Chapter 12

My throat ached.

Julian was such a good guy. And I definitely had feelings for him, but I wasn’t sure how to put it into words.

He looked at me, head cocked. “Rika?”

“Yeah, sorry.” I gave him a quick smile. “Let’s go.”

He offered me his arm as we went up the walk and I took it gratefully; my legs were still shaky and my pulse raced like mad. 

The house was beautiful up close, all brightly glinting windows with dark wood accents. It was two stories, with a garage almost as big as the house. 

While I gawked like a tourist at the Sistine Chapel, Julian pressed the doorbell, eliciting a pleasant bell-like tone. 

Even from the other side of the door I could hear the sounds of laughter and clinking glasses. It was a moment before a short, stout man with a shabby goatee opened the door. 

“Hey, you!” Zacharias Greco enveloped Julian in a bear hug, even though he had to get on his tiptoes. “Glad you decided to drop by. You know the ladies always ask about you.”

His crisp green eyes slid to me. “Although this time I think they’ll be asking less about you and more about this lovely young woman. Hi, I’m Zacharias, but my close friends call me Zac.”

I grabbed his extended hand and pumped it enthusiastically between mine. “I am so glad to meet you. My name is Rika. I enjoyed your latest book.”

His thin lips spread in a wide smile as he ushered us in. “Which one? The one we’re celebrating now? Or The Hangman’s Gambit?”

“The Hangman’s Gambit.” My smile wouldn’t go away. I loved meeting authors. I couldn’t write a word myself, so I viewed them as demigods. 

“I’m glad someone liked it,” he said with a mock frown, his eyes glinting behind a pair of thin-rimmed glasses. “The critics ripped it to shreds. But then again, what do they know, eh?”

With another laugh, he ushered us through the massive two-floor-tall foyer and into a lavishly decorated living room. 

He introduced us to his lovely wife, Matilda, and poured us two flutes of champagne, with promises that he’d check up on us later before hurrying away to a group of men who were arguing spiritedly among themselves, their voices echoing in the raised rafters. 

I took a sip of the sparkling champagne, the bubbles flowing smoothly down my throat, and shifted from foot to foot, feeling very much out of my depths. 

“So everyone here…”

Unlike me, Julian seemed to be enjoying himself, looking around the place with interest in his blue eyes, a smile never fading from his lips. “They’re all in the industry. Who knows? Maybe you can exchange a few business cards, make some contacts here and there.” He paused and looked at me sideways. “You did bring some cards, right? I know you’re a secretary now, but I’m sure you’re in line for a promotion.”

I stuck a hand in my purse and felt around until the hard, cold shell of my card case touched the tip of my fingers. “I have a few, although I’m running kind of low now. What with the trade show and all.”

“The people here are the movers and shakers, not some peon who gets roped into going to a trade show.” He grimaced. “Sorry. Not that you’re a peon.”

I shrugged and stayed close to his side, concentrating on every English word that fell into my ears, observing the small groups of people clustered together. “It’s true, isn’t it? I am a peon and I did get roped into coming to this trade show by my boss.”

His eyes twinkled as he turned to face me. “I hope you don’t think it was all a waste of time.”

A smile came easily to my lips. “No. I can’t say I do. In fact, I’m grateful for the opportunity to come here and make contacts with people I otherwise would never meet.”

“That all?” 

I took a sip of champagne to hide my flushed cheeks. “There is you as well.”

He let out a hoot of triumph. “That’s what I wanted to hear.”

“Careful you don’t get a big head,” I warned.

He shot me a quick smile that made my heart lurch against my chest. “You don’t give me enough credit.”

Despite the fact that I was surrounded by a bunch of people I didn’t know, whose language I spoke somewhat clumsily, I was thoroughly enjoying myself. Julian led me through the large living room, introducing me to the other guests, all of whom he knew on a first name basis. By the time we made the full tour of the first floor, I was out of business cards and my face was flushed from the liberal amounts of champagne getting forced into my unresisting hand by various people. 

“I’m glad we came,” said Julian. “You seem like you’re enjoying yourself.”

“I am, thanks so much.” 

We found a secluded corner in our host’s library. The large room had floor-to-ceiling windows, and was surrounded on all four sides with large bookcases with attached ladders because the bookcases were ten feet tall. 

Julian sat down next to me on a silky divan with plump cushions. “I hope this visit will get you some kind of dividend when you return to…” 

His gaze fixed on the open doorway behind me and I turned around slowly. 

