Chapter 13

My phone alarm woke me and I floundered in the midst of a dream that faded away as soon as I levered myself up. 

Six in the morning.

I had to be down at the trade floor by eight. 

Two more hours. 

Surely I could sleep for another fifteen minutes. 

I buried myself in the sheets, and closed my eyes again. 

When my eyes opened again, I found myself staring at the wide swath of sunlight streaming in through the half-open curtains. 

I cursed and sprang up, forgetting that Heather Jimenez had wrung my neck like a chicken last night. 

I staggered around the room, sharp stabbing pains around my neck and shoulders making it hard to concentrate as I attempted to locate my phone. 

What time was it? 

A quick glance at the bedside clock read a little past ten, and I stumbled toward the bathroom. 

I stopped half in the bathroom, half in the hallway, and then turned around as something white caught my attention. 

Going down on my haunches, I retrieved the small piece of notepaper stuffed under my door. 

Please rest today. Julian and I will manage the booth. 

I’ll call you later. 

It was the first communication I had received from Nobuki since his girlfriend tried to murder me, and I pressed a hand to my forehead, wondering what was going through his mind while he was writing the note. 

Maybe frustration. Or being circumspect. I was pretty sure he didn’t like working with Julian, for reasons that eluded me, but on the other hand…

I stood up and stared at my ghastly reflection in the polished mirror and saw my own mouth fall open. 

Jesus, I looked absolutely horrible.

Garish bruises of black and blue covered my neck, and I almost thought I could see the individual finger marks where Heather had pressed her hands. 

There was no way I could go down to the trade show, not looking like this. 

Maybe Nobuki was being kind, but maybe he was also being practical. After all, what kind of person would walk willingly into our booth and try to hold a conversation with me looking the way I did?

My muscles complained as I levered myself into the tub and filled it up with water as hot as I could stand. There was a bottle of bath salts supplied by the hotel and I dumped the entire contents into the tub, turning it into a frothy mess that nonetheless buoyed my mood. 

I soaked in that tub until the water turned lukewarm and the tips of my fingers and toes wrinkled like a prune, and then I turned on the shower and washed myself carefully, small cries of pain leaving my lips as the washcloth ran over my neck. 

When I stepped out of the tub, I smelled like roses and almost felt normal. 

By the time I finished drying my hair, dressed in a casual pair of black pants and a loose off-white tunic-style shirt, and put on a thin coat of BB cream with a dab of cherry lip balm, the time was eleven ten and I had riffled through my e-reader, unable to find a thing to read.

I thought about ordering room service, thinking about all the looks I would get if I went out in public, but then recalled seeing a display of scarves in the commissary. The colors had been garish and downright ugly, but with that at least no one would look at me like I had been a victim of abuse. I felt like one; speaking wasn’t easy and my body hurt, my neck aching every few minutes to remind me of the disastrous events of the night before. 

Taking the elevator down to the second floor was easy as there was no one else in it, but walking the couple of hundred meters was awkward as I passed several people who kept shooting me alarmed looks. By the time I found a scarf that didn’t make me want to throw up from the bright technicolor prints, I was practically limp with relief. 

I tied the pink and blue plaid patterned scarf into a jaunty knot around my neck and observed myself in the bathroom mirror next to the commissary.

Now it looked like I was trying to hide a hickey, but I’d rather people thought I was trying to hide love bites as opposed to bruises. 

Not sure where I was going, I walked around aimlessly and then found myself ten minutes later at the convention hall entrance, avoiding the people leaving for lunch. 

I contemplated turning right around and ordering room service, but curiosity urged me forward, as I cut through the crowd like a hot knife through butter. I had to see how Julian and Nobuki were doing. I told myself I was making sure they weren’t at each other’s throats, but honestly, I just wanted to see them. Nobuki, the beautiful night, and Julian the bright day. They were so different and it was a wonder they were friends. Although, judging from their actions this past week, I had to wonder as to the true depths of their so-called friendship. 

I walked through the booths and found ours overflowing with attendees. 

I blinked and rubbed my eyes, convinced I was seeing wrong. 

But, no, the banner at the top definitely said Shokogan Publishing and Julian was there, smiling at a pair of portly blondes as he passed out business cards. 

The majority of the guests, if not all of them, were women, and a small smile tugged at my lips. 

Of course women would be drawn to Nobuki and Julian. 

The smile faded a bit. 

I certainly was no different. 

Julian hadn’t seen me yet and I didn’t see Nobuki, although he could have been behind another crowd of women clustering around a table that held a majority of our older woman-centric novels. I backed away, reluctant to let them see me. 

After all, Nobuki had told me to take the day off. If he found out I disobeyed his orders, I was likely never to hear the end of it. 

