Chapter 1
For three days Hattie Monk had been waiting for Saturday night to arrive to go on her dream date with Royce Collins. Aged 24 with fair and longish curly hair Hattie was a vivacious and, being in a wealthy family, a little precocious. She was between jobs, a casualty of downsizing in her section of the computer industry, although her mother Kitty insisted Hattie was 'on vacation'.
Her Saturday night date, Lieutenant Royce Collins, had arrived recently from overseas duty. Five generations of the Collins family had served in the military and now Royce had become the sixth, though his billionaire father had ensured his son had been posted to Germany away from any conflict apart from fights in the bars. Royce had phoned the beauty to invited her to a dine and dance and suggested going somewhere afterwards to park -- somewhere comfortable. On the strength of that Hattie had purchased condoms knowing the great place to park. She was determined to make a great pitch to become Mrs Hattie Monk-Collins and going into a motel room would enhance her chances, surely.
Then disaster. Her father called at midday Friday to say he'd been caught in urgent talks and her mother was having her hair done. There was no option but to ask Hattie to go to New York to meet Cousin Victor Shadbolt next morning -- the Queen Elizabeth 2 was due to dock at 8:00 am.
"But father!"
"I know- your date with Ronald's boy. Schedule a re-date darling; family comes first.
"But father!"
"Cedric (the chauffer) is on the way to take you to the airport. A limo at JFK will take you to your hotel where you'll stay three days in a suite. Look darling, I'm sorry to be costing you a date but go out with Cousin Victor instead. You have the credit card I gave you recently -- I've just asked Kevin to charge it with $5000. Spend big on me darling. Goodbye."
Hattie snapped her cell phone shut and let off a string of oaths that would have curled the claws of a Bishop's parrot. She went outside by the pool to sulk for half-an-hour before calling Royce to give him the bad news.
"Oh Hattie -- what a coincidence, I was about to call you to cancel tomorrow night. Gwendolyn James has invited me to escort her to a party restricted to families of military personnel. Hattie, are you there Hattie?"
Hattie's phone now lay on the concrete pool surround in one hundred pieces. She called Kevin Browne at her father's office to claim insurance on her phone and requested Kevin to rush another one to her at the United terminal at the airport.
"Very well Miss Monk," he said in his fruity voice. "I'll get the phone to you even if it means delaying the flight."
Hattie said to her father's chief of staff, "Splendid Kevin -- just call me whenever you want me to put in a good word for you."
Cedric the chauffer had handed her a package that she read on the way to the airport. It contained air tickets and passes, instructions where to go to find the limo and the address of the hotel -- not that anyone needed to be given the address of that hotel; her father was on the board therefore the accommodation would be a premium suite. Just before the last call to board a courier in motor-cycle leathers arrived with her phone. She'd called Kevin out of a meeting just to say, "Great phone thank you Kevin; this call confirms it works." She grinned when she held on after saying goodbye to hear him mutter, "Because it's my fucking back-up phone you chipMonk." She knew Kevin's secret desire was to screw her and then screw her neck, although with him being unsure of his sex he was unlikely to do either.
Information on Cousin Victor from some unpronounceable place called Waimakariri in a place called New Zealand -- wherever that was -- interested her vaguely. He was her third cousin so it would not be a crime to allow him to share her bed if she felt so inclined. Damn her father -- he was such a bully making her do this and refusing to employ her in administration in one of his factories -- instead he insisted she go out and find a job herself and stick at it 'to build character'. Well, at least he'd given her a momentary sweetener for this trip: it would pay for a new dress and shoes and a day trip to Atlantic City to have fun losing a couple of thousand.
At the passenger ocean terminal Hattie found it too crowded and too noisy for her. The liner had docked and people were about to 'disembark' as the guy in a beautifully modulated voice and no accent was announcing over the sound system. She paid two guys to stand at places where they thought was the right place to position with boards she wrote on in felt pen -- 'Cousin Victor Shadbolt from NZ'. She held up fifty bucks and said it would be a bonus to the guy who brought passenger Victor Shadbolt to her in the coffee shop she identified.
"It could be a couple of hours Miss."
"That's fine, I like coffee and will read the newspaper."
Just over an hour later someone coughed just behind her -- an attention-seeking cough. It was one of the signboard 'boys'. "Found him Miss."
She asked the tall guy behind him, "Are you Cousin Shadbolt?"
"Yes, from out of Waimakariri."
"Pardon me?"
"Mid center of the South Island of New Zealand."
"Oh, New Zealand. Here you are young man," Hattie said handing over the fifty.
God the guy was big and she was annoyed at him staring at her like that; don't girls in New Zealand have breasts?
"I'm Hattie Monk," she said, holding out her hand. She almost wet herself when he kissed it so elegantly with great timing.
He introduced himself as Victor Shadbolt but invited her to call him Vic. "I'm astonished."
"What, at the size of my breasts?"
He smiled and his color deepened. "Not exactly. My mother had described you as a snotty-nosed stuck-up little bitch, spoilt to the nth."
"Perhaps it's just as well I don't really understand what that means."
Vic beamed and slapped her on the shoulder, almost knocking her out of her chair. "With humor like that you can't be too bad."
Hattie couldn't understand why this clown from nowhere was assaulting her and accusing her of having a humor when she was livid at his scrawny, drunken and foul-mouthed mother defaming her and unjustly. She'd met the mother three years ago when she visited her parents in Chicago during Hattie's final year at college. The father, although not there, would be civilized because he was American.
In the drive to the city she asked, "Did you sail in that boat from your local port?"
"Ship."
"Pardon me?"
"Boats are little things -- big vessels traversing oceans are called ships."
"Whatever."
"I was flown to England for seven days and then my prize included sailing on the QE2 to New York."
"Prize -- you won a male beauty contest or something?"
"Ah, very droll." Vic beamed. "I know I'm good looking but fall short of being handsome."
"I could debate that but why inflate your ego."
"You have a very lively mind, Hattie; I like you already."
"Well, at least that's something your mom didn't do."
"Mum is okay -- she has a sharp tongue when she'd been on the booze without a few days' break."
"Mum and not mom?"
"Aye, at least in New Zealand."
"What will you do in America?"
Vic said looking for a rich wife and Hattie said well that eliminated her because she wasn't rich.
"You'd be too much of a handful for me," he grinned only to be caught again looking at her breasts.
"You are rude," she giggled. "You wanted me to catch you looking at them."
His stupid grin gave him away.
That byplay softened her and she said, "Keep this up and perhaps I'll like you. How did you win that fabulous prize?"
"I won first prize at a poker tournament at a casino comprising the trip to England, the sailing to New York, spending money and the flight to Christchurch New Zealand from LA -- total value $25,000."
"Wow. So you like gambling?"
"Nah but I've been playing penny poker with dad and two of his buddies since my seventh birthday and still do; they entered me in the tournament."
