“Your sister worked, too?”
“She got a job at a convenience store. They let her work after school and on the weekends.”
It sounded like a TV show. “And her school was okay with that?”
“They were aware of her circumstances.” He grinned mirthlessly. “My mother said either they could have their star runner or, if they kicked her out, then they’d never make it to nationals without Makoto.”
Damn. “So she studied, and worked, and competed in sports? You have an amazing sister.”
“That’s what everyone thinks.”
I nodded, a piece of wonderfully grilled steak dripping in steak sauce halfway from the plate to my mouth. “What about your father?”
“He took the opportunity to start something new.”
“Like what?”
He swirled his drink in the glass, looking effortlessly elegant doing so. “He was always interested in starting his own furniture company, and he was interested in music. So he decided to combine the two.”
I blinked, not seeing the link between the two. “I don’t get it.”
He stared at his glass. “A lot of people didn’t either, not at first.”
“So? How did he do it?”
“He transformed old instruments into furniture. Changed flutes into lamp stands. Turned old piano keys into utensils. Refurbished old cello bodies into armchairs and sofas.” Nobuki shoved a lock of hair over one ear. “A lot of people were interested.”
I couldn’t stop the smile from spreading on my lips. “Then he is more successful now than he was before.”
“You could say that.” He looked away. “But it didn’t happen overnight. He did a lot of odd jobs for a few years while our spare room was stuffed with rusty clarinets and violins with snapped strings.”
“And that’s where…”
He nodded. “We were pretty poor for those years. We barely made enough to eat and pay the bills. No matter how much I hated the food my mom made, I made sure to eat it as quickly as I could, because I didn’t want her to think I was being ungrateful.” He sighed. “I just didn’t want her to cry. You ever hear your mother cry?”
I didn’t think he was referring to tears induced by a sappy movie. “No.”
He looked away, as if uncomfortable. “It’s not…pleasant.”
A heavy, strained silence filled the space between us. I would have done anything to fill the quiet.
Surprisingly, it was Nobuki who spoke first.
“No matter what was on the dinner table, whether it was just rice and eggs, or fried cutlet, I ate as much as she gave me and I was happy for it. Because she was happy her work made it possible to put food on the table.” He let out a soft breath. “We learned a lot during those years. I learned money was one of the most important things in the world.”
“How old were you when you came to this realization?”
“Eight.”
Oh my God.
My boss was a child prodigy.
“That’s why you eat the way you do.”
“Sometimes we only got some rice and fried eggs or just toast with milk.” He grimaced. “Sometimes not even milk. Milk was expensive.”
If my mother was here, she would have soaked up two boxes of tissues. “That’s so noble.”
He let out a burst of laughter. “Noble? No way. It was terrible. I wouldn’t pay to go through it again. But…” His voice grew softer and I couldn’t tear my gaze away from his slim, elegant fingers tracing a pattern on the polished wood counter. “I learned a lot about life. And I’m grateful for the experience.”
I felt quite unworthy and very petty. “I see.”
“So eat that steak,” he said. “And the fries. Eat the whole thing, because it might be the last good meal you have for a while.”
After that story, how could I possibly not?
I sat there for an hour and managed to choke down the entire meal.
And all the while, Nobuki nursed that same whiskey, watching me with an amused glint to his eyes.
At long last, I pushed away the empty plate and burped maybe not so discreetly, one hand on my seemingly impossibly distended stomach.
“I’m so full,” I moaned, covering my mouth with my napkin. “I don’t think I want to ever eat again.”
“Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll be hungry soon enough,” he said dryly. “I have to admit, I don’t know how you finished off that whole thing. That was almost a kilo of meat, and fries, and you had three glasses of iced tea.”
“Well, when you told me about your childhood, I felt like I had to,” I said hesitantly. “I mean, it wasn’t like eating that steak was a chore. It was delicious and who knows when I’m going to able to eat something like that again. You can’t find food like this back home.”
Nobuki leaned, hand outstretched.
Toward me.
I felt like the steak was going to come right back up.
Then his thumb swiped along my cheek.
I couldn’t move.
Couldn’t breathe.
I don’t think I even blinked.
He was touching me.
His touch was unbelievable soft, like butterfly wings against my skin, and I wobbled on the stool.
He pulled back, face set into an expressionless mask.
At that moment, I think I would’ve done anything to know what was going through his head.
“You had steak sauce on your face.” He wiped his thumb on a napkin.
My face felt hotter than an iron left on too long. “Thank you. I’m not usually so clumsy.”
“Yes, I bet you don’t usually consume your weight in meat, either” he said dryly and stood up. “It’s late. There are a few preparations I need to do before the convention tomorrow. You can stay here as long as you want. Just tell the bartender to charge everything to your room.”
“No problem,” I said, too alarmed at my reaction to his touch to do anything but nod like an automaton.
“Good night,” he said and then headed out of the restaurant, drawing more admiring glances from several patrons.
I stayed at the bar for a little longer, mostly because my heart was still pounding.
