Chapter 10

After blustering a response which was an amalgamation of “Are you crazy?” and “As if he would have me!” I tromped back through the sand to Julian’s car. 

He joined me, looking sheepish. “A little too much?”

I gave him an icy glare and crossed my arms, nodding to his car. “Can we go back? I’ve got an early day tomorrow.”

It was the same schedule as the past days and I had been out later with him the night before, but he didn’t call me out. 

The ride back to the hotel was quiet, almost painfully so. 

Mostly it was because I kept replaying his suggestion in my mind. 

As if I could just walk over to Nobuki, tap him on the shoulder, point to my hotel room, and say “Hey, let’s fuck.”

It was such an outrageous suggestion I snorted out loud, drawing Julian’s attention back to me. 

By then, we’d turned into the hotel parking lot and he came to a stop in the unloading zone. 

He cut the ignition and took a deep breath before facing me. 

“Okay,” he said calmly. “I can understand why you’d be upset.”

“Really?” I asked. “If so, why say it at all?”

He held up a finger. “Hear me out. Give me one minute to say what I want. Don’t interrupt. If you want to throw me through the windshield after, that’s totally cool. But just listen.”

I should’ve slipped out and made my way into the lobby, but Julian had been unfailingly wonderful to me. 

Minus the “you should fuck your boss” suggestion. 

“You’ve got one minute.”

“Okay.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I know it sounds nuts, but I think it would work. If you don’t have any feelings for him, then fuck him and dump him. Use him for that fantasy of yours, do everything you’ve ever wanted to do, and when morning comes, tell him it was fun and walk away.”

I glowered at him, but he had another forty seconds. 

“I promise, it works. If you don’t love Nobu, you’ll get him out of your system. You wouldn’t have to wonder what it would be like to sleep with him because, hey, you’ve already done it. I know Nobu. He’s not the kind of guy who would let something like that come between his work…in case you were worried about that,” he finished lamely. 

“Supposing I prescribe to your suggestion, which I don’t, but if I did, what makes you think he would take me in the first place?”

He blinked. “Do you have any idea how attractive you are?”

I rolled my eyes and opened the door. “Wrong sentence. Night, Julian.”

I slammed the door shut and almost sprinted to the lobby. Thankfully, Julian didn’t try to follow me, and I slipped into an elevator just as it was closing, reaching across an older couple to press the button for my floor.

I was breathing hard, and the woman shot me a look of concern, opening her mouth to say something. 

My smile was forced. “I’m okay. Don’t worry. I just…went out for a little run.”

Considering I was still in my work clothes, this might’ve caused more comment, but luckily they got off on the fourth floor, leaving me to go up the rest of the way in silence. 

With thoughts. 

Lots of thoughts. 

Why don’t you sleep with him?

I laughed out loud, surprising myself.

Yes. Why don’t I sleep with him indeed? I should saunter right up to his door, knock on it, and drape myself all suggestively over the doorway, maybe even lick my lips in a sexy way. 

“Hey, boss,” I would purr. “Let’s fuck.”

I’d be lucky if Nobuki didn’t laugh me out of the country. And if by some miracle he didn’t fire me, I’d probably end up leaving voluntarily, because just the idea that I had been turned down…just thinking about it made me grimace and I was stupidly, ridiculously grateful when the doors pinged open and I was able to make my way back to my room. 

I leaned against the locked door, concentrating on taking deep breaths. Even though the room was dark, I didn’t bother sticking the room key into the slot by the door that would turn on the room lights. 

The darkness was welcome, more so in a situation like this. I wanted it to concentrate on the thoughts whirling around like a maelstrom in my mind. 

Why don’t you sleep with him?

“Thanks,” I muttered. “Thanks a lot, Julian. That is the worst advice I have ever heard, ever.”

I heard footsteps outside in the hallway and when the door thumped under my back, I almost lost my shit. 

“Rika?” 

Crap. 

