse hammered.
‘In my language,’ Augi added softly, ‘we have many words for love. But agápē means the kind of love which looks outwards, to others. It’s the kind of love that changes people. Not the easy kind, but the transformative kind. The kind that ruins your plans.’
Lucy stood very still, trying not to let the word land too deep.
‘It disrupted his plans,’ Augi continued, ‘to obliterate all traces of his father’s legacy and build on the grand one his grandfather once had.
He might have been driven by emotion to do these things, but how he went about them,’ — she shook her head — ‘was purely his father. And I think that scared him to death.’
Lucy didn’t think she’d ever heard Augi say so much in one go.
Augi’s eyes flicked away for a second. When she looked back, there was something oddly gentle in her expression. ‘He’s had a change of heart.’
Heart. Lucy had accused him of not having one. She’d been wrong, and what Augi said made sense. But she needed to know for sure. And only he could tell her.
It’s his birthday tomorrow,’ added Augi.
Lucy blinked. ‘His birthday?’
‘I found it in my research, and I can’t help wondering how he’ll be celebrating. After everything that’s happened.’
Lucy’s breath caught. She was already standing fully now, as if her body had made the decision before her mind could veto it.
‘Thanks,’ she said, the word inadequate but all she had.
Dan frowned. ‘Where are you going?’
Lucy didn’t hesitate.
‘Off to make sure Oliver has a birthday he won’t forget.’
One way or another, she murmured to herself as she walked away.