He smiled, as if he’d anticipated the question. “It’s both a thank you and a bribe—in appreciation for a wonderful day and to entice you to spend tomorrow with me, too.”
“I don’t seem to have any other plans,” she said.
“Don’t you want to open it before you make any promises?”
She tore the paper away, curiosity overcome by stunned pleasure as she unwrapped the oyster shell doll. “But this was for your niece.”
He shook his head. “I bought a purple one for Caitlin, because it’s her favorite color. This one is for you.”
Jenny stroked a hand over the doll’s silky hair, her eyes misting with unexpected tears.
“It’s beautiful. Thank you.” She impulsively rose on her toes and touched her lips to his cheek.
It was intended as an expression of gratitude—an innocent kiss. But the heated awareness that suddenly sparked between them was anything but innocent. She stepped back to find his eyes on her, his gaze dark and intense.
The silence seemed to stretch between them for a long minute before he finally said, “You just broke one of your own rules.”
She could only nod, her heart pounding so loudly he couldn’t possibly be unaware of it.
“Not that I’m complaining.” Richard traced the curve of her bottom lip with his fingertip once, then again. “I was just wondering if it meant that you’re ready to throw all of the rules away.”
She was tempted, oh so tempted, but definitely not ready.
“I can’t.” She clutched the doll against her chest and took a careful step back. “I’m sorry.”
His smile was wry. “So am I. More than you can imagine.”
Chapter Six
Jenny awoke in a rare mood Saturday morning—a fact that was immediately recognized by her roommate.
“Rough night?” Samara asked, spreading jam on a slice of toast.
“No,” she responded as she made her way to the coffee pot. She had no intention of admitting that she’d dreamed of Richard last night—of kissing him, touching him, making love with him. A dream inspired by too vivid memories of the kiss they’d shared two days earlier.
It was just a kiss, she reminded herself. Nothing to get all worked up about. Except that it had been just a kiss, and that was exactly what had her all worked up. She wanted more.
And her imagination was far too creative in supplying the details of exactly what and how much more. She swallowed a mouthful of coffee, needing the jolt of caffeine to shake off the last remnants of the dream and plant her firmly back into reality.
“If it’s any consolation,” Samara said, “Richard was on his way out last night as I was coming in, and he looked just as frustrated as you do now.”
“I’m not frustrated,” she denied. “I’m annoyed.”
“Oh?”
“It’s Saturday and I wanted nothing more than to sleep late and laze around the apartment all day. Instead, I’m on tour guide duty. Again.”
“You never sleep late,” Samara pointed out.
“I never get the chance.”
Samara nibbled on her toast. “I think you need to sleep with Richard.”
It was the casual delivery that surprised Jenny even more than the words. She choked on her coffee, sputtered. “What kind of a statement is that?”
Her friend shrugged. “Obviously something has to happen to elevate your sexual tension.”
“Alleviate,” she corrected automatically. “And I’m not tense.”
“Liar.”
She refilled her mug with coffee. “Even if I was tense, sleeping with Richard Warren wouldn’t help. I have no interest in yet another dead-end relationship.”
“Who said anything about a relationship? I was talking about a fling.”
Jenny shook her head. “You know I’m not good at remaining emotionally detached.”
“And you’re falling for him already,” Samara guessed.
She shook her head again. She wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about Richard, but she was confident she wasn’t falling for him. She enjoyed being with him, talking to him, even arguing with him. And each hour she spent with him tempted her to disregard her common sense and open up her heart again, but that was something she wouldn’t do. His presence in her life was only temporary and his interest in her would decrease in direct proportion to the increased demands of his job. As soon as he was able to get back to the bargaining table, he would forget about her. She’d be a fool to think otherwise.
And Jenny wasn’t going to be a fool again.
They started the morning with a quick tour through the Tsukiji Market then moved on to the Tokyo Tower and the Japanese Sword Museum. It seemed to Richard that Jenny wanted to ensure he saw absolutely everything Tokyo had to offer and was focused resolutely on the task.
She was also, Richard noted, as tightly wound as the spool of string on the kite he’d bought for his nephew during yesterday’s shopping excursion.
As she strode briskly down the corridor of the Metropolitan Art Museum, he reached out to touch her arm. She jolted at the contact.
“You startled me,” she said.
“I just wanted to ask if you had signed up for some tourist version of The Amazing Race with me as your unwitting companion.”
“Of course not.” But her cheeks colored slightly. “There’s so much still to see and you’ll be back at work on Monday—”
Her words halted when he took her hand and linked their fingers. He saw her brows draw together, just the slightest hint of a scowl, and he imagined her agile mind rapidly sorting through possible responses to the overture, battling between annoyance and acceptance. If she tugged her hand away, it might place too much importance on a casual gesture. If she left her fingers entwined with his, it might suggest she didn’t object to his touching her.
He wasn’t surprised when she disentangled her hand from his.
“I just don’t think there’s anything to be learned by seeing Japan at warp speed.”