I closed my eyes and contemplated pretending not to be in the room, but that just struck me as immature and incredibly rude, considering everything he had done for me.

Not bothering to unlatch the chain, because I had no intention of letting Julian in, I opened the door an inch. 

“Yes?” I hissed. 

He blinked, turning his head to peer into the dark interior. “Are your lights off?”

“Why?”

He scratched the back of his neck. “Only wondering because your face is pressed up against the door and I feel like I’ve walked straight into The Ring.”

“What do you want, Julian?”

“Can I come in?” he asked and then cleared his throat. “After you turn on the light, that is. Sorry. I just saw Ju-On and I’m having a hard time not getting nightmares every time I turn off the lights.”

“Why would you torture yourself into watching something like that?” I asked, genuinely perplexed, almost forgetting why I was so angry at him in the first place. “Most people avoid those films like the plague.”

He looked chagrined at himself. “I grew up watching Freddy Krueger tear teenagers into shreds. I should be okay watching a woman with heavy makeup crawl down a flight of stairs.” He cringed. “I was wrong.”

“Julian, I don’t want to be rude, but what do you want?”

He snuck a glance to his left as though he was afraid Nobuki would come out of his room. 

“I promise I won’t do anything funny or weird. I want to apologize, but I don’t want to do it standing around in a hotel hallway.” He held up a hand and put the other over his heart. “Scout’s honor. No funny monkey business. I swear.”

“Fine. But I have to get up early tomorrow, so you can’t stay long.”

He grinned at me and I barely managed to stop my knees from wobbling as I shut the door to undo the chain latch. 

Damn good-looking men and their good-looking faces. 

And damn this weak heart of mine.

I stood aside to let Julian into my room, leaving the door open a crack. Closing it might’ve sent the wrong message. 

He stood awkwardly in the small space, looking askance at the freshly made bed. 

I motioned him to the chair and desk on the other side of the room, facing the window. “Can I make you some coffee or tea?”

He shook his head and leaned back in the seat, looking like a prince of leisure, and I questioned the wisdom of letting him in. 

Then again, he did promise there’d be no funny business. “So?”

He laced his hands behind his head and looked at the ceiling as though he was too embarrassed to meet my gaze. “I didn’t mean to freak you out by suggesting you sleep with Nobu.”

I leaned against the wall, arms crossed, and gave him my best severe expression. “I can’t help but notice you’re not apologizing for making the suggestion in the first place.”

He shot me a sloppy grin. “I’m not sorry about that. I’m sorry I freaked you out, but the suggestion still stands.”

I sighed and nodded to the door behind me. “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

“No, wait,” he said earnestly. “Hear me out, okay?”

“I tried that,” I said. “You told me to sleep with my boss. What is wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” he replied and then sighed. “The question is what is wrong with you?”

I couldn’t think up a single appropriate response. “What?”

“You’re acting like I’m telling you to burn down an orphanage,” he continued calmly. “I’m not asking you to do something heinous. I’m just saying, hey, it’s okay to have a little fun. What’s wrong with bringing your fantasy to life?”

I gaped at him. “I cannot believe you are still trying to pull that line with me.”

“Okay,” he said. “Then tell me one thing.”

“What?” I spat out. 

“Give me one good reason why you don’t want to sleep with him.”

“He’s my boss.”

He gave me a sideways glance laden with suspicion. “Nope. Don’t buy it. I need something better than that.”

Frustration welled up inside, making it hard to focus. “You might need something better, but I don’t. Now, please leave.”

“Rika, Rika.” He tsked under his breath. “Seriously. If the reason you don’t want to get in Nobu’s pants is because he’s your boss and you think you’re crossing some imaginary line, you’re wrong.”

“I’m not wrong and there’s no imaginary line,” I ground out. “Does the term ‘business integrity’ mean anything to you? You don’t sleep with your boss. That’s just…wrong. That makes me no better than Aimi and Mr. Abe, who screwed like rabbits every chance they got. I had to work my ass off trying to keep theirs covered. And in the end, it didn’t work because they still got fired.”

