‘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‘He’s withdrawn everything,’ Dan said.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.’
