He was right. She shouldn’t have been wandering around the house all by herself. She was a guest here, and had only been here for a handful of hours. Everyone had encouraged her to make herself at home, but she was sure they didn’t mean for her to go snooping around and trying on their relative’s death mask.
“I’m sorry, I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d go to the kitchen and get cookies and milk. I got lost and ended up in here.” Her cheeks burned and her stomach twisted in bonds.
She really shouldn’t have been in here. Thank God it wasn’t two minutes later when she would have been decked out in the whole geisha outfit.
Stroking his chin, he regarded her carefully and raised his eyebrows at her.
She noticed the towel that he had draped over his powerful-looking shoulders and the tightly fitted black T-shirt he wore that looked damp with sweat, just like his hair. Was he working out? At this time?
Her eyes took in his muscular arms and traveled over his tempting, attractive physique. She marveled at the confident way in which he stood. As if he prided himself on his good looks. Now he looked like he’d just stepped out of one of those video games like Street Fighter or Tekken. It wasn’t her thing, but Jake had been a massive fan.
“Do you know what time it is?” he asked, breaking the run of her thoughts.
“Very late, or too early depending on which way you look at things.” She gave him a sheepish smile and tried to keep calm, but her nerves betrayed her. She was embarrassed to get caught in here, and he was making her hot by the way he looked.
Hot.
“Maybe it’s the time difference,” she offered. “I’m usually tucked in bed by eight.”
“You get tucked in bed, at eight?” he chuckled.
Oh no, she didn’t mean tucked in as in tucked in. Great, he probably thought she was weird now.
“No,” she said quickly. “I mean just in bed, and it doesn’t even need to be eight. Sometimes it’s later like ten, or later than that. It’s so I don’t get wrinkles.” She didn’t know what the hell she was saying, and that last bit of information probably didn’t help much.
“Okay,” he simply said with a curt nod.
“I’ll just go on back to my room.” Where she could go and wash—no, scrub—her face with everything she owned.
“Do you know how to get back?” His smile was boyishly affectionate, but a faint glint of humor lurked in his eyes.
“Yeah, sure.” She’d just follow the corridor back. She looked across the hall to another door. That’s where he must have come from.
“Cool, you should hurry back before the yūrei comes out.”
“Yūrei, what is that?” Right now her Japanese was terrible. She couldn’t even guess what he was talking about.
“My great aunt’s ghost.”
She waited for him to start laughing, but he didn’t.
Savannah had a fragile constitution and was easily scared. Extremely easily. She hated ghost stories or anything like that.
“Everyone thinks of her as a reikon, the normal kind of spirit, but not me. No way. She’s definitely a yūrei.”
Savannah’s eyes went wide. “What’s…um, the difference?” She hugged herself as a shudder ran down her spine.
“When people die, the spirit, or reikon, that gets a proper funeral protect the family and return every year during the Obon festival to say thanks. But if a person dies a violent death and they hang on to powerful emotions like my aunt did, they transform into a yūrei and never rest until they find peace. I don’t think she’d like that you had on her mask.”
Savannah touched her cheeks and shivered, biting the inside of her lip as fearful images built up in her mind.
“Please tell me you’re just trying to scare me.” She was hoping.
He shook his head. “Why on earth would I do something like that?” He smiled that crazy sexy smile that weakened her knees.
“Okay, I’m going.” She rushed past him.
“Nice top, by the way,” he called out to her.
She stopped abruptly and looked down at her pajama top. Her eyes froze at the dark figure of Piglet in the corner of the pink background, and she immediately had that earth-swallow-me-now feeling. Again.
It was one thing for Jake to tell the fat stories, but this she’d done to herself. She’d thought the pajama set was super cute when she bought it. She hadn’t even thought of the whole Piglet thing.
“It’s Pajamas.” She turned to him. “They were the only ones I could find amongst all my stuff. I usually wear nicer things to bed.”
He responded with a laugh and said nothing as he walked away in the opposite direction. She stifled a frustrated groan, feeling incredibly silly.
She should have stayed in her room.
* * *
Hiroshi felt bad for scaring her like that, and should feel a lot worse for telling her his great aunt had died a violent death and practically haunted the place. Great Aunt Ruki was probably fast asleep now in her bungalow in Okinawa, or probably wide awake drinking jasmine tea while she watched re-runs of The Facts of Life.
He didn’t know what came over him but when he saw Savannah in the Okame mask mischief got the better of him. He’d actually thought she would laugh at him when he told her it was a death mask. Who would keep something so morbid in their house? Well, maybe some people did, but not them. When she believed him and looked scared to death, he couldn’t stop himself. He had to continue.
Cute and adorable. That’s what you called women like her.
It was the category Hiroshi gave women who were beautiful and weren’t aware of it, and didn’t use their looks to get what they wanted. He hadn’t really met many like that, and if he had he probably wouldn’t have noticed much with the way that he used to be.
The type that usually gravitated towards him was sexy and fiery. The type that used every asset they had as a deadly weapon. The type that got him in trouble. It was that type he needed to avoid, and had avoided since he changed. Those kinds of women brought out the worst in him. Like a drug, they seemed like a good idea when you were with them, but destroyed you slowly.
