Suddenly she almost spilled out of the limo. Her driver had opened her door. She hadn’t even noticed they’d stopped.
Pulling herself together and out of the past, she thanked him, stepped out and walked into her building.
Looking around the chic foyer on her way to the elevator and her thirtieth-floor unit, she felt thankful all over again to Hiro for making it possible for her to be here.
When she’d first come to Japan just over a year ago and tried to rent a place, she’d learned what the Japanese phrase hikoshi bimbo meant. It literally meant “moving poor.” The humongous sum of cash that renters had to dish out up front invariably left them impoverished.
Since she’d had no cash in any sums, it hadn’t been an option. After she’d met Hiro, and he’d discovered she’d been sleeping on the floor of the UNICEF regional office where she worked, he’d been appalled and insisted on accommodating her.
She’d refused to stay in his mansion, since being in someone’s debt and in their domain was anathema to her. Autonomy and seclusion were a vital necessity to her. She’d also declined the exorbitant apartment he’d gotten her near his home. He’d protested that he had billions, was still around to spend them only thanks to her. She’d argued that even if the place came for free, it was too far from her work downtown.
In the end, he’d still gotten her a “mansion,” as recently built large apartments were called in Tokyo. The place was expensive, but now that she did some part-time consulting work for him, she could accept the home in lieu of a salary.
She now entered the apartment, sighed in pleasure at feeling cocooned in its sound-insulated exquisite mixture of modern and traditional Japanese ambiance. Kicking off her towering sandals, she moaned in relief as her feet flattened against the tatami, the traditional Japanese flooring made of rice straw with a covering of soft, woven igusa straw. Walking on it was physiotherapy all unto itself.
Tossing her wrap onto the coat rack, she wanted only to fall facedown on her equally therapeutic traditional Japanese bed and descend into a deep coma. It was a small blessing she had no work tomorrow.
Hopefully, after a day in her pajamas, she’d regain a semblance of the normalcy she’d worked so hard to achieve. A normalcy that seeing Raiden had pulverized all over again.
Crossing the living room on her way to her bedroom, she suddenly stopped when an electrifying sensation skittered up her spine. All her senses went haywire, telling her she wasn’t alone. Before they could tell her more, a voice came from behind her, sending her every cell screaming.
“Welcome home, darling.”
Three
Her heart lodged into her throat, fright mingling dizzyingly with incredulity, dismay...and exhilaration.
Raiden.
He was here.
Feet away... Inches away... A breath away now.
Every nerve in her body fired in remembrance, in jubilation at the approach of the essence that had once been as familiar to her as her own. For five blazing months of pure passion and pleasure, before she’d had to sever the bond. She’d been bleeding inwardly ever since.
She had no idea how he was here. But from what she’d learned about him, in her constant search for his news, in her obsessive research of his past, she knew one thing. Raiden could do anything.