His Revenge Baby: 50 Loving States, Washington (17 page)

“Baseball season will start tomorrow.”

She blinked and looked over at No, scrambling to process his comment. “Wait, did you say baseball season starts tomorrow?”

“Yes. I must go back. I missed the meeting in Tokyo, so my father has arranged for one in Osaka. Also, the pitching
roboto
will make its debut during the first Hawks game of the season...” No turned his head away, scanning the horizon as if seeking an answer to a silent question.

Perhaps finding none, he concluded, “We must leave early tomorrow, Ana.”

“Oh,” Lilli said, looking down at the ground. Wishing they didn’t have to, but remembering, “We only have a few more days left on our contract anyway. I guess that means I should probably start packing.”

No grew silent again, and not in the thoughtful way he’d been over the last week.

His body stiffened underneath his sweater, and the air between them became fraught with tension.

One day. One more day until the call that would seal Doug’s future… and kill whatever this was she had with No.

Feeling sick to her stomach, she said, “Any thoughts about what we should do on our last night here?”

No tilted his eyes to the sky…seemed about to say something significant, but then just shook his head before answering, “Yes, I have many thoughts about what we should do tonight.”

He tentatively reached out to her, as if testing out a newfound skill and then gently pulled her into his arms, giving her a very slow, very deliberate kiss. One that made her forget about the snow, the cold wind blowing, and all the shit waiting for her back in Osaka. Even before he murmured, “Let’s keep going.”

KEEP GOING THEY DID. Even as they made the drive back into Osaka, through the increasingly busy city streets, and eventually to her building in the Umeda district, Lilli doubted she’d ever forget their trip up north or their last night in the sleeping pavilion at the Samurai Sake Mansion. How she ran a hand over his back tattoo after stripping him out of his coat and shiver. The strange shiver he gave off at her touch before turning to face her in nothing but a pair of loose pants…
“Hai, Ana, keep going.”

She’d ridden him more slowly than ever before last night, not because she was still recovering, but because she wanted to savor the feel of him between her thighs. She also delayed her orgasm as long as she could, simply because she’d never wanted the night to end.

But eventually, night gave way to morning and they had to take the inevitable multi-hour trip back down the coast of Japan to Osaka. Sooner than Lilli would have liked, she was surrounded by pert cherry blossoms and noisy cars rather than quiet mountains and crisp snow.

They’d held each other during the drive with the occasional kiss thrown in. But she reluctantly pulled away from him when she saw the Grand Front Owners Tower in the distance. The moment the car pulled up to the curb in front of her building, the thick cloud cover above burst into a depressing spring shower.

Of course it would rain, thought Lilli.
How could it not?
Then again, given how awful she was feeling, she much preferred a somber downpour than if it had been a warm, sunny day.

“Your last payment.”

Lilli turned from the side window to see that No held a red envelope towards her in both his hands. “Miyuki was in charge of putting payments in the Osaka Charm account, and I wanted to make sure you had your last one.”

Oh God
…

She took it reluctantly, wondering if there was any possible way she could feel worse about herself in this moment.

“I…” she had no idea what to say.

“Go now, Ana,” he answered, his voice gruff. “My life will be very different after I meet with my father today. I will see you tonight. And we will discuss our next steps. I promise you, our story does not end here in this car.”

“Okay,” she whispered with a small smile. Happy but not happy this wasn’t a true goodbye.

No studied her for a moment, his dark Nakamura eyes softer than she’d ever seen them. Then he pulled her forward. One final kiss. Fleeting but firm. The kind of kiss a

girl could take with her as she stepped out of the car and walked through the front door of the Grand Front Osaka…

…only to walk right back out as soon as she saw his car was gone.

Chapter Twenty-Four

“HE ENDED YOUR ARRANGEMENT EARLY,” the voice on the other side of the line repeated.

“Yes,” Lilli answered Kazuo Nakamura, her arms crossed in front of her as she sat on the second floor landing of her other “fake” apartment. The shared Osaka Charm residence that the voice—Miyuki, apparently, had arranged.

