She went over and sat beside him. “That ought to sound like good news,” she said softly. “But you look like a man who has lost the war, rather than winning it.”
“There is no winning when my father has made known to everyone that he has no faith in me.”
She started to put her hand on the back of his neck and realizing it, curled her fingers, drawing back before touching him. “You say he took back his request of the board, though.”
“Hai.”
“Didn’t they wonder why?”
“Hai.” His voice turned very dry. “My father claimed illness prompted his behavior. He, who has never been ill in his life.”
“So there was no board meeting at all?”
“There was a meeting, during which I received many votes of confidence.”
“Well, that’s good, right? Your position is still secure?”
“You need not worry. The board will not overturn the decision to acquire Hanson Media Group.”
She stiffened. Yes, she’d been rightfully concerned about the merger, but the moment she’d seen Mori looking so un-Mori, she’d only had thoughts of him. “Merger,” she reminded him evenly.
His dark gaze turned to her. “Sumimasen,” he said. “Pardon me. Merger.” He quaffed the rest of his drink and leaned forward, setting the glass with inordinate care on the gilt-edged coffee table. “Your father is still alive, is he not?”
“Yes,” she said warily. “Why?”
“You do not have a good relationship?”
“No, we do not.” She pushed to her feet, tightening the belt of her robe. “And I suspect that you, with your wealth of ways, know why that is.”
“He forced you to give up your baby when you were little more than a baby yourself.”
“I was sixteen. At the time I didn’t feel much like a baby.”
“Kimiko is twelve.”
“At that age, four years’ difference might as well be a lifetime.” She truly didn’t know where this was going, but she knew she wasn’t comfortable with it.
She hadn’t spoken with her father since the day he’d held her arms when she’d tried running after the adoption representative carrying away her child. And though she’d kept in touch with her brother while their mother was alive, the contact had been inevitably awkward. She’d wanted to make her mother’s life easier—what good was the wealth Helen had surprisingly married into, if she couldn’t bring more comfort to the people she’d loved?
They seemed to think she was only trying to lord it over them. Her brother had been barely willing to pass on the financial assistance she’d sent for her mother to have in the guise of a gift from him. If it were anything other, she knew her father would have made sure their mother would not accept it. Now, in the years since Helen’s mother had passed away, she’d spoken to Walt only twice. He’d made it clear he had no use for her, just like their father.
“My father left me no choice about the baby,” she said. “But bringing a child into that family wasn’t something I wanted to do. It was bad enough for my brother and me. I wasn’t going to subject any child of mine to an atmosphere like that.”
“Like what?”
She smoothed back her hair only to catch her fingertips in the thong holding it in a ponytail. She pulled it loose and stuck it in her pocket. Her hair slid over her shoulder. “Controlling. Unloved. My father and mother had to get married when she became pregnant with my older brother, Walt. The day I told my parents that I was pregnant, my dad looked at Mom and told her that it was all her fault. I was just like her, trying to trap another innocent guy.”
“Unwed pregnancies have been occurring through the ages, even in my country.”
“And causing plenty of scandal,” she reminded pointedly.
His gaze didn’t waver from hers and she knew that he still didn’t feel badly for halting the negotiations when the truth about Jenny came out.
“Did your husband know about the child?”
First her father, now George. “Why does it matter to you, Mori? It’s all water under the bridge.” Dark, churning water.
“Did he?”
She couldn’t fathom what possessed her to answer. “No, he didn’t.”
“Why did you not tell him?”
“This has nothing to do with tonight’s board meeting.”
He pushed to his feet and headed toward her. Slowly. Deliberately. “It has to do with you.”
“Obviously, considering your questions are about me. Why do you care?”
“I do not know!” His voice rose slightly and he grimaced. “Why do I jeopardize everything I have worked for my entire life to visit you here, at this hotel, when anyone could have seen me enter the doors and speculate which room I visit? I could have a dozen lovers and not surprise a soul, but I visit with Helen Hanson, head of Hanson Media, and I am looked at with suspicion by men who have worked with me for decades.”
She winced. “I’m sorry they all find me so offensive.”
“You are not offensive, Helen, you are a gaijin businesswoman, playing on their field, and they do not like it when they suspect I have joined your team. TAKA is not accustomed to negotiations like this. You are surely aware of it. TAKA takes over companies. Yet you have kept us at the table while still managing to prevent that from happening. It is…remarkable.”
At any other time, she would have been deeply pleased by the comments—not exactly praising given his position, but definitely giving her full measure. “This whole thing is insane. You and I are not involved, except across the bargaining table.”
He touched her cheek. “Are we not?”
She swallowed. “This is what’s getting us into trouble in the first place.”
“Yet here I am, even though most people would consider me to be the most practical and traditional of men.”
“Well, maybe just like many men, you only want to get me in the sack. Bed,” she clarified at his blank look.
“Do you sack with many men?”