“I didn’t want you to miss anything.”
“And I don’t want to spend the whole day being dragged from one thing to the next because you think that’s what I want.”
“What do you want to do?” she asked warily.
“I want you to stop thinking like a tour guide and tell me what you’d most like to do on a day off.”
“Sleep in and stay in my pajamas all day.”
“It’s already too late for the sleeping in part,” he said, trying not to think about the second half of her statement. But his errant imagination was already sorting through the options. Skimpy satin, peekaboo lace, seductive silk. The possibilities were endlessly enticing and it took a determined effort to refocus his mind on the conversation. “And I don’t believe you’re the type to lounge in bed, anyway.”
“I didn’t know you had to be a certain type for that.”
“You do,” he told her. “And you’re not it.”
“How do you know?”
“Too much energy and ambition.”
She frowned.
“It wasn’t a criticism—just an observation.”
“You don’t know me well enough to leap to a conclusion like that,” she said, just a little defensively.
“After spending the better part of three days together, I think I can hazard a few guesses. And I’d know you even better if you’d stop pushing me away.”
“I’m here with you now, aren’t I?”
“Are you? Because I feel like I’m being shuttled around by Jennifer Anderson, professional ambassador of Japan, rather than the warm, friendly woman who cheered beside me at the baseball game last night.”
She wrinkled her nose. “No one calls me Jennifer.”
“And that,” he said, “is one of the few pieces of personal information you’ve voluntarily imparted.”
“You asked for someone to show you the sights. That’s what I’ve been doing.”
“I wanted you to show me around because I wanted to spen
d time with you. Not the reporter or the tour guide, but the real woman. I wanted a chance to know you—your likes and dislikes, your hopes and dreams.”
“I’m not as complicated as you seem to think.”
He wondered what she was hiding, what she was afraid of. But he knew she’d only withdraw further if he pushed for answers to the questions that lingered in his mind. So he only said, “We can start with how you would spend your free time on a Saturday afternoon.” Then he smiled. “We’ll work our way up to what kind of pajamas you wear later on.”
“A picnic,” she said, pointedly ignoring his comment.
“You mean lunch on a blanket on the grass?”
“That’s exactly what I mean.” She led the way through the exit and into the bright sunshine outside. “It’s a beautiful day and I know the perfect place for it.”
He tried to remember if he’d ever been on a picnic. He didn’t think so. He did business lunches and negotiated contracts over cocktails—dining on the ground in the great outdoors was far outside his area of expertise.
“What’s for lunch?” he asked suspiciously.
She already had her cell phone out and was punching in numbers. “We’ll pick something up.”
Before he could question her about the “something,” she was talking in Japanese to whoever was on the other end of the line. After a brief conversation, of which he failed to understand a single word other than her name, she tucked her phone away.
“I had no idea you were so fluent in the language.”
She grinned. “It might sound like I am, but I still make the occasional mistake when I’m translating words in my mind. Instead of salad and sandwiches, we might be eating grilled eels marinated in sake.”
“You might be eating grilled eels,” he said. “I’m really not that hungry.”
She laughed and tucked her arm through his.
It was a casual and friendly gesture, completely within the boundaries she’d established for their relationship, and yet he felt a jolt of desire, hard and fast, when her breast inadvertently brushed against him.
As they exited the museum, she tilted her head to look at him. “And if you really need to know—I wear flannel.”
He sighed with exaggerated disappointment. “You could have at least let me have my fantasies.”
She laughed again. “I’ll let you share my lunch instead.”
Jenny hoped to get in and out of the hotel without anyone but the kitchen staff ever knowing she’d been there, unprepared to face an interrogation from her brother if he saw her with Richard. John Anderson had always been protective of his little sister, but he’d been even more so since her recent return to Tokyo after yet another failed relationship.
It was the newspaper that thwarted her plans.
The headline of the front page caught her attention as she moved past the seating area in the center of the lobby.
“What is it?” Richard asked.
She picked up the paper. “Jiro Mikodashi was fired yesterday.”
He looked at her blankly.
“The VP at Kakubishi,” she explained. “My sexual harassment story was apparently scooped by the Herald.”
“I thought your editor had reassigned it.”
She nodded. “Unfortunately, Cameron Parks completely missed the point of it. His report on allegations of sexual harassment in the workplace was buried on page twenty of yesterday’s paper because it gave no mention of the VP. But the victims must have decided to fight back.” Her lips curved. “My editor isn’t going to be happy.”
“Then why are you smiling?”
“Because I’m hopeful that next time he’ll think twice about reassigning a story I’ve researched.” She dropped the paper back onto the table.
“Does that mean you’re not still mad at me?” Richard asked.
“It means I’ve resigned myself to being stuck in the society pages for a while longer. You were really just a convenient target for my frustration this time around.”
“This time?” he echoed. “Has this happened before?”
“Twice in the past six months,” she admitted.
“Why do you put up with it?”
