Since she’d had no cash in any sums, it hadn’t been an option. After she’d met Hiro, and he’d discovered she’d been sleeping on the floor of the UNICEF regional office where she worked, he’d been appalled and insisted on accommodating her.
She’d refused to stay in his mansion, since being in someone’s debt and in their domain was anathema to her. Autonomy and seclusion were a vital necessity to her. She’d also declined the exorbitant apartment he’d gotten her near his home. He’d protested that he had billions, was still around to spend them only thanks to her. She’d argued that even if the place came for free, it was too far from her work downtown.
In the end, he’d still gotten her a “mansion,” as recently built large apartments were called in Tokyo. The place was expensive, but now that she did some part-time consulting work for him, she could accept the home in lieu of a salary.
She now entered the apartment, sighed in pleasure at feeling cocooned in its sound-insulated exquisite mixture of modern and traditional Japanese ambiance. Kicking off her towering sandals, she moaned in relief as her feet flattened against the tatami, the traditional Japanese flooring made of rice straw with a covering of soft, woven igusa straw. Walking on it was physiotherapy all unto itself.
Tossing her wrap onto the coat rack, she wanted only to fall facedown on her equally therapeutic traditional Japanese bed and descend into a deep coma. It was a small blessing she had no work tomorrow.
Hopefully, after a day in her pajamas, she’d regain a semblance of the normalcy she’d worked so hard to achieve. A normalcy that seeing Raiden had pulverized all over again.
Crossing the living room on her way to her bedroom, she suddenly stopped when an electrifying sensation skittered up her spine. All her senses went haywire, telling her she wasn’t alone. Before they could tell her more, a voice came from behind her, sending her every cell screaming.
“Welcome home, darling.”
Her heart lodged into her throat, fright mingling dizzyingly with incredulity, dismay...and exhilaration.
Raiden.
He was here.
Feet away... Inches away... A breath away now.
Every nerve in her body fired in remembrance, in jubilation at the approach of the essence that had once been as familiar to her as her own. For five blazing months of pure passion and pleasure, before she’d had to sever the bond. She’d been bleeding inwardly ever since.
She had no idea how he was here. But from what she’d learned about him, in her constant search for his news, in her obsessive research of his past, she knew one thing. Raiden could do anything.
As to why he was here, did it matter? It was one more chance to be close to him. A chance that she’d thought she’d never be given again. An unexpected, priceless gift.
That, she knew, was the last thing he wanted to give her. Judging from his tone, dripping in bitter sarcasm and suppressed aggression, he probably wanted to give her five to ten, minimum.
In fact, logically speaking, he should be here to...eliminate her danger. She was the only one who possessed detailed knowledge of the secrets he’d gone to unimaginable lengths to bury. Her existence posed a threat not only to the persona he’d built and the plans he’d worked for since he’d escaped The Organization, but to his very life.
But though he’d assassinated countless people, and she probably deserved to be, in his opinion, she didn’t fear for a second that was why he was here. This lethal man with the staggering body count in his past didn’t scare her at all.
Not that anything did. With the kind of existence she’d had, she’d never valued her life enough to be afraid for it. The only true fear she’d ever felt had been on his behalf.
“Feet aching, my love?”
Nostalgia skewered through her, made her squeeze her eyes, bite down on the moan that almost escaped her lips.
Welcoming her home, calling her “my darling” and “my love”... They were the same phrases he’d greeted her with that last time in his penthouse in New York five years ago. It had been the first time he’d said things like that...out of bed.
It had been then she’d realized he’d decided to take their relationship to the next level. And that she’d soon be forced to put an end to it.
Unable to face putting a time frame on “soon,” that night she’d thrown herself into being with him with all the passion he’d ignited inside her, gulping down every second as if each had been her last ever. But even in her worst nightmares she hadn’t expected they would be that for real, that the very next day it would come to such a jarring and dreadful end.
After it had, she’d had no doubt it would remain over.
Then came tonight. Then now. And the bridge into the past she’d thought had burned to ashes had somehow been rebuilt. Because she seemed to have branded him as he’d done her.
He’d already told her that it had been how he’d recognized her in someone else’s body. Which flabbergasted her. Even if he’d formed an emotional attachment to her in the past, it had been to the persona she’d played. She’d thought that if he remembered her at all since, it would be with rage and repugnance. She’d never thought he’d obsess over her in any other way.
But by reciting the exact words he’d said that last time they’d met as lovers, he was letting her know he had. From the way he’d drawled the memorized words, he was also letting her know such a hold over him made it more imperative to him to exact revenge for every wrong she’d dealt him, with five years’ worth of compound interest.
She would have let him, if it were only she who’d pay the price. But he was in a far more sensitive position than she was. Any impulsive actions would harm him far more than her. And she couldn’t let him do this to himself. Not after what she’d done to protect him. She would protect him again, at any cost, even from himself.
It was time to do so, to end this, and this time, make sure it was over for good.
Feeling the heat of his body radiating at her back, tasting the intoxication of his breath as it filled her lungs, she turned slowly, carefully. Her balance was already compromised, and she didn’t want to end facedown at his feet instead of on the bed as she’d previously planned.
She almost did so anyway when she laid eyes on him.
Earlier tonight, she’d realized he’d done the impossible, had become even more magnificent than he’d been, his assets having appreciated with maturity, and would no doubt continue to do so. He’d become a god for real, not just in name.
But now... It shouldn’t be possible, but he looked even more awe striking than he had an hour ago.
He’d taken off his tuxedo jacket, undid his bow tie and a few shirt buttons, exposing a tantalizing expanse of the burnished flesh beneath. His muscled shoulders and chest seemed wider with just a sheer layer of silk covering them, and in contrast with the now-apparent sparse hardness of his abdomen. And if he looked like this with clothes still on, she didn’t want to dwell
