Chapter 6

I patted my swollen face with a wet washcloth and applied a new layer of concealer on the dark circles underneath my eyes, praying the relative darkness in the hotel lounge would hide my too-liberal use of the concealer to be less…obvious. 

Crap, I looked like what hell frozen over would look on a bad day. But then again, what was I supposed to expect? The last half hour had consisted of me sobbing like a distraught grade school kid.

I struggled out of my work clothes, professional to the max, and stared at the contents of my wardrobe that I had stuck into the closet with the strange hangers that were supposed to prevent people from stealing them. 

I pulled out a pale green tank top that was perfect for the balmy weather outside and coupled that with a pair of skinny black jeans that did wonders for my totally curveless backside. I had no idea what to expect, so I threw on a plain black cardigan with the knowledge that a soft black cardigan could fit in just about everywhere, and after staring at my selection of shoes, settled on a pair of comfortable sneakers.

Trying to do something with my wayward hair, I ran smack-dab into my boss, who was also leaving his hotel room. 

Memories of the past hour, the words exchanged between the two of us, whispered through my mind, and even though all I wanted to do was walk straight past him, chin up in the air, it was hard to do so when he stood in my way, tucking the card key into his wallet. 

“Good evening,” I said coolly, following him to the elevators because I could do normal like everyone else. I would show him that our exchange in the convention hall meant nothing to me, that I didn’t need to grovel for his approval.

“Hmm,” he replied, because my boss was an arrogant jerk. “Going somewhere for dinner?”

“Yes.” I pressed the down button and wished the elevators weren’t all going up. “I have plans.”

He made a small sound in the back of his throat. “I see. I was under the impression you would be dining in your room tonight. Room service is allowed, you know.”

I looked at him sideways. “And why would you come to that conclusion?”

He shrugged, looking put together and amazing in a plain white button-down shirt tucked into a pair of pressed dark khakis with shining dress shoes. Was this his idea of casual?

Suddenly, I felt downright dowdy in my beat-up red high-top Converse All Stars. 

“You looked beat. I didn’t think you wanted to be social.” 

“Not quite.” My voice bordered on subzero. “I think I deserve a night out.”

What was taking the elevators so long?

I glared at the electronic display over the doors showing the number seventeen and currently on its way down. 

“Perhaps I should’ve been a little less harsh,” he said after a moment of nail-biting silence while I wished I had taken the stairs. 

“Perhaps?” I bit out. “Yes, well, you can’t take back your words. You made yourself clear, Mr. Miyano.” 

He coughed. I would’ve thought he looked uncomfortable, but Nobuki didn’t do anything so gauche as uncomfortable. “Miss Hasegawa, I was merely—”

The elevator pinged and the doors slid open, showing us a nearly full elevator. 

Awesome. I wouldn’t have to say another thing and it would just be a few moments of stilted silence while we rode in that elevator car, acting like we didn’t even know each other. 

Which was precisely what we did. 

And then we left the elevators like strangers.

Tomorrow was going to be awkward, but that’s the thing about tomorrow…it’s always a day away. 

And even though I told myself that I was going to ignore Nobuki, I was still aware of him striding to the revolving doors. 

He was leaving? He was going outside? We didn’t even have our own transportation. 

I faltered by the elevators, getting buffeted this way and that by people getting off, and watched my boss leave the hotel. 

Then I bit my lip and shook my head, turning toward the lounge on the first floor, in the opposite direction of the entrance. 

What did it matter what Nobuki did? It was none of my business. Just like it was none of his business what I did outside the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.

But curiosity still plagued me as I joined the throngs of people waiting to be seated at the hotel lounge, English overflowing through my head. As much as I studied the language in high school and then in university, it was almost too much to handle and I found myself wishing, just a little bit, maybe I should have stayed in my room and watched something in Japanese on my phone. 

The hostess approached me in a slim black dress that showed off her assets extremely well, a menu under one arm. “Just one?”

