However, Lilli immediately knew who the man was as soon as he walked into the room. From both her internet search before her first “interview” and the games she’d seen him at in her past life as the sister of one of the Nakamura Hawks’ foreign players. Kazuo Nakamura. Kazuo Nakamura was now standing in front of her!
She froze. All of her Osaka Charm lessons clashing with the ones she’d learned before coming to Japan as a travel nurse. What should she do? Get up? Bow? Kneel? Should she kneel?
The answer floated into her spa-fogged mind. She should stand and give the director of Nakamura Worldwide a forty-five degree bow…which meant she’d also give the man a 100% view of her cleavage, dressed as she was in nothing but a plush, white spa robe.
Oh, Jesus. She couldn’t do that. But this was No’s father! She couldn’t be disrespectful. What should she do? What should she do?
“Stay seated.”
The two words were a forceful command. And they should have been a relief since they effectively solved her quandary about how best to greet No’s father without flashing her boobs at him. But Lilli felt no relief whatsoever.
Instead she was filled with dread as she watched Mr. Nakamura Senior walk into the room.
He studied her with a frown.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-six,” she answered, keeping her face, voice, and posture as respectful as she could.
“A good age for a girl such as yourself. Charming, but no longer naive.”
Okay…she thought. Backhanded compliment much?
“Can I help you with something?” she finally asked, deciding to handle things in the blunt American way since the situation was way outside the scope of any Japanese cultural training she’d received. “I’m not sure why you’re here.”
Mr. Nakamura frowned at the nearby rack of nail polish, staring at it as if it were a foreign object.
“Are you certain you do not know why I am here?”
“Yes,” Lilli answered carefully, feeling like she was balancing on a wire rather than having a conversation with her lover’s father.
“Tell me,” he commanded, his eyes still fixed on the rack of nail polish bottles. “Have you seen my son naked?”
Lilli’s eyes widened in surprise. By American standards, this line of questioning was totally inappropriate. But by Japanese standards, it was plain rude. And by both standards, it was bizarre as hell.
A jumble of American-style reactions piled up in Lilli’s head creating a traffic jam of exclamations and indignant replies. What? How is that any of your business??? Why in the hell are you even asking me this?
But all she could manage to say was, “Um…”
“No, you have not,” Mr. Nakamura answered for her, as if her hesitation gave him all the answers he needed.
The older man’s eyes narrowed on one particular bottle of polish in the case, and he crossed the room to pick it up, shaking the small, glass container of light brown liquid in his hand. “Your contact has been compromised. I will be your new one until we can put another in place.”
The word “contact” brought her back up straight. “Wait…you mean…?” She couldn’t even find the words to finish her line of questioning. Was he serious? Was No’s father the one who’d sent her in to spy on his son?!
“Your brother, Mr. Tucker, has done slightly better this year than the last during pre-season training,” No’s father said in seeming answer to her unspoken question. “Perhaps there is a way we can extend his contract for five more years.”
No’s father walked to where she was sitting and set the small container of brown polish on the counter beside her chair, along with the rest of Sumiko’s tools. “You will wear this color today. And next week, when you return from Tokyo, you will call this number.”
He pulled a single business card out of his inside pocket and held it out to her. Lilli glanced down at the card. It was completely blank except for a single phone number.
“This is my direct line. Next week I will expect a full report of everything my son has revealed to you during your time together. In particular, I would like to know about his plans after the board meeting is done.”
Mr. Nakamura continued to hold the card out towards her, American-style, with no formality whatsoever.
After a moment of hesitation, Lilli took it, guilt and shame washing over her in waves, even as she reminded herself this was the job she’d signed up for.
To help her brother, Doug. The only person who’d ever given two shits about her. And to help her young niece, Ruby, who’d already lost a mother to cancer and who really didn’t need her entire life up-ended again if her father lost his job and went off the deep-end. No, Lilli could not let Ruby lose her father to his drug and alcohol demons. She owed it to them both. To the only family she’d ever really had.
“For now” was over, and the time for her to do what she’d known she’d have to do from the start had come.
Lilli pocketed the card without looking at the elder Mr. Nakamura.
It will be okay, she told herself. She could make the call as she’d been asked to and give a full report, and it would be fine. Mostly because there was really nothing at all to report. No rarely shared anything about his business and personal life beyond a few vague stories now and then. Lilli had so far managed to do exactly what No and, apparently, his father had asked without compromising herself or betraying anyone else. She could make this work.
“If I make the report, you’ll give Doug a five-year contract no matter what?” she asked.
A short pause. Then, “He is already contracted for a year, but I will personally present him with a new five-year contract after the Hawks first game of the year once you make your report.” Then the older man bowed as if sealing their agreement.
Finally, Lilli was the recipient of the customary Japanese politeness. But did it make her feel any better about doing business with the apparently extremely duplicitous director of Nakamura Worldwide as she bowed back? Hell no. It most definitely did not.
Chapter Twenty
She barely knew Norio Nakamura. She’d been hired to keep him company in bed. They had sizzling chemistry, and absolutely nothing else.
