by Pam Richter
The revelations that she had last night about Omar were frightening. Yet the great fear she had carried with her for so long was gone. She knew there were substantial reasons for having been fearful. It's always worse to dread the unknown than a known enemy. She didn't have to fear her fear. It was real, in the form of a man named Omar.
Michelle looked at her watch. It was almost one in the afternoon. They had been asleep about six hours but she didn't feel like moving yet.
"You're awake?" His voice was roughened by sleep and he cleared his throat.
Michelle turned carefully, there wasn't much room, so that she was facing him, her nose almost brushing his.
"Don't move or I'll fall off," Michelle said. She kissed him.
Michelle smiled at his astonishment. She did it again. It was very nice and she loved the way he responded. She started laughing. It was wonderful. She was finally free.
"Catch me in a weak moment, then start laughing," Nakamura complained. He pushed her on the floor. "Don't do that again." Michelle looked up at him. He was leaning over the edge of the couch, looking down at her curiously.
Michelle climbed back on the couch, on top of him, and resumed the kissing. It was absolutely wonderful and she didn't care if she lost her job, her condominium, her car, her bank account. Anything was worth this wonderful feeling. She was astonished with the realization that she was madly in love with Nakamura. She briefly wondered when it had happened.
After a while the couch really was too small, they both almost fell off a couple of times. Nakamura led her to the bed. She knew this was the right thing for them, but she was worried about her scar. He might think she was ugly. She took off the shirt and watched him.
He traced the scar with his finger, shaking his head. "He really hurt you badly."
She forgot everything for a while. He was very strong and extremely gentle with her. He seemed content to hold her for a long time, stroking her hair and her body, before finally undressing her completely. His clothes seemed to disappear and she couldn't tell when it happened. He filled the whole world and there was nothing else in the universe for a while. It felt like she had been starving forever and was finally satisfied.
They fell asleep and woke up again, both startled by the realization of what had happened. They started to make love all over again. This time it was fierce and demanding, as if neither could get enough. He was not at all gentle. Michelle was a little surprised. It was just what she needed. Afterward he held her for a long time. She smiled and thought he certainly wouldn't bore her soon.
"You have the most gorgeous long legs," Nakamura said.
"Lethal weapons." Michelle murmured, she could hardly move.
"I was trying not to look, when you were wearing that shirt. And yesterday, when you had shorts on."
He examined her hands with interest, the hard calloused ridges on the sides. "I wanted to look at your hands when you told me you practiced karate. This is impressive. They feel as hard as bone," he said, rubbing the side of her hand with his fingers.
"Check out my feet," Michelle said. She held one up so he could examine the ridge on the bottom outside of her foot. "You haven't been in my bedroom."
"Unfortunately."
"I have a heavy boxing bag I practice with."
"Truly?"
Michelle nodded, smiling evilly. "No one will ever rape me again. Not without severe bodily damage."
Michelle's eyes softened when she looked at him. Nakamura was long, lean and gorgeous, filling her eyes. The hair on his chest and body was an orange brown, darker than the hair on his head. His slight beard was golden, like his eyelashes.
"The scar doesn't repel you?"
"How could you think that?" Nakamura said.
"It's rather prominent." She thought that was an understatement.
"I'd show you, but I can't move yet," Nakamura said smiling a little. "Give me a minute."
They lay there for a while.
"I'm going to call the hospital," Michelle said.
"I did. When you fell asleep. Heather regained consciousness, but she's sleeping most of the time. They said she's coherent. So her brain's functioning all right."
Michelle felt like a great weight had been lifted from her. "Heather's parents should be here in another hour," Nakamura said.
They had called Heather's parents from the hospital last night and Michelle had promised to meet them at the Honolulu airport. Right now she thought she would be content to live the entire rest of her life here in this bed.
"You'll stay with me tonight?" Nakamura asked.
She nodded, "I wish you could stay at my apartment."
"I have to change my reservations for tomorrow." He was energetically stretching and then jumped out of bed. "I was supposed to leave for California. I have to call my father."
Michelle reluctantly got off the bed.
"I'm going to go see Tom Mitsuto. He should be feeling better by now. I'll tell him to keep you."
"What!"
"You'd be miserable in Tokyo. I can't be your boss. We'll decide what to do later."
She watched Nakamura walk to his own room with astonishment. He didn't want to promote her to assistant controller of Heroshi any more. He didn't want her in Tokyo, where he lived. Maybe he had a girlfriend. Or plans to get married. She had practically forced herself upon him. Maybe he did it because he felt sorry for her. Or was simply lustful. Perhaps the scar really did repel him.
Michelle went into the bathroom and took a long shower, forcing herself not to cry. He would probably stay in Hawaii until he was sure she was safe. Then he would leave. When she came out of the bathroom her sundress was hanging on a chair in a plastic covering. She wondered when Nakamura had arranged for it to be dry cleaned. She checked his room but he was already gone. She sadly walked back into her room, closing the adjoining door and locking it.
A note was on the table: I'll see you tonight. Have to iron out some things with Tom. Take care. Don't go home—no matter what. Love. N.