“Over here, Rika!”

My ears pricked. Japanese? Then I saw a madly waving hand somewhere past the hostess’s left shoulder. 

It was Julian, smiling widely, sitting at a booth all by himself, and I excused myself past the hostess, relieved I didn’t have to wait for him. 

I took a seat across from him, forgetting all about my boss. Julian had a terribly infectious smile and I couldn’t help but respond in kind. 

“Feeling better?” he said as a waiter slipped a menu under my elbow, leaving behind a glass of ice water with a wedge of lemon floating on top. 

“Yes, I am,” I replied. “I’m so sorry you had to see me like that.”

He cocked his head to one side, the overhead light making a faint halo around his golden hair. “It’s okay. I’m glad I was there to give you any kind of assistance.”

His Japanese was flawless. 

“I still can’t believe how good your Japanese is.”

He grinned. “Well, I spent two years in Japan during college. I lived alone in a tiny apartment and I worked in a coffee shop when I wasn’t in class. When you’re surrounded by the language, you can’t help but pick up a few things here and there.”

“Sounds like you picked up more than just a few things,” I pointed out as I opened the menu. 

He laughed. His laughter was free, infectious, and warm. “Well, coming from a native like you, I’ll take it as a compliment.”

The waiter came then, all smiles and dimples, and even though she spent more time talking with Julian, only giving me the slightest glance before jotting down my order, I couldn’t blame her. Even if Julian hadn’t been drop-dead gorgeous, his carefree, happy attitude would’ve made him a popular figure anywhere. 

Julian ordered a hamburger with fries and a bottle of beer, and the waitress simpered away, swinging her shapely hips. 

But, hey, if you have it, flaunt it, right? 

My hand was on the table and Julian covered it with his, squeezing my fingers gently. 

I almost choked on my heart. 

“Seriously, though.” His voice was low, all hint of a smile gone from his tan face. “You sure you’re okay?”

A wash of heat went up my arm and settled deep in my belly, warming me from the inside out. “Ye—yes. I mean, something like this shouldn’t bother me, but I think it’s just jet lag. I’m still trying to adjust to the time change.”

At least that was kind of the truth. In the morning, I’d had to drag myself out of bed, my eyelids feeling like they had been glued shut. 

He squeezed again and then withdrew his hand. I pretended like I didn’t miss the warmth and started saying some empty chatter about the next day’s plan, anything to fill in the silence and hide the fact that I found this man deeply attractive.

When the food came, I knew I was going to get fat off American food. 

I stared at the gigantic portion of chicken salad smothered in some kind of white dressing. It was covered with so many croutons I could barely see the lettuce underneath. “I don’t think I can eat all this.”

“Quite a change from Japanese servings, isn’t it? And thank God for that.” Julian picked up his burger as big as my face. From the lack of surprise, I guessed that was the normal size of a hamburger. 

No wonder Americans were so large. Half the people in the lounge would’ve been considered fat in Japan, but then again, we didn’t eat mounds of food like what was currently staring me in the face. 

He took a big bite of his burger while I poked at the salad with a large fork, trying to figure out the best way to start eating. “It’s quite different, isn’t it?” he said. “The portions are so much smaller in Japan. I remember thinking I was going to starve to death when I moved there. Nobu and I went to this Chinese restaurant in Chofu and, man, the portions wouldn’t have fed a bird. The receipt was stupid expensive for what we got served.”

“Well, there’s a saying in Japan,” I said, somewhat defensive. “You eat with your eyes. And you eat until you’re eighty-percent full.”

“Yeah, well, at that place, I don’t think we even got fifty percent full,” he grumbled, staring contemplatively at the mound of golden fries. “We ended up going to a Yoshinoya right after and getting two servings of their beef bowl. On second thought, it might’ve been better if we’d gone to the beef bowl place instead. We would’ve saved a hell of a lot of money and been a lot happier.

