Her frayed nerves were in danger of complete disintegration. She looked around, but everyone had deserted them.
“It is just you and me,” he said, clearly reading her mind. He took her hands in his and whatever amusement he’d shown was now utterly absent. “I wish for you not to be Hanson-san, but Taka-san.”
She swayed and his grip tightened, steadying. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I heard you right.”
“I think you did,” he countered gently. “I want you to be my wife.”
His words hovered between them like some tantalizing wish. “But you just gave me a job!”
“We cannot work together yet be married?”
“George certainly never thought so,” she said faintly.
“I am not George Hanson.”
No. He wasn’t. He’d been proving it again and again and again.
How much more would she need to believe in that?
“I once thought you were just like him,” she admitted. “I was wrong. But, Mori, you’re not going to win points with some people. I don’t know which will strike them as more inflammatory. Employing me, or marrying me.”
“Who is them?”
She shook her head, feeling oddly panicked. “I don’t know. Your father, for one.”
“He is a traditional man but the world we inhabit is not so traditional any longer. In time, he will adjust.”
“But…marriage? Why marriage? Couldn’t we just…be together?”
His dimple appeared. “I do not wish a mistress, Helen. I want a wife. A puzzling, intriguing, challenging American wife named Helen Hanson. I want Kimiko to have a mother named Helen Hanson. She agrees.”
Her vision blurred with sudden tears. “You’ve talked to Kimiko about us?”
“Yes.”
“What did you tell her?”
He stepped closer. “I told her that I loved you.”
She pressed her lips together to stop them from trembling. “You do?”
“Yes. I love you. Why else would I ask you to be my wife?”
“People marry for all sorts of reasons.”
“You do not. You only marry for love, remember?”
“I remember.” She dragged in a shaking breath. “Are you sure? I couldn’t survive it if you changed your mind along the way.”
“Do you love me, Helen?”
The tears finally spilled from the corners of her eyes. “Yes. I love you. I never expected it, but I do.”
“Will you be changing your mind along the way?”
She shook her head knowing down in her soul that what she felt for this man would never cease. “No.”
“Then trust me as I will trust you. I will not change my mind.” He skimmed his hand down her cheek, wiping away her tears. “Do I need to put that in writing for you, as well?”
She slipped her arms around his neck. “Maybe,” she whispered.
He reared his head back. His eyebrows drew together, making him look dark and fierce. “What?”
She smiled softly. “I assume even in Japan there is a marriage license that will need to be signed.”
His eyes narrowed. Then his expression eased. A smile slowly curved his mouth. “You are agreeing? Kimiko lectured me for an hour that I must do this most perfectly. That I had to take you somewhere romantic. Give you flowers and sweets and bend on my knees like they do in the movies.”
“Kimiko is twelve,” Helen said huskily. “We met here in this boardroom so I think your choice was quite perfect. And yes. I am agreeing.” She pressed her lips softly to his, grasping with both hands for their future. “I love you, Morito Taka. And I wish for you to be my husband.”
“I was not sure what you would say.”
Her heart ached at his gruff admission. “I don’t argue the really good ideas,” she whispered. “And I’ll give it a little while before I tell you that I think Kimiko should be living with her father and not at school.”
“Do you think my daughter has not already realized that?” He caught her face in his hands and kissed her thoroughly.
She slid her arms beneath his jacket, fitting herself even more closely against him.
He inhaled sharply. “I am grateful the video crew has gone and that there is not a security camera in this room.”
Helen couldn’t help herself. She looked at the wide, sturdy surface of the conference table. “Really.”
“That would be a merger the likes of which the table has never seen.”
She slid her hands slowly up his spine and back down again and looked up at him from beneath her lashes. “Never?”
“Well.” His dark eyes glinted. “Not yet, Mrs. Hanson. Not…just…yet.”
Epilogue
“She looks beautiful, doesn’t she? I wasn’t sure we would live to see the day.”
“Aw, come on. They’re meant to be.”
“I hear they’re living in Japan.”
“Hope they like sushi.”