Nobuki stood there, hands thrust into his pockets, with an air of devil-may-care that I couldn’t help but react to. 

“My apologies,” he drawled. “Was I interrupting something?”

I almost sloshed champagne on myself and I set the nearly-full glass on a nearby end table, before I could do any more damage. “Mr. Miyano! I didn’t expect to see you here.”

One dark brow went up. “I could say the same.”

Julian cleared his throat. “I didn’t know you knew Zac. I was told this was a close-friends kind of affair.”

“Apparently Heather is a close friend of our host and she thought it would do wonders for my contact list if she brought me here.” He looked at me. “Guess you had the same idea for Ms. Hasegawa, Julian.”

I took a step back and looked at the both of them. I didn’t like this tense, terse atmosphere. 

“Where’s Heather?” I asked.

If anyone could defuse this situation, it would be the vivacious, beautiful author. 

Nobuki shrugged and sauntered into the room, hands still in his pockets. “I’m not sure. I haven’t seen her for half an hour. I was trying to find her. After all, we do have work tomorrow,” he said with a piercing look in my direction as though he was chastising me for daring to stay out late.

“Hey, she’s not the one who’s been leaving work early every day.” Julian’s eyes narrowed. “Unlike someone I know.”

“Ah, yes.” Nobuki’s lips fixed into a strained little smile. “I’ve heard you’ve been stopping by every day. Checking up on my secretary? How kind of you.”

Julian visibly bristled. “If you just did your job and didn’t go running off after the first attractive face you saw, maybe I wouldn’t have to.”

I winced. “Wait, wait, please, there’s no need—”

Nobuki’s eyelids flickered in my direction. “Stay out of this, Miss Hasegawa. I’ve been meaning to discuss with Julian what kind of service he provides for Shokogan Publishing and what his duties should be.”

My stomach clenched uncomfortably and I felt pinned between the pair of them, unable to do much but mumble incoherently. “But—”

Julian put a hand on my shoulder. “Maybe you can look for Heather? Nobu always gets a little pissy if he can’t leave when he wants to.”

Nobuki’s teeth glinted white, although I wouldn’t have called it a smile. “Yes, perhaps you could assist me in locating her? It is, after all, your job, isn’t it? As my executive assistant?”

“Um, I don’t…”

Julian pushed me toward the door. “Go.”

I stumbled out, the back of my neck itching relentlessly.

“—didn’t know you were this much of an ass, Nobu.” 

“What I do is none of your business. And neither is it Rika’s.”

“Yeah? Then why are you acting like a dick when you saw us here?” Julian laughed. “What’s wrong? A little jealous, are we?”

Were they going to start throwing punches? I had to separate them, something that was only possible if I found Heather who had, for all intents and purposes, seemed to have disappeared. 

I could not find her in any of the main rooms, could not locate her on the first floor at all. When I asked the hostess if she knew where I could find Heather, she took a peek out one of the windows and told me Heather couldn’t have gone far as her car was still in the driveway. 

After another circuit around the house, studiously avoiding the hallway in which Nobuki and Julian were, I took a peek around the second floor but found nothing but immaculate bedrooms and equally immaculate bathrooms that smelled faintly of vanilla and lavender. 

Utterly bewildered, and with the majority of the guests leaving the party, I found a door next to the kitchen that lead down to a basement. 

I recoiled. I hated basements, had seen far too many horror movies basements, but that was the only place I hadn’t searched. I fumbled in the dark, trying to locate a light switch. 

When I found the switch, I flicked it on with some relief and found to my surprise that the basement was not the dusty, bare basement of those horror movies but a very comfortable looking personal theater, with giant off-white sofas next to a large projector facing a black space of wall. I crept down the carpeted stairs, calling Heather’s name. 

No one answered, and I paused at the foot of the stairs, feet sinking into the plush carpet, head cocked.

I had definitely heard something and turned to my left to find a door down the hallway, a closed door, but with a thin stream of light in the gap between the door and the floor. 

Creeping down the hallway, not sure why I was being so quiet, I tapped on the door. “Heather? Is that you?”

My ear pressed against the door, I heard weeping, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention. 

Hesitantly, heart in my throat, I knocked on the door again. 

“Heather?”

No reply except for that continuous soft sobbing that sounded like something out of my worst nightmares. 

Mentally cursing my too active imagination, I put a hand on the knob and twisted it, my heart in my throat. 

A bit of a bathtub came into view first and, as I pushed the door farther, I saw the tip of a black boot. 

