Wedding Date with the Billionaire Page 11

  They whirled to the music, photos and video capturing every move. Kento felt himself becoming more and more agitated. For her, but maybe for himself as well. Because perhaps he had to admit that he secretly did want to see where this weekend with Erin might lead. Could it be that she’d hammered cracks into his stone wall? Was it possible that he might he be able to open his heart after all? He’d become a man who got what he wanted. What was it he wanted this time? In any case, he wished that the options were not her parents’ but his and Erin’s.

  “I suppose a few years from now I’ll hear through Lucas that you produced a couple of heirs to the throne,” he egged her on. He felt her body freeze in response. She stopped dancing, forcing him to stop as well. With a smile so fake she could be a model in a toothpaste commercial, she moved to leave the dance floor.

  His jaw pulsed, him exasperated by his own lack of diplomacy, conceding that this was further proof that he was not meant to get close to someone. She must have already been upset that her father found it necessary to fly in to intercede. Kento had made it worse by not controlling his own reaction. He grabbed her hand before she could scoot away. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “It’s what you think.”

  “That may be true, but what kind of bully am I? I’m as bad as your parents.” His strong impulses toward her were making him desperate. How could he argue with her family allegiance when that was a value he respected? “It’s not right that I made you feel judged. That’s something I know far too much about myself.”

  “We sure spend a lot of time apologizing to each other, don’t we?” she asked with a half smile.

  “Let’s eat.”

  As they sat down to dinner, the first course was served: Alaskan king crab cakes. With Erin sitting at Christy’s side and Kento next to Lucas, they didn’t talk after that sharp exchange on the dance floor. He spotted Ingram and Bunny a few tables away. If either of them cared to engage in a stare down, he was more than ready. But, of course, they were too cowardly to give him more than an occasional glance.

  In accepting Lucas’s request for him to stand as best man, Kento had figured he’d be encountering both of Erin’s parents. What he hadn’t expected was discovering all of the new information that brought the musing about Erin he’d been haunted by in Tokyo into a different light. Which made her predicament a frustration he himself experienced along with her, for her. At this point, getting back on that plane to the place that was now home couldn’t come soon enough. Although his suitcase full of thoughts about Erin was going to be heavier, not lighter.

  After the entrée of beef Wellington and crispy brussels sprouts, the time for the maid of honor and best man’s most important task of the night arrived. She was to speak first, and then his speech would be a champagne toast as wedding cake was served.

  Erin stood and was handed a mic. She spoke of the serene location and how nice the ceremony was. Wished the couple every happiness and then looked over to Kento, whom she hadn’t spoken with during the meal. “Earlier, I was reviewing my speech and decided I wanted to find a quotation that was meaningful to me personally, as a gift I could give to Christy and Lucas.” The bride and groom kissed, and the guests applauded them doing so. Erin focused her eyes on Kento’s and kept them there as she finished. “Sophocles tells us that ‘one word frees us of all the weight and pain of life. That word is love.’”

  The message bulleted into Kento, making his Adam’s apple twitch. He couldn’t help thinking those were words she’d picked for him, not the newlyweds. He’d heard sentiments to that effect before, yet they’d never sounded as poignant. Could love set them free?

  The mic was passed. It was his turn. He began, “As some of you know, I live in Tokyo. So I thought I’d bring along some age-old wisdom from Japanese proverbs. The first is ‘Eat before falling in love.’” Laughter came from various directions. “I presume what the ancients meant by that is that love is all-encompassing and can command your full attention. Love is hard work. It’s not for the weak.” More chuckles came as a response. As the champagne was poured, he offered his well wishes to the happy couple.

  As Kento lifted his glass high, the guests followed suit. His eyes met Erin’s; she hadn’t taken hers off him. In fact, her stare bored into him. “And I’ll conclude with another Japanese proverb that says simply, ‘No road is too long in the company of a friend.’”

  Erin bit her lip as her eyes became glassy.

  Kento sat down.

  The cake was wheeled across the dance floor. It was a three-tiered white affair with green frosting trees decorating the sides. No doubt a tribute to the Pacific Northwest but a bit tacky, in his opinion. Slices were soon delivered to each place setting, and coffee service followed immediately after.

  At a discreet moment, Kento got up and moved behind Christy and Lucas to Erin’s chair. He leaned down and hushed into her ear, “We’ve done our job. Let’s get out of here.”

  She turned her head toward him in question. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s early. Let’s go into the city. I’ve got a boat for us.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “WHEN DID YOU arrange this?” Erin asked as Kento helped her into the limousine waiting at the lodge’s main entrance. He took a seat beside her, allowing the driver to then close the door.

  “During the beef Wellington. After I was such a jerk to you on the dance floor.” Being teased about her station in life and fidelity to her parents—as she viewed it, anyway—was no joking matter. He’d become aggravated at Ingram’s arrival as well. And wished he could do something to protect her. From her own parents? That was family drama he had no place in. Making a joke about sometime down the line hearing from Lucas that Erin had produced the heirs everyone was waiting for was a low blow he wished hadn’t snapped out of his mouth.