“Aha.” Julian snapped his fingers. “And here I think is where we have arrived at the crux of the matter.”

I started to see red in the corners of my vision. “Julian, I don’t—”

“This Aimi and Mr. Abe…they were in the position you and Nobu are in now,” he said. 

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“And you didn’t like it.”

I snorted, my fingers digging into my arms. “Who could? They sounded like dogs.”

“I’ll bet they did.” Julian rubbed his chin, looking thoughtful. “What did you think about this Aimi? What about Mr. Abe?”

I sighed. “Julian, is there some point—”

“Hey,” he said. “I took you to the beach. I took you dancing. The least you can do is humor me.”

He had a point. I could hardly be churlish even though his words filled me with…loathing? Disgust? Mild…interest?

Although I’d die a million times before I’d admit it. “Fine. I thought Aimi was a slut who put out for anything. I thought Mr. Abe was a pervert who couldn’t even keep his cock in his pants for longer than an hour before he had Aimi bent over his desk again.”

At my startling explicit words, Julian blinked, his mouth opening just a bit. “That’s blunt.”

“You wanted me to humor you. So I did.”

He shook his head woozily. “Okay. So you had to deal with the pervert and the office slut. Whom it sounds like you hated.”

Hate was a strong emotion and I didn’t feel comfortable putting my emotions into that one word. “I’m not sure if I’d—”

“But then you have these fantasies about you and Nobu,” he said. “In your fantasies or dreams or whatever, are you guys in the office? Somewhere else?”

I fidgeted as I struggled to meet his gaze. They weren’t kidding when they said Western men were forward. “Now who’s the one being blunt?”

He shrugged. “Just answer me.”

I licked my lips and tried to adopt a mien of sophistication, as though talking about sex was nothing to fuss about. I mean, I was an adult. I could talk about sex without passing out or whatever. “We’re in the office.”

“Right. And it doesn’t feel weird to you? Even though Aimi and Mr. Abe did all those things in that office, you don’t feel weird doing the same things they did?” 

“We didn’t—” 

I stopped, not because Julian was grinning at me like a cat who managed to get into the fish tank, but because his sentence clicked in my head. 

I sank down on the edge of the bed, stunned. “Oh my God.”

Julian nodded. “See what I’m getting at? You think Aimi and Mr. Abe are perverts for getting it on in the office, but you’re having all these fantasies and dreams about doing the same things, in the same place…and do you feel wrong? Are you filled with self-loathing?”

“No,” I said, the ramification of my previous statements slowly making sense to me. “No. To me, in my fantasies, it’s not wrong.”

“You know, believe it or not, if you want to get rid of those fantasies, if you’re committed to being as professional as you can with Nobu…” 

“Yes?”

He waggled his brows. “I already told you.”

“Sleep with Nobu.”

“Most of the time, the spell breaks.” His eyes were calm and placid, like the surface of a lake. “I can tell you that from experience. You know what it’s like, you realize the fantasy and the dream are just that, and the reality is just the depressing reality.” He paused. “Well. Most of the time.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Most?”

He tugged his earlobe, looking abashed. “It’s not a perfect system. Sometimes it ends up fanning the flame.”

“Great. Like that’s something I need.”

“I’m serious, though,” he said. “Chances are you’re going to come out the next morning totally refreshed. Maybe you’ll feel a little silly, like, wow, is that how it is? But then you’ve satisfied your curiosity. You ever hear of the term ‘curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back again’?”

“So what am I supposed to do? Knock on Mr. Miyano’s door and tell him that I’d like to use his body to see if it’s as good as I imagined it to be?”

“I might be a little more subtle than that.” He grinned. “But Nobu’s a straightforward kind of guy. Who knows? He might be into that kind of thing.”

