A Gentleman in the Street (31 page)

A stab of sorrow hit her heart. Kevin? One of her own had betrayed her?

She pushed her hurt aside to deal with the shark standing in front of her. “Why did you do this? You hated being a hotelier. You don’t know anything about this industry.”

Her father cast a measuring glance at her hand. Carefully, she uncurled her fist and flexed her fingers. “You know why.”

Of course she knew why. Ever so slightly, her shoulders slumped. “You want something from me.”

“You could have answered my phone calls,” the man pointed out gently. “And we wouldn’t have to play this ridiculous game.”

“This seems like a high price to pay to get me to guest star on your show.”

Self-satisfaction oozed out of him. And why not? He had the upper hand. “Oh, no. Not guest star. We’re thinking semi-regular. I’ve even negotiated an opening credit for you.”

He sounded like she should be happy. Was he delusional? She linked her hands together to stop their trembling. “Are ratings that bad?”

“I prefer to be proactive. They’ve offered Brandy,” he said, referring to Chloe’s daughter, “her own spin-off. She’s a big part of the ratings grab. I can’t chance the new baby will be enough to pull viewers in.”

Akira experienced a momentary pang of sympathy for her unborn half-sibling. She couldn’t say much for her childhood, but at least she hadn’t been a tool to score big with Nielsen. “But I will?”

His lips twisted. “People find you fascinating. For whatever reason. You only need to come in a few times a season. You barely have to think. The producers manage most of the scenes.”

So much for reality television. “Oh, is that all?”

“This will benefit you as well. We can discuss compensation. Plus, there’s no price you can put on this kind of publicity.”

“I assume,” she bit off, “you will also immediately back off this gentlemen’s agreement you have with Anderson.”

“And recommend he close the deal with you.” Her father spread his hands. “We all win, Akira.”

“This is an expensive risk you took,” she remarked. “If I tell you to go fuck yourself in the ass, you’re stuck with a hundred underperforming bars in Europe.”

He looked unbothered by that thought. “I have the money to burn, and it won’t be the first time I’ve jettisoned some establishments. Hell, maybe it could even be a nice inheritance for your little brother and sister.”

For a second, she considered his offer. She could open her own places in every market where Anderson was doing business, but that would take her years, and she’d be competing with this chain for market share.

This purchase would rocket her to the next level. Finally, the Mori name could mean something great again, not the punch line of a semi-scripted TV show. She would be able to stand for something.

All she had to do was bend to her father’s will.

The silence ticked around them, the air in the enclosed elevator quickly growing hot.

A thin trickle of sweat ran down Akira’s back.
Bend. What does it matter?
Everything came with a condition. Love was a weakness, used to exploit, used as a carrot and a whip to force compliance. There wasn’t a single thing in life that came without strings.

Her fingers closed on the supple leather of her purse.
If you let me, I could love you.

I won’t turn you away.

There had been no strings in Jacob’s note. No strings on his friendship, or his body. He had simply opened himself up to her, leaving the choice of grabbing him in her hands.

Can’t care about him, can’t let him see, because…

Because why?

Because someone will use him to manipulate you.

Like Jacob’s rock-solid strength would ever permit anyone to use him as a pawn.

Because he could use your feelings to manipulate you.

Like his honor would ever let him dangle the promise of his love out of her reach while she grasped for it.

She inhaled, her world coming into laser-sharp focus, every priority slotting into place. So she was going to lose the business she had hoped to purchase. There were more bars in the world, and if her father wanted to fight her on every damn one, so be it. She was on guard now.

There was only one Jacob, and the only one stopping her from having him was herself.

Strength filled her, shoring up the parts she hadn’t known had weakened at some inexplicable point.
I could love you.

“Keep the bars,” she enunciated every word. “I’m not playing this game.”

Confusion spread over her father’s face. Had he expected her to fall apart and take his ridiculous deal?

He clearly hadn’t bargained with her in a long, long time.

“You think I’m bluffing.”