  “What’s this?” she asked as he slid over a large gift bag from the floor of the limo. It was gold with two handles, and the contents were hidden by bunches of shimmery tissue paper.

  “Just something I had the driver pick up from a personal shopper.”

  After a quizzical look, she yanked at the tissue, throwing it left and right, which gave him a grin. As intended, the item she pulled out was a tan-colored woolen coat.

  “I stole you away from the wedding. The least I could do is keep you warm.”

  “Just as you gave me your jacket when we walked together after the welcome dinner.” She shook her head in charmed disbelief, her smile filling him with delight. “Where are we headed?”

  There was a double meaning to that question.

  “Let’s revisit somewhere we used to go.”

  The limo delivered them to the island harbor. Kento ushered her into a private ferry he’d ordered online from his phone, which he’d cleverly hidden under the table during dinner. He’d guessed her size closely enough that the coat fit her well. After the short ride to the city dock, another limo met them there. Once they were ensconced inside, he pulled a bottle of champagne from the silver ice bucket it rested in and poured some into the crystal flutes provided on a tray.

  “To history.” He lifted his glass.

  “One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life. That word is love.”

  He didn’t know why he was toasting their sometimes painful past, only that it was something they were bound by. Shared. Together. It was genuine. Before extortions, bent realities and inevitability tore them apart, they’d passed far more good times together than bad. She was still the only woman who had affected his soul.

  With that, after they clinked glasses and sipped, he leaned right over and planted a deep kiss onto her sweet lips. Their tongues met in an intermingling that sent pleasure down his entire body. His fingers threaded through the silk of her hair as he held her head to him. One kiss led to another in a dreamy haze that he couldn’t break away from.

  “Exc
use me, sir,” the voice of the limo driver came in through the speaker. “Would you like me to continue driving without a destination?”

  Erin giggled, and then so did Kento. “We weren’t supposed to do that anymore,” he scolded her, wagging his finger like a disapproving schoolteacher. “You are too alluring!” Her sly smile in return made his chest swell.

  “Do you want to do something goofy like go to the Space Needle?” she suggested.

  Raising his glass to tap hers again, he instructed the driver to take them there.

  Memories flooded him when they reached the Seattle Center, where several of the city’s tourist attractions were located. He recalled countless times that he and Erin would lie on a blanket on one of the many patches of lawn that surrounded the Needle. The driver let them out at the entrance base. Both of them tilted their heads back to look upward at the impressive height of the tower from this vantage point.

  “We going up?”

  “Absolutely,” she answered. “I never do tourist things.”

  “And I feel like a visitor in my hometown.”

  He bought tickets, and they were soon in the elevator rocketing them over six hundred feet upward to the observation decks.

  Since the last time Kento had visited, much had been changed at the top of the Needle, including a revolving glass floor. “It’s always been an unbeatable view,” he mused aloud as he and Erin made their way around the circular deck that afforded vistas from all angles. At one point they stopped to stare silently at the cityscape, sparkling in the night sky. Without knowing if his hand reached for hers or hers for his, suddenly her velvety palm was in his grasp.

  Kento had seen the world’s sights from the sky, from atop the Empire State Building to the Eiffel Tower to Dubai’s Burj Khalifa. Yet there was nothing like this. Because Erin was next to him. “Did you know that the initial design for the Space Needle was sketched on a napkin by a hotelier?” she asked.

  “Yeah. That story was always inspiring to me. Remember how many times we used to hang out here lying on the lawn?”

  They’d come to study, to relax, to kiss, to talk.

  “I used to bring one of those blankets with the university logo printed all over it.” After spreading it open, she’d stretch out on her back, body flat to the ground. And he’d lie down as well, perpendicular, with his head on her stomach, where he’d stare idly at this space-age architectural marvel, the flying saucer in the sky.

  During those quiet times, when she’d rhythmically comb her fingers through his hair seemingly for hours on end, he’d felt completely accepted. All of the negative talk and ridicule, and sometimes humiliation, of his upbringing would disappear. The worn shoes on his feet when everybody else had a new pair each season didn’t matter. All the sneers of Erin’s sorority sisters and her parents held nothing over him in those moments.

  “In a way, those afternoons here with you were when I had the inklings of what would be my first software design.” Which launched his empire. It occurred to him, for the first time, how much he owed her for that approval. For that safe space. Without it, he wasn’t sure he’d be in the position he was. The enemies might have beaten him down after all. “We had something pretty great once, didn’t we?” he asked wistfully, both of them still looking out at the city.

  “When I was with you, I almost believed I could have anything I wanted.”

  “What would you want if there was nothing holding you back?”

  “Are you really asking?”

  “I don’t pose questions if I’m not interested in the answer.”

  “I’ll show you when we’re done here.”

  After the elevator delivered them back to terra firma, they returned to the limo. Erin called up an address on her phone and instructed the driver. Kento was intrigued.

  A bit later, the driver pulled to the curb of a mansion in the city’s Queen Anne neighborhood.

  “What are we looking at?”

