“Between Kimi and Greg?” Helen toyed with the lapel of his robe. It would be hours yet before the family was to get together for a casual lunch. “That’s something that they’ll have to work out between them. Greg is a good man. I know you think so, too, if you’ll get past thinking your daughter is still ten years old.”
“But he is too old for her.”
“She obviously doesn’t think so.” She rubbed her fingertips along his collarbone. “You can’t fix everything for your children, Mori.”
He caught her fingertips and pressed his lips to them, smiling wryly. “As if you have not done your own fixing, when it comes to everyone you care about?”
She tucked her tongue between her teeth for a moment. “All right. Perhaps I have.”
His eyes narrowed. “You did not send her here with this outcome in mind, did you?”
“Of course not!” She frowned. “I was as shocked as you were when she told us she wanted to work rather than go to school. But I believed working here would be good experience for her. That Greg would see to it that she was given a fair chance at proving herself. Not for our sakes, but for her own. He is a decent man, Mori. He’s notoriously private, but I know how far he’s taken himself.”
“Not unlike someone else we know.” He slid his hand through her hair, and she still had to brace herself for the effect he had on her. “You brought yourself far in this world, too, wife of mine.”
“Let’s just be glad that maybe Kimi hasn’t wasted as much time as I did figuring out what she really wants in life.”
“Your time was never a waste.”
“I know. It brought me George’s boys, after a fashion.” Her hand slid behind his neck. “It brought you. And Kimi.”
He tucked her head against his throat. “I will go and talk with her.”
“Good.” She slid the knot in his robe free. “After a while.”
His mouth hovered over hers. “Merry Christmas, Mrs. Taka.”
“Merry Christmas, Mori.”
Chapter Thirteen
“I want to know who leaked that picture to the papers, Shin.” Greg’s voice woke Kimi. “It was obviously clipped from the tape before you stopped it.”
She pushed her hair out of her eyes and looked over her shoulder. Greg, wearing nothing but jeans, was standing at the window, looking out at the gray day, his phone in one hand, a rolled newspaper in the other. With the freedom of being behind his back, she looked her fill at his behind.
Only, as if he sensed her attention, he turned around and caught her ogling him. His eyebrow peaked.
She hurriedly looked away and scrambled off the bed, pulling her twisted dress back down to her knees where it belonged. The clock on his nightstand told her it was long past the hour when she was supposed to meet the family for lunch. It was obvious that Greg had been awake for a while. There was a room service tray on the desk, as well as a fresh pile of newspapers. Which, from the sound of his conversation, was causing no small amount of consternation.
“I don’t care who you have to bribe. Find out. And call me.” He snapped his phone shut and tossed it on the desk.
“You must be feeling better.” She picked the comforter off the floor and piled it on the foot of the bed. “You sound like your usual self again.”
“What’d I tell you about gossip?” He snapped open the newspaper and held it out to her.
She gingerly took it, only to suck in her breath at the small photograph capturing her and Greg that night in the corridor. “Kimiko Taka is the welcoming touch at Taka’s new Kyoto branch,” she read the caption. “Lovely.” She crumpled the page. “I suppose it is too much to hope the photo stayed just in this local paper.”
“What do you think?”
She scraped back her hair. “But you got the tape from that night. You said the two security guards with Shin could be trusted.”
“I said Shin warned them to stay quiet.”
“Well, obviously, they did not heed his warning. Unless Shin—”
“No.”
She exhaled. “Are you certain? It is appalling what some papers will pay for a photograph—”
“I said it wasn’t Shin.”
She subsided. “Fine.” She rifled through the rest of the papers. “At least the clip didn’t make it above the fold. Given the way people read these days, it will not be noticed by more than half the readers.”
“Glad you can be so blasé about it, Kimi.”
She lifted her hands. “What would you prefer? The photo could have been worse. It was obviously taken before…before—”
“I started to pull off your dress?” He grimaced. “We’ll issue a release that you and I are getting married.”
Her heart jumped up into her throat and she actually felt herself sway. “What?”
“You heard me. Handy that Jenny is here right now. She can draft the press release.”
“Married?”
“We won’t have to go through with it. We just keep the press resulting from the photo from making more of the situation than it is.”
Her heart plunged right back down to the depths of her soul. She had to brace her arms against the desk because she felt so dizzy. “No, I suppose we must never have that.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She managed to straighten. “I need to get cleaned up. My family expected me an hour ago for lunch.” Without looking at him, she headed through to her own room.
He followed, though, and she could only think ironically of all the times she had wished for him to come through the doorway and he had not. Now, when she wished for distance, he gave her none.
“I want to shower, Greg.”
He did not budge. “Your parents have undoubtedly seen the photo, too.”
“My father reads about ten newspapers a day. So, yes, he probably has.” She yanked open drawers, emerging with fresh lingerie, jeans and a sweater. “Rest assured, he is used to my shocking displays.” She brushed past him, only to realize that he did still feel hot. “Do you still have a fever?” She pressed her palm to his forehead.
He closed his hands around her wrist and pulled her hand away. “I’m fine.”
