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“Is any of this—” he made an encompassing gesture at her “—real? I know your past self was all an act. Is this new persona all a part of your new act?”
Instead of answering with the same directness she had till now, her eyes lowered to her plate as she resumed eating.
He ate, too, because the food was just too delicious and he was famished, and because her silence made him feel as he imagined people did when waiting for a heart-stopping twist in a movie, increasing their popcorn munching in anticipation.
Then she raised her eyes. “I never really acted with you. Apart from the pretense that I was someone...normal, with what that entailed of prefabricated and rehearsed details, everything else—my actions, my characteristics, what I said to you, what I did with you—that was all the real me.”
His heart went off like a clap of thunder in his chest.
“Yeah, sure.”
She nodded, as if accepting his ridicule. “You asked, and I answered. You’re free to take my answer or leave it.”
“I’ll leave it, if it’s all the same to you.”
“It is.”
He just bet it was.
After wolfing down the last piece of mystery food on his plate, he looked up at her again. “So what was that I just polished off? This nasu dengaku?”
/> “It’s grilled aubergine slices marinated in a mix of hacho-miso and shiro-miso pastes, and covered with ginger and toasted sesame seeds. It’s one of my favorite dishes.”
“And it just became one of mine.” He sat back in his chair. “Anything else to eat? Though it was great, it has nowhere enough calories for my so-called nuclear metabolism.”
“Of course. That was just the appetizer.”
With that she rose, and went about preparing and serving him two more courses and dessert.
All through, he struggled not to become submerged in the surreal feeling that this was the same woman he’d once wanted with everything in him, that he was sharing with her a warm, intensely enjoyable meal at home. The one thing that kept yanking him out of this false scenario was that he was getting hungrier. For her.
Before that hunger overpowered him, he rose to help her clear the kitchen. After everything had been washed, dried and put away, he turned to her.
“That was unexpected, and unnecessary, and certainly not what I came for. But thanks anyway.”
“That was appalling.” She wrinkled her nose. “You owe me no thanks, and you wouldn’t thank me even if I save your life now. But I believe you were trying to be gracious, and it only came out the opposite.”
“I wasn’t aiming at graciousness. As you pointed out, I owe you none.”
“But you owed it to your fiancée and Hiro, and you were even worse with them. And that won’t work if you want to integrate into Japanese high-class society then take it over. Politeness is paramount here, and the higher you go in society, the more vital it becomes. If you can’t act gracious with your fiancée and the man holding the ball celebrating your engagement, you’re in deep trouble.”
“Spoken as the ultimate actress that you are. Maybe I should get lessons from you.”
“Maybe you should.”
Their gazes collided and wrestled for a long minute.
Before he did what he knew he’d regret, he finally asked the question he’d told himself he’d come here to ask.
“Earlier you said you were sent to expose me as an assassin. Explain.”
She gave a dismissing shrug. “What is there to explain?”
“Everything.”
“Again? I don’t have time for your sweeping generalizations right now. So just narrow down what you want to know, please.”
Fighting the urge to roar, he hissed, “Who sent you?”
