Scandalously Expecting His Child(2)
It was galling he’d have to resort to this measure to...rise to the occasion, but he was brutally pragmatic. He’d resort to whatever worked. Hopefully only once. With careful timing, it might be all it took to impregnate Megumi.
After conception, it was another major relief that most Japanese wives in arranged marriages mostly retreated to their own quarters, with their lives from then on revolving around their baby. From what he’d been hearing about the society that was still alien to him, in the kind of marriage he was entering, it was accepted that a husband’s role was as a sperm donor and financier. His wife mostly relegated him to public social activities and appearances, with his intimacy sought again only when another baby was needed. Which was exactly the kind of marriage he wanted. The only kind he could stomach.
He looked at Megumi as she graciously smiled at another congratulator and wondered at his intense aversion to the idea of sex with her. If anyone knew he thought having sex with such a beauty was such a terrible fate, they’d question his virility. If they knew he’d have to invoke another woman’s memory to go through with it, they’d think him pathetic. If they knew that woman had been a fraud, they’d question his judgment. But if they knew that not even finding out the truth about her had lessened her hold over him, it would totally decimate the uncompromising identity he presented to the world.
Not that anyone would ever learn of her. Or of any of his other dark secrets. He’d accumulated unspeakable ones during the twenty years when he’d been The Organization’s slave. It was imperative the persona he’d built since his escape ten years ago remained unimpeachable. He wasn’t letting anything threaten his chances of reclaiming his heritage.
To that end, he had to follow this society’s rules until they became second nature to him. As they were to Megumi and her family. The family that had no idea he was one of them.
They’d never find out he was. But he would become one of them. He’d become a Hashimoto through marriage to—
Suddenly, a jolt speared through his body. It originated at his nape and forked down to his toes.
But the all-out alarm wasn’t one of danger. He was versed in recognizing threats. This red alert was one of awareness.
Without any change in expression or posture, he threw the net of his senses out before yanking it back, eliminating everything but the source of the disturbance.
The next second, Megumi gripped his forearm.
He frowned. Megumi never touched him. So had his reaction been in anticipation of her touch? But why would she suddenly wring such a jarring response from him?
Turning his gaze down to her, he was relieved to feel no reaction to her sight and now touch, as usual. But the awareness searing through him was intensifying. It took all his control not to look around for its origin.
“Matsuyama-san is approaching.”
So that was why she’d grabbed him so urgently—to draw his attention to the approach of their host. Hiro Matsuyama. The man who’d gone all-out holding this ball in his mansion. And his bitterest business rival in Japan.
It still felt weird being honored by an adversary. But that was an expected ritual in Japan. A necessary one even. Tradition and decorum were valued above all in business as in society. It would take him a while to get used to that, along with everything else, as he hadn’t been raised Japanese.
But then, he hadn’t been raised at all. From the age of four years old, he’d been forged. Into a lethal weapon.
He let adversaries glimpse that side of him to keep them in check, showing them what they were really up against. But though Hiro posed his biggest business threat, compared with the monsters Raiden had vanquished in his time, Hiro was harmless. No, his senses couldn’t be going haywire to herald his approach.