He immediately thought of Jade Fox, and as soon as he did, he pushed her right out of his consciousness. She was the very description of everything that was bad for him. She’d never done anything to him personally, it was just what she represented, and how she weakened his defenses when he was around her. He swore she was the devil. Except she modeled lingerie.
He’d never experienced cute and adorable before, and as much as he wanted to keep cute and adorable at arm’s length, she seemed to keep crossing his path. It was actually nearly three, everyone was in bed by now. He definitely hadn’t expected to run into her at this hour, and as he watched her admiring the geisha costumes and putting on the mask, he couldn’t resist talking to her. Even though he scared her.
During the week, these quiet morning hours were what he called his refuge hours. The time between ten pm and seven am, when no one expected anything of him. It was the time that he got to recoup from the day and do whatever he wanted. Work out—as he had done tonight—watch some catch-up TV, hang out with his friends, or work on his cars. He might not race anymore, but he collected cars and customized them for racers. It was just a hobby, something he did when he was in Japan.
Usually, he’d try to fit in around four to five hours of sleep. Maybe six if he was lucky. But today he knew would be less if he didn’t get Miss Savannah Cavenaugh out of his head. It was bad enough that he found her hot in that pink pajama get up, but he didn’t doubt that she wore nicer things to bed, like she’d said.
He went back to his room and showered, allowing the cool water to drain over his body, soothing his mind and revitalizing his brain. In all honesty, he had more serious things to worry about than fantasize about Savannah, and what she wore to bed. His father had been furious earlier. He didn’t like that Hiroshi walked out of the meeting, not one bit. Especially with his goody two shoe cousins there. The
best that he could do was apologize, and assure him it wouldn’t happen again.
All Hiroshi wanted was to get the training center off the ground, but every day seemed more and more like the idea was getting further away from him, which is exactly what they all wanted. As it stood now, he was going to have to do some serious thinking and come up with a few plans of his own while he waited for Jake to come back to him. His father had made it extremely clear that he didn’t want any interruption whatsoever with business in Washington, and the least little notification that there was any impact would mean he’d have to rethink his plans for the training center. That was just a roundabout way of saying he’d shut down the idea.
Hiroshi sighed, exhausted from it all. He wondered if the day would come when he would have some kind of a normal life, with a regular routine where his refuge hours might begin at six pm at the latest. That was probably unlikely. His forecast looked very bleak.
On Wednesday morning Hiroshi joined his mother and Sakiko for breakfast. He sat opposite Sakiko around the breakfast table and watched with annoyance as she scanned the contents on her plate, probably adding up the calorie content. His mother had served them both Italian sausages, slices of crispy bacon, scrambled eggs, French toast, and sautéed mushrooms. To him, it was a treat worth flying thousands of miles for, but his sister obviously felt differently because she scraped everything off her plate into a smaller one and pushed it over to him. She then retrieved one of those low-fat bars from the cupboard and rejoined him with a cheeky smile on her face.
“Eat up, Hiroshi, do you know how long Mom’s been in here slaving away just for you.” A mischievous glint flickered in her eyes.
“Just for me?” he retorted, narrowing his eyes at her. He looked over at his mother, who was standing behind the counter cutting up a pineapple. She was focusing on dicing the pineapple into perfect chunks, leaving her oblivious to what was going on.
“Yes, you mustn’t waste anything. Now eat up.” Sakiko tapped the edge of the plate she’d pushed in front of him and nodded. In the past, he’d help her out when she was on one of her crazy diets, but not today. She looked like she’d lost far too much weight since the last time he was here, and that was just a few weeks ago. He decided he was seeing far too many bones sticking up across her chest.
He pushed the plate back towards her and snatched the low-fat bar away. “You have that graveyard look again. You eat up.”
“Sakiko you’d better not be passing over food again,” his mother called out.
“Oh no Mom, look here she’s actually eating way more than me.” Hiroshi chuckled at the furious look on Sakiko’s face.
Their mother looked up and smiled. “Great. There’s more if any of you want.”
“Traitor,” Sakiko hissed under her breath. “I was one pound away from my goal, I have a fashion show next week. The designer should always look better than the models. Now that miserable Jenna is going to look better than me.”
“Oh, that’s so sad.” Hiroshi pretended to dab his eyes and laughed when she rolled hers at him.
When he was in Washington, he barely managed to stuff some bread down his throat before he left for work, so he enjoyed the fuss his mother made over them when he was here. She’d encouraged everyone to have breakfast together as often as they could, but he got the feeling that it was just going to be himself and Sakiko today. His father was at the office already, and Jake and Savannah were probably still sleeping. It was just after seven.
“So I was wondering, how about a big get together in a few weeks?” his mother suggested with a wide smile on her face. She moved over to the smoothie maker.
He and Sakiko both exchanged worried glances.
“What kind of get together?” he asked, even though he knew exactly what she meant.
“Oh please, Hiroshi. You know what she means.” Sakiko flicked her wrist at him. The blunt ends of her straight black hair brushed against the shiny sequins of her beige silk blouse.