I whirled on one heel and melded with a group of other people talking excitedly in what sounded like Spanish. 

A hand wrapped around my elbow and I stopped. 

“I thought I told you to take the day off.”

Oh crap. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Miyano. I was just wondering how you and Julian were holding up,” I croaked out, my throat tight and painful.

My boss stood behind me, his hand still around my arm as he turned to look back at Julian who looked like he was having the time of his life. “I’d say he’s doing just fine, wouldn’t you? Then again, he’s always loved attention, that whore.”

I blinked at his harsh words, even if his tone was marginally lighter. “Um.”

He turned back to me and walked toward the doors, pulling me behind him like I was a recalcitrant child. “Come on. I want to talk to you somewhere we can be alone. I don’t want a Goody Two-Shoes like him interfering.”

And even though my shirt got in the way of his hand and bare skin, I still felt his touch acutely, like electricity running through me. “Mr. Miyano, please stop treating me like a little girl.”

He looked back at me, his eyes registering surprise. “I’m sorry.”

I looked pointedly at his arm. “Your hand? You don’t need to drag me around. If you want to go somewhere and talk, that’s fine. I’ll follow you.”

“Very well.” His brows furrowed. 

But he let go of my arm and I banished the feeling of emptiness as the warmth of his hand vanished from my skin. “After you.”

He walked fast, his strides long and quick, and even though my legs were pretty long, I still had to half jog to keep up with him as we left the convention center. “Where are we going?” I gasped. 

“Somewhere that barbarian can’t find us,” he muttered, his eyes narrowed in the bright glare of the noon sun. 

Somewhere turned out to be a parking lot corner behind the convention center. He stopped under a copse of trees, the sun casting shadows over his lean face. 

I stopped just short of him and keeled over with my hands on my knees. “What’s the hurry?”

“I just didn’t want Julian to stop us.” He abruptly reached for me. 

I froze, shocked, as his skilled fingers undid the scarf knot and exposed the sordid evidence underneath. 

His eyelids flickered, but that was about it as far as reaction went. “Does it hurt?”

Self-consciously, I ran a hand over the bruises. “I soaked in hot water for a bit. I think that helped.”

He handed the scarf back to me after looking at it with not a small amount of disgust. “Your taste in colors is deplorable, Miss Hasegawa.”

My hackles rose as I tied it back around my neck. “This was the only one that wasn’t neon green or with little sheep printed on it.” 

Besides, the plaid wasn’t too bad. 

Okay, the blue and pink color combination was pretty bad, but at least it didn’t make my eyes water just looking at it. 

He sighed, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. As usual, he looked polished and very well put together, his shoulder-length hair brushed back over his ears and touching the tops of his shoulders. 

“I’m sorry for last night, Miss Hasegawa,” he said. “If I had known what would happen, I would not have sent you to look for Miss Jimenez.”

I managed a smile. It felt fake as hell, but somehow the corners of my lips moved up, so that was okay with me. “It’s okay. I mean, did you know she was a bad drunk?”

His gaze slanted away from me. “That doesn’t exonerate me from the fact that I’m partially responsible for the bruises around your neck.”

“I’m over it,” I replied, maybe a little more flippantly than I meant. “I’m not dead, and that’s the only thing that matters, right? Besides, I’m sure if she wasn’t so drunk she wouldn’t have tried to kill me.” I frowned as I wondered about that. “Probably.”

He ran a hand through his thick shock of dark chocolate hair, looking distraught although I was having a hard time believing I had anything to do with it. “Even so, I can promise you that Heather will no longer be bothering you again.”

My laughter was shrill and strident even to my own ears. “How are you going to stop her?”

His eyes narrowed. “She won’t.”

The breath caught in my throat and I found myself nodding because I couldn’t trust myself to say anything. 

He rubbed his cheek with the back of his hand. “When I saw her…when I saw her on top of you, I couldn’t…I was absolutely…” He paused and a corner of his lips quirked up. 

Then he ruffled my hair. 

Like I was five. 

Or he was my older brother. 

Or I was five and he was my older brother. “She scared you pretty damn good, didn’t she?”

The corners of my eyes started watering and a great shuddering sob escaped my lips. 

I clapped my hands over my mouth, but it was already too late and I was crying like a baby. 

His eyes widened. “Why are you crying? What’s wrong?”

I couldn’t understand it either. Why was I crying? Was I crying because even though I had all these naughty, scorching fantasies about him, he treated me like his little sister? Was I crying because up until now he had always treated me cold and distant, like a proper boss should be to his employee? Was I crying because he was showing an emotion other than disdain ever since we stepped off the plane? 