“On the contrary, I’m hoping you’re not. I remember how much you despised running a business. The constant demands on your time, the millions of boring minute details?” She gave him a nasty grin. “Buy the damn things. I give it maybe three months before you’re looking to unload them.”

“Not to you, I won’t.”

She lifted her shoulder. “I have more money and power than you could imagine, because I earned it. Because I know how to work my ass off.” She flicked her fingers at him. “Seriously. Keep them. I can easily crush you.”

“This isn’t over—”

“It is over. Because if you pull a stunt like this again, I swear I will call every reporter I know and tell them that delightful little story of how you forced my mother to give birth to me. That would be some lovely publicity when you’re gearing up for the birth of your new child, hmm?”

He stilled. “What?” His thin lips barely moved.

She smiled, but there was no amusement in the gesture. “Oh, yeah. She told me, about a year before she died.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. Mei—”

“Mei didn’t want children. But your clock was ticking, so you lied and told her she wouldn’t get pregnant. Then came me. Surprise.”

Her father made a visible effort to bring himself under control. “I hardly locked her in a dungeon.”

“No,” she said, a strange sort of calm settling over her as she cut this cancer out. There was no room for anything but complete control. “But she was nineteen. You were thirty-two. You knew exactly how to emotionally browbeat her, didn’t you?”

He fiddled with the cuffs of his sleeves, straightening the suit. “You have no proof of any of this.”

“Maybe not. But you’d be surprised how ready the media would be to believe someone who has literally nothing to gain.” She paused. “I may also have a couple of Mei’s diaries. I haven’t read them yet. But how much do you want to bet they chronicle the life she had to live with you.” Her smile wasn’t pretty. “You could say a lot about Mei, but people respected the hell out of her.”

His face mottled with color. His next words were the equivalent of waving a white flag. “I should have let her get rid of you. If my father hadn’t been harassing me for an heir—”

“You didn’t want an heir. You wanted a brainless puppet.”

“Better a puppet than a slut.”

“Oooh.” Akira tilted her head and smiled. “Are we resorting to your pet names already? Frankly, Daddy, I’d rather be a slut for sex than a whore for fame.”

Quick as a flash, his hand wrapped around her upper arm. His grip was too hard, the fingers digging into her flesh. “You listen to me, you little…”

Blocking the pain, she glanced up at the unobtrusive camera in the corner of the elevator. “Careful, Daddy. Your cameras may not be in here, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t being watched. How would manhandling your daughter play to your viewers?”

He released her immediately and took three steps back, until he was plastered against the opposite wall. She looked at him, really looked.

He was old. Old and pathetic. He thought her business was at the center of her heart, so he had attacked it. Dumb. She loved her work, but if she lost it tomorrow, she would recover. Rebuild her empire.

The same couldn’t be said of Jacob.

No, her father would never be able to hurt her, ever. He couldn’t know what was in her heart because he had no idea how to have a heart.

Hiro breathed deep, his face mottled. “You’re an idiot. This is going to set your business plan back.”

It probably would, but she could manage that. Contrary to what so many people believed, she was no stranger to rolling up her sleeves. “So it gets set back.” She pushed the emergency button to resume the elevator operation.

“You think I don’t know how hard you’ve tried to prove yourself to me?”

“Yeah. I’m done with that. We’re done,” she said, her voice so cold and stiff her father made no response. “You never contact me again. Never look at me again.”

He was silent until they reached the ground floor. As the door opened, she heard his bitter words. “So self-righteous. You are no better than me. You can try for the rest of your life, but you’ll never be better than me.”

Her fingers slipped over her purse. “That’s where you’re wrong.” As she spoke, the truth washed over her, filling her with confidence. “Listen up, Pops. You got lucky today, but for future reference... I won’t strike first, but I will strike back. Hard. Probably best for you to keep that in mind.”

She dropped her sunglasses over her face. Her feet picked up speed, until she was running as fast as her heels would allow by the time she cleared the huge glass double doors and spilled onto the crowded sidewalk. Yes, she was better than that man.

And she deserved the best.

“What do you mean, he’s not here?”

Ben stared at Akira from inside the door to Jacob’s home. “Ah. I’m sorry. He’s not here right now.”

