“Which I won’t waste on pointless bickering. Tell me where you were that you just happened to run into my sister.”
“I didn’t just happen to run into her. She sent for me. Okada Foods ringing a bell?”
He glided toward her, his expression devoid of emotion. “Conference room.”
Amery followed him, feeling like a naughty child about to be punished by the headmaster. Seeing the conference room at the end of the hall, she hustled past him to reach it first. She stood at the far side of the table and watched as he closed the door and blocked it with his body. That’s why she’d chosen her spot first. She had an exit behind her.
“Talk.”
“Shiori Hirano is your sister. She’s also vice president of Okada Foods, the multibillion-dollar conglomerate, which also happens to be your family business.”
Ronin said nothing.
Not that she’d expected anything different. She laid it out for him brick by brick. “Weeks ago I received a phone call from Okada’s North American director. She’d gotten my company’s name—gee, I wonder where—and asked if I’d be interested in doing design work on a new healthy frozen food line. I’ll admit it was a big ego boost when I got the call. The client confidentiality nondisclosure meant I couldn’t talk about anything, which is why I didn’t tell you. Still, I’d thought it odd that this ginormous international corporation would contact little old Hardwick Designs. I finished the specs, sent them off, and was told to proceed with my design ideas.
“Imagine my surprise when I learned that Okada Food’s VP was in Denver today and had requested a meeting. With me.”
His jaw tightened.
“There’s a sign of life. Didn’t your darling sister share her business travel plans with you?”
“No.”
“I wasn’t supposed to ever deal with her, was I? You’d gone out of your way to demand that Maggie at Okada hire me sight unseen. Which tipped off the VP—aka your sister—that something wasn’t right. She was curious about my company and my connection to her billionaire heir brother.”
“I’m sure my sister told you that with absolute glee.”
“Actually she seemed shocked you hadn’t shared that tidbit with me.”
Not a spark of guilt showed in his eyes.
“When did you plan to tell me about being a billionaire baby? Ever?”
“That’s not who I am.”
“So that’s your logic for not sharing that you’re an heir to one of the twenty largest corporations in Japan?”
“You knew when you met me that I’m a very private person, Amery.”
“To the world at large, yes. But to me?” She shook her head. “I thought I was different. I thought—rather mistakenly, it appears—that we had something together.”
“You’re using the past tense.”
She ignored his flat statement and looked for a glimmer of anything besides apathy on his face. “I opened up everything to you: my body, my thoughts, my feelings, my fears.” My heart.
“I didn’t demand that of you,” he pointed out.
She felt as if he’d thrown her on the mat and knocked every bit of air from her lungs. She didn’t recognize this man at all. “Which is what makes it so much worse.”
No response.
“I trusted you.” She curled her hands into fists. “My friends were right. I am naive. I should’ve heeded their warnings about you. Only their warnings about you being a dangerous man didn’t even come close to the real truth. I can’t believe you investigated me through my family and friends the week after we met! And yes, they all told me about the invasive phone calls, but I didn’t know you were the one who initiated it. God. If you thought I was such a sketchy person, why did you even want to get involved with me?”
“What did your friends say about me?”
Amery met his gaze after he’d sidestepped yet another question. “That you were a thug. Your past was suspect. No one knew anything about you until you just showed up in Denver ten years ago and set yourself up as a jujitsu master in a building you couldn’t possibly afford. Some suggested you got the building on the cheap from TP. In exchange, you owed him favors. Which he collected, demanding you root out vagrants and criminals in this area so he could buy other real estate cheap and then cash in on urban renewal funds to get them up to code.”
“Who’s your source?”
“Then someone else hinted,” she continued without pause, “that with your martial arts background, you hired out as muscle for the Russian mob and handled TP’s management problems.”
“Anyone tie me to the Yakuza?”
At any other time she would’ve laughed at his mention of the Japanese Mafia; now she just wanted to cry. “After we were attacked in the alley, the fact that you knew just how to ditch a gun put me in the camp that you were a street thug who’d made good. Your secrets, or maybe I should say your nondisclosure and layers of protection, made sense. I accepted them. I’d hoped that given time, you’d let me in.
“I did get to you a couple of times, but then those walls came right back up like they’d never been down. You know you got to me with your sexual expertise, with those times you were so sweet . . .” Don’t cry. Jesus. Keep it together, Amery. “I actually bought into your sincerity.” She closed her eyes. “God. Could I have been any more moon-eyed over you? Especially when you gave me that whole bullshit story about the stupid scar on my arm being the same symbol for your name and it being a cosmic sign.”
“Amery—”
“Now I have to wonder why you took it so far. Was I just a game for you? Toying with the . . . what did you call me? Wholesome? Toying with the wholesome North Dakota farm girl because she provided a different challenge than the usual skanks you met at the various clubs? Get her to open up, get her to sleep with you, get her to let you practice bondage on her, get her to spend all her free time with you until she’s crazy about you. Then act like it could be a long-term relationship by offering to lend her money to help her struggling business. I bought it all.
