by Jennie Lucas
Sachiko was the one who’d taught her Japanese. Each time she felt her grandmother’s warm arms around her, and look up into her calm, wise eyes, Hana would vow, when she grew up, she’d settle down nearby and never leave again.
But Hana had barely started college in nearby Sacramento before her father suddenly died of a stroke in Tasmania, leaving her mother in shock. No one was sure whether it was an accident when Laurel’s rental car had gone off a cliff in Thailand six months later. And the very next month, her grandmother had the first onset of dementia that would eventually claim her life.
Now Hana was alone.
No, she remembered. Not alone. She’d never be alone again. She put her hand over her belly. She was going to have a baby.
Hana was going to be a mother. She’d build them a home. She had enough money so she could wait to get a job, until her baby was a few months old. She could be choosy. So she’d lost her home in Madrid. She told herself there were other places in the world.
The world is your oyster, kid, her father had always said when he was proud of her. Hana took a deep breath.
Somewhere. Somehow. She’d make the two of them a home.
As she got out of the hot shower, she dried off, brushing her long dark hair, then pulled on an ivory silk nightgown and robe from her bag. Her stomach growled, and she remembered she hadn’t eaten since she’d arrived in Tokyo.
But as she was reaching to call room service, the phone rang. Nervous it might be Ren, she snatched it up. “Hello?”
“You turned off your mobile.” Antonio’s voice was accusing.
She gripped the receiver. “How did you find me?”
“It wasn’t hard to guess you’d be staying at Tanaka’s hotel,” he said sardonically.
“What do you want?”
“We need to talk.” His husky voice made her toes curl in spite of herself. She hardened her heart.
“We already did. In the park.”
“I have more to say—”
“Don’t call me again.” And she hung up.
Almost immediately, the penthouse’s phone began to ring again. She picked up the receiver and slammed it back without saying a word. Then she called the front desk of the hotel and told them to hold all calls to her room.
Antonio either couldn’t believe she’d turned down his fantastic offer to be his temporary mistress, or else he had urgent questions about business negotiations. But she didn’t have to put up with his whims or worry about his ego anymore.
So she wouldn’t.
Feeling too exhausted to think, Hana curled up on the enormous bed.
Her eyes flew open when she heard a hard knock on the door. Antonio, she thought groggily. But he couldn’t know her room number. Surely none of the staff would give that information to a stranger. Stumbling to her feet, she went to the door and looked through the peephole.
She saw only a uniformed member of hotel staff.
Tightening the belt on her silk kimono robe, she opened the door the barest crack. “Yes?”
“Flowers, ma’am,” the young man said, an explanation that was utterly unnecessary because five uniformed staff members stood behind him in the hallway, all holding huge full vases—red roses, pink tulips and other, more exotic flowers, enough to fill an entire shop.
“All of these—for me?” she stammered.
“Yes, miss.”
“Who sent them?”
The man handed her a card. Tearing it open, Hana saw a brief sentence in Antonio’s arrogant scrawl.
Talk to me.
Her heart leaped to her throat. Antonio could be ruthless and utterly single-minded when he wanted something. Had that one simple word—No—suddenly made him decide he wanted her? For his bed? For the boardroom? Where?
It didn’t matter. He couldn’t have her. He couldn’t just fire her, reject her—then think he could have her back whenever and however he wanted!
“Stop,” she cried, blocking them from entering her penthouse suite with the flowers. “I don’t want them!”
The staff members looked at each other in bewilderment. “What shall we do with them, ma’am?” one ventured.
“I don’t care—send them to the hospital—or you can have them! Do whatever you want with them, but they can’t come in here!”
Closing the door in their faces, Hana exhaled, sagging against the door. But she could still smell the sweet scent of roses wafting through the air, messing with her mind. Her eyes narrowed. She started to reach for her cell phone, to call Antonio and tell him angrily what she thought of his ploy.
Then she stopped herself. That was just what he wanted. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction!
Hana paced the length of the hotel suite, trying not to think about him. She wouldn’t remember all the days they’d spent together, or the night he’d taken her virginity, or the fact that she carried his child inside her. She wouldn’t!
Two minutes later, the hotel suite’s doorbell rang.
“Oh, for the love of...” Choking back a curse, she looked through the peephole again. Her hands trembled as she opened the door.
Another line of hotel employees stood in the hallway, weighed down with chocolates and elegant treats with the distinctive wrapping of the finest candy boutiques in Tokyo. And the uniformed staff member at the back held a silver tray spread just with different Kit Kat flavors, the sakura with its wrapper of delicate pink blossoms, sweet potato, wasabi, green tea and other, even more exotic flavors that she knew from experience were notoriously hard to find, exclusive only to certain cities in Japan.
She ground her teeth. This was a low blow—he was perfectly aware she had a sweet tooth. Antonio knew just how to tempt her.
No! She wouldn’t give in to weakness!
“Take it all away,” she told the hotel staff firmly, and shut the door again.