  “You asked what I’d do if I could do anything. I’d buy this mansion. That’s what I’d like to pursue, acquiring historic properties. Find the really special ones. Faithfully restore them if they need it. Research chandeliers and woodwork and all the details.”

  “That’s what Barclay Properties does. Your parents and your paternal grandparents.”

  “Yes, but they give me reports to check, a bunch of numbers our accountants have already prepared. Or an office task, such as pricing new computers for employees. They’re just marking time until they can marry me off.”

  “Erin, this isn’t the olden days. You can have a meaningful career and still produce children.”

  “Tell that to them.”

  “Have you?”

  “Yes. They don’t listen.”

  “Do you ever think of just...breaking away?”

  “Of course. But where would I go? Alone.” His heart cracked for her. At how little choice she perceived herself to have. “You were the only taste of independence I’ve ever had. You encouraged me to think and say anything I wanted to.”

  “We gave each other more than we realized at the time.”

  “I wish it wasn’t too late.”

  “Is it?” What was he thinking? That there was some scenario that saw the two of them together after tomorrow? It was impossible, yet he couldn’t conceive of walking away from her again. Was it too much to dream of more? He owned a private jet and had every resource money could buy at his disposal. Perhaps he could start by returning to Seattle again in a few weeks. Maybe every few weeks. Alternately, he could fly her to him if she’d come.

  While he’d been so convinced an ongoing union wasn’t for him, spending time with Erin had made him doubt those conclusions. Could he leave the hurt behind and start a future with her? And even if he could, what about her? She was resigned to her lot, considered it her destiny. But maybe they could start slowly and get more acquainted with the adults they’d become rather than just debriefing on the past. Perhaps, in time, he could help her see her options in a new light.

  “What do you like about this property?” He decided to start getting to know her better right now.

  “I’ve toured it. Built in 1902. Ten thousand square feet. What I love—” she gestured as she spoke “—is the wraparound terraces with marble tile flooring and fantastic views. And look at those double entrance doors.”

  “Do you know a lot about real estate?”

  “Not formally. But it’s in my blood, I guess. Is it interesting to you?”

  “What’s interesting to you is what’s interesting to me. Tell me more.”

  “It’s three stories with curved wooden staircases. A massive party lounge with a built-in wooden bar. A full catering kitchen. Twenty-three original chandeliers.”

  Her enthusiasm was infectious. He couldn’t help but lean in and swoop a kiss to her cheek. The chuckle he got in return was enchanting. After she’d shown him another property she liked in Ballard, the limo driver asked through the speaker where they wanted to go next. “Just go ahead and circle the city,” Kento answered. With the privacy glass separating them from the driver and the blackout windows of the limo allowing them to look out but no one to see in, Kento knew exactly the sights he wanted to take in next.

  Leaning over, he brought a hand to Erin’s face and then kissed her other cheek with its creamy softness. His mouth found hers, and he kissed her intensely, a ravenous kiss that felt like a man’s daily bread, like something he couldn’t live without. When he’d had enough to survive for a minute, he moved down to her throat. The catch of desire he heard in her breath encouraged him on. Warm enough in the heated limo, he slid the coat he’d bought her off, first one silken shoulder and then the other.

  To think, it had only been a few hours ago when she marched down the wedding aisle in that violet gown she still wore. The one he was reaching behind her to unzip. He shimmied it down h
er body and off her and made short work of the lingerie underneath. Likewise, he slipped off her shoes. There she was for him, completely naked, gorgeous, excitement evident in her eyes. He sat back and pulled her onto his lap, him still in his tuxedo because he wanted to slowly caress and savor every inch of her before undressing.

  He poured a fresh flute of champagne and brought it to her lips for a sip. And took one himself from the exact same spot her mouth had touched. Just to provoke her response, he brought the cold flute to the skin of her neck. The tip of her tongue darted out to flick her upper lip in arousal. His teeth bared with pleasure, his loins bracing under his trousers. He drizzled a bit of the champagne onto her exposed throat only so that he could quickly lick it off. Her head fell back at the same time her spine arched to allow him even greater access.

  Eventually, with an occasional glance through the blackout windows to the downtown office buildings, he laid Erin down on the limo seat. After removing a condom from his wallet, he stripped off his tuxedo and got on top of her. The elevation to which they brought each other was far higher than the top of the Space Needle they’d just come down from.

  * * *

  “Where to now?” After the urgent merging of body and soul that Erin and Kento had just shared in the limo, she wasn’t ready to return to the wedding across the Sound at the lodge. No doubt a group of drunken revelers were still dancing, now to recorded music once the band finished. She most certainly didn’t want to encounter her parents. That could wait until tomorrow. Her mother calling her father in from out of town was yet another indignity Erin would have to add to her already full mental tote bag of similar behavior.

  No, she didn’t want to think about any of that at the moment. All she could see, breathe, feel or hear was the naked man sprawled right next to her, who was stroking her cheek with the backs of his fingers. After the fiasco with Harris, she thought she’d arrive at the wedding with a hardened heart and not susceptible to any new, or revisited, emotions. She’d greatly underestimated the magical powers of Kento Yamamoto to make her care, to make her hope, to make her imagine.