BorntobeWild (14 page)

She pulled away. “You knew?” Stared at him, her mouth
slightly open, astonishment in her clear gaze. “You arranged this, didn’t you?
Let people know where you’d be.”

“I might have tweeted to Beverley before we left,” he
admitted. “Forgot to make it a private message.”

Two burly men stepped forward to flank them. Riku nodded to
them. “Is the restaurant clear of fans?”

“Yes. You have a large table in the middle. You could have
had the place to yourselves.”

“It’s okay, I didn’t want that.” He didn’t. No privacy
allowed, no chance for his mother to berate him or his father to express his
disappointment. They wouldn’t do that in public. Appearance was everything.

“Bastard.” That was Cyn, moving close to speak into his hair
so nobody could lip-read. She was learning fast what it meant to be in the
public eye.

Looping his arm loosely around her waist, he rested his hand
on her hip, partly to avoid her bruises and partly to demonstrate her position
with him. Her importance. He remembered other times, other restaurants and
scenes of madness. Unlike the women he’d escorted then, Cyn gave every impression
of dislike, her face stiff as a poker, her stance carefully graceful. Her stage
face. He hadn’t seen it for a long time. Over eight years. She’d always looked
like this before a performance.

She realized it before he did. Heedless of the spectators she
faced him. “You arranged this. You didn’t tell me. Why not?”

He watched her stand up to him in front of all these people
and recalled the one who had attacked him last night. “It’s complicated.”

“A bit like throwing me in at the deep end?” Her mouth curled
in a sneer. She obviously didn’t think much of that idea.

“That’s part of it.”

“And the other?”

“I’m a public figure. I can’t stop them.” He wouldn’t tell
her he hadn’t planned on so many. Just a few and some photographers. Yet again,
he’d misjudged the band’s popularity. He still found it hard to believe. There
must be a hundred people here, standing behind the barriers. He knew this
restaurant could cope with celebrities and the rich. “When they picked this
place they wanted to show me I wasn’t so popular. Entertain me on their ground,
control the situation.”

Her expression softened slightly. “But you played up to
them.”

“What else can I do? Turn up in jeans and a cheap T-shirt? I
could have done that but nothing would have changed. They’d still be standing
here.” He loved her turn of phrase. She’d turn him Brit if he wasn’t careful.
He already used some of her curses and phrases, calling freckle-faced redheads
ginger
and talking about
teatime
. She made him smile but he never
underestimated her. Part of her Britishness was pure marketing shtick, like his
clothes and the moodiness. Although he’d certainly felt moody when he first
played with the band.

“And that’s what you meant by ‘show time’. You should have
told me, Riku.”

He raised a freshly shaped brow. “You’d have come still?”

“Y-yes.” He spotted the moment she realized. She’d have been
nervous, would have behaved more circumspectly, might have worn something other
than the freaky, gorgeous necklace festooned with found objects and precious
carvings. Another more considered piece maybe. He didn’t want that. He’d have
given her his necklace if she’d refused to wear one.

After the attack nerves could have taken her far worse than
they were now and she might have refused to come, or used the back entrance of
the restaurant. As it was she exited the taxicab straight into their arms and
Chick had assured them the attacker was just one guy with a stupid idea. It was
as safe as it would ever be.

“We have to do this, Cyn. Not hide away.”

Abruptly he turned, placed his hand on the small of her back
to guide her inside.

The door opened and Riku nodded to the man holding it before
he saw the maître d’ calmly waiting for them. With a professional smile as good
as Riku’s own he guided them into the main room and to the table in the center.
There, uncomfortably waiting sat his family.

They stared. At him. He coolly ignored them until he’d
helped Cyn to sit. At least they’d seated them together. He wouldn’t have put
it past his mother to put them at either end of the table. Not that he’d have
allowed it to happen.

He shook hands with his father and sat, sweeping the long
part of his coat aside like a Regency gentleman.

“Nice to see you all. How long has it been?” Riku asked.

His mother uttered the magic number. “Eight years. We’ve all
been so busy.” She gave an artificial laugh. “Your guest—”

“Cyn.”

His mother frowned. “I refuse to call anyone Sin. What’s her
real name?”

Cyn spoke before Riku could. “My full name is Cynthia.
Nobody calls me that, not even my mother.”

“Then I shall be an exception.” Riku’s mother gave her a
frosty smile. “A pretty name. A shame to distort it.”

Oh yes, he understood this ploy. The criticism. He
remembered it well. Not what she said but how she said it and what she meant. “I
like it,” he said.