“Because I don’t have a lot of recourse,” she admitted. “Despite my experience at the New York Times, I’m one of the youngest reporters on staff here.”
“It must make you wonder if coming to Tokyo was a smart career decision.”
“It wasn’t a career decision at all but a personal one.”
“Because of your family?” he guessed.
She felt torn between pleasure and apprehension as she saw her brother making his way across the marble tile of the lobby toward them. “Because of my family,” she agreed.
“I heard a rumor you were here,” John said when he drew nearer.
She smiled. “Didn’t Mom tell us not to listen to rumors?”
“It’s not really a rumor if it’s true.” He bent to kiss her cheek. “You weren’t going to sneak out without saying hi, were you?”
“I was trying.” But she softened the admission with another smile. “You know I don’t like interrupting when you’re busy.”
“And you know I’m never too busy for you.” His cool blue-eyed gaze shifted to fix on Richard. “Or to meet your friends.”
Obviously that was a request for an introduction. “John, meet Richard Warren. Richard, this is my brother, Jonathon.”
As the two men shook hands, Jenny could almost see the questions flipping through her brother’s mind as if they were on cue cards.
“Richard is a lawyer from Chicago working on the Hanson-TAKA merger,” Jenny told her brother, preempting what she guessed would be his first inquiry.
That information earned a slight nod. “Room 2212.”
“Yes.” Richard seemed surprised that the hotel manager would know such a detail; Jenny wasn’t.
“Mori Taka keeps one of the penthouse suites reserved for his personal use,” she explained. “And TAKA guests always stay at this hotel.”
“I can see why,” Richard said. “My rooms are spectacular.”
“Has the service been satisfactory?” her brother asked.
He nodded.
“I’m sure Mr. Warren will complete a guest survey card when he checks out,” Jenny said.
The corners of John’s mouth tipped up a fraction, an acknowledgment he’d got the hint although not a guarantee he would heed her warning. “In the meantime,” he said smoothly, “why don’t you both join me for lunch in the dining room?”
She shook her head. “We can’t. And to clarify, Richard is a business associate and Mr. Taka asked me to show him around Tokyo.”
“I didn’t ask,” John said.
“But you were wondering.”
“You’re my little sister.” He was speaking to her but his gaze was on Richard again as he said, “It’s my job to look out for you.”
“It’s your job to look after this hotel,” she reminded him. “I can take care of myself.”
“Meiji Jingu is the Shinto shrine dedicated to the souls of Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken,” Jenny told Richard as they passed under the massive wooden torii that gated the entrance to the park. “The grounds of the shrine are covered by a forest of more than a hundred thousand trees donated by people from all over Japan.”
He walked beside her along the wide gravel path, conscious of the city sounds fading away as they made their way deeper into the park. “I wouldn’t have imagined there was anything like this here,” he admitted. “When they show images of Tokyo on the news or in movies—it’s always the towering buildings and glittering neon.”
“Every city needs somewhere like this,” Jenny told him. “A refuge from the frantic pace of urban society.”
“And yet you seem to fit as easily into that world as you do into this one.”
She shrugged. “When you live in ten different countries before the age of ten, you learn to adapt.”
“Not everyone would,” he dis
agreed. “Did you enjoy traveling so much?”
“Most of the time. Then we moved to Tokyo when my brother started high school. My parents wanted him—wanted both of us,” she amended, “to be settled and able to concentrate on our studies. It was the first time we’d really had a chance to make friends. But still, as soon as there was a vacation—or even a long weekend—we’d be off to somewhere else again.”
“Is that why your brother’s so protective of you—because you spent so much time together as kids?”
She smiled as she led him off the path and onto a grassy area partially shaded by nearby trees. “John’s a little over-protective, which I have a tendency to rebel against.”
“Is that why you don’t work at the hotel?”
“I don’t work at the hotel because I’m not diplomatic enough to succeed in the hospitality industry.” She took a blanket out of the basket he carried and spread it on the grass.
“I imagine there are plenty of positions that wouldn’t require you to interact with the guests,” he said, helping to straighten a corner.
“True, so maybe my decision was partly based on a need to be independent—to end the comparisons.” She winced. “I didn’t mean to actually say that out loud.”
“Whose comparisons?” he asked gently.
She knelt and began unpacking the picnic basket. “My own,” she admitted. “Ever since we were little, I’ve tried to be as good as John at something. But he was always older, stronger, faster, smarter. And he’d always wanted to be part of the hotel business, so it made sense for me to find something else, something that was uniquely my own.”
“Are you happy with what you’re doing?”
“I am. I don’t have any desire to be an investigative reporter who gets sent off to some distant country torn apart by war or devastated by natural disaster every time the newswire hums.
“I want to report news that is more relevant and substantial than what I write now for the society pages,” she admitted. “But I also want a home and a family, and I want to go home to them every night. I won’t ever let it take precedence over my children.”
“Is that what you feel your parents did?”
Her Best-Kept Secret Page 7