Scandalously Expecting His Child(13)

                Fury, and something else he hadn’t felt since he was a child—futility—mushroomed inside him.

                Everything she’d said was true. Any action against her now, in this delicate time, would have consequences, and the fallout would inescapably harm him. If not now, then later. Whatever impacted him, it would surely drag his brothers in by association. So he couldn’t act on the burning desire to punish her, as she’d so accurately put it.

                When he made no response, she prodded, that same chafing gentleness in her tone. “Why don’t you let me be and go about your business? Your wedding and adopting your family name are just over two months from now, and you can’t afford to let anything sabotage that.”

                She was right again. Damn her.

                But there was one thing he wasn’t backing down from. “I will let you be, on one condition. That you keep away from Hiro. I’m not letting you exploit him as you did me.”

                It seemed he had finally managed to surprise her. Her eyes, those eyes that in spite of everything he wanted to drown in, widened. “You’re really worried about him? I thought, as his number one rival, you’d welcome whatever misfortune befell him.”

                “I certainly wouldn’t. I fight my adversaries with merit. I wouldn’t want to win dishonorably.”

                “It wouldn’t be dishonorable if someone else felled him for you.”

                “It would be if I knew of his jeopardy and looked the other way. And I won’t.”

                “This is about honor, isn’t it? You’re really taking integrating into your new society to the limit, huh?”

                “You may never understand what honor is, but it’s the most important thing to me, and I would do anything to satisfy mine. Even if it means risking my plans.”

                He held her incandescent gaze as it fluctuated through the range of blue-and-violet spectrum in the softly shifting lights. He imbued his own with his contempt, and his conviction.

                She finally shook her head. “You don’t have to do that. And you don’t have to worry about Hiro. I’d never hurt him.”

                A skewer twisted in his gut. The way she’d said that... That look in her eyes... It was as if she truly cared for Hiro.

                Then the icicles of memory sank into his core, numbing the ache. She’d once looked at him with the same profound emotions. Her ability to project genuineness was unheard of. She could be doing the same now. She must be.

                “I can almost see you rejecting what I just said as more fraud.” Her eyes were opaque, her voice hushed. “I can’t do anything about that, but I can about something else. Before anyone realizes you’re here with me, leaving your fiancée back there, and you cause yourself unneeded scandal, I’ll do you a favor and do what you seem unable to do. I’ll walk away. Let me do that and you can forget all about me again.”

                With that, she strode to the door she’d entered from. At the threshold, she paused, turned, and the crisp night wind blew her hair toward him like tongues of flame.

                Before he could storm after her as every cell in his body was screaming for him to, her voice carried to him across the still warmth, lilting, husky, exactly what had poured into his brain on their transfiguring nights of passion.

                “You won’t believe this either, Raiden, but it was...nice seeing you again. This time, I at least get to say goodbye.”