This was depressing.
Nobuki had touched me once, once, just to get sauce off my face, and I melted like chocolate in the summer.
Pathetic.
Absolutely pathetic.
Chapter 4
The next morning was chaos.
Eyelids heavy from the lack of sleep, caused by tossing and turning every which way and feeling zero desire to satisfy myself, if only to get some rest, I staggered around the gigantic convention floor in a state of semicomatose alertness.
Not even watching Nobuki at work, confident and sure of himself, conversing with various other publishing professionals and passing out samplers of our best sellers, was not enough to induce me out of my state of sleeplessness.
This could not go on.
But short of throwing myself at my boss’s feet and begging him to make love to me so I could get him out of my system, I didn’t know what else to do.
I cringed at the image of his sneering in response.
Faking an emergency, I staggered to a bench next to the convention hall’s bathroom area, where people were milling about with cups of coffee and bottles of water, looking knowledgeable and suave.
I envied them.
I was so tired I barely reacted as one of my favorite horror authors brushed past me, recognizable by his thick horn-rimmed glasses and bushy beard that made him look as though he had been eating out of trash bins and sleeping underneath a bridge.
Considering his last book had been on the best-seller’s list for the past twelve weeks, I was pretty sure that wasn’t the case.
Caught up in the incredibly far-fetched and nonsensical fantasy about Roger Breman going through a garbage can, I tripped over a pair of long legs and almost landed right in Julian Lambert’s lap.
“Whoa!”
His hands
were warm and steady around my waist as he helped me recover my balance. A pack of people looked on with amusement, a few women giggling behind their hands.
I didn’t mind. I’m sure if I had been one of them, I wouldn’t even have bothered covering my mouth.
Lucky for me, I hadn’t fallen across some random person’s lap.
I started feeling a little warmer, and realized that I had spent most of the morning shivering a bit, even though it was pleasantly warm in the convention hall.
It couldn’t be my imagination that his large hands stayed around my waist for longer than necessary. I kind of liked it.
I welcomed the flush that rose through my body as I extricated myself out of Julian’s grasp.
“Th—thanks,” I stammered, fixing my skirt which had somehow ended up back to front, the zipper lying uncomfortably underneath my belly button. “I didn’t see you.”
“Really?” He smiled. “How could you not see such long legs? I almost think you tripped over me on purpose.”
I rolled my eyes and pulled my badge back over my chest. How had it ended up on my back? “Yes. I did. You caught me. Literally.”
We both broke into smiles at my small joke.
“Care to sit?” he asked, switching into his flawless Japanese that surprised me all over again. I guessed I was never going to get used to this blond guy speaking Japanese better than most Japanese people I knew.
Gratefully, I sat down next to him, still aware of the curious eyes watching us. I knew what a strange picture we looked like: a slim Asian woman with raccoon eyes sitting next to a broad-shouldered Viking warrior. Even though I knew America was all about diversity, I knew there was no way I could pass for American.
“It’s strange,” I said, glancing around.
“What is?”
“There are plenty of Asian women here.”
“Yes, there are.”
I watched one particular Asian woman walk across the carpeted lobby into one of the convention halls. “I’m Asian, too. But we look different.”
Julian stilled. “You do.”
“Why is that?”
“I think the makeup is different,” he replied. “The style of dress is also different. Asian women born and bred here aren’t any more Asian than I am, in my opinion. They look and feel like Americans and they’ve got an American sense of style. You don’t.”
I shook my head. “No. I’m from Japan.”
“Same goes for dudes.” He snorted. “You know, when I saw Nobuki at the airport, I had a hard time believing it was the same guy I went to school with. He’s changed a lot.”
I didn’t want to be interested in Nobuki, not while sitting next to someone like Julian, but the heart, or maybe lust, was a treacherous thing. “What was he like?”
“Well, he was a transfer student in freshman year in high school. I think his dad worked in the furniture business or something.”
I nodded. “He mentioned something like that.”
“Barely spoke a word of English.” He laughed. “But, damn, he could play basketball.”
I blinked. Nobuki playing sports was not something I had thought of. Then again, he did have a slim, sinewy build, but I attributed that to…something that was a little more elegant than running up and down a court with an orange ball. “He didn’t mention that.”
“No? That’s how we met, you know. Basketball.” Julian stretched his arms along the back of the bench and his thumb brushed my shoulder.
It stayed there but I didn’t mind. “Were you both on the basketball team?”
“I tried out. Barely made it. The coach scouted Nobu. Saw him play basketball after school and begged him to join. Only freshman to make varsity.”
I smiled. “I bet that ticked everyone off.”
“You bet right. The freshmen wouldn’t talk to him because they were jealous and the seniors wouldn’t talk to him because he was so stuck up.” He laughed. “You think he’s an uptight bastard now. Man, that kid was such a snooty know-it-all. No one liked him.”
“What about you?”
“Hated his guts,” he said. I caught a note of pride in his voice. “He ever tell you about the time I stuffed his head in a toilet?”
