by Olivia Gates
Her accent was American, her voice too low to fathom clearly in the background din, but its warmth speared through his loins, made him grit his teeth.
Hiro pulled her more securely to his side. “It must be a mere manifestation of your electrifying personality.”
Raiden aborted a snort at Hiro’s hackneyed comment. But what he couldn’t rein in was his rising hackles at Hiro’s possessive attitude. He couldn’t believe his reaction. He’d never felt confrontational with another man over a woman.
Then she turned fully to him, the smile on her lips not reaching her eyes as they met his for the first time. The bolt that hit him this time almost rocked him on his feet.
Those eyes. Those intense, luminescent sapphire blues. They were the same color of her eyes.
It was really getting ridiculous how he was trying to find similarities between the two completely different women.
“I hear congratulations are in order,” Scarlett murmured, her gaze flitting from his eyes to Megumi’s before he could hold it.
It couldn’t be she was shy. This was a woman who knew her power over men, a power that must have been perfected through years of practice and exercised at will. He was certain there wasn’t a diffident cell in that voluptuous body. So why didn’t she want to look him in the eye?
“Scarlett had a prior engagement.” Hiro turned to Scarlett, his gaze taking on a besotted edge. “But she still honored me with consenting to grace the ball.”
“How could I not, when you organize the best balls in the northern hemisphere, Hiro?” Scarlett turned to Megumi with a warm smile. “Between you and me, I was hoping that by meeting the guests of honor of this ball, I might get my first invitation to a high-society Japanese wedding.”
“If I’m invited—” Hiro shot Megumi a brief glance before resuming his adoration of Scarlett “—you certainly will be.”
“We’d be honored to have you both grace the wedding.” Megumi felt nowhere her usual serene self, her words brittle, her expression forced.
She didn’t like Scarlett? Probably not many women did. Scarlett must be an ego crusher, especially to those females who considered themselves beautiful. For she was magnificent.
“I trust this is also Kuroshiro-san’s sentiment?” Hiro asked, turning his challenging gaze to him.
In their previous meetings, Hiro had been reserved, but he’d made it clear their enmity would be kept to the financial battlefield. This time, though, he was struggling to hold back his aggression. Because he felt territorial over Scarlett?
Not that she’d given Hiro any reason to fear him. She’d barely looked in his direction so far.
Hiro, on the other hand, was still glaring at him, waiting for his corroboration. Raiden gave it to him with an inclination of his head.
Megumi’s hand tightened. Was she urging him to vocalize his response? He knew he had to comply, or it would be taken as an offense. His silence so far had been bad enough.
He didn’t feel like making a response. Right now the only thing he felt like doing was snatching Hiro’s arm off Scarlett’s waist and dragging her away from him.
Still, he said, “Matsuyama-san, Ms. Delacroix, your presence at our wedding isn’t only our privilege, it’s a necessity.”
His deferential words didn’t seem to appease Hiro. The man’s response was perplexing, since Hiro had not only insisted on holding this ball, but had brought to his attention the very woman he was visually wrestling him over.
Thankfully, the stilted meeting came to an end shortly afterward, and Hiro and Scarlett moved on. Raiden forced himself not to watch them walk away. Not to watch her. But he could no longer bear having Megumi by his side.
Looking down at her, he tried to smile, failing this time. “If it’s okay with you, Megumi, I’ll now take advantage of your kind offer to go make the rounds.”
“Of course.” Megumi stepped back, looking as relieved as he felt to finally separate.
Walking away, he forced himself to stop by a few congratulators. As soon as he saw an opening to get out of the ballroom, he took it. On his way out, he again saw Scarlett. She was heading out, too. Even from the back, and from a distance, the sense of familiarity swamped him all over again. The same intensity he’d experienced when he’d first seen her.
Her. That was how he’d always thought of the woman he’d known by the name of Hannah McPherson.
He’d met her in New York one bright summer afternoon five years ago, when she’d swerved her car to avoid hitting a reckless biker and crashed into his car instead.
From the moment she’d stepped out of her car, everything else had ceased to matter to him. The inexorable attraction he’d felt toward her had been something he’d never thought he could experience. He’d always told her she’d literally crashed into his life, and pulverized all his preconceptions and rules.
Ignoring his usual precautions, he hadn’t even performed the most basic investigation on her. It had been through her that he’d known her to be a kindergarten teacher by morning, and a florist who ran an inherited shop by afternoon.
When he’d taken her out that first night, she’d made it clear it wouldn’t go any further because he inhabited a world alien to hers. She hadn’t budged when he’d insisted that attraction like theirs bridged all differences. It had taken their first kiss for her to capitulate, concede that what had sprung between them had been unstoppable. And from that first night, he’d plunged with her into an incendiary affair.
Then after five delirious months, a single inexplicable discrepancy had led him to unravel an ingeniously spun web of fraud. And to an appalling verdict. That her identity had been manufactured just prior to meeting him.