“Anyway.” The furrow faded from between his dark, slashing brows. “How’s your salad?”

I poked at it with my fork. “Too much. How do I even start?”

“Really?” he asked and then put his burger down, dusting off his hands. “Here. Let me show you something. Give me your fork.”

Perplexed, I handed him my fork and he stabbed it into the salad bowl. 

“See, this is what you do.” He held up the fork, laden with creamy white sauce and lettuce, a piece of grilled chicken speared on the tines. “Open your mouth.”

I knew what was going to happen. “No, please. I’ll just feed myself. You don’t have to go that far.”

My face heated as I wondered what the people around us were thinking. The woman sitting at the booth next to us couldn’t stop staring and I saw some waitresses to my left who were whispering to themselves, their gazes fixed solidly on this booth. 

“Oh, come on.” He poked the fork once more in my direction. “I’ve done all the hard work. You know how hard it was getting the fork into all that roughage? The least you can do to thank me is just take one bite.”

“But everyone’s looking at us,” I hissed. 

His grin widened. “Yeah, I know.”

“You are impossible,” I said, hands wringing in my lap as I envisioned letting him feed me like I was seven. 

Or we were lovers. 

Neither of which was true. 

One brow went up. “You know, I could do this all night. The longer I do this, the more people are going to notice. Trust me, the sooner you take this bite and take your fork back, the less attention you get.”

That was true enough and I closed my eyes, leaning forward, my mouth open. “Oh, fine, hurry up.”

He slipped the fork into my mouth and I bit down on the food, the taste of the dressing tangy on my tongue. 

Unfortunately, the fork was laden with too much food, and my cheeks bulged while I scrabbled for a napkin to catch any dribbles of dressing from the corners of my mouth. 

He was laughing as he passed the fork back to me. “See? That wasn’t too bad, was it?”

He leaned his face on his hand and looked at me. 

All he did was look and the heat in his brilliant blue eyes was enough to make my belly quiver. 

Yikes. 

I swallowed the mouthful of food and reached for the glass of iced lemon water that looked so refreshing. 

And while I chugged half the glass, he just continued to sit there across from me, our knees barely touching, the heated look in his sapphire eyes that turned my mouth dry no matter how much water I forced down my throat. 

I dabbed at my lips with the napkin, trying to hide how discomforted his attention made me. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

“Oh yeah.” He picked up his burger again. “Sorry. I was a little distracted.”

“With?” I asked, this time using the fork myself and spearing a much smaller portion so I didn’t look like an idiot when I ate. 

“Watching you.”

He grabbed a few fries and ate them without ketchup, the burger in one large hand. 

I eyed him, my appetite waning. “How can you say stuff like that so easily?”

Was this how people dated in America? I felt so unsophisticated.

He shrugged one shoulder and took a bite of the burger dripping ketchup and mustard all over his plate. “Why? Does it bother you? It’s the truth. I enjoy watching you.”

I took another sip of my water. “I’m just not used to so much honesty, that’s all. I’m sorry if I offended you.”

“Offended me?” He snorted. “Trust me, it’ll take a whole lot more than that to offend me. Besides, you could never offend me.”

I wondered about that. 

Our waitress came by to fill our waters and ask if we needed anything else. Julian merely shook his head, his eyes on me. 

I had to admit the attention was incredibly complimentary, but I still squirmed in my seat thinking of how different he was from Nobuki.

I couldn’t finish the salad and in the end he had to help me, reaching across the table to spear random bits of chicken with my fork and putting it in his mouth as though it meant nothing to him. 

Then again, it probably didn’t. Americans seemed a lot easier with their sexuality, which was different from how it was regarded in Japan. And it wasn’t even necessarily that we were naive compared to Westerners, but going out on a limb and looking like an idiot…I think a lot of people my age worried about that. 

But not Julian. 

“Can I ask you something?” I asked hesitantly.

He popped in the last bite of his hamburger and nodded, wiping his hands on a napkin. 

