Free Marriage & the Mermaid (Hapless Heroes) by Louise Cusack Page A

come back and lock it, then he padded down the hall towards the front door where he heard Waikeri’s belly laugh. Baz edged to the corner and looked around it into the front foyer of the house as the giant Maori walked out, trailed by the blonde constable Baz had made such an ass of himself with. Then Ted pushed the door closed, smiling to himself, as if nursing a happy memory. About what?
    Baz stepped around the corner and hurried to catch up with his father before Ted disappeared. “What were you guys talking about?” he asked and stopped his father at the library door.
    Ted blinked, as if trying to remember, then said, “Sharks.”
    “Of course you were. Sharks are hilarious.” Baz took a breath and tried to rein in his frustration. “What were you really talking about, dad?”
    Ted leant close as if to check out the color of Baz’s eyes, then he lowered his voice and said, “I told them you were even more of a whiny mummy’s boy before I sent you off to boarding school.” Ted chuckled. “They found that hard to believe.” Then the old bastard ambled into the library, only to jerk to a halt two steps in. He pointed at the chair Venus had been in. “What in MacArthur’s name is that!” he demanded.
    Baz had been about to storm off so he could nurse his hurt feelings when he glanced over and saw what his father was boiling about. From this distance, the papers Baz had stuffed under the wingback chair were clearly visible.
    “That was an accident, dad,” Baz said, hurrying past him. “I’ll clean it up.”
    “Who did that?”
    “I did.” Baz pulled the papers out and put them on the low coffee table, trying to smooth them but only managing to smear the damp print further. “Shit,” he muttered.
    Ted spluttered until he was wound up enough to shout, “Don’t you swear, boy!” right next to Baz’s ear. Which, of course, made Baz want to say Fuck! But he managed to hold that in. Just.
    “I’ll fix it, all right!”
    “There’s no need to shout!”
    “Then don’t!” Baz shouted back.
    They stared each other down, then Baz swept the papers into his arms and took off. “I’ll sort this out in the study.”
    “You’d better, boy,” Ted called after him. “They’re worth a lot of money.”
    “And that’s all that matters, isn’t it?” Baz shouted back as he marched down the hallway to the study where he flung them onto the sand covered desk, shaking with reaction. Then he sat in the chair and put his hands over his face, not sure if he wanted to cry or scream.
    His father was a complete fuck–up who was probably giving the Wilson estate away in chunks for all Baz knew, and yet nothing was Theodore Tiberius Wilson’s fault. Oh no! Not even when he gave Saltwood on a silver platter to some Internet scum. It would always Balthazar’s fault. Always Baz being blamed for every that went wrong. Never the evil, demented… badly dressed, wrinkly, old bastard in the library.
    And who had ever been on Baz’s side?
    Not Beth. She’d told him to be nice to his father to get money out of him so she could have a holiday house in the Bahamas and a skiing villa in Colorado. She’d never been sympathetic, but then, she’d been smart enough to be ‘otherwise occupied’ with her own family when it came time for Baz to visit his father, so she’d had no idea how imperious the old bastard could be.
    And now? Well, now there was no–one. Venus was only interested in sex, when what Baz longed for was something he knew didn’t really exist. The perfect wife. A funny, beautiful, intelligent woman who drove him crazy in bed and cared enough about him to hold him when he needed to be held.
    Like right now.
    Of course, that was far too much to expect but it didn’t stop Baz wanting it — wanting someone who would love him, not despite his flaws, but because of them. Someone who would search out his strengths and admire them. Someone he could spend the rest of his life getting to know, to respect, and