But he didn’t.
Jiro pursued the subject. “I also heard a rumor that Emelie saw this whole situation quite differently.”
“That’s true, too.” Juliana laid her hand on her purse, where she carried copies of Emelie’s letters to her sister. “When Terrence and Emelie parted ways, she found it appropriate to take the painting with her. It was a gift. Then came the accusations, the scandal… But she never returned the watercolor because it was stolen from her own home by an intruder.”
“But,” Tristan said, “Terrence’s diaries say that when he broke off their affair, she got angry and made off with the painting. It wasn’t a gift at all.”
“And Emelie’s letters say that she thought Terrence wanted her to have the painting as a parting gesture when he told her that he was entering into a ‘proper marriage.’ His parents would never have her, seeing as she was just a laundress at the time—she married a man who made a fortune later—and Terrence was an affluent artist from a respected family. So she left with only Dream Rising and her pride.”
As they locked gazes, there was none of the vitriol that the previous generations of their families had woven into the fabric of this story.
There’d never been any of that between them.
No, there were just the misty memories of sensually wrapped arms and legs that had shaped Juliana’s perception of what love and passion should be.
It should burn into you, she thought. Through you. It should control your every move and breath as you merged and became one out of two.
For a moment, it seemed as if tendrils from the past were drawing her and Tristan together.
Closer…
Closer.
She felt his hand near her thigh, but this time, she inched her leg nearer to him, inviting.
A server appeared again, delivering their food.
Restaurant, she reminded herself.
They were in public, not alone.
Not yet…
Jiro readied his chopsticks and picked up his bowl; it was acceptable to use the sticks to slurp the ramen straight into your mouth here.
But before he did, he said, “That’s an intriguing tale.”
Juliana idly stirred her broth, which held the noodles, tofu and an assortment of vegetables. She wasn’t hungry for food—not with her stomach so upside-down and around.
Not with Tristan sitting so nearby.
He hadn’t made a move to eat, either, and she wondered if he was feeling the same way, if he was thinking about what would happen once they left the restaurant.
Jiro swallowed his food, then said, “Forgive me, but I must tell you about a slight complication in these negotiations that will be solved quite easily, if I may. I discovered only a half hour ago that Dream Rising didn’t arrive in its expected shipment.”
Juliana stopped stirring her ramen. If she’d wondered whether they were being set up for competitive tension before, she was certain of it now. Maybe the painting really had been misdirected, but the dealer was milking it for all it was worth.
Tristan laughed, just as if he were thinking the same thing, and the rumble of the sound abraded her, especially since she knew what that laugh felt like chest-to-chest with him, skin-to-skin.
Jiro was laughing, too, as he put his bowl on the table. “I expect the painting presently. It was accidentally sent to an associate’s gallery in New York since I often arrange showings there. My assistant is new, and he must have misunderstood my intentions. I’ll redirect it here, but it’s the dead of night in Manhattan, at the moment, so communication needs to wait until morning.”
“And the price for the painting?” Tristan asked, picking up his chopsticks.
He didn’t seem stressed about the news at all, even though she’d bet his family would freak out about the missing work, much as hers would.
Jiro was watching them both, as if sizing up their pocketbooks.
But then he smiled. “We can discuss price in a few days, when I have the painting in hand and you can look at the quality in person. I’ll also have an authenticator present. And in light of this inconvenience, I’d like to invite both of you to my family’s ryokan in Hakone when we’re ready to do more business.”
“A traditional Japanese hotel?” Tristan said. “That’s good of you. I’ve thought about checking into one of those after I finished my business here. It would be convenient in Hakone because I was planning to visit one of my vintage-car associates who lives near Mount Fuji.”
His leg fell toward hers, and she could feel it even though they weren’t touching.
She’d read about the ryokan in her guidebooks. They could be little pieces of paradise, offering solitude and the romance of old Japan.
What might happen there? she wondered, picturing Tristan coming into her room, then closing the door behind him as her heartbeat throbbed and tangled.
“I appreciate the arrangements, too,” she said to Jiro, while keeping her voice as level as possible.
Their host nodded just as “The Locomotion” dude from the counter wove past their table on his way to the back of the shop, gazing at Juliana and singing the cheery song again.
Entertained, Jiro turned around to speak to him.
Yes, she’d said to Tristan earlier.
And she showed him how much she meant it now, reaching over to rub her fingertips over his lower thigh, just above the knee.
He glanced at her, and she knew they had to get out of this restaurant as soon as they could.
AS SASHA WANDERED through a diorama exhibit and then headed for the gift shop in Atami Castle, she glanced at her watch again, wondering when Juliana was going to call.
Anxiety raced through her, just as if she were at a starting line. She wanted her friend to put all this family business behind her and finally do something for herself for once. The way Sasha saw it, Juliana had caged herself by settling for Parisville after having been on her own, away from the Thomsens and their somewhat stifling affections.