“Then please excuse me,” she said, and slipped beyond him into the bathroom where she closed the door pretty much in his face.
Shaking, she dropped her clothes and quickly turned on the shower. It had not even begun to steam up the room, as she usually preferred, before she stripped off and stepped under the needle-fine spray.
When she emerged, scrubbed and dressed with her wet hair pinned back in an untidy knot, her room was thankfully empty. There was no sound from Greg’s room, either, and she peeked through the doorway.
He was gone, as was the room service tray and most of the newspapers.
She pulled on her low-heeled boots, jammed a knitted stocking cap over her wet head and left her room. But when she went up to her parents’ suite, it was empty. So back down the elevator she went. Not surprisingly, she found Greg in his office.
What did surprise her was that her father, Helen and Jenny were there, as well.
“You have been busy,” she told Greg, interrupting them. They turned to look at her, but she was focused on Greg. “I was not in the shower very long, but I see you still managed to gather the masses. Has he already told you of his ridiculous plan?”
“What is ridiculous about it?” Mori asked.
She gave him an astonished look. “Papa, even you have to admit that issuing a release that he and I are to be married is completely unnecessary!”
“What is unnecessary about saving your reputation?”
She flopped her hands. “It was a picture of us kissing, not engaging in an orgy!”
Jenny covered her mouth, trying to muffle her laugh. “Sorry,” she said. “But I happen to agree with Kimi. Acknowledging the photo just gives more power to it. This family has weathered far more inflammatory scandals than this.”
“True enough.” Helen sounded amazingl
y practical, considering that she had endured more than her fair share of unflattering publicity. First as the trophy wife of George Hanson, then as his widow, and even when the truth about her giving up Jenny as a baby had come out.
“The caption smears her reputation.” Greg looked as if his teeth were clenched.
“There was a time when you believed I had no reputation to smear,” Kimi reminded him. How well he knew better now, though. “If I do not care what it says, why should you? You’re not even identified in the photo. Your precious reputation is still intact.”
Anger coursed through him. “This isn’t about me.”
“Isn’t it?” Her voice was cool.
The phone on his desk beeped, and he snatched it up. “Sherman,” he barked. He listened for a moment. “Keep him there. I’ll be up in a sec.” He hung up. “Shin has the guard who’s admitted leaking the photo. I’ll return in a moment. Draft the release,” he ordered Jenny before leaving the office.
Helen grabbed Mori’s arm, stopping him when he went to follow. “This is Greg’s party,” she reminded him.
He grimaced, but subsided. He looked at Kimi. “Do you have anything to say?”
“Mori,” Helen chided. “What did we talk about this morning?”
He grimaced again. “You say you love the man, Kimi. I come to your room this morning to talk to you, and he tells me you are asleep in his room. And now you say you do not wish to marry him?”
Her father knew she had been in Greg’s bed? “He has not asked me!” She felt as if she had fallen down the rabbit hole somewhere. “A press release about a marriage that will never happen is not a marriage proposal.”
“She’s right, Mori,” Helen said.
Mori looked unconvinced. “Who said it will never happen? Maybe a marriage is exactly the right thing.”
“Greg said it!” She stared around the office and realized that Bridget had appeared at her desk outside his office and was staring at them all, her mouth agape. “And you cannot arrange us into anything no matter how convenient you might find it. I have work to do.” She did not have, really. She was not scheduled to work that day at all. But any excuse was better than sticking around entertaining ideas of madness. “I will see you later.” She strode out of the office. “Merry Christmas, Bridget.”
“Merry Christmas, Kimi.” Bridget’s bemused voice followed her down the hall.
It was a small mercy that Kimi did not encounter anyone else before she made it to the sales department. There, however, she came face-to-face with Charity, who was hunched over an item on her desk.
As soon as Kimi reached her own desk, she could see what that item was.
The newspaper.
“Well.” Charity eyed her. “It’s a toss-up who’s benefiting more from your job here. You or Greg Sherman.”
“Shut up, Charity.”
“Why? Are you going to run crying to your lover that someone has the nerve to see you for what you are?”
Kimi sighed. She would have cried if it would have made her feel better. “Maybe I should. Or maybe I should tell my parents that you have been unkind. They could ax you from the payroll just as swiftly. Would that satisfy your low expectations then, Charity?”
The other woman’s eyes narrowed. “You’re spoiled, and you don’t have to work for anything you want in this world. All you have to do is bat your eyes and hold out your hand, and you get everything that you want.”
“That’s enough, Charity.” Grace stood in the doorway, looking furious.
Charity flushed.
“Pack your desk and clear out.”
“Don’t fire her on my account,” Kimi said.
“We’re not.” Greg and Shin appeared behind Grace, at which point Charity managed to look a little nervous.
Shin stepped over behind Charity. “If you have any personal belongings, now is the time to collect them.”
“This is insulting.”
“What is insulting is bringing you here to the Taka and having you turn on us by delivering that clip your little boyfriend copied to the paparazzi,” Grace said.
Stunned, Kimi stared at Charity. She had been involved in the leak? “I don’t care what you think about me,” Kimi told her, “but what have you got against Greg and the hotel?”