“Or he could be so embarrassed he’ll tell me to get lost and slam the door in my face,” I said dryly, the mortifying situation playing out all too well in my head. 

“And if that’s the case, then that’s okay, too,” replied Julian with a clap of his hands. “You tried, you failed, and you go on with your life. You don’t have to deal with annoying what-ifs. Trust me, those can get annoying after a while.”

I sighed and hugged a pillow close, resting my chin against an edge. “I don’t know if I have it in me. I mean, you hear about women who do that. They sleep around with whoever they want and everyone treats them like crap. The guys interested in them are the creepy ones.”

“I see,” he said. “And what about the guys? I’m sure you’ve got one or two playboys in the company somewhere. How do you view them? Do you think they’re creepy, too?”

Tadashi Murai and his hurricane grin flashed through my mind. “Actually, there’s this guy, Tadashi. Rumor has it that he’s dated just about every pretty girl in the office, but no one seems to mind. In fact, the girls idolize him. My best friend, who thinks all men are scum, turns into pudding around him.”

He nodded. “What about women? You got any free-loving women at the office?”

My lips twitched. “Haru. She works in the design department. She spilled soda on me when she found out I was working with Mr. Miyano. She has a reputation of being a man-eater.”

“Do the other women like her?”

I shook my head. “She has a clique that follows her around, but apart from them, I don’t think anyone cares for her. She’s super aggressive. She got a girl fired from HR a few weeks ago for some reason.”

“So you’ve got a guy that everyone likes and then you’ve got a woman that people are afraid of.” He made a sound in the back of his throat. “What’s your opinion about them?”

“I’m not a Tadashi fan, but I don’t dislike him. It’s hard to dislike someone when they’re so debonair and laissez faire all the time. But Haru isn’t the same.” I shuddered. “When I found out she spilled the soda on me because she was jealous, I was infuriated.” My brow furrowed. “I mean, Tadashi, well, men are basically dogs, right? You can’t fault them for being pigs, but women—I keep thinking that maybe we should hold ourselves up to a higher standard, not thinking about satisfying our baser instincts like we’re—”

I paused at the change of expression on Julian’s face. When he had looked understanding, now there was a slight tightening between his brows that brought my words to a stop. 

“You think men are pigs, so they should act like it?” he asked, his voice quiet. “But because you’re a woman, you think women should act virginal and clean, not like pigs?”

I stared down at the bed, my chin nestled in the pillow. “I wish I could say otherwise, but that’s what I’m used to. Women are supposed to bear it if their husband cheats on them, but if the woman does the same thing, she’s the worst person and deserves a horrible fate.” 

“And that’s wrong,” he said. “Can’t you see? We should hold everyone to the same standard. As long as you’re not hurting anyone, using protection, what’s the problem? What goes on between consenting adults should be no one else’s business but their own. Whatever this Haru does is her own business. The same goes for Tadashi.” 

A corner of his lips twitched. “And the same goes for you and Nobu. It’s no one’s business if you decide to sleep with him. That’s your business and his. You need to loosen up. Maybe that’s how things work in Japan, but you’re not in Japan now, are you?”

I nodded glumly, my stomach roiling. 

He straightened up and stood, stretching, his shirt riding up to show taut, muscular abs. “Thanks for listening to me gripe. I guess that’s one of my pet peeves. People who think it’s wrong to have sex. I once decked a guy because he said a girl was a slut and I knew for a fact he was no monk either.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Guess that’s what I get for having a mother who used to be a porn star.”

What?

Leaving me staring at him, he walked out, closing the door softly behind him. 

His mother was an adult film actress?

Wow. 

No wonder he looked the way he did. I was under the impression that most porn stars were beautiful. 

With that interesting, yet highly unsettling thought in my mind, I took a quick shower and after drying my hair enough so that it wouldn’t end up a total mess in the morning, I slipped in between the sheets and closed my eyes. 

I wished the bed didn’t feel so damn big.