I think my jaw fell off at that point. “You did what?”
He laughed out loud, head thrown back. “He wouldn’t hang out with us, didn’t talk, kept making the rest of the team look bad, so I stuffed his head in a toilet and flushed.”
I laughed, having a hard time imagining a cool, suave sixteen-year-old Nobuki with his head in a toilet bowl. “Then what happened?”
“He kicked me where the sun don’t shine. Really hard, too. Almost had to go to the emergency room.”
I winced. “It’s hard to believe you two could be friends after all that.”
He shrugged. “What can I say? Guys are fucking weird.”
“No kidding.”
Bonding after doing terrible things to one another?
Weird, indeed.
“He’s nicer now, though,” he said contemplatively, one foot tapping occasionally on the carpeted floor.
“Really? It’s a wonder he didn’t get didn’t tossed off the roof at some point.”
The corners of his eyes crinkled. “That might’ve been mentioned once or twice.”
I shook my head in disbelief and then reluctantly stood up. “I should go back. I told Nobu—er, Mr. Miyano I was just taking a short break.”
Nobuki Miyano was my boss, not my friend. He didn’t have the same relationship with me as he did with Julian. I had no right to call him by his first name.
“Hey, Rika?”
Julian really was a handsome man. Why couldn’t I have sexy dreams about him? At least then I might’ve had some chance of my dreams coming true. “Yes?”
“Any plans for tonight?”
My mouth went dry. “No…I don’t think so. Why?”
His eyes twinkled. Twinkled. I didn’t think that was even possible. Maybe in movies or manga. Not in reality.
“Care to grab a few drinks tonight?” His smile widened. “That is, if your taskmaster allows it?”
“He’s not my taskmaster,” I said stiffly, not enjoying the connotation, as though I needed permission from my boss to go out.
“No?” The smile faltered a bit. “Are you busy?”
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been out on a date. Lately, my dates had been thick, gory books. “Not exactly.”
He got up, and damned if he didn’t make it look cool and suave. He had a charm all of his own, very different from Nobuki, and yet both of them would have caused armies of women to willingly wave white flags of surrender.
“Then it’s settled? How about nine at the hotel lounge?”
I licked my lips. “That’s fine. I’ll see you then.”
And we stood there.
Awkwardly.
I didn’t know what to do.
Didn’t know how to act.
So I put out my hand.
Because when in doubt, it’s never wrong to shake hands, right?
He stared at my proffered hand.
To my relief, he took it.
But he didn’t shake.
Instead, he lifted my hand up, up, up and brushed his lips across my fingers.
I was transported.
Transported to a place where men took off their top hats and bowed to passing women, a place where the waltz and Strauss were the latest rage, where dancing in one man’s arms all night was a woman’s dream come true.
He looked at me from beneath lowered lids and I understood how it felt to have my heart skip a beat.
“You keep treating me like I’m a business associate,” he said. “I hope we don’t have to be all about…work.”
I desperately needed a drink. Maybe two.
“I’m sorry.” My nerves rattled, like a marble in a large box getting shaken frantically. “I don’t know how to react when someone asks me out on a date. I thought a handshake would be the be
st idea. I mean, I didn’t want to just walk away. That seemed rude, but I didn’t want to give you a hug. I know it’s common to hug and kiss everyone here in America, but that doesn’t happen in Japan.”
I felt his warm breath on my knuckles and thought I was going to pass out right there next to the bathrooms where a group of older women were watching us avidly.
That jarred me more than anything else.
Yes, I wanted the date.
Yes, I wanted to be around Julian.
But I didn’t want to do this in front of an audience, and I snatched my hand away.
Honestly, I was a little disappointed he let go.
On the other hand, I was done performing.
I refused to feel rankled as his gaze turned amused. “Tonight at nine. Lounge. See you there.”
I was going to end this like it was a business meeting.
Maybe it was because I was used to such things.
Getting dates from guys I just met, not so much.
A corner of Julian’s lips kicked up, like he got a joke before I did. “Okay. See you there, Miss Hasegawa.”
I knew he was mocking me being so businesslike, but as long as he didn’t press the issue, I was okay with that.
I walked away, the back of my neck itching madly as I felt Julian’s eyes on me until I rounded the corner.
The whole day I thought about the date.
When I handed someone the wrong set of samples, Nobuki issued a public reprimand.
Not that it sounded like one, not when we were surrounded by other people.
“You must still be jet-lagged,” he said in a mild voice, smiling at a woman as she tittered with her silly, frazzle-haired friend. “You still have dark circles underneath your eyes.”
“I always have dark circles under my eyes,” I muttered, restacking a tall pile of our books before they could fall over if someone so much as looked at them wrong.
“No.” His brow went up. “I don’t think you do.”
I resisted the urge to grab him by his starched collar and shake him until his eyes rattled. “Yes. I do. I read every night. Every night. Understand?”
A One Night Affair (Kissing the Boss Book 2) Page 5