Doug was her brother. Her mother, after seventeen bitter years and 364 resentful days had kicked Lilli out of the house into the Seattle winter the morning of her 18th birthday, despite the fact that she still had a whole semester left in her senior year.
If not for the money Doug had sent her, she might not have graduated from high school.
He sent you money, but he didn’t send you a plane ticket to join him in Japan with his young family. Not until he needed something from you.
Her therapist’s words came floating back to her.
But that wasn’t the point. He’d sent her money. Not a ton of it. But enough to keep her in food and other necessities until her nursing college scholarship kicked in. He’d help her bridge that gap after her mother abandoned her.
Doug was the one who called her a few months later, to tell her Donna Tucker had died just as she lived, bitterly and drunkenly. Perhaps purposefully overdosing on painkillers. Doug was the one who’d given her money to pay the crematory. Told Lilli it was alright not to have a service, because “Nobody would come anyway.” Not even him.
Doug might have been the favored brother, the one she and her mother followed all the way from St. Louis to Seattle, only to watch him flame out and get traded to a Japanese team less than two years into their stay. But he’d been there for her when it truly counted. In bits of money and spirit, even if he didn’t invite her to Japan until his wife died, leaving him to take care of their daughter alone.
Doug was her family. Ruby was her family. The only two people she had in this entire world.
Norio Nakamura was the guy she was fucking for money. Money she wouldn’t touch after he was done with her in few short days. She wasn’t betraying someone who truly cared about her. She was helping her brother.
At l
east that’s what she told herself as she walked out of the salon, her nails covered in the brown polish No’s father had selected
to meet the waiting car.
The late afternoon was slowly shifting towards evening and it was much colder outside than when she walked outside. That was Osaka spring for you.
Pleasant days, chilly nights. But the chilly weather seemed like an apt metaphor for the discovery she’d just made.
You can do this, Lilli, you can, she told herself again. The meeting with No’s father had technically changed nothing. Aside, that is, from giving her some much-needed perspective and insight on what was turning out to be No’s rather messed up father-son dynamic.
She clasped her caped coat around her neck, protecting her exposed skin from the wind as she climbed into the back of the car. Only to stop when she saw who was waiting for her.
“Where’s Miyuki?” she asked.
Riyu, a woman she’d only seen once during that fateful first Osaka Charm interview, gave her only the slightest of bows before answering, “Nakamura-sama waits for us.”
Which wasn’t really an answer at all. Riyu’s cold and clipped English was ten times worse than Miyuki’s cheerfully broken kind. The older woman barely said a word to her, and the car couldn’t move fast enough for Lilli as it ferried them the relatively short distant to a row of shops and restaurants along the Dojima River.
This must be where they were having dinner, Lilli thought as they started walking toward a modern gray stucco building. She spotted No waiting there for them with his arms folded stiffly across his chest. An Italian restaurant, if the last name on the building’s sign was any indication. Nice! Lilli’s stomach pinged happily at the thought of good Italian food and she imagined the view of the setting sun over the river would make the meal taste even better.
But then Lilli frowned when they stopped in front of the building. The restaurant appeared to be closed, its blinds pulled all the way down over its large picture windows.
“Hi,” she said, when they reached No. “Is this the place?”
“Hai. Sumimasen…”
With that quick “excuse me,” No walked past her and started talking to Riyu in low, urgent Japanese. When they were done, Riyu gave him another bow before heading back toward the parked car.
No goodbye or further acknowledgement of Lilli’s presence whatsoever. Yeah, she could more than see why Miyuki had been hired to handle all of No’s “personal business.”
“I will drop you off at home in my car when we are done here,” he informed Lilli after Riyu was out of earshot.
“Okay,” Lilli agreed softly. Wanting to ask if anything was wrong, but not feeling as if she had the right to do so, given the report she’d be forced to make to No’s father when they returned from Tokyo. Eight more days…
No must have sensed her consternation because he asked, “Is there something you want to talk with me about before we go in?”
“Um, no. Well, it’s just that I was a little confused when Riyu picked me up instead of Miyuki.”
No’s face hardened. “Miyuki no longer works for RoTeku.”
Lilli’s eyes widened as she thought of all the intimate details Miyuki had overseen for him.
“What happened? Did she quit?!” Finally? Lilli silently added, because she knew she’d never have been able to handle Miyuki’s decidedly odd slate of duties and erratic work schedule.
No’s jaw ticked. “No. She was fired for spying on me. Riyu caught her snooping through the phone she uses to deal with my particular business matters. When security brought her in to talk to us in my room at the hotel, she confessed to everything. My father hired her over a year ago and has been syphoning information for months now to use against me during the next board meeting.”
No’s face twisted at a bitter angle. “All this time I feared our company’s enemies. I did everything I could to make sure I was protected, that the company was protected. But in the end, my father orchestrated my assistant’s betrayal, just as he orchestrated—”
No stopped short with a shake of his head, as if deciding against what he planned to say next. Instead, he simply stated, “Miyuki must be dealt with. But it can wait until after dinner.”