It had all been a setup. Starting with the accident that had brought them together. She must have been sent by some rival to spy on him. And in their intimacy, he’d left himself wide-open. Whatever she’d been after, she could have found it.
But since no one had used privileged information against him yet, either she hadn’t found what she’d been looking for or she was waiting for the right time to leverage her intel from her recruiters. Or him. Or both.
Pretending to be oblivious until he’d decided how to deal with her, he’d called her. She’d been her usual bright, eager self at first, then as if hearing through his act, her voice had changed, becoming a stranger’s. Then she’d asked if he preferred she called him Lightning, or if he’d left that name behind when he’d escaped The Organization. And he’d realized it had been far worse than his worst fears.
It hadn’t been corporate espionage material she’d managed to get her hands on, but his most lethal secret. His previous identity. And she’d known its value, its danger. That its exposure would bring The Organization to his and his brothers’ doors. The Organization that needed them all dead.
His blood had frozen and boiled at once as she’d said it was just as well he’d brought the charade to an end so she could make her demands. Some money in exchange for her silence.
“Some money” had turned out to be fifty million dollars.
Enraged, he’d assured her he didn’t negotiate with blackmailers. He took them out. So it was in her best interest to keep what she knew to herself.
Unfazed by his threat, she’d said he’d never find her to carry it out, but that she’d had no wish to expose him, just needed the money. It was pocket change to him, so he should just pay without involving payback or pride. He also shouldn’t fear she’d ever ask for more or hold her knowledge over him in any other way. Once the transaction was complete, he could consider that she’d never existed. As she’d never truly had.
Though bitterness and fury had consumed him, cold logic had said that while he couldn’t trust his instincts or her, he could trust her sense of self-preservation. She’d already known how lethal he could be, and she wouldn’t risk extorting
him again. This would be a one-off thing. It would end this catastrophic breach to his and his brothers’ security.
But he’d found himself wondering. If she really needed the money, he’d gladly help her, if only she’d tell him she’d been forced to spy on him, and that it hadn’t been all a lie.
His need to look the other way in return for such a reassurance had made him even angrier. At himself. Deciding to end the sordid interlude, he’d transferred the money to the offshore account she’d provided, what had been untraceable even to his formidable resources. As per her declaration, he’d never found any trace of her again. It had been as if she’d never existed. It had been truly over.
But it hadn’t ended. Not for him.
His obsession with her continued to torment him. It sank its talons the deepest when he was at his lowest ebb. It was at such times he yearned to turn to her, the only woman who’d touched his innermost being, to feel her vitality filling his arms, her empathy touching his soul, her passion igniting his cravings. Every time, he’d cursed her even more, for needing her still.
But his anger remained mostly directed at himself—the master of stealth who’d failed to detect the least trace of duplicity in her. And who, even after it had been proved, had remained inextricably under her spell.
Shaking himself out of the bitter musings, he now exited the ballroom in pursuit of that other woman who had wrung the same reactions from him.
Scarlett Delacroix was gracefully gliding across the mansion’s expansive terrace, descending the stairs to the traditional tea garden. In the light of a gibbous moon, her red tresses were the only splash of color and heat in the scene’s monotone coldness. The layered skirt of her black dress trailed after her like a piece of night that worshipped her lush figure.
Noting that Hiro’s bodyguards were monitoring her progress, he waited as she crossed the wooden bridge to the garden house, then set off in the opposite direction.
In minutes, he entered the building soundlessly from its southern entrance. The warmth of the interior advanced as if to greet him, but it was her aura that reached out and enveloped him as she stood looking out the screen window.
It was uncanny. His reaction to her was identical to his reaction to Hannah, when physically she couldn’t be more different. Still, he couldn’t shake that insane feeling. Or resist the preposterous impulse.
He stepped out of the shadows and strode toward her.
Without turning, she only shot him a sidelong glance. There was no doubt about it. She’d felt him there all along, had been waiting for him to make a move.
His heat rose as she resumed looking out to the exquisite moonlit garden. No one, no woman, certainly not Hannah, had ever treated him with such nonchalance.
He stopped a breath away, bent and placed his lips an inch from her ear. His words rustled the hair tucked behind it. “Why are you out here and not in that ballroom soaking up the collective adulation?”
Without giving any indication if his nearness affected her in any way, she said, “Not that I noticed such generalized fascination, but I came out for some fresh air and solitude. I’m a touch claustrophobic and agoraphobic. A full ballroom is my ultimate aversion.”
“Is it? Or are you just giving Hiro something he’s never experienced—a woman who can leave his side, who isn’t trying to court his favor with her every breath? If you walked away to test how deep your hook has sunk into him, are you now disappointed he hasn’t come running after you?”
“I plead not guilty to all of your assumptions, Mr. Kuroshiro. But the question is, why are you here? Why aren’t you back in that ballroom collecting oaths of allegiance and obedience? Can I assume my so-called hook has inadvertently sunk in you instead, and it has brought you running after me?”