Hana’s hands shook as she went to the low table that held a tray with a traditional tea service. She filled the kettle with water, waited, then poured hot steaming water into the delicate ceramic cup and placed herbal leaves to steep. She took deep breaths of the fragrant chamomile and tried to calm down. Peaceful, she told herself. The world is my oyster. He doesn’t exist.
Then she heard another loud knock.
Setting the cup down hard on the table, she stalked to her door. Opening it, she glared at the unfortunate hotel staff, all standing there sheepishly holding large black velvet boxes.
“What now?” she snapped.
“I’m sorry, Miss Everly,” the first one said unhappily, bowing, “but we were ordered to bring you this.”
Glancing at the others, he gave a signal. And all five of the uniformed staff opened their flat, wide black velvet boxes at once.
Hana almost screamed.
Five necklaces sparkled at her from black velvet, each more ridiculously over-the-top than the last, necklaces that must have cost many millions of yen, that would have made Marie Antoinette blush. Brilliant diamonds, as big as robin’s eggs, emeralds, sapphires, all gleamed and glistened and whispered wickedly sensual desires to her.
Against her will, she snapped back to the memory of Antonio’s husky voice when her body had been naked against his in the bedroom of his palacio.
“I’d like to see you in jewels,” he’d breathed, brushing back a long dark tendril of her hair, kissing down her collarbone. “Jewels and nothing else.”
But she hadn’t cared about jewels that night. Just having Antonio in her arms, after two years of helpless, hopeless desire, she’d felt like the world was exploding around her with passion and joy.
Did he really think she could be bought?
“Take them...away,” she croaked out to the hotel staff.
The employees looked at each other with wide eyes. “You don’t want these jewels, Miss Everly?” one ventured.
“No!” she nearly shouted. Closing the door, she sagged back against it. Why was Antonio doing this? To torture her? How dare he send her flowers, candy and jewels! Enough!
Stomping across the penthouse suite, she grabbed her cell phone from her purse. Turning it on, she dialed. She took a deep breath.
“Yes?” Antonio answered innocently on the second ring. His voice was calm, while her emotions felt like they were spiraling out of control. It enraged her further.
“Stop sending me gifts.”
“Yes, I heard you sent them all back.” He paused. “It surprised me that you resisted the candy.”
Her cheeks burned, as she remembered all the times over the last two years when he’d teased her about her love of chocolate. All the times she’d eaten candy in the middle of the night, as he had a glass of scotch—each of them picking their own particular poison as they worked long, laborious hours on various deals. But it wasn’t candy that was most forbidden. She could resist chocolate, if she needed to.
Antonio Delacruz was the most dangerous temptation. Definitely bad for her health.
Hana glared out the window toward the bright neon signs of the nearby commercial district. “How much clearer do I have to be? I don’t want you in my life. Stop calling me.”
“You called me,” he pointed out.
“I’m hanging up.”
“If you must.”
“There’s someone knocking at my door,” she said. “If it’s another ridiculous gift, I’m throwing it out the window.”
“I’m hanging up now,” he said smoothly.
“Good,” she choked out, and flung open the door.
Hana felt her heart lift to her throat as she saw Antonio in the doorway, broad-shouldered, tall and devastatingly handsome in his suit and black coat. His cell phone was still to his ear, against his mussed black hair, and his hard jaw was scruffy as he looked right through her with his searing dark eyes.
“Will you talk to me, querida?” he said huskily.
CHAPTER FIVE
ANTONIO STARED DOWN at her. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d pursued any woman like this. Never, not since he’d turned eighteen. But the stakes had never been so high.
Standing in her hotel room, Hana looked up at him, her brown eyes wary, one hand against the door, as if she yearned to slam it in his face. He couldn’t take that chance. Bracing his hand against the door, he ruthlessly pushed into her hotel suite, closing it softly behind them.
They faced each other in the fading afternoon light of the entryway.
“What do you want?” she whispered, backing away, past the open paper doors into the main room. He followed her.
“Stop,” she cried. “Kick off your shoes!”
“My shoes?”
“Japanese tradition!”
Tradition? With a snort, he started to refuse. Then the words stopped at his lips as he saw her face.
Hana expected him to refuse. She thought she knew him. She didn’t just think he was selfish. She thought he was broken and unredeemable. She thought he was heartless. Soulless.
He suddenly wanted to prove her wrong. To wipe away the scorn he imagined he saw in her eyes.
Antonio kicked off his handmade Italian shoes. Her eyes widened in surprise as he walked toward her on the rough reed mat. He stopped when he was just inches away from her, standing between the low-slung sofa and the wall of windows facing the city and darkening April sky.
His gaze traced her silhouette against the wide windows. She’d never looked so beautiful to him, so vulnerable—a strange thing to think, he thought wryly, when she had all the power in this moment. She had his baby inside her. The baby he’d never imagined he wanted.
But he’d discovered, to his shock, that he could not let them go—either of them. For the first time in his life, he was unable to walk away.
“You took off your shoes,” Hana breathed, tilting back her head to look into his face.
Antonio gave a slight smile. “You told me to.”
“I didn’t expect you to do it.”
