And he also couldn’t risk his newfound family finding his origins. The Hashimotos were among a handful of families in Japan that were second only to the imperial family in lineage, their bloodline reaching back over a thousand years into Japan’s history. If they found out anything of his past, they’d reject him irrevocably. They wouldn’t care that it hadn’t been of his choosing. They had only samurai in their lineage. Ninjas were anathema to them.
But all his life he’d dreamed of reclaiming his family name, of taking his rightful place at its head and in Japanese society, upholding the traditions he’d been meant to, if not for the disaster that had robbed him of his family and left him prey to those who’d exploited him for twenty years. Nothing would prevent him from reaching his goal now.
But since it was out of the question letting his family know he was his father’s heir and the rightful head of the family, he’d concocted another plan that would secure his goals without divulging his real identity.
That plan had come to him while researching Japanese society. He’d found out that adult adoptions were the most prevalent form of adoption in Japan, especially with the son-in-law taking his wife’s family name and becoming their heir. Since his father’s second cousin, Takeo Hashimoto—now the head of the family—had one unmarried daughter, he’d decided to marry her, and through yōshi-engumi, literally “marriage and adoption,” become a mukoyōshi, an adopted husband.
He’d put his plan in motion a month ago, coming to Japan to dangle himself in front of Takeo, a tycoon any family would do anything to have as mukoyōshi, providing the strongest heir possible and taking the family’s position and power to new levels. He’d been certain his uncle would make an offer. And he had. He’d offered Megumi, the family name and leadership and the helm of its current businesses.
After pretending to refuse, then to need persuasion, Raiden had accepted. And he was finally weeks away from reclaiming all he’d lost, everything that was rightfully his.
The one thing in the way now was his obsession with Scarlett. There was no other option but to get rid of it.
* * *
In an hour, he was sitting in the back of his limo, his American driver-cum-head bodyguard standing outside for a smoke. He allowed it only since he couldn’t smell him through the airtight partition. And because Steve was the best.
Nothing on his level, of course. But the best in the private security world.
Suddenly he sat up, his senses on alert. The next second, he saw her step out of the building they were parked in front of.
He’d again felt her before he’d seen her.
Scarlett saw him the moment he saw her, stopped.
Holding her gaze across the distance, he threw the door open. “Get in.”
After a moment of stillness, she walked to the limo, her steps graceful, tranquil. The crowds going and coming on the pavement parted for her, everyone turning to look in fascination at the gaijin woman who looked like a living splash of color among the mostly two-tone population.
When she reached the limo, he slid across the backseat, making space for her, and watched greedily as she lowered her lush, elegant body beside him. Her heat and scent enveloped him, made hunger writhe inside him.
She looked different today, yet another woman. Nothing like last night’s femme fatale. A working woman with practical clothes, a scrubbed-clean face and a prim ponytail. She could have been wearing the most outrageous lingerie or even been naked and on erotic display from the way his hormones hurtled in scalding torrents in his arteries.