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I barely noticethe quiet slide of the patio doors sliding open. I can’t see who it is but I know it’s him. The staff would never come in through those doors. The room has low luminescence with just candlelight and the glow from my MacBook.
He towers over me in his bare feet as I sit cross-legged on the floor. Craning my neck, I look up to the hard visage of his face. The cruel cast eclipses everything soft that could have been there. All kindness and softness is wiled away. His nostrils flare.
“Hi,” I say, closing the laptop and sitting it beside me. In one fluid motion he takes up residence beside me, though he doesn’t respond.
Silently he takes in the room before him, the one that was supposed to be a cage I’ve made my own. He sighs deeply. “We leave tomorrow for Japan to go see what ails Mother.”
Heart tripping, I move to get up from my position. Though I dread facing his mother again I still don’t hesitate. I won’t fail him this time. I won’t have him face the possibility of losing his only parent alone no matter how horrible she was to me before. From her perspective I can see all she was trying to do was protect her son from what she perceived as a gold digger, wrong though she was. I get it.
He stays me with a hand on my shoulder. Shaking his head, he gives me a little smile. “Kiyoshi and I will be going. You will stay here.” Relief and disappointment mingle as my mind plays out the various scenarios. If she’s sick, they probably don’t want to do anything to further aggravate her condition.
“Okay.” I can’t quite quell my disappointment at his words. I look anywhere but at him, not liking the feeling, any suspicion niggling in my mind.
Eyes narrowing on me, he watches me with unwavering acuity. “You are upset about me not taking you with me.”
“N-no.” Shaking my head, I hate that my heart has me making this about me. “Not really, you just took me to Paris,London, and New York before that, I’m fine,” I hurry to add, looking at his darkening expression. “I know that your family comes first.” With that I clamp my mouth shut, quitting while I’m ahead, feeling like a ruddy-pooh.
Impossibly he looks angrier. Reaching out he cups my chin with deceptive gentleness. “And just who is supposed to be my family if not my wife?”
“Your brother, sister, mother —” I stop at the slow shake of his head.
“Unto you I plight my troth, isn’t that what your people say? A man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife?” He chuckles bitterly. “Isn’t that your tenant, wife? Don’t tell me I know it better than you. Is that why it was so easy for you to do what you did? You never meant the words you insisted we speak. I told you what seeing my tattoo meant. Itoldyou once you saw my tattoo there was no going back. I meant that shit then, I mean it now. It doesn’t matter if a thousand oceans separate us. You are mine. Fucking. Mine.” He gives me a little shake with those last two words.
“I know.” Covering his wrist, I feel the way the veins stand out on his hand. His grip doesn’t tighten or bruise, but he doesn’t let me go, either. If anything, his eyes glitter with a maniacal light.
“I didn’t want to seem selfish when you’ve done so much.” Rubbing up and down his arm, I can feel the intensity vibrating beneath the surface. He’s doing a good job of keeping his emotions reined in, but they are pulsing beneath the surface, calling for me to soothe him.
“See, that’s where you are wrong, Tay-chan. I haven’t done enough. Not nearly enough. I should have come to you sooner. I should have gotten myself together long before now. Been the man you deserved from the start?—”
“No.” Tears spill free. I cover his lips hushing those mean words. “Don’t you dare. You had no control of that.”
Curving his face into my hand he kisses my palm. “I should have, little dove.”
“You couldn’t Hisashi, you just couldn’t.” Coming to my knees, I press my own kisses to his face. I pepper kisses on his hard jaw and little pecks on his lips.
“We are here now. Let us be here now, babe.” My hands grip harder, I feel the tensing flex in his in response. My heart drops, soul plummets.
He closes his eyes damning us for a hard moment with a negative shake of his head. The look in his eyes is final. We can’t because he won’t. I am his captive. His plaything nothing more. Too much has happened.
“Please.” A dark abyss of onyx nearly swallows me whole with every misery he’s ever experienced with all the pain and recrimination we still have between us and secrets—so many secrets he’s still keeping from me because he hasn’t found a safe place with me nor I with him. In that moment my heart is torn asunder by a truth I’ve only just realized. We haven’t earned each other yet.
My hands fall. Crushing disappointment burns my flesh like I’ve stepped in a fire ant hill.
He pulls back regarding me through veiled lids, keeping his secrets close.
My mother said, “Trust broken is irrevocable.” Breaking the promises I made when I saw his tattoo and our vows caused a chasm between us I fear we won’t ever be able to come back from.
Scooting back I pull together the tatters of my pride and face him. “When will you be back?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know.” He looks at me, all emotion wiped away. “We don’t know the full extent of her illness. My sister isfrantic, and that is what troubles me. My mother would not lie to her about an illness, not only that my sister is with her every day. She says my mother was visibly trying to hide the signs of her illness. It wasn’t until she fainted during a luncheon with Kiyoshi’s fiancé that anyone was aware of her decline. This is why we must make haste.”
“I understand. When are you leaving?” I ask, moving to stand.
“Tonight.” A swift hand reaches out pulling me back down.
His mouth is a hard line. “You will not try to leave. You will not give the staff any problems with not eating. I will still be watching you and don’t think any distance will prevent me from punishing you when I return if your behavior is not that of a good biddable wife.”
“You are being ridiculous.” Snatching my hand from his grasp I’m appalled by his awful words. “Biddable? This is not the eighteenth century, Hisashi. How dare you?” I rail at him wondering how I let myself forget for any length of time exactly who I’m dealing with. A man who’s kidnapped me, keeping me from my family, organized for my parents to be sent out of the country and told not to expect me. He has me on lockdown twenty-four-seven at his every whim, fucking me at his will, dressing me like his little doll, and now demanding I be a happy docile, biddable wife.