“So you admit it.”
“What?”
“I can surprise you.” Of its own accord, his hand stretched out to trace her long dark hair, tumbling down her creamy silk robe with its elegant floral pattern. The robe’s tie had become slightly loose, revealing a matching silk nightgown. His gaze traced over her bare collarbone to the neckline, which hinted at the full shape of her pregnancy-swollen breasts beneath.
Abruptly backing away, she glared at him, tightening her silk robe around her waist. “What do you want, Antonio?”
That was a strange question.
What did he want?
He thought he’d known the answer to that since he was six, when he’d returned to the orphanage after a month spent with the foster parents who’d decided not to adopt him after all. He’d cried that first night, and the older boys had bullied him for it.
Giving up all hopes of being adopted, he’d frozen his heart as a means of survival. When other children cried in the night for someone to love them, he’d become the one to tell them to shut up, to be tough, to go to sleep, so they’d be stronger to face whatever fresh hell the next day could bring.
When he’d left the orphanage on his eighteenth birthday, he’d met a pretty waitress. Isabella had been older, experienced, and was amused when Antonio fervently declared his love for her after their first night in bed. She’d been equally amused by his broken heart when she told him a few months later she was leaving him for a squat businessman three times her age.
“Sorry, Antonio.” She’d shrugged. “Pierre has a new BMW and a flat in Paris. You have nothing to offer.”
“Nothing but my heart,” he’d choked out.
“Money is what matters. Money is what lasts.” She’d patted him on the shoulder like a dog. “You’re young. You’ll learn.”
And he had. Isabella had helped him see that, whatever awful flaw had caused him to be constantly rejected since he was born, it could be hidden by a big enough fortune.
He’d gotten a job on a small airfield and soon started his first airline with a single rickety, leased plane. He’d built his company through sheer tenacity and will. He’d succeeded where better-funded, better-connected men had failed.
And five years later, when Isabella had come crawling back, this time he’d been the one to be amused. He’d tilted his head, coldly looking her over. “Sorry. You have nothing to offer.”
Antonio didn’t make excuses. He didn’t give in to feelings. He controlled his own fate.
Then how to explain the inexplicable reaction now pounding through his body?
What did he want?
He wanted Hana as his mistress. But could he want more? Did he want to be a father?
A baby. Antonio tried to even imagine it. A child growing up, learning to walk and talk. Going to school. Learning sports, learning to read. A child. A son or daughter, looking up at him with smiling eyes—
“Why are you pursuing me?” Hana demanded, breaking his reverie. “I’ve already given you my answer. I won’t be your mistress. What else can you possibly hope to gain?”
“Where is Tanaka?” he said suddenly. “Why isn’t he here guarding you?”
“Ren had to leave for Osaka,” she said unwillingly.
His dark eyes gleamed. “So you told him you didn’t love him, and he couldn’t take it.”
Folding her arms over her chest, she said pointedly, “He didn’t need to guard me. I didn’t plan to see you again.”
“We need to discuss our baby—”
“My baby,” she said fiercely. “Just mine. It’s what I want. It’s what you want. So why won’t you just go?”
Pacing a few long strides across the suite’s luxurious main room, he stopped. He glanced out the windows, where twilight had begun to fa
ll. He slowly turned to face her. “I can’t.”
He was startled to see sudden tears in her eyes. “You only want me because you think you can’t have me. If I actually let you into our lives, if I tried to depend on you, you’d be gone in a second!”
“Hana—”
She turned her body away from him. “Just go. And this time, don’t come back. I mean it.”
Antonio’s hands tightened at his sides.
How could she be so unfeeling? How could she not see how difficult this was for him? He was struggling with the question of his life: Who was he as a man? Could he be more?
Then he suddenly realized.
She didn’t understand because he hadn’t told her. There was only one way to change that. Just the thought made his stomach churn. But there was only one option that was worse. Leaving Hana and his unborn child behind.
Taking a deep breath, he said hoarsely, “You’re right. I never wanted to be a father. That’s why I had a vasectomy at eighteen.”
Slowly, she turned to face him, her eyes wide.
“What did I know about fatherhood?” he continued, his jaw clenched. “I never even knew my parents. They abandoned me in a basket on the steps of a church in southern Spain the day I was born.”
“What?” she breathed.
“The nuns found me. Gave me a name. Sent me to the nearest orphanage.” The words came slow and halting from his lips. “When I was a few months old, I was brought home by a family who said they intended to adopt me. But they sent me back.”
“Back? Why?”
He shrugged. “I never learned. Maybe I cried too much. It doesn’t matter. I don’t remember them.” Every syllable tasted like rust in his mouth. “But I do remember the childless couple who brought me home when I was six. Then they got pregnant, and decided they didn’t need me. The night they sent me back to the orphanage, I made the mistake of crying about it. The older boys said they’d give me something to cry about.” Pulling back the hairline at his left temple, he revealed a raised scar. “I quit crying, all right. I was in bandages for weeks.” His lips curled sardonically. “After that, no one tried to adopt me again. I made sure of that.”
