Beside me, Dax stiffened as he took her in. She was tiny with slim curves and sharp edges. Her light skin was tinted soft pink from the sunshine she’d just retreated from. She hadn’t removed her oversized, dark sunglasses even though we were inside, but I could almost guarantee her dark brown eyes had squinted in my friend’s direction before landing on me.
She put her arm through mine. “Congratulations are in order, I see.”
“You didn’t watch?” I asked with a grin.
She shook her head. “No.”
Jada Mori rarely apologized for anything. She didn’t need to. She was the star in the middle of a social circle full of elites. She led the pack, and they all scrambled after her. Except Dax.
It may have been Dax who’d brought me into the group of the world’s richest twenty-somethings, but it was Jada who’d made sure I fit. It was Jada who’d taken me shopping to buy the clothes I needed to blend in. It had been Jada who’d invited me to travel with her and stay at her family’s chateaus and mansions scattered around the globe. Dax had made me in the boating world. Jada had made me with the world’s high society.
The reason she’d done it was a splash of cold water along my back.
My joy from the water and the win slipped away.
I eyed her again. The sunglasses were for more than show.
I pulled her away from the crowd, down the bar. “What’s up?” I asked quietly.
“Ken’Ichi arrived this morning,” she said, flipping her diamond-studded phone case over and over and over on the bar.
I frowned at her nervous habit but gave a curt nod. We’d known he was showing up. I had business to discuss with him. Ken’Ichi was Tsuyoshi Mori’s first lieutenant―his Wakagashira. I’d been working for almost four years to get to this point. To have this exact meeting become a reality.
“Otōsan called at the same time. It seems my philandering ways have embarrassed the family for the last time. I am to be married off in hopes that my husband―or motherhood―will tame me,” she said.
“Were those his exact words?” I asked, concern flowing through me. Last week, the paparazzi had sneaked onto the villa’s grounds and taken a picture of her and a male companion on the balcony with more skin than clothes showing. I was the reason she’d been out there to begin with. I’d asked her to cause a distraction. I hadn’t asked her to have sex to do it, but with Jada, I should have known she’d use the one power she so deftly wielded.
“His exact words were, ‘You will marry Ken’Ichi,’” she said in a rough imitation of her dad’s strong Japanese accent compared to her almost completely Americanized one.
“Ken’Ichi,” I repeated like a moron. It didn’t shock me, and yet it did. He was in his forties and was old enough to be her father, but he was also the closest thing to a son that Mori-sama had.
Jada pulled herself from me. Before I could stop her, she’d climbed onto the bar top and called the room to order by flinging her crystal glass into a thousand pieces.
“We’re celebrating Armaud Racing’s win at my place. Gates open at nine this evening. If you don’t know who I am or where it’s at, you’re not invited.” Laughter flew through the room because the crowd allowed into the club all knew exactly who she was.
“Jada,” I said, a warning in my tone that she chose to ignore. She was poking the rabid dog.
She stumbled slightly on her way down, and it was Dax who caught her. If I hadn’t been standing right next to them, I would never have heard her whisper, “Hands off, Armaud. Wouldn’t want to taint those lily-white fingers of yours.”
A barb to her word choice that had nothing to do with his tan skin.
She pushed away and headed toward the door, calling back to me, “You coming now, Dawson? Or should I send Kaida back for you later?”
Dax and I exchanged a worried look.
“I’m coming,” I said.
I followed her out to the bulletproof sedan that Kaida Ito was driving. Part bodyguard and part chauffeur, the woman pretty much went everywhere with Jada. She was dark-haired and light-skinned with a gracefulness that spoke to her karate training, but she also had an edge to her that said Don’t fuck with me. She had a gun at her back and a knife in her boot, and Tsuyoshi