Praying that I wasn’t walking into a crime scene, I opened the door wide and found myself staring at a weeping Heather Jimenez, curled around a toilet, black eyeliner making twin rivers down her hollowed cheeks. 

All thoughts of horror movies and ghost crawling out of TV sets left my mind as I dropped to her side. “Heather, are you hurt?” 

One quick look in the toilet bowl made my stomach flip and I flushed the toilet, trying to dispel the image of what had been the remnants of Heather’s dinner. Spaghetti, it looked like.

Vomit splattered down the front of her jacket, soaking into her shirt. Keeping my mouth tightly closed, I wet a hand towel in the sink and attempted to wipe her off. 

She tried to wriggle away. “Go ‘way.” 

“Stop,” I snapped. “I’m trying to help you.”

She moaned and leaned back, her head at an awkward angle on the tiled wall. I arranged her in a more comfortable position and tried to get her to drink some water from the tap. 

Unfortunately, she threw it right back up. Thankfully in the toilet, but my nose twitched at the sickly sweet smell emanating from her clothes. Ignoring her weak protests, I tugged off her jacket and tried to convince her to take off her soiled shirt. 

“No.” She blinked at me blearily. “Leave me alone.”

I sighed. “Let me help you. I’m not the enemy here.”

“Yes,” she spat out, looking an absolute fright with black eyeliner drying on her pallid cheeks. “Yes, you are.”

I glared at her, trying not to be judgmental. “Quit moving around.”

I swiped at the drying eyeliner on her face, but she swatted my hands away with such force that my knuckles hit the tub with bruising force. 

“Get the fuck away from me!”

I reared back, afraid of being in the same room as her, even though she couldn’t have hurt me even if she wanted to. 

Her eyes blazed and then she came at me with her fingernails, her teeth bared like a monster. “He’s mine. You can’t have him!”

I was paralyzed, unable to move, shocked at her sudden virulence. “Heather!” 

Her hands settled around my neck and started to squeeze. 

Jesus Christ. I was getting strangled to death by my favorite author. 

Knocked flat on my back, I kicked against the floor, fighting to draw in enough breath. My hands scrabbled on the slippery floor as I tried to find something, anything that could get her off me. 

Didn’t people keep bottles of bleach or cleaner or even a toilet plunger next to their toilet?

My fingers brushed something. 

I gagged as her saliva hit my face and she started screaming at the top of her lungs, her weight keeping me pinned on the cold tiled floor. 

My finger brushed the thing again and this time I managed to get my hands on it. 

I didn’t care what it was. It could’ve been a toilet brush. 

But then I heard a multitude of sounds, people shouting, and then Heather was pulled off me, screaming and crying at the same time, her legs kicking out violently. 

The pressure was released around my throat and I curled over onto my side, stars exploding in the corners of my eyes as I fought to breathe. 

Strong, warm hands pulled me up and  I was cradled against a hard chest, a hand smoothing over my hair. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Julian said. 

I coughed. “She…she tried to kill me.”

Zac pushed his way into the bathroom, his eyes wide, face florid. “Did Heather just try to kill her? Oh my fucking God. Julian, do you want me to call the cops?”

I gratefully accepted a cup of water from his wife. Somewhere, past the people who had gathered outside the bathroom, I heard someone cursing fluidly. It sounded like Heather.

“No. Don’t call the cops. She was drunk. I’m okay,” I choked. 

“But she almost killed you!” cried Zac, wringing his small, plump hands. 

I pressed my face against Julian’s shirt. “She was drunk. She didn’t know what she was doing.”

Julian sighed, his chest rumbling under my cheek. “I’m going take you back.”

I nodded. “Please, thank you.”

His arm firmly supporting me, I managed to stagger up the stairs, cringing from all the attention, people whispering, the distant sounds of Heather weeping. 

Thankfully, we didn’t run into Nobuki. I assumed he was with Heather. Only when Julian got me situated in the car, fussing over me even though I kept on telling him I was okay, only when we were back on the road and headed back to the hotel did I feel my shoulders relax again. 

Julian’s fingers drummed restlessly on the steering wheel. 

I opened my mouth to say something, but the only thing that came out was a dry hack, so I coughed and tried again. 

“That was—” I swallowed. “Unexpected.”

Julian snorted, shaking his head in disbelief. “I’m still in shock. I think everyone is.”

“I think I’m going to find someone else to read.” I let out a hacking cough that left my throat burnt. “I’m glad you found us before she killed me. Or I killed her. I was about to knock her out with a bottle I found next to the toilet.”