Helen listened to the whispered conversations behind her and hid a smile.
“Oh, my God. Is Meredith barefoot?”
“I’m still surprised she and Evan didn’t get married right out of high school.”
Mori leaned his head close to Helen’s as they watched Evan take Meredith’s hand when she joined him in front of the minister. The music, courtesy of a trio of steel drums, had not yet ceased. “Do all American weddings necessitate incessant whispering from the guests?” he asked.
She slipped her hand into his. “I’m afraid Hanson weddings probably do,” she whispered back.
“Did they whisper like this at our wedding?”
“Probably. You didn’t notice?”
“I was busy watching my bride,” he murmured.
“Well, if it’s any help, I didn’t notice, either. I was too busy watching my groom. He was very handsome in his kimono.” She lowered her voice even more. “I was curious what all he wore beneath it. Turned out…not much.” The steel drums finally faded into silence.
The sun was just beginning to set and color filled the Caribbean sky, almost matching the vivid colors of the orchids that wreathed Meredith’s and her attendants’ heads. It was she, proving she had more “free spirit” inside her than people thought, who had chosen the little island destination for her and Evan’s wedding. Despite the location, however, there were close to a hundred people who’d flown in for the event.
Mori slipped his arm around Helen’s shoulders and she sighed, leaning against him contentedly as she watched the couple exchange vows and thought about their wedding in Nesutotaka two months earlier.
It had been a mix of traditional and Western, just as their life together was. She and Mori had worn traditional Japanese wedding garb. Jack, Evan and Andrew—all in black suits—had given her away. Kimiko, Helen’s flower girl, had worn a long pink dress with spaghetti straps that her father had groaned over. When the official teenager hadn’t been preening in her dress to Zach, Nina’s twelve-year-old son, she’d been chasing around with Izzy, Nina’s ten-year-old youngest. Samantha, Meredith and Nina had worn summery dresses of their own choosing, and Jenny had worn a pale green suit that had masked her new pregnancy.
Nesutotaka had bulged at the seams with the guests who’d traveled there for the ceremony, and of course, every person who lived in the village had been present. Even Yukio Taka, who’d finally stopped openly disapproving of Helen and had taken to sending her e-mails regarding troubled companies he figured TAKA needed to be looking at. Ideas which he seemed to delight in fiercely debating with her.
“Would you rather have had a wedding like this?” Mori asked as they watched Evan slide a narrow band on Meredith’s finger.
“I loved our wedding,” Helen assured. “But it wasn’t the wedding that really mattered. It’s the life spent together that does.”
“Do you think they know that?” He nodded toward the new couple as they sealed their exchanges with a kiss that went on long enough to have Evan’s brothers and uncle who stood on his side o
f the sand, and their wives who stood on Meredith’s side, grinning wryly.
Kimiko, not officially part of the wedding party, but still wearing a matching wreath of orchids in her hair, tugged on Helen’s wrist. “When do we get to go scuba diving?” she whispered when Helen looked at her.
“Tomorrow,” Helen promised, whispering back. On the other side of Kimi, Jenny stood holding hands with Richard. She’d caught Kimi’s question and was smiling.
A balmy breeze drifted over them and Helen closed her hand over Kimi’s and leaned her head against her husband’s shoulder. She looked at Evan and Meredith as they joined hands and smiled broadly as they walked away from the minister, their bare feet sinking into the soft white sand. Behind them, the rest of the Hanson men found their mates and followed.
“Yes,” Helen answered. “I think they all know that is what’s really important. They are living proof of it.”
Mori angled his head and brushed his lips over hers. “You are crying.”
She smiled at him, not even trying to hide the moisture that had filled her eyes. “Happy tears, Mori. I promise. Always happy tears.”
Acknowledgment
Special thanks and acknowledgment are given
to Allison Leigh for her contribution
to the FAMILY BUSINESS miniseries.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-1829-1
MERGERS & MATRIMONY
Copyright © 2006 by Harlequin Books S.A.
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* Men of the Double-C Ranch
Mergers & Matrimony Page 20