He focused on his mother and simply said, “sorry I’ll be busy that day.” Theoretically, there was no day that he wasn’t busy, so he wasn’t exactly making it up.
He was the kind of guy to do anything for his mother, but it made him sick to imagine having to sit through one of their get togethers with his uncle and the latest wife of whom Hiroshi couldn’t remember the name of—he’d struggled to keep up after the fourth marriage—and those cousins of his, who he saw far too much of anyway.
His mother’s side of the family were fine, maybe because they were all designers and artists. Their creativity probably made them nicer people.
“Hiroshi,” his mother began in that exasperated way that told him she was about to try to persuade him to warm up to the idea.
“Mm-oo-mm,” he mimicked her tone.
Sakiko laughed. “Okay Mom, cards on the table,” Sakiko began with a forced smile. “You know neither of us can stand Dad’s family and would rather not have to see them more than necessary. I for one would like to avoid any more run ins where I’m restrained from defending myself.”
That would come from their uncle, who was exactly like their father when it came to the company. Both had taken measures to ensure the company would continue down the Fujita line. Hiroshi understood the drive behind it. However, what he would never agree on was forcing your children to do what you wanted, particularly if it depressed them.
Poor Sakiko had gotten the full run of it by being forced to do the traditional business management degree. She did it for a whole year and failed miserably. It was only then that she was allowed to change course and do fashion like she should have from the start. But it came at a price she’d have to live with for straying away from what the family wanted her to do.
She received lifetime membership in the outcast club, of which he was the president. He knew he couldn’t excuse his prior frivolous behavior, but they treated her the same as him, and it didn’t help that she was so outspoken.
In a business setting, he could put up with the indifference towards him. But he wasn’t going to on a social level. Especially not after the whole plane incident.
“I can’t do it, Mom.” Hiroshi shook his head. He’d talked to her yesterday about everything. Even she had to agree that the budget cut and trial period were ridiculous. But, she’d never say anything. She didn’t get involved with business, she said it caused too much contention and she didn’t want to take sides.
“All this is not good. We’re family, and with Jake and Savannah here it would be perfect for everyone to get together.” Her face lit up as she spoke.
“I’m sorry Mom, but I really am out.” Hiroshi shook his head again. “If I see them anywhere aside from the office, I can’t guarantee that I won’t hit someone.” It would be more like beat the crap out of one of them, but he wouldn’t say that to her.
“And I might beat the crap out of someone,” Sakiko said with a sly grin, looking at him because she knew he’d been thinking it. Hiroshi smirked at her.
Before his mother got the chance to protest, Jake walked in humming the tune to Mr. Sandman.
“Jake.” His mother beamed. She always loved having Jake around. When Hiroshi had asked if Jake and Savannah could stay with them, she was so excited she could hardly finish the conversation. When she heard it was for a year, her excitement went out the roof, and into outer space.
“Mrs. Fujita the kitchen smells like heaven.” Jake smiled.
“Jake, you are worse than your sister. How many years have you known me? Call me Yumi.”
“Old habits.”
Hiroshi glanced casually at the door, half-expecting Savannah to come through. He wondered what she’d be wearing today.
“Where’s Savannah?” Sakiko asked with a brilliant smile.
“Starting out early today.” Jake pointed over to the window. Across the lawn, Hiroshi could see Savannah standing on the front porch talking to a gentleman who looked to be in his mid-to-late forties. He must have been her tour guide.
“It’s more like obsessed. I seriously didn’t know she would be this excited to be here,” Jake said.
Hiroshi watched Savannah. The more he looked, the more drawn in he became. She wasn’t wearing pink today. Instead, a silky-looking, burnt-orange-colored tank top graced her slender form, and khaki shorts showed off her golden legs.
Today she’d mixed cute and adorable with beautiful and sexy, without even trying. He liked what she did with her hair, too. She’d gathered it into a loose fishtail braid—he’d learned the braid type from an ex-girlfriend who was a hairdresser. Feeling that he was staring too much, he looked away from her and turned back to his plate to continue eating.
“Jake, I have the biggest bone to pick with you,” Sakiko declared, knitting her perfectly arched eyebrows.
“What’s that?” Jake took the seat next to her, looking concerned.
“We’ve known you for eons. Why on Earth didn’t you tell me Savannah was so into fashion? And, why are we only now just meeting her? Do you know how hard it is to meet a down-to-earth, fashion in-tuned person, who’s just normal?”
“Good to hear you guys are getting along.” Jake smiled.
“Getting on? She’s like the sister I never had, and exactly like me. We’re going shopping tomorrow and I’m taking her to see my new spring collection,” Sakiko said, rubbing her hands together.
“And, I’m coming along,” his mother jumped in. Hiroshi looked at her and could practically see her brain working. Probably trying to calculate how many stores they could visit in one day.
While they started talking about dinner plans, Hiroshi risked one last look at Savannah. She was just securing her backpack over her shoulders as she walked off the porch with the man.
He thought about her list of places to see.
Where would she go today?
He wondered what it would be like to spend more time with her.
I Only Have Eyes For You Page 7