A heavy sigh came from the other side. “It is disappointing Miyuki is no longer with us. I have no way of verifying if you tell the truth. It is not good thing to lie to me, I hope you understand this.”

No he did not have any way of verifying the truth of her claims, and thank goodness for that, Lilli thought, fretting her lip. Because she was lying out of her ass to one of the most powerful men in the Japan. As No had told her on more than one occasion, she wasn’t exactly an actress born, and she had no doubt that if the older Mr. Nakamura could see the way she was cringing now, he’d know she wasn’t even remotely telling him the truth, despite their agreement.

But lying was the only way. The only way to protect both No and her brother. “I’m sorry, but as you probably know, our contract would have ended soon anyway. Your son said he had other business to attend to today. Something about a meeting with you and a pitching robot? I had the flu all week so he and I didn’t really talk much.”

“And he did not tell you anything? About any business deals? Possibly with an American?”

Lilli could hear the growing suspicion in Kazuo’s voice loud and clear on her end of the line. And she could barely keep the quaver out of her voice when she replied, “He’s a super private person, Mr. Nakamura. And kind of quiet. We haven’t talked much at all during the last few months.”

“Yes, this is what the others have told me as well,” Kazuo Nakamura grumbled. “But I had hoped
you
would be different. That he might confide in you, perhaps even keep you on.”

Lilli’s eyes widened. She knew Kazuo still wasn’t 100% convinced what she was telling him was true. But any concerns she had about that were immediately overshadowed by what No’s father had just said.

Others??? Did he mean other
women?
Apparently Miyuki hadn’t been a one-off. And

Lilli had to wonder just how many girls No’s messed up father had bribed and blackmailed to spy on him. But somehow she managed to keep her voice neutral as she said, “Sorry to disappoint you, but, well, you know how he is when it comes to women.

He gets bored and then it’s on to the next.”

That seemed to have done the trick as far as convincing Kazuo to believe her was concerned. After a brief and disappointed pause, the older man sighed and said, “I see, well…thank you for your services, Ms. Tucker. You have kept your part of the agreement, I will keep mine. I will present Mr. Tucker with a new contract after tonight’s game.” Then she heard a soft click and the line went dead.

It had worked! Lilli supposed she should be feeling pretty triumphant right about now, but Kazuo Nakamura calling by her real name stung. Especially coming as it did on the heels of sixth months of pretending to be someone she wasn’t.

She just couldn’t stop feeling guilty for even pretending to betray the man who’d dropped everything to take care of her for seven days—even if it had been the only way to extract herself from this situation without damaging either his or her brother’s career. And the realization that she would likely never set eyes on No again…though nausea hadn’t been one of her symptoms before, she now had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

But Lilli didn’t have time to grieve and feel sorry for herself, she reminded herself.

There were still a few more things she needed to do in the shared Osaka Charm apartment before she disappeared out of No’s life forever.

Pocketing her old phone that she’d retrieved from the planter, she used her key to slip back into the apartment—which was miraculously empty—to find and change into one of her old outfits: a pair of jeans and a scoop neck t-shirt with a roller skate on the front. She hoped to God No still had the place under surveillance as she placed the NTTdotcomo phone and the red envelope on the coffee table in the living room. Lilli quickly scribbled “Please give to Riyu” on it and then beat a hasty retreat, locking the door behind her and pocketing the key.

On her way back down the steps, she made the rather expensive decision to hire a taxi back to the reinforced concrete townhouse she shared with Doug and Ruby in Toyonaka.

When she arrived, the house was empty. Doug must have decided to take Ruby with him to the game. But after being away so long, Lilli was shocked at how messy the place was. Ruby’s school books and supplies were scattered everywhere. Dirty plates and dishes overran the sink. And she didn’t even want to talk about the floors. It looked like no one had touched a broom, mop, or vacuum in the six months she’d been gone.

Oh well…

Lilli sighed, a 90s era ditty about “back to life, back to reality” looping around in her head as she rolled up her sleeves and began her usual cleaning routine. First, pick up Doug and Ruby’s shit and put it where it needs to go. Second, start a load of laundry.