“And while I was beating myself up on the way over here, about why you didn’t trust me enough to tell me about your true station in life, I realized the Okada ‘reveal’ was part of your master plan. So you took it as far as you needed to. Go, you, Master Black, master manipulator. You win.”
“Part of my plan?” he repeated.
“It stings that I didn’t see the signs. Gorgeous penthouse. Check. Expensive cars. Check. Relationships with the bigwigs in this town. Check. Your devotion to an art not dependent upon income from it to thrive and survive. Check.”
“Not going to throw anything in about me being a spoiled rich kid who expects women to accept my sexual kinks?”
“No, but I’ll add that you discard your partners when you get what you want from them and they no longer please you,” she retorted.
“Where’d you hear that?”
Amery looked at him. “Deacon. He repeatedly expressed surprise that your current flavor of the month—me—had lasted an entire summer.”
“Deacon wasn’t speaking of my lovers, Amery; he meant that in the rope partner sense.”
“That’s comforting. Does Knox, closest thing you’ve got to a friend, know that you’re a closeted billionaire?”
“Yes.”
“Deacon?”
“Yes.”
“Your sister told me Naomi knew too.”
“Why do you think she stuck around as long as she did?” he said testily.
“You led me to believe she was some poor waif who used you and needed more kink than you could provide. I had no idea she was an international businesswoman you met at a social club.”
“She wasn’t an international businesswoman when I had her bound. And how did the subject of Naomi come up?”
“I figured out the meeting with the Okada VP was a setup when the exotic Asian woman started asking me personal things. I thought she might be your ex trying to get to you, given the hush-hush nature of the project and the last-minute
meeting. Plus, the woman wore sunglasses until I asked her to take them off. When I saw her eyes I knew.”
“That’s the only way you’d know, because my connection to Okada is not common knowledge. And yes, that is intentional.”
“In this day and age where information can be at your fingertips in a nanosecond . . . why doesn’t everyone on the planet know who you are?”
“Who’d care? I’m not a celebrity.”
“So there’d be no interest in a story about Denver’s hidden Japanese billionaire?” she taunted.
That’s when he cracked. “You plan to out me in the Denver Post? Or is this just the threat of exposing me where the real money is?” he snapped. “Think I’ll pay you to keep quiet about my family ties and my kink? Think again.”
Once again she felt as if he’d kicked her in the teeth. Once again she looked at the man in front of her, the man she thought she’d loved and she saw a stranger. “You actually believe I’d try and extort money from you? Wow. I’ve already been lumped in with Naomi as a total backstabbing bitch. Now that I know what you really think of me, I’ll go.”
Ronin laughed harshly and it was an ugly sound. “You’re leaving now? Bullshit.”
“I’ve said everything I needed to.”
“Except for one very important thing.”
Yes, I fell in love with you. Yes, I’m going to suffer for that for the rest of my life. “What?”
“Did Okada offer you the project today?”
“That would get you off the hook, wouldn’t it? You had your fun and games with me and you’re throwing me a bone to alleviate your guilt.”
“That’s not an answer.”
How’s it feel, asshole?
“It doesn’t matter what my sister said to you. One phone call to my grandfather and you’ll have the Okada project.” He angled forward. “Because yes, I do have that much power. I’m just selective on when I choose to use it.”
“Save yourself a phone call and don’t waste your power on me. There’s no way I’d ever take the job after this. No fucking way.”
“That right? A struggling company like yours turning down a contract worth several million dollars? One job with Okada could put you on the map for the rest of your career.”
“I don’t care.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
She hated being called stupid. “You don’t know me at all if you think I’ll stand here and take your insults just because you have—”
“Money?” he supplied. “That’s what it always boils down to, which is why I never goddamn talk about money.” Ronin stared at her, the anger pulsing off him. “So you really want to punish yourself by saying no? You’d be losing a lot.”
“If not for us hooking up, Hardwick Designs wouldn’t be on Okada’s radar at all. So I haven’t lost anything, because I never truly had it.”
“I thought you were a smart businesswoman.” He looked at her as impassively as a bug. “Apparently I was wrong.”
That stung. “Apparently I was too. About a lot of things.”
“You don’t know what’s really going on. You only have half of the story.”
“Doesn’t matter. I never knew what was going on with you and that’s the way I’ll leave it—as clueless about who you really are as I was when we met months ago.”
“You know who I am.”
“No, I don’t. Is this where you promise to explain everything to me if I just trust you?”
“Is this where you storm off?” he countered. “And expect me to run after you with apologies and explanations?”
Another direct hit. “When have you ever done that?”
“Every single time we’ve had a problem,” he bit off.
“Wrong. And it’s just another example that we’ve never seen things the same way.”
“That’s because you only see what you want to see.”
Goddammit, she wouldn’t cry in front of this man. She grabbed the door handle.
“You don’t get to walk out on me, Amery.”
“Watch me.”
“I mean it,” he warned. “Don’t you walk out that door.”