The events of the previous night had been terrifying and I still remembered Heather’s wide, bright eyes as she straddled me, her hands flexing around my neck. I had seen my life passing before my eyes in sparks of black and white. I really thought I was going to die. 

Nobuki Miyano, my boss, did something that made it even worse. 

He took stepped forward, put an arm around my shoulder, and pressed my face into his chest. 

And that released the floodgates. 

He was being so damn kind. 

He didn’t insist that I stop crying like a child. 

Even though his girlfriend and I caused a scene last night, he never once blamed me. 

He even promised I would never again see Heather again. 

“I’m sorry, Mr. Miyano. I’m so—so—sorry,” I stammered, choking through my tears, moisture soaking into his black dress shirt. “All this time I thought you were an asshole. I thought you were the worst jerk ever.”

I felt his fingers pat the top of my head, felt his chin rest there.

He laughed softly and the rumble went all the way down to my toes. “Well, I am a jerk and I guess I can be an asshole, too.”

I tore myself away. “You’re not. If you were a jerk, you wouldn’t be treating me like this.”

He smiled and a breath caught in my throat. 

God, he was beautiful. It was unfair a man could be so lovely. And so kind.

“I did tell you I was twisted, didn’t I?” He pulled out a handkerchief from his back pocket and patted tenderly around my eyes. “No more crying. I hate it when you cry.”

His words stunned me into silence. “What?”

Okay, maybe not total silence. 

He grimaced as he dabbed at the corners of my eyes with the blue handkerchief. “I said it hurts when I hear you cry. I keep wishing there was something I could do to make you stop, but sometimes, in these cases, maybe it’s better if you just cried your eyes out. But not too much. If your eyes popped out, where would I be without my executive assistant?”

He was being almost too nice, a total one-eighty personality change from his usual cold self. “You’re scaring me. Please stop acting like that.”

“I thought you liked it when I was nice and caring.”

I hiccupped embarrassingly loud and the corners of his eyes crinkled. “Stop laughing at me.”

“I’m not laughing at you.” He made as if to stow the damp handkerchief away. “Wait.”

He straightened it out and then folded into a long thin line. “Take off that ugly scarf.”

“Why?” I asked, eyeing the length of silk in his hand. “What are you going to do?”

“Just take it off.” 

I complied and he carefully wound the kerchief around my neck, covering up the bruises. 

But not before brushing his thumb over the sore spots. 

“I am sorry, Rika.” 

I couldn’t move. 

Couldn’t speak. 

My name sounded so sweet, so gentle in his voice. 

I licked my dry lips. 

His eyes followed the movement. 

My mouth opened slightly. 

He cleared his throat. “Sorry. Here. Let me finish tying it.”

Just like that, the spell was broken and he tied the kerchief around my neck so it wouldn’t slip free. 

As he took a step back to check his handiwork, his cell phone buzzed. 

He sighed and then cursed as he checked his phone. “I need to get back to the booth.”

“I’ll go with—”

“No,” he said firmly, already walking away. “Go back into the hotel, Rika. Take the day off. You can work tomorrow, if you want.” 

There. He had said my name twice. 

My heart pounded hard against my chest. It probably meant nothing to him, but for those five minutes I wasn’t Miss Hasegawa to him. 

I was Rika. 

With an exasperated huff, I shook my head.

“So what if he called me by my name?” I muttered as I took the same path out of the parking lot. “Big deal.”

Great. Now I was talking to myself in public. 

Maybe Heather had done some damage to my brain, making me think that for a second, just one second, Nobuki might’ve…

A scornful laugh echoed in my head. 

Kissed you? 

Dream on, you naive, idiotic girl. 

I glanced at the convention hall as I walked past, but Nobuki had told me to stay away and I would do as he requested. 

Back in the hotel room, my stomach grumbled and I realized I hadn’t had lunch yet. Actually, I hadn’t had anything since dinner last night. After looking at the cold, unappetizing mess of pasta in my refrigerator, I decided to call for room service. 

I ordered a small chicken salad with a glass of peach iced tea, and after turning the TV on for background noise, I flipped through a battered, dog-eared copy of one of my favorite authors, Mariko Koike. The Graveyard Apartment was one of the best horror books I had ever read and even though the subject matter was somewhat gruesome, her prose never failed to comfort me. 

But not now. Tonight my nerves tingled like ants marching down my back and I felt strangely unsettled. Just like the family in Mrs. Koike’s book, I had a sense of impending doom that would not go away. When room service knocked on the door, I almost jumped and then laughed at my own stupidity. 

“Get a hold of yourself, Rika,” I chided myself as I pulled the door open and found myself face-to-face with Heather Jimenez.