Third, sweep and vacuum…then mop and deep clean everything from the dishes to the bathtubs.

Cinderella was definitely back from the ball.

Lilli tried not to think about the Prince she’d left behind. Or about all the messes she
hadn’t
had to clean up over the last six months. But those days were over. She’d left

Ana Granger behind, and she hadn’t taken a cent of the money No had paid Osaka Charm.

She turned on the TV, flipping to the Hawks game where she eventually spotted Doug in the dugout, waiting for his turn at bat. Her
brother
, Doug Tucker, Lilli reminded herself. She was Lilliana Tucker—not Ana Granger, the woman who had somehow let her very first (and last) client sweep her off her feet.

But hours and several filled trash bags later, No was still on Lilli’s mind as she dealt with the pile of
Osaka Times
English language newspapers stacked on the front porch, Doug apparently too lazy to carry it to the recycling bin inside the house. After giving the pile a closer look, Lilli realized it was far too big to fit in the indoor bin. She eventually decided to carry them to the larger recycling bin up the street.

Why the hell did her brother even bother getting the local paper? It’s not like any of them actually read it. In fact, the subscription had belonged to Doug’s wife who’d been using it to improve her English. And then she died. But Doug didn’t have the heart—or, let’s face it, the organizational skills—to cancel it. Lilli decided to bring this up with her brother when he got back home. It was way past time for Doug to cancel this never-read newspaper and move on with his life.

Move on…

Suddenly, Lilli experienced a paradigm shift. Or at least that’s what she thought happened because it felt exactly the way her college therapist had described it to her years ago.

Because here she was grumbling about Doug’s inability to move on with his life. But what in the hell was she doing? Here in this house? Taking care of her brother and niece and cleaning up the mess that had apparently just been waiting for her return?

She was doing precisely the same thing as Doug. And this was not how she wanted to live anymore.

It was time to move on. Not just to a new job, but to a new place. Maybe… yes, maybe It was time to leave Japan altogether.

I need to go back to the States
, she thought to herself.
Go back and finish what I
started before I let myself to get sucked into my brother’s life
. She hadn’t completely lied to No about wanting to go back to school, just about her field of interest. She’d been thinking about applying for a pediatric nurse practitioner program before she left Seattle, and perhaps it was time to revisit that idea now that she’d decided to return to the States.

Because the townhouse was messy. Like, really messy.

But it hadn’t burned to the ground. Doug and Ruby had both survived just fine without her. Survived, and were apparently at a game together. The truth was, what Doug needed wasn’t a live-in sister to parent him. What he needed was an occasional babysitter and a maid.

Hell, the way Doug attracted women, Lilli wouldn’t be surprised if Ruby had a stepmother within a year or two.

Yes, she decided. She would move back to the States, but as one last act of kindness, she’d cancel the newspaper subscription for Doug because she knew he’d never—

Lilli glanced down in mid-thought and saw something that immediately wiped all remaining thoughts right out of her head. Later, she’d say it must have been fate.

Because if she hadn’t pulled the top newspaper off the pile in order to find the subscription cancellation details, she would never have seen the previous day’s edition just beneath it. The one with the front page headline stating, in bold type, “Fired RoTeku Employee Commits Suicide By Train.”

The first newspaper dropped out of her hand as she grabbed yesterday’s edition and dropped to a seat on the front steps of the townhouse. Like most suicide news in Japan, the employee was never mentioned by name. But thanks to a few telling details like

“an assistant in the robotics division of Nakamura Worldwide,” and the awful feeling in her gut, Lilli put two and two together and quickly realized the victim’s identity.

Miyuki. Definitely Miyuki.

She will need to be dealt with.

Lilli recalled No’s words from that night outside the Italian restaurant with a sinking feeling of horror and anguish.

Tears sprang into Lilli’s eyes at the memory of the cheerful young woman who’d visited her daily, sometimes preparing scrambled eggs with fish and green onions—

strange but somehow yummy—after watching her take her
piru
.