“You can indeed assume, Ms. Delacroix.” He paused for a second, then decided to act on the unstoppable compulsion, no matter how absurd it was. “Or should I say Ms. McPherson?”
For an interminable stretch, there was absolutely no reaction from her. Nothing but total stillness and silence.
Then she turned her head to him, her heavily fringed, vibrantly blue eyes looking up at him in what looked like amusement. “I heard that right, didn’t I? You just implied I’m someone else? Someone you know?” A brief, tinkling chuckle escaped her dimpled lips. “That’s one line I was never given.”
His hands itched to clamp over the flesh that pulled at his instincts like inexorable gravity. He barely fought the temptation. “Because men approach you with protests that you’re like no one they’d ever met? Take heart. You’re still unique. So much so, even a totally different face and body didn’t stop me from recognizing you.”
There. The words were out. And they sounded ludicrous. At least, to his logic. His instincts said different. He’d follow those wherever they willed until it all played out.
Her eyebrows rose in incredulity before a considering expression came into her eyes. “Is this a game? You want me to pretend I’m this...McPherson woman? And will you be someone else, too? Someone free to indulge himself with a total stranger?” She turned fully to him, leaned back against the window frame over arms tucked behind her back. “I did hear role-playing is huge in Japan, but I wouldn’t have thought you’re the type who’d be into it. But then, maybe you’re just that. Someone who became a billionaire so young must lead a very stressful life. Maybe it’s your preferred method of defusing the pressures.”
Her every calm syllable, her steady gaze, made everything inside him churn.
His lips twisted grimly, mocking his runaway reaction, conceding her effect. “Your on-the-fly performance is impressive. But then, you always were the most spontaneous, undetectable imposter I’ve ever encountered.”
Only one delicately curved auburn eyebrow rose this time, and what seemed so much like real interest entered her gaze. “Have you encountered that many?”
“Hundreds. And I’ve seen through each of them at a hundred paces. It was only you who took me in, all the way. But I’m now immunized for life against falling for your charades again.”
She shook her head as if she’d had enough of playing his game. Then suddenly she tilted it at him, her gaze shedding its mockery, becoming smoldering. “You don’t need an outrageous approach to hook me, Mr. Kuroshiro. I’m already interested.”
That was something he hadn’t expected her to say. Not that he’d expected anything. He was flying blind here.
“You are?”
“Every female with only a brain wave would be.” She sighed. “Pity you’re engaged.”
“Does that even matter?”
“I guess it wouldn’t to someone like you. Even if I suspect that such a someone doesn’t exist, that you’re one of a kind. I expect you’re bound by no rules and consider no one in your decisions.”
“You already know this about me.”
“You mean this McPherson woman knows this about you.”
“Will you keep pretending you’re not her for long?”
She sighed again. “I already told you I’m interested. And since being engaged doesn’t deter you, it’s something actually in your favor, since you must only want something intense...and transient. The only kind of liaison I’m open to.”
“So Hiro hasn’t reserved a place in your bed yet?”
“Hiro, like everything else in my life, is of no concern to you and is off-limits to discussion. I do as I please, and no one has any claims on me.”
“I bet Hiro doesn’t know this part. Or he does, and you’re still dangling the bait. And while you wait until he swallows the whole fishing rod, you welcome diversions?”
“Why not? I’m a free agent so far.” She uncoiled to her full statuesque height. “But I’ve had enough of indulging your role-playing fetish. Let’s revisit this when you decide to talk to me, not your imaginary character.”
Without lingering one more second, she turned away. He watched her receding, a flame-haired goddess of the night dissolving into her domain, his thoughts tangling.
Had he made a gigantic fool of himself? All evidence said so. His instincts, however, still screamed their contradictory verdict.
Exasperation rumbled from his gut as he lunged after her, grabbed her by the waist and slammed her against his length.
A gasp swelled in her chest as he stabbed a hand into the heavy silk at her nape, tethering her head. In the golden illumination of fire-lit lanterns, her eyes held his in utmost composure, belying her ragged moan at his roughness. And he crashed his lips over hers, swallowing the intoxicating sound.
Her lips parted wide under his onslaught, letting him plunge into her depths, her flesh softening to accommodate his impacting hardness. Her surrender blazed through his nerves. But it was certainty that singed his every cell.
This. This was her unforgotten feel and taste, her inimitable delight. This was her.
The beast that had been perpetually clawing inside him finally tore free. It devoured her, everything inside him roaring with remembrance. Of every minute of deprivation of the five years after she’d left him. Craving more. Needing closure.
Then it swelled. Disgust. With himself. Over the only weakness he’d ever suffered, this susceptibility to her. It towered, then crashed, made him tear his lips from hers, push away from the body that had seemed to melt into his every recess.
Stumbling back at the abruptness of his withdrawal, she leaned against the nearest wall, the only discernible reaction to his explosive kiss her faster breathing.
Then, through those lips he’d just ravished, her voice washed over him, calm, collected...but hers at last.
“What gave me away?”
Two
“Everything.”