Akira closed her eyes. This was not a part of the script. Jacob was supposed to be home when she came to her senses, like a steadfast rock. Rocks didn’t roam.

“Well, where is he?” Her voice rose higher on the last syllable, despite her best effort to appear her normal, unflappable self.

To be fair, that was probably already a lost cause. She’d hopped on a plane from New York to San Francisco, rented a car since Harris was now investigating her driver, and driven straight here. Her hair was disheveled, falling out of the bun she’d hastily tucked it into, and her clothes had definitely been far more crisp at eight a.m. eastern time. She supposed she could have freshened up, but all she’d managed to do for the past however many hours was repeatedly call Jacob’s phone—which went straight to voicemail.

Ben cocked his head and studied her. “Do you want to come in for a minute?” he asked, not answering her extremely important question.

No. She didn’t want to come in. She wanted Jacob. “Is he at his cabin?”

“Nope.” He stood away from the door and gestured. “I think you should come in.”

God, did she look like such a mess that the kid had to use that coaxing tone on her?

Man, not a kid, she corrected herself. Her relationship with the other Campbells was different from her relationship with Jacob, simply because she didn’t see them as often. In her head, Ben would forever be thirteen, a pimply teenager she had been peripherally aware of.

She’d always thought he was the easiest of the Campbells to like, an impression reinforced by the stories Jacob had recently shared with her about his siblings. A little less intimidating than either of his brothers, Ben was shorter and more muscular, with a ready gentleness in his eyes. The brawn, Jacob had called him, but it was brawn combined with a mischievous kindness.

She scrubbed her eyes, prepared to throw herself on that kindness. “Ben—”

“It’s cold outside, and you aren’t even wearing a jacket.” A heavily calloused hand closed over her elbow and guided her inside before she could protest further.

She automatically looked down at her thin blouse and skirt, her suit jacket having been misplaced at some point during her frantic cross country return trip. It was chilly, but she’d been chilly since she’d left Jacob lying in her bed, so really, what difference did it make? “I was on the East Coast this morning.”

“Ah, that explains it. Are they experiencing that spring I hear so much about?”

“Yeah, I…” She trailed off, realizing Ben had led her through the foyer and into the kitchen so quickly she had barely processed where she was going or what the interior of the house looked like. She eyed him, reconsidering her initial impression of his smarts.

Ben’s smile was innocent. “The others are right out back. Here.” He shrugged off his hoodie and draped it around her shoulders, before opening the back door.

Others? She balked at the doorstep and clutched Ben’s well-worn sweatshirt, not eager to have to deal with Jacob’s entire family. “Ben, if you could…”

“They might know where Jacob is.”

“
Do
they know where he is?” she snapped.

“They might.”

She gritted her teeth at the stubbornness she could suddenly see underlying the man’s genial kindness. Ben wouldn’t tell her anything until he was good and ready.

Sure, she could hop in her car and try the cabin, but what if Jacob wasn’t there? A wild-goose chase was the last thing she needed right now. “Awesome,” she muttered.

He didn’t comment on the sarcasm in her tone, merely gestured for her to precede him.

Like most houses in this neighborhood, the first floor was a full story up from street level. At the landing outside, she stopped, looking down at one of the most beautiful gardens she had ever seen. Small but lush, it was so riotous with color she was startled out of her one-track search for Jacob. “You did this?”

Ben’s grin was pleased. “Yup. Me and Connor. Well, I did the heavy lifting, of course.” He leaned over the railing. “Hey, guys, look who’s here!”

Left with little choice, movement restricted by her narrow skirt, Akira followed Ben down the metal staircase.

The rest of Jacob’s family was sitting around a sturdy but inexpensive patio table tucked under the overhang of the stairs. Kati stared at her, her pretty round face slack with surprise and curiosity. Connor’s reaction was more restrained. He sat back in his chair and crossed his ankle over his knee, watching her with an assessing look.

There was a third person sitting there, a skinny, young kid wearing a bow tie. The boyfriend. Damon? Darrell?