“Did you date a lot in college?” 

“Okay.” He looked at me. “What made you want to ask that?”

I tried to be as candid as possible. “I was just thinking that you’re so different from the guys I dated in Japan.”

“Well, I’m not Japanese,” he said, reaching for a fry. 

“Yes, I can see that,” I said patiently, watching his long, tanned fingers. “But we come from different cultures. We might both be wanting different things, expecting something else to happen, etc, etc. Do you get what I mean?”

He seemed thoughtful. “You mean, are you worried we’re going to have sex on our first date?”

Damn it, there went my pulse again. “We’re…not, are we?”

Why was I so nervous about this?

He laughed and I tried not to gawk as he licked salt off his fingers one by one, a strangely sensual gesture that I couldn’t look away from. “Rika, whatever you want to happen tonight, I can make it happen.” One eye closed solemnly and then opened again. His idea of a wink? “Even if it means I have to give you my poor old body.”

“I doubt there’s anything poor or old about you,” I said, resisting the urge to fan my cheeks. 

He clapped a hand to his chest. “Ah, my dear lady, you are too kind.” 

I pushed away my half-finished chicken salad and then looked pointedly at his empty plate. “So this is it?” 

“Are you kidding me?” he scoffed. “This is just the prelude to what I hope will turn out to be a memorable night.”

“Memorable for who?” 

He winked again. “We’ll have to see, won’t we?”

We stood up and I followed him to the register, aware of the admiring glances he got from just about everyone and the not so admiring gazes I got. 

There was a brief and rather futile battle on my part over the receipt and I was left stammering my thanks as I followed Julian out of the lounge. 

He dismissed my thanks with a nonchalant wave of one broad hand. “For God’s sakes, don’t worry about it. It was a chicken salad. It’s not like I was paying for a box of champagne and caviar.”

I had to admit it was awfully nice to be treated like a woman. After the way Nobuki treated me earlier during the day, like I was something off the bottom of his shoe, it was not a little flattering to have such attention bestowed upon me by a good-looking guy. 

“So…” drawled Julian, as we loitered in the lobby, neither of us willing to let this night end. “What happens now?”

Oh crap. Was this the part where I was supposed to invite him up to my room for coffee? Coffee meaning…not coffee?

My pulse sped. As much as I found Julian breathtakingly attractive, I didn’t think I was quite in the mood or the position to have anything remotely similar to sex. 

I fidgeted with my card key and decided to go for candor. Who knew? Maybe he would even find me refreshing instead of frustrating. 

“I’d love to invite you to my room for coffee, but—”

He blinked. “But?” 

I squared my jaw, trying to keep my legs from knocking together in nervousness. “I think I’ll take a rain check. Maybe next time.”

His eyebrows went way, way up. “Seriously? You thought I was aiming for that?”

I struggled not to fidget in place. “I don’t have a lot of experience dating Westerners.”

Make that no experience at all, but I didn’t want him to know that my last date was two years ago. It had been a disaster that ended with me braining my date with a frying pan and him calling the cops on me. 

He rubbed at his mouth, still laughing under his breath and shaking his head. “Wow. Sorry, sorry. I’m not laughing at you. Okay, maybe I’m laughing a little at you.”

My face burned. Was it too late for me to run to my room and throw the bed covers over my head? 

A tall, statuesque blond woman walked past us with a passel of Louis Vuitton luggage and shot Julian appreciative glances. He acted like he didn’t even notice, or maybe he didn’t see all the attention centered on us.

He jerked a thumb over one broad shoulder. 

“What say we blow this joint?” he said in English.

I blinked. “What? Blow? Joint?” 

And even though I didn’t like the idea he was laughing at me, it didn’t stop me from enjoying the sound of his mirth. 

“I mean, let’s get out of here. I want to take you somewhere.”

Intrigued, I followed him. 

At that point, I think I might’ve followed him anywhere for just another glimpse of his smile.