That’s why Sasha had left the place herself—because she wasn’t much for small towns. She’d only landed there for a short time because of Chad, and maybe it’d been a good thing that they’d parted ways. She loved to travel, to be free to go where she wanted, even if she didn’t always take full advantage of her liberty. Yet she had the option, and that’s what counted. She could live as she wanted to without anyone to hold her back.
Sasha arrived in the gift shop, scanning the trinkets. She’d already decided not to think about Chad, although he’d come up in conversation earlier. Why ruin this trip by dwelling? She’d spent too long doing that already, and hanging around with Juliana and broadening their horizons was the best medicine, even if Sasha found the heat level of the research she had to do a bit daunting.
But she was here to knock the socks off her editor with this book, because she got the impression that her work could have enjoyed better sales in the past; she didn’t know how many more chances she would have with this publishing house, and the future scared her.
Juliana’s idea had captured what the public would want—exotic and erotic adventures for the single girl in Japan. And Sasha would make the most of it. She was going to attack this subject and increase her print runs so that her career would be assured for years to come.
When a petite salesclerk greeted her, then gestured over to a counter, Sasha smiled and got ready to dive into something other than the stateside travels she’d grown so used to.
Her destiny turned out to be a beach towel featuring what looked like a geisha in full costume.
The woman picked up a portable hairdryer and blew hot air over the towel, and the geisha’s clothes disappeared, leaving the image buck-naked.
Unable to stop the laugh that overcame her, Sasha bowed, wished the clerk a good day and hightailed it out of the shop.
Okay, so the Japanese weren’t quite as contained as she’d always thought. But kitschy souvenirs wouldn’t make a bestselling book. She’d just have to look below
the surface of their culture, the way that hot air had blown over the towel to reveal the erotic beneath its façade.
She fanned herself, then stopped. Hadn’t Chad always told her she was too repressed? He’d always teased her about that—even made it a flirty challenge to try to loosen her up, but she never had.
Had that chased him away? What if she’d let her hair down and really given everything to him?
No use wondering, really. Not with Chad. But it made her think about any relationships she might have from now on, if the problems would still be the same.
As regret poked at her, she found her way to the basement of the castle, where a temporary art exhibit featured print copies that were lit from the back along the hallways.
Sensual prints.
Sasha looked around, finding no one else there.
Repressed? Her?
Suddenly, she didn’t just need to write that book. She vowed to open her own to another chapter.
She sidled up to one of the pictures, her skin burning as she inspected another possible geisha, or probably a woman of pleasure, and a samurai warrior in flagrante delicto.
She swallowed, checking out the other prints, all with men who had long, thick penises and women whose private parts were bushier than a modern Western female kept her own pubic hair. The couples—sometimes more than just two—posed in various and interesting gymnastic positions.
Returning to the first piece, she pictured herself in the woman’s place, then thought back to the last time she’d been to bed with a man.
Months ago. Not since Chad. Things had gotten busy with the career, and she’d gotten lazy.
Or maybe she just kept comparing everyone else to her ex.
When Sasha heard footsteps coming down the hall, she backed away from the print, trying to seem casually unaffected. But her skin was like blacktop in summer, heat wavering over it.
The footsteps stopped a ways back, and Sasha told herself not to look at the other viewer. It’d make her even more embarrassed to be here than she was now.
So much for becoming a wild woman, she thought.
Instead, she fidgeted with her high neckline, walking past print after print. But one of them made her pause a second too long: a picture of a man bent between a woman’s legs. Yet that wasn’t what caught the eye; it was that the lady was also reading a book, seemingly bored while the bemused male labored away.
Footsteps. Closer. Just one picture away.
Even closer now.
Then Sasha caught a whiff of sports soap. Detergent.
She closed her eyes as a world of memory took her over: nights on the couch going through magazines as she cuddled next to Chad, who would be reading Fortune or Wired. Sitting next to him in the car as he picked her up from the airport after a flight from her old home base in Reno, Nevada, and drove her to Parisville, where they were supposed to start building a life together.
She opened her eyes.
Chad?
Was he in Atami? Had his family tracked the painting here, too?
Then what was he doing in this castle?
She heard his voice behind her.
“Pity the guy.” He was talking about the print. “Just look at him working so hard for the lady and she can’t even put down her reading material.”
Sasha rubbed her hands over her arms, hoping she could erase the chill bumps. “Maybe he should ask her what would please her. And if he listened, maybe he wouldn’t need pity.”
Silence bit between them while the night they’d broken up rushed back.
The night when Sasha had been called to attend a last-minute public relations opportunity—a book signing, three hours away, where she would join a few other more established writers from her freelance PR representative’s list.
“You aren’t seriously going to take off right now,” he’d said after she’d ended the phone call.
But it was the way he’d said it that struck a deep, off-tune note in her—a disquiet that had gone untended ever since she’d come to Parisville for him. Ever since she’d made his life and his family a priority over everything else.