It had been a wonderful one night stand, Michelle thought, if very costly. It had lost her an enormous promotion. Mostly, she was upset with herself. She thought Nakamura was a wonderful man and she would always like him a lot. She couldn't blame him for this situation. He was an absolutely amazing lover, kind and gentle and very forceful in an exciting way. She was sad it would never happen again.
Michelle rationalized that her feelings for him were simply years of pent up emotions. People fell in love-at-first-sight only in movies or novels. And anyway, all she had felt when she first saw him was wariness at his power in the Heroshi Corporation, surprise at his youth and a certain amount of fear for her job. She had certainly not felt any powerful physical attraction. It was true that she respected Nakamura and had absolute trust in him, but she would be a fool to stay with him tonight.
Michelle got dressed. She was grateful that he had shown her how wonderful physical love was again. She hoped she could carry that with her, and not feel too disappointed at how things had worked out. It was hard. She hadn't known him long enough for the physical intimacy. She should have known better. But she didn't regret it for an instant.
When Michelle saw the shirt with the red parrots hanging on the door she almost cried.
She took it with her when she left.
Nakamura used the car phone to alert Tom Mitsuto that he was on the way to his house. He would arrive there in ten minutes. He needed to use Tom's telephone scrambler. In large corporations, major secrets had to be kept from the other giants. This was especially true in Japan.
With the world money markets rapidly changing, Nakamura had the unpleasant task of recommending the downsizing of many major subsidiaries of Heroshi. It meant letting go of valuable employees and even potentially lucrative properties because of the new tax burdens that had been imposed on international corporations investing outside their own country. Japan had been pouring money into foreign countries, buying properties at an unprecedented rate. Now
that practice had to stop.
This was true of almost every Heroshi investment Nakamura had visited in the last three months. He felt like the damned, dreaded hatchet-man. Except here in Hawaii. Real estate values had plateaued after the booming '90's, but he expected that any investment in the Hawaiian Islands would not lose in the long run. Before going to California he had been scheduled to take a clandestine trip to Maui to investigate property that had just come onto the market. Heroshi might consider investing in Maui, even as it was divesting in Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and the United State's mainland.
Nakamura was so single-minded in career pursuits that he had never given much time to personal relationships. That attitude was expected in Japan, where family loyalty landed a far second place to job allegiance. But Nakamura had broken tradition by remaining a bachelor. He was expected to get married, rear children, and spend his nights like any loyal company man, away from his wife and family in the nightclubs and bars with his fellow executives, drinking each night away in jovial conviviality with his fellows and turning to the women in the bars instead of his wife for exciting sex. Japan was becoming more Westernized, but that had been the traditional business way of life in Japan. Traditions die hard in large corporations. But Nakamura didn't want that for himself. He thought the lifestyle of traditional Japanese businessmen was stupid, macho and ultimately unproductive.
He was in an excellent mood as he drove toward the Kahala residential area, on the other side of Diamond Head, where Tom Mitsuto lived. He decided he ought to consider domesticity and the thought slammed him back in his car seat. But he was obsessed with Michelle and had been ever since he saw her turn deathly white when he first encountered her at the office.
He had known that Michelle was to be his potential new assistant controller. He knew he should act professionally objective with her. But he caught himself trying to tame the fear that was so apparent. He had unconsciously tried to find reasons to touch her, to prove she didn't have to be frightened of him; letting her bandage his hand, slathering sunburn lotion on her. All natural things any woman might accept. Putting an arm around her at the party. Even shaking hands after meetings at the office. He was partly ashamed, but he hadn't done it as a plan of attack or in any conscious way to lure her into bed. He had studiously avoided thinking about that altogether. In fact, he had been very hard on her that first day, practically grilling her on the statistical property reports because he found himself so attracted. His surprise had been her obvious enjoyment in his needless needling. She knew her stuff and relished it.
As he drove along a stretch of road beside the ocean that would finally circle around Diamond Head and the beautiful Kahala Hilton Hotel, he noticed that the big black limousine was overheating. Of course the temperature was warm, it must be around eighty-five degrees outside. He turned off the air conditioning and opened the windows so the engine would cool down and he wouldn't smother in the process. Being an amateur race car driver, it was second nature for him to check the gauges every few seconds. He was glad he had caught the problem early.
The way she had turned around and kissed him was still absolutely astounding to him and he smiled at the memory. She had also surprised him with her strength and physical grace. Michelle didn't have the awkwardness he associated with many tall women, who moved as though they didn't have full control of their long limbs. Michelle did, and she was very active. When she let go of a fear she certainly did it in spectacular fashion.
Even while Nakamura was happily engaged in thoughts of Michelle, his alert old habits reasserted themselves. It was probably what saved his life.
The temperature gauge had moved up into the red zone. Then it went above the red. Nakamura decided to get out and see what the problem was. He could fix anything wrong with almost any engine. At least diagnose it.
Nakamura was pulling to the edge of the road when he heard strange sounds emitted from under the hood. Hissing and popping like a mechanical beast ready to explode. The engine was so hot it really was going to blow. He knew it and acted instantly.