“Ah,” he said. “You mean the empty bottle of bleach?”

I grimaced and touched my neck. “Then I’m glad someone found us. How did you find us?”

He cleared his throat. “Nobu and I decided to stop acting like hormonal jerks and went back to the living room to try to find you and Heather. Next thing we know, someone comes running up from the basement, saying that Heather’s killing a girl in the bathroom. And, well, you know the rest.” He snuck a glance at me. “I was under the impression you were her fan. How the hell did you become her number one enemy? She’s usually quite gracious when it comes to adulation.”

I shook my head and then froze in mid-motion as pain sliced up my neck to my head. “You know as much as I do, honestly. I found her puking in the bathroom. I just thought she had too much to drink, so I was trying to clean her up. That’s when she threw herself at me.” I shuddered, still remembering the feral glint in her fanatically bright eyes. “She said something about me not having someone. Who was she talking about?”

“What?” asked Julian, just as surprised as I was. “She was warning you off someone?”

I almost nodded and then decided otherwise. “Maybe she was referring to Mr. Miyano. Although why she thinks I’m competition is beyond me.”

Julian made a small sound in the back of his throat. It could have meant anything, and carefully, I moved my head enough to look at him without bending over in pain. “What?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe she’s just a bad drunk. Although, if she’s the kind of person who tries to kill people around her if she’s had a little too much, that does make me worry for Nobu’s safety.” He flashed a quick smile. “I guess not everyone can be like our shochu-swilling lady.”

“That makes me sound like an alcoholic,” I muttered. 

I sighed and chanced leaning my head against the window. Slowly, adrenaline drained from my body, leaving me weak and ill at heart. “This is going to be incredibly uncomfortable tomorrow morning when Nobuki asks me why his girlfriend tried to kill me.”

Julian snorted. “If he tries to blame you, I will drag him outside and beat the shit out of him.”

“Please don’t,” I said, although there was no way of knowing just how much Julian planned to stand by his words. “It was a stupid incident. She was drunk and didn’t know what she was doing. I should’ve gone back upstairs and tried to find someone else to help me with her instead of trying to do it myself.”

“You think this is your fault?”

“It’s no one’s fault,” I said, listening to the low thrum of the motor and the whooshing sounds of passing cars. “Just a very unfortunate series of circumstances.”

He sucked in a breath. “Heather’s lucky you’re so kind. Most other people would’ve had her booked for attempted murder.”

Kindness had nothing to do with it. Even though Heather Jimenez would’ve killed me, giving half the chance, I wasn’t filled with anger. 

“Her eyes,” I said.  

“Hmm?” 

I massaged my neck carefully, trying to speak without getting hoarse. “The look in her eyes. She wasn’t angry. She seemed sad. And lonely. Even though she was trying to kill me, I felt sorry for her. Crazy, right?”

“Not as crazy as you refusing to press charges,” he said. “Now, hush. Don’t talk. Close your eyes. I’ll wake you when we get to the hotel.”

The corners of my mouth twitched. “You’re a good guy, Julian.”

“That’s what they say.”

As directed, I closed my eyes and let the car’s steady vibration lull me just below the surface of sleep. I didn’t emerge until Julian shook me awake. 

It seemed like only minutes had passed and I winced as I straightened up in my seat. “We’re here already?”

The bright lights of the lobby outside my door made me blink frantically and Julian undid my seat belt. 

“Stay there. I’ll help you out,” he said. “Don’t move.”

Alarmed, I shook my head, and then regretted it as a line of fire exploded around my throat. “I’m okay. It’s just a few bruises.”

His brow furrowed as he made to turn off the ignition. “I’m not comfortable letting you off here like this.”

“I’ll be fine. I’m sorry, Julian, and I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but I want to be alone right now. Please, don’t be offended.”

He was clearly concerned, but his hand fell away from his keys. “Just so you know, I’m not okay with this.”

“Don’t worry about me.” I waved goodbye before slamming the door shut behind me. 

I wobbled precariously into the lobby, very self-conscious about my injuries.  

No one gave me a second glance, but it was still hard to walk to the elevators without covering my neck, which would have only drawn attention. 

Luckily, no one else was waiting for an elevator and I got on one a few moments later. With no one to judge me, I leaned heavily against a side and watched the floor numbers go up. 

By the time I managed to stumble into my hotel room, I was dead tired. After a glance at the mirror that showed off the lurid bruises around my neck, I slipped into bed and was asleep in seconds.