“I needed the money, all right?” Charity began haphazardly shoving things from her desk into her purse.
“For what?” Kimi handed her a box of tissues.
Charity snatched one and noisily blew her nose. “For my sister. The one he dumped when he came to work for your parents.”
Greg stepped forward. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Charity blindly pushed a coffee mug into her purse. “Gretchen? I suppose you can hardly remember her when you’ve got Kimi here to keep you busy.”
“Wait a minute. Gretchen Bloom from Düsseldorf? She’s your sister?”
“Yes.” She tried to push a picture frame into her purse, too, but it wouldn’t go.
“Gretchen was my head housekeeper,” Greg said. “That’s all. I never get involved with my staff.”
Kimi winced.
“My sister says otherwise.”
“Then she’s lying,” Greg said flatly. “And I’m not interested in why you’d need money for her so badly that you’d sell that clip. Be glad that Shin is just going to escort you from the building and not take you to the authorities.”
“Wait.” Kimi lifted her hand. “I want to know why.”
“Damn it, Kimi, I said there was nothing between her sister and me.”
“And I believe you!” She eyed Charity. “But what made you so desperate?”
“She’s got breast cancer, okay? After Greg left, the new GM made a lot of staff changes, and she lost her job.”
“She’s probably lying about that, too,” Shin warned. “Have you gotten all of your belongings, or not?”
“Where is Gretchen now, Charity?” Kimi asked.
“Living here with me,” Charity said grudgingly. “I’m trying to get together enough money to send her back home to the States. There’s a program she qualifies for that will get her treatment.”
Kimi sighed. “Why didn’t you just say so?”
“Why would you care?”
“Why would I not? You know, my family’s company has employee assistance funds, Charity. We could have found a way to help you if you would have just spoken up.”
“Instead, you sold off something you had no business selling,” Greg concluded flatly. “No better than if you had stolen something from a guestroom.”
“I would never—”
“Tell it to someone else. Shin, get her out of here.”
Kimi bit her lip, watching silently as Shin and Grace escorted Charity out of the office. “She needed help, Greg,” she said once they were gone.
“How can you have sympathy for her?”
“Because I believe she wouldn’t have stooped to such behavior if she had thought she had another option. She has too much pride.” And she knew a little bit about that.
He looked grim. “I never thought I’d accuse you of naïveté. Whatever her reasons, it doesn’t change the situation. The photograph is out there. Now we have to deal with it.”
“By your fictitious marriage idea?” She shook her head. “No, thank you.”
“Why the hell not? On Christmas, you didn’t seem to think the notion was that terrible when you said your family could be mine, if I wanted.”
“I cannot believe that for an intelligent man you can be so incredibly obtuse.”
“I’m trying to protect you, damn it!”
“Why?” Her voice rose, matching his. “I never asked for your protection! The only thing I wanted was your love!”
“Ahem.” Grace had returned and was looking awkward. “We can hear you two all the way down the hall.”
Kimi snatched up the picture frame that Charity had been unable to fit into her purse. “Don’t worry,” she assured. “I am leaving, anyway.”
“Where are you going?”
“Away from here,” she said, and walked out the door.
“Go after her,” Grace said in the quiet left by Kimi’s exit.
“And make the situation even more complicated?”
“You love her, don’t you?”
He jerked. “Whether I do or not is immaterial.”
Grace sighed noisily. “You always have been too stubborn for your own good.” She flopped her arms. “Well, fine. It’s your own grave you’re digging. I am going home to enjoy the holiday a little longer with my husband.” She headed out the door, much the way Kimi had.
Greg realized he was rubbing the hollow spot in his chest and dropped his hand.
As far as he knew, Helen, Mori and Jenny were still waiting in his office, and he headed back in that direction. If there was going to be one small mercy that day, Jenny would have finished the press release he’d asked for.
Then maybe he could figure out how to deal with Kimi.
But when he reached his office, only Helen and Mori remained. Jenny, it seemed, had gone back to her suite. And Kimi, he learned, had not just walked out of the sales department but had left the hotel entirely. “What do you mean, she’s gone?” He stared at Mori.
“She was heading to Kyoto Station. She phoned to let us know she would not be returning until the New Year’s Eve gala.”
Greg sat down, hard, in the chair behind his desk. He looked Mori in the face. “This is my responsibility,” he said evenly. “If you want me out of here right now, I won’t blame you. I’d planned to wait until after the gala to resign. But Carter can handle things well enough until you can replace me. Grace has every detail for the gala under her thumb.”
“Resign?” Helen looked appalled. “What for?”
“Surely you’d be more comfortable with someone else heading this house.” His teeth were on edge. “I took advantage of your daughter. While she worked here.”
Mori looked pained. “I suspect my daughter is as capable of taking advantage of you. Could we leave Kimiko out of this for the moment?”
“It was difficult enough talking you into leaving your last position,” Helen added. “Are you unhappy here, Greg? We haven’t filled the Chicago position yet. Perhaps you would be interested in returning to the States.”
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