“Dealt with,” Lilli repeated in a whisper. “Dealt with…like how?”
He didn’t respond and Lilli suddenly felt a scream building up inside her chest. She wanted to leap to Miyuki’s defense. Remind No that he himself had described his father as ruthless. Kazuo held Doug’s future in baseball over Lilli’s head. Who knew what threats or promises he’d made to poor Miyuki? Whatever it was, it had been more than enough to get her to turn on her own boss.
“You are not suited for this job.” No’s hard statement drew her back from the edge of her sympathetic panic for Miyuki.
“I almost did not give you this news because I knew you would not take it well. You are too sensitive, care too much for those who do not deserve your sympathies.”
Lilli could only stare up at him and wonder if they were talking about Miyuki…or him.
“I’ll work on it,” she answered with a brittle smile. “After our six months are up, I’ll try harder to be a little less human.”
Maybe he heard the sarcasm in her tone. Maybe he didn’t. In either case, he simply said, “This weakness will not serve you if you continue on in Japan.”
No, it wouldn’t, she silently agreed, and she thought gloomily of her pending return to her old life. Becoming Lilli Tucker again, little more than a glorified nanny for her brother’s rather spoiled daughter, and working a job that was way less than what she dreamed of when she started nursing school shortly after her mother’s death.
“We should go in now,” No said, motioning her toward the closed door.
Yes, they should. After all, the ball wasn’t over yet . She still had eight days left until she turned back into a boring pumpkin. So she put on her best Ana face, mentally reviewing all those YouTube videos she’d watched between spa treatments about customary Japanese greetings. Then she followed No through the restaurant’s shuttered door.
The restaurant was dim inside, with small table tops and sponge-painted walls that made the place reek of European-style despite being firmly embedded in Japan. It was also completely empty.
Wait, no, not completely, she saw when her eyes adjusted to the light. In the corner, she could see a couple talking quietly over a candlelit dinner.
The pair consisted of a black woman and a bearded man. The woman had long neon green and silver hair and so much face jewelry, it glinted in the candles’ soft light giving her face an oddly beautiful sparkle. The bearded man looked very, very familiar to Lilli. If she didn’t know better, she’d think it was that billionaire robotics mogul she’d seen on a cover of WIRED magazine over a year or so ago.
Lillie peered again at the couple through the darkness. Hold on…the bearded man was that billionaire…Go Gutierrez! The guy who may or may not have co-designed the smart toilet in her bathroom with No, before their falling out.
Her mind whirred, trying to catch up with what was happening here…
Meanwhile, Go Gutierrez stood abruptly, chest thrust out as if he were the sheriff and a known gunslinger had just walked into the saloon.
The pierced black woman immediately followed suit, jumping up from her seat, her semi-crouched stance and angry expression making Lilli think of a lioness with Jem and the Holograms hair defending her pride.
“Oh, hell no!” the woman yelled. “I know you did not have the nerve to come in here and crash our dinner!”
Then she stormed over to where they were standing, stopping directly in front of No with her hands balled into fists. “What the hell do you think you’re doing coming around here after what you did to Go? I should kick your ass right now!”
“Nyla,” said the tall man who had come up behind her, his voice tight with censure. “You know this isn’t how I handle things.”
The woman glanced over her shoulder at Go.
“Yes, and I’m technically still a domestic violence counselor.” She returned her fierce glare to No. ““I realize that. But I still want to punch him. And you can’t convince me that he doesn’t deserve it.”
“Regardless, hitting him would be inadvisable. Japanese jails have low comparatively low survival rates to ours,” her husband answered, his tone oddly flat.
The woman finally tore her glare away from No, her expression one of frustration. “It’s because of this asshole that you almost died, Go!” The woman’s voice was as heated as his was flat. “And now he’s here, crashing our private dinner!!” She abruptly turned her scathing eyes towards Lilli, “And who the hell are you?”
But before Lilli could answer, the pierced woman’s lip curled in disgust as she shook her head at No. “Seriously, Nakamura? You went and got some random black chick off some escort site so you could trot in here with her and use her to get on Go’s good side? Like look, we’re both with black girls. Puh-leese. None of your tricks are going to work on me or Go…not after you almost got him killed!!”
“Nyla…” Go attempted again.
“You know what Go? You’re right. I’m gonna shut up,” Nyla suddenly agreed, her hate-filled eyes landing back on No. “Because I want to hear what this gigantic douchebag could possibly have to say to you.” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at No as if daring him to just try and come up with a story to explain himself.
What followed was a whole lot of silence. Heavy, angry silence.
And then Lilli leaned over to No and whispered, “So I guess you really weren’t planning a threesome. I apologize for accusing you of that.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Nobody—absolutely nobody—laughed at Ana’s comment, including No.
In fact, Nyla narrowed her eyes at the much smaller woman and asked, “Exactly who are you again?”
“Um...” Ana began, her anime eyes popping.
His Revenge Baby: 50 Loving States, Washington Page 11