Amery turned and looked at him, her heart heavy, her nerves shot, feeling as though part of her world had caved in. But she didn’t cave in. She met his golden-eyed gaze with as much dispassion as she could muster. “Or what? Are you going to tie me up to make me stay?”
Raw vulnerability flashed in his eyes and he flinched as if she’d slapped him.
Don’t fall for it; next he’ll close himself off like he always does.
Then it happened, the mask dropped back into place.
“That’s what I thought. Don’t bother running after me with the excuses you consider apologies or offering more lies masquerading as explanations because we’re done this time. Done.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Ronin
The door slammed hard enough to rattle the glass.
Ronin remained frozen in place as if staring at the door would make her walk back through it.
Go after her.
But his feet didn’t move even when everything inside him was screaming at him to chase her down, and yes—tie her up if he had to. She had to listen to him. He had to make her understand. . . .
Why you lied to her? You brought her into this fucked-up family situation without any warning—that is all on you.
He was such a cruel, arrogant bastard. Twisting her words around and forcing her to defend herself because he had no other offensive position.
So go after her.
It wasn’t pride that kept him in place but fear. Debilitating fear. His years of defensive training tamped down anything resembling real emotion as the don’t show fear mantra he’d lived by his entire life echoed in his head until he felt as if it would explode.
Find the eye of the storm and center yourself against it.
Ronin counted to sixty.
No change. His rage still fought to get free.
Again. Look deeper for the calm.
He counted off sixty more clicks on the clock.
Then sixty more.
And sixty more after that.
When he reached the three hundred mark, he’d lost any semblance of control.
Ronin picked up the closest chair and hurled it against the window. Glass shattered and the wall shook from the force of impact. But the explosion of sound quieted the fury that’d overtaken him.
Good. He’d found a coping mechanism. He grabbed another chair and threw it into the wall. Harder than before. It bounced off the counter, sending the coffeepot crashing to the floor.
He’d reached for the next chair when the door behind him opened.
Knox said, “Jesus, Ronin. What is going on?”
“Get. The. Fuck. Out.”
The next thing he knew, Knox had broken his grip on the chair and had shoved him against the wall, wrapping his hand around Ronin’s neck in a submission hold.
For once, Ronin didn’t bother to fight back.
Knox snarled, “There’s nothing to see here,” to someone who’d entered the room. “Get back to class and shut the goddamn door.”
Normally Ronin would worry that one of his students had seen his loss of control, but right now he didn’t give a shit.
After the door closed, Knox hissed, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“If you ever want to use this hand again, you’ll remove it from my throat right fucking now, Shihan,” Ronin snarled.
“Convince me you won’t go on a rampage, Sensei, and I’ll back off.”
“I can’t. So why don’t you just beat the hell out of me?” Ronin grabbed Knox’s wrist, forcing more pressure against his own throat. “And you’d better make it count because I won’t go down quietly.”
Knox didn’t back off. In fact, he increased his choke hold. “Don’t tempt me. But since I know your preferred method of dealing with pain is to get the shit kicked out of yourself, I’m gonna pass.” He let go of Ronin and stepp
ed back, but blocked him against the wall. “The better torture for you is to make you talk. So what happened?”
“Amery.”
“What about her?”
“She walked out.”
“Why?”
“She found out . . .” Jesus, he needed to get some modicum of control. He inhaled and let the air out slowly. “My sister set up a private meeting with Amery and revealed my family connections to Okada Foods.”
“Your sister is here in Denver?”
“Apparently. I’d like to wring her neck. Send her back to Japan with a clear message for my grandfather.”
Knox opened his mouth. Shut it.
“What?”
“You’re blaming your sister for Amery leaving?”
“Who else am I supposed to blame?”
Knox raised his eyebrows. “Yourself? Since you should’ve told Amery months ago about your family? Then it wouldn’t have been such a huge shock.”
“Fuck off.” Ronin jammed his hand through his hair, dislodging the elastic band holding it back. “For three and a half years I’ve refused any direct contact with my family’s business. Three and a half years,” he repeated. “And the first time I tried to do something to help someone, they immediately start meddling in my goddamn life again.”
“Then fix it. Track Amery down and talk to her. Then deal with your family shit. You’ve been avoiding it for too long.”
“I can’t go to Amery now.”
“Christ, Ronin, you are the most stubborn—”
“Look at me.” Ronin held out his hands. Normally so steady, even after hours of working out, but right now he shook violently. “I can’t trust myself around her when I’m like this. I don’t have any control. The last time I felt this way and I ignored it?” He finally met Knox’s gaze. “I ended up hurting her. I don’t leave a fucking mark on her when she’s bound, but the one time . . .”
“After the match in Fort Collins?” Knox finished for him.
He nodded. “So I can’t even be in the same room with her until I’m calmer.”
Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing, showing Amery how her leaving affected you.
“Along those same lines, you’re done teaching today.” Knox pointed to the destruction in the room. “Clean up your mess. Before you do anything else.”
Bound: The Mastered Series Page 36
