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Right now, she had to finish setting up the shelters in Kyoto. She’d no longer stay to oversee them as she’d planned, so she had to have a system in place to make up for her absence.
To think of all the effort she’d done after she’d joined UNICEF, to come to Japan especially to set up branches of the aid organization in Tokyo. She’d long finished setting up the executive headquarters in downtown Tokyo, orchestrating relief, relocation and disaster-counseling services. She’d since been working on a few locations across Japan for shelters and rehabilitation centers for the children who’d lost family and survived trauma related to man-made crises and natural disasters, especially the most recent earthquake and tsunami. Now she’d have to drop everything and leave when she’d thought she’d stay for years to come. Her time here would be weeks at most now. Days if she could manage it.
Then she’d never be in danger of seeing Raiden again.
This time, it would be truly over.
* * *
Raiden stood gazing unseeingly from the window of his new headquarters overlooking downtown Tokyo, again trying to bring his rioting senses under control. And again he failed.
His fury was completely directed at himself. This time, she had nothing to do with any of it. It had been his fault alone that he’d succumbed to this sick need for her. Even knowing exactly what she was, or worse, not knowing anything about her, only that everything about her was a lie. And now he couldn’t stop reliving every blazing moment of his possession of her.
One thing he had to admit: they were not done.
Having her once wasn’t enough. He needed more. Had to have it. It was imperative he got her out of his system. And this wouldn’t happen by walking away and trying to clobber that need into submission. It had been consuming him for five years, but after that maddening taste of her, the fire would only rage higher, burn his sanity to ashes faster.
There was one way this could end. If he gave in to his lust to the very end, bingeing on her until he was glutted.
And he had to do it now. He needed everything resolved before his wedding. He wasn’t letting anything jeopardize his plans, starting with his own weakness. Everything he’d worked for the past ten years was at stake.
That was how long he’d been looking for his bloodline. Since his escape from The Organization. Not that he’d been doing nothing but. Since then he’d joined his brothers who’d escaped before him, and they’d set up Black Castle Enterprises together. It had taken some doing adjusting his literally deadly ninja methods to a figurative level in business. But searching for his family had remained a major concern. The one time he’d totally forgotten about his quest had been when he’d been with her in the past.
Finally, a couple of months back, with the benefit of years of research and his brothers’ help, especially the last bit of analysis Rafael Salazar had provided, he’d finally reconstructed who he was and how he’d been taken by The Organization.
But though The Organization itself had had no idea who his family was, he still couldn’t let his family know that he was their long-lost relative. He was certain The Organization had never shelved his case and might put two and two together if his origins were made public. A child lost in a tsunami returning to such a well-known family as the Hashimotos as such a high-profile adult would no doubt trigger correct deductions.
He’d already had a brush with exposure five years ago. With Hannah...or Scarlett. Now that he knew it had been Medvedev on his trail, and she’d thrown him off once, it was more imperative than ever he maintained his secrecy, or risk arousing that monster’s suspicions again.
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 thr
ough yoshi-engumi, literally “marriage and adoption,” become a mukoyoshi, 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 mukoyoshi, 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.”