Nakamura ground the gears forcefully, while the car was still moving forward, into Park, and at the same time pulled up on the emergency hand break with all his strength. He was out of the car before it even rolled to a skidding, shrieking stop on the side of the road. His foot got caught on the seat belt attached to the door for what seemed like a sickeningly endless time as he bailed out, but it was less than a second. Then he fell hard, as he jumped free to the ground, and the car rolled on. The car only dragged him a short distance, but he was bruised and battered in that small amount of time. Then he was rolling, knocked to the roadside by the car's forward momentum.
When the car exploded, the hot blast of air threw him a few feet up in the air and he thumped down hard in the middle of oncoming traffic. A bus almost ran over him, and barely avoided colliding with another vehicle. By that time he was unconscious.
He could not see the car blazing as though it had been torched.
Blood was running out of his ear and he was trying to control extreme nausea when Tom Mitsuto finally decided to investigate why Nakamura had not reached his home and drove toward Waikiki. He found Nakamura, trying to stagger to a standing position, groggy and disoriented on the side of the road.
CHAPTER 24
Michelle jumped up and down at the gate where Heather's parents were supposed to arrive, looking over the heads of the crowd for the two smallest adults. She finally spotted them and hurried over. Small stature and big hearts, they came every six months like clockwork to visit their daughter. Michelle felt like a huge clumsy elephant when she was with all three of them.
She drove Heather's parents to the hospital and waited for them in the hallway while they visited Heather. When they came out and started talking to a doctor she slowly went into the room herself, afraid of what she would see.
"Shelly. Sit down. We need to talk," Heather said with her old enthusiasm.
Michelle smiled in surprise. Heather was hooked up to some monitoring machines and attached to a plastic bag which dripped fluids into her arm, but she looked amazingly healthy. Heather was still under the influence of pain medication for the burn and broken ribs, but her prognosis was very good, from what the doctor had said.
"You're looking great," Michelle said.
"Can't wait to get out of here. I feel a little woozy, you know? Because of the morphine, or some wonderful stuff that makes you euphoric and sleepy. But I've been dying to know what you were talking about with Omar last night. Before I got hit with the lightening."
Michelle told her everything. How she believed that Omar had caused the bolt to zip from the sky and hit her. What she had remembered about her own attack in Las Vegas. The fact that she thought Omar really might have some weird supernatural powers.
"Hey. Cut to the important stuff," Heather said with frustration. "You stayed with Rod last night?"
"I had my own room."
"Oh." She sounded disappointed.
Michelle looked at Heather. The short affair was over and done with. Heather was her best friend. She could tell. "He broke my heart." Michelle had to explain about that, too.
Heather was quiet for a long time. "You're not giving him enough credit, Shelly. I may be wrong, but I think you should go back there tonight. This is too important to let pride get in the way. Besides, he'll be waiting for you. And you promised. At the very least, you'd miss a fine...you know."
"You're usually right," Michelle said dismally. "But I really threw myself at him. He hardly had a chance."
"Even if you behaved like a brazen hussy, I think he could fend you off. If he wanted to," Heather said. "He's a big boy." She had that frowning serious intent look that meant she was really laughing. She was so thrilled about the whole situation Michelle had to smile too.
"What's he like in bed?"
"Heather!"
A nurse came in a little while later and told them visiting hours were over. Michelle had to leave.
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She took Heather's parents to the hotel closest to the hospital and had an early dinner with them when they insisted. They looked so forlorn she couldn't refuse. They were worried about Heather's finances. She might not be able to do any modeling for a while. Michelle tried to explain to them that Heather had bought into several properties here in Hawaii, that she could live easily on that income, but they were still upset. Michelle promised to call them in California if she thought Heather would need any help in the future.
Michelle took a deep breath when she finally got to her car. Heather's parents were so sweet and worried it was almost claustrophobic. She had to go home. There was no way around it. She couldn't live forever in one sundress, or in fear of being inside her own apartment. She needed to change and she had to prepare for work tomorrow. Although this situation was very strange, she wasn't in some fantasy world where she could put her job on indefinite hold to track down a sorcerer. Deciding about whether to go to the hotel tonight to see Nakamura would just upset her. She decided to put off deciding for a while.
Both Heather and Nakamura had warned her not to go back to the apartment building, but no one else could take care of the problem. She wasn't going to let anyone else get hurt or killed. Omar might be able to perceive her feelings for Nakamura and try to harm him next.
As Michelle drove home she thought her chances of coming out of this predicament intact were definitely slight. How could she deflect Omar's power if he could throw lightening bolts? She thought it would be smart to agree to be Omar's high priestess. Then maybe she could amass enough information to eventually stop him, or get him arrested.
She parked in the temporary lot in back of her condominium instead of going into the underground parking garage. She didn't want to be ambushed, and she wasn't going to take stupid chances in an isolated and dark lot underground. She might have to leave quickly.
Michelle took the stairs to her apartment. It was an exhausting seventeen floors, but she didn't want to get stuck in an elevator with one of the witches, or Omar himself, either. He knew she was a danger to him now and might decide to simply get rid of her. He had killed before. Or probably had his minion, Samson, do it. Now there was a scary guy, too.