“I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
His thumb slid beneath her chin, then along her jaw until he held her face captive.
Her heart bounced around unevenly. She lifted her chin, just to prove that she could move away if she chose.
His hand didn’t move.
“No,” she finally said huskily. “I don’t sack, as you say, with men. I was married for ten years. And before that, way before that, was Jenny’s father. So do not even try to lecture me.”
Mori’s eyelids drooped a fraction more until only a thin gleam of brown showed between his thick lashes. “Did he lecture you a lot?”
“Who?” Now was not the time to get confused by the man’s intense physical appeal. “My father? He was an unending lecture.”
“Your late husband.”
“The only thing George lectured me about was my waistline, the length of my hair and why he wanted me to stay out of Hanson Media.”
“He was a fool not to recognize he held a pearl in his hands.”
“Don’t stand there and pretend that you welcomed me in the conference room with open arms, Mori. You detested me.”
“You disturbed me,” he corrected softly, closing the distance between them by half. “But it is true that you are not the typical person with whom I deal.”
“You have business dealings in other countries than Japan,” Helen reminded. “You don’t have female associates in London?”
“In London, yes. But they do not come to my country and challenge me under my own roof.”
“Just because I want what’s reasonable and fair for Hanson Media doesn’t mean I’m challenging you.”
A faint smile hovered around his lips. “You are challenging me even now.”
“I—” she pressed her lips together for a moment. When she thought she could speak without debating yet another point, thereby proving the man correct, she tried again. “What exactly do you want, Mori?”
“In general, in life, or in this mom
ent?”
“This moment.”
“I want you.”
Her mouth dried. Well, she’d asked, hadn’t she?
“Despite all the reasons why I should not, why it would be better that I did not, I still want you. And I keep choosing to see you because of it.”
Her lashes lowered. Her hands twisted in the sash of her robe. “You said you came to Chicago to apologize for your father and Shiguro.”
“And I spoke the truth. I also came because I wanted—needed—to see you. Apologies can be offered over the telephone.” He closed his hands over her fidgeting ones. “Do you not wish to see me, also?”
“Mori—”
“Do you?”
“Yes.” The word was more a breath.
“One day—” he lowered his head close to hers, whispering softly against her ear “—it will be just you and me. A woman and a man. No contracts, no lawyers. Only us. Only this.” His lips touched her jaw. His hands lifted hers until they were caught between their torsos.
Her knees felt weak. She spread her fingers and they tangled in the trailing ends of his magenta tie. She slowly pulled the knot loose. “And what about this day?” Her voice was faint.
“This day I am TAKA and you are Hanson Media.”
It was frightening how badly she wanted him to stay. How hard it was to focus on the reasons why he should not.
The only times in her life when she’d put reason and common sense behind a locked door, she’d ended up paying a high price. The first, she’d been just sixteen when she fell in love with a jock named Drew Sheffield. He hadn’t stood beside her when she’d needed him—he’d run hightail to his parents, who’d quickly moved him out of town lest he have his aspirations tainted by poor little Helen Needham.
The second time, she’d married George Hanson, a man twenty-seven years her senior who’d swept her off her feet so quickly she hadn’t even tried to find her common sense.
Drew had just been a boy too young to face the consequences of their actions and George had used her love for him for his own purposes, only acknowledging her business acumen when he’d had no other recourse.
What would throwing common sense to the wind do now?
Could she even take a chance at finding out?
“You have had a long day,” Mori murmured, brushing his lips over hers, successfully eroding another layer of sensibility. “You need sleep. Tomorrow we resume the negotiations. I have had messages sent to all the parties involved. We have much work to do to become back on schedule.”
She was painfully aware of all the work they had yet to accomplish—points on which they had yet to agree. “I thought we would be waiting until next week because of your father-in-law’s passing.”
“Do you wish to delay still?”
She shook her head. The closer they got to the end, the worse the pressure got. She wanted the deal signed and delivered.
Only then would she feel like the last ten years of her life had actually meant something.
“No, I don’t want any more delays.” Because she didn’t think she’d rest again if she didn’t, she leaned up and pressed her mouth against his.
His hand slid through her hair, cupping the back of her head, fingers flexing against her scalp.
She could have purred, and was gratified that when they pulled apart, his breath was as short as hers.
“You have to go,” she told him huskily.
“I know.”
Her head fell forward, resting against his chest. “I don’t want you to.” The admission felt raw.
His arms closed around her back and he held her so close that she suddenly felt like crying.
Which only served to remind her of the night of Jenny’s wedding when he’d caught her in tears.
“I do not want to leave you, either,” he said.
“It’s a mistake. The last two days are proof of that.”
“What do you worry about more, Helen?” Mori’s chest rumbled beneath her cheek as he spoke. “Undoing the merger, or being with a man other than your husband?”
She didn’t want to think about George anymore. “My husband and I hadn’t shared a bed in several years.”
“Because of his age?”
“He might have been sixty-eight, but he was a young sixty-eight.”