Maybe it was resentment that had broken them up, because she’d accused him of not believing that she’d ever amount to much. Accused him of being too stifling, also.
But he’d told her that she was the one who stifled herself, and she’d known that he was talking about her emotions, how she kept them close to her, how it was hard to give them all away.
Since then, she’d realized what had been repressing her: fear of losing herself and never getting it back once she got in too deep. She’d seen it happen to her mom, and even her brothers’ wives, and she’d promised she’d never be them.
She’d kept that promise, even when it hurt.
And she’d left him.
Now, she faced Chad, hardly ready for the force of her reaction: a slam of desire and all the affection she’d thought had faded.
He hadn’t changed an iota. Not one.
He still had the same wire-rimmed glasses that convinced her that he might just whip them off to go from this conservative masquerade to the sexy, lean lover beneath; the same button-down shirt hiding a physique that he honed through riding horses whenever he was at home; the same sparkling light-blue eyes that always told her so much about what he was feeling.
Well, maybe the eyes weren’t sparkling so much right now.
“What’re you doing here?” she asked, and the prideful sharpness of the question almost made her cringe.
He tucked his hands into his pockets. “I came over with Tristan for the painting, but it looks like Mr. Mori scheduled a dual appointment. Tristan’s meeting with him and Juliana right now, and she told me you might be here—not that she was happy about letting me know, you understand. But I’ve been scouring the grounds to find you.”
Sasha realized that her expression must’ve been giving away her agony at seeing him.
He searched her gaze. “I hope I didn’t make a mistake in assuming it’d be okay to see you.”
“No,” she said. “We’re both adults. We should be able to handle it.”
They wordlessly started to walk away from the oral-sex print and to the next picture. She wished she could still read the more deeply buried signals that had developed between them long ago. Signals nurtured by two people who’d been on the cusp of truly committing.
At least, that’s what she’d thought until they’d failed.
“There’re a lot of things I’ve wanted to ask you,” he said. “But I don’t know where to start now.”
She stopped walking, and he waited for her, his gaze caressing her until she had to look away.
“What sort of questions?” Again, with the pride. It’d been the only thing holding her together after the breakup. “How about this one—was I not exciting enough for you?”
“Sasha.” In her peripheral vision, she saw him look at the ground. “Is that what it was all about?”
She sighed, tamping down her hurt. “No, you know there was a lot more.”
“Yeah,” he said. “And I know it wasn’t right—me expecting you to drop everything and meld with my life without bringing much of yours into it. I didn’t realize that until afterward, when I could think with more of a clear head.”
Taken aback by his honesty, she wanted to come clean, too—to tell him that she’d had guilty moments afterward, as well. She’d wondered if she was selfish, especially since her mom seemed happy playing wifey to her dad’s business. She smiled her way through a lot of cocktail parties, but Sasha didn’t want to end up like that.
At her protective silence, he lowered the volume of the conversation, as if gentling something wild that might run away.
“Just tell me one thing,” he said. “Are you happy now?”
Happy.
Was she?
As she searched for an answer, Chad took a step closer to her, then reached out to touch her cheek.
His fingertips brushed over her skin, and she sucke
d in a harsh breath at the anguish of what they’d lost.
They couldn’t get back something that had already been broken. Besides, she wasn’t even sure she could take the chance that they would fall into the same patterns that had scared her off the first time.
“I’m sorry,” she said, grasping his hand in hers, waiting just one more second to remove it so she could feel him, remember him.
Then she backed away, turned around and continued down the hall.
Never looking back, even if she was dying to.
3
TRISTAN AND JULIANA left the ramen house, making their way down a hushed alley lined by store windows.
Her cheeks had an extra blush to them, even though a sulfur-laced sea breeze was now cooling the temperature. But there were still grates in the ground that seethed steam from mountain water sources that fed the hot springs.
The sight of her all flushed and bothered just made him hotter, encouraging him to picture her without clothing, bare and sweating in front of him.
Finally having her, Tristan thought. That’s all he wanted. A chance to get what he hadn’t before, then he’d be fine.
But how did a guy work up to that, even after the flirting touches, even after the sound of “yes” from Juliana’s lips?
Something told him to handle her with care because he didn’t want her to run off this time.
She stopped in front of a candy shop, smiling enough to show him that she wasn’t just perusing the pastel, flowered goodies.
He lingered a foot away. “I don’t know about you, but I’m only too glad that I won’t have to get on the phone right away to call home with the news about the missing shipment.”
“The time change gives us a reprieve, doesn’t it? And so does this shipment error.” She pushed the hair away from her neck, her skin soft and pink.
Damn, she’d taste good. All over.
She glanced at her bangle-type watch. “I suppose I should call Sasha and meet up with her now.”
He knew she was testing him, seeing if he’d meant what he’d said back at the restaurant.
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