He tilted her head back until her face was exposed. “He had other women?”
How many times had she wondered that, herself? “I don’t think so. George’s only mistress was Hanson Media.”
“Then why?”
She closed her eyes. “I’m not asking you questions about the relations you had with your wife.”
“We lived together as man and wife only long enough to conceive Kimiko.”
“At least you were lucky enough to conceive a child.”
He was silent for a moment and she made the mistake of opening her eyes. He was watching her with that disturbing intensity—seeming to see into her very soul.
“You wished to have another child,” he surmised.
Her throat was tightening up again. She didn’t want to feel all that emotion. If she had to feel anything, she wanted it to be the drugging pleasure he caused—even if that were the height of folly given the circumstances.
“Helen?”
“Yes. For the first six years we were married, we tried everything, every conceivable treatment, even nontraditional methods. There was nothing physically wrong with George, nothing physically wrong with me.”
“Yet—”
“No child.” She pulled out of his arms, feeling too naked and vulnerable to stay so close to him. “Maybe that was my karma. I’d given away one child, so I wasn’t to be allowed another.”
“I am not certain that is an accurate definition of karma,” he said softly, and the simple gentleness in his voice had her eyes flooding.
“How about God’s punishment, then?”
His head tilted slightly. “It was just not meant to be. My wife killed herself because of her lack of interest in the life she had and for the child she’d borne.”
Helen was shocked out of the painful memories that sucked at her. “I had no idea.”
“Why would you?”
Because she’d investigated very thoroughly every aspect of TAKA and its principals before she’d put her plan for Hanson Media into action. “What happened?”
“Sumiko was not a strong woman like you are.” He tapped his finger against his head. “Here.”
Helen wrapped her arms around herself. She didn’t feel particularly strong. She felt shaky and hopelessly without common sense.
“When Kimiko was still an infant, her mother began spending more time away from her. Traveling. Going out at night with friends. I was too immersed in TAKA to see what was happening at first. When I realized she was addicted to alcohol and drugs, I made sure she had treatment, and she became better for a while. But it did not last. Eventually, her body could not sustain the abuse she heaped on it.”
“Kimiko was only a baby.”
“Yes.”
She shook her head. “I’m so sorry, Mori. What an awful thing to have happen to all three of you.”
“If I were to use your example of karma, I would believe that I will never be able to be a husband again, because I had already failed to keep safe the wife I did have.”
She pressed her lips together for a moment. “You wish to marry again some day?”
“I do not wish to be alone for the rest of my life,” he answered.
Which wasn’t really an answer at all.
“I was responsible for my wife, but I have realized that I could not force her to change her life. She had to want change from within badly enough to put up a fight and take the help she was offered from all sides. But she did not.”
“Did you love her?” She realized she was holding her breath and made herself let it out slowly when he took his time answering.
“I loved her for the child she gave me.”
“Then at least there
was that.”
“You still grieve for the man that did not share your bed.”
“I grieve for the marriage I thought I’d had.” The truth burned. “I loved my husband, and I thought he loved me. Turns out I was wrong, and I’m afraid I’m finding that reality more difficult than accepting his death.”
“Why do you believe he did not love you?”
She didn’t know what possessed her to reveal such matters. Was it because he’d shared the facts about his wife?
Were the details of his past any less painful than hers?
She went into the bedroom and picked up the jewelry case from the dresser and started to carry it back out, but he stepped into the bedroom after her.
Her nerves tightened even more.
“I know, because he told me.” She set down the case and pulled out George’s letter to her. It was the devil inside her that handed the sheet of stationery to him. “Everything I’d believed about myself, about my marriage, turned out to be nothing more than wishful thinking.”
Mori glanced down the letter only long enough to grasp the gist. He was not overly shocked by the contents. George Hanson had only done what Mori’s father believed he had done in arranging Mori’s marriage to Sumiko when they were nothing but infants.
He’d made an advantageous match.
The difference was, Sumiko had been perfectly aware of the point of the union. Helen, clearly, had not.
He wondered which was worse.
Refolding the letter, he lifted the lid of the wooden box himself to place it inside.
As he did so, he noticed a crisp dried leaf lying alongside a thin silver bracelet.
The leaf from their walk in the park?
A muscle was working in Helen’s fine jaw, proof of her tension. He placed the letter inside the box and closed the lid, hiding the leaf and all the rest once more.
“It is difficult to have one’s life manipulated,” he told her. “There are things we can control, and things we cannot. I could not control Sumiko, and you could not control George. That does not mean you were wrong to love him.”
Her long, lovely throat worked in a swallow.
“Nor does it mean you were foolish.”
She turned her head slightly, but not quickly enough for him to miss the sheen of tears in those jade eyes. “I wasted ten years trying to be the woman he wanted, and it turns out he didn’t care, anyway. Believe me, Mori. That feels extremely foolish.”
Mergers & Matrimony Page 12