His mother turned her chilly gaze to him. “I’m sure you do.”
Her mouth smiled but her eyes did not. “However, I believe rock stars are
allowed their foibles.” With an indulgent smile, she dismissed him as if he
were a child. She returned her attention to Cyn. “Let me introduce you.”

Ten other people sat at the table. His two younger sisters
and their spouses, his parents and his two brothers with their wives. All
safely married, all the women sporting solitaire diamond rings slotted over
gold bands. They wore expensive but safe clothes, although his sister Tae wore
an acid-green blouse under her staid business suit. He picked her out once
introductions were done. “You look great, Tae. You’re what, nineteen now?” So
young to marry and further the family’s ambitions.

Her husband Maxwell, a financier he thought his mother had
said, gave her a sweet smile. “I told her she did. Time she wore something she
actually liked,” he said.

Riku suffered a shock. Could it be his sister had married
for reasons other than generating wealth and power? The Shiraishi family was
all about creating a power base. Marriages were contracted, not made for any
other reason. His parents were the result of an alliance arranged by their
parents.

He refused to go the same way and eventually refused
spectacularly. He’d rejected the place made for him—respectable artist, so his
parents had cast him aside and refused to help him. Not that he’d asked.

Pushing aside unwanted memories, he set himself to reconnect
with his siblings and their partners. They stared at him as if he’d dropped in
from another planet. So he settled on, “What have you all been doing with
yourselves?”

The waiter brought their starters, platters of hors d’oeuvres
that he settled carefully in the center of the table. “You chose for me?” Riku
asked mildly.

“We’re having a variety of dishes served,” his mother said.

Riku nodded. He’d had enough of his family making his
decisions for him. Or trying to.

The recitation came much as he expected. He lounged in the
stiff-backed chair as best he could and watched the other guests in the
restaurant. The central table sat under a huge Tiffany-style light, reminding
him of the spotlight that focused on him every night.

No, no more, not for a while, apart from the occasional
appearance. No more moving from one hotel to another, no more sleeping in
uncomfortable beds. When he went to Chicago for the studio sessions he’d
already decided to lease an apartment. It looked as if Matt would produce their
albums for some time to come, so it made sense to have somewhere he felt
comfortable, rather than another hotel room. He’d had enough of those.

Without conscious thought he reached for Cyn’s hand. She
took it, curling her fingers around his briefly before releasing them. She
accepted a plate of something brightly colored and bristling with cocktail
sticks from Miwako, sitting on her left. She took one and passed it to Riku,
who passed it on. He’d prefer to have something simple. Elaborate food made him
antsy, especially pretentious elaborate food.

“You’re a jeweler now?” his mother asked. She knew damn well
what Cyn did, had made a comment about it the last time they met. That was such
a conversational ploy, Riku ground his teeth. He lifted his wineglass and took
a swig, uncaring that everyone else was sipping. He needed something a bit
stronger but wine would have to do. This meal made him want to fidget like a
child, although his outfit, while outrageous, was perfectly comfortable. He’d broken
family affairs like this all his life. As a child he’d fidgeted and protested
and shouted but nobody had listened to him ever. Not even about music. He was
told what he should appreciate, what was acceptable, the prestigious composers
and pieces. Thank Christ Zazz had broken that for him, with his passion for
music.

Cyn mentioned her stores and her products and touched her
necklace. She was doing so well. The waiters came and replaced the starters
with more substantial meals. Riku took some chicken and gnocchi, figuring he
could push it around his plate a bit and send out for pizza when they got home.
Normally he liked chicken and gnocchi but this didn’t look right, the chicken
cut into fancy shapes, the gnocchi made into spirals and a cube or two. He preferred
his food to look like what it was. If that made him a philistine, he was sorry
but he decided this place was more fashion than substance. Expensively
furnished and meticulously arranged, every inch of it. But totally tasteless.

He could put up with it for Cyn. He wanted her to feel
accepted, even if she didn’t feel welcome. But he’d arrived in this mild
version of a visual kei outfit and they’d stared at him as if he belonged in an
asylum. All of them, although they’d masked their expressions carefully in a
second or two. Just long enough for him to register their disapproval. Nicely
done.

They hadn’t changed.

“Interesting designs but wouldn’t wedding and evening pieces
generate more profit?” Mrs. Shiraishi asked.

“It depends how you define the profit,” Cyn said. “The
adventurous pieces are on trend and hard to copy because they’re handcrafted.”
She glanced at Riku, as if gathering courage. “And traditional wedding designs
would bore me rigid. I don’t believe in doing what you should do because you think
that’s what people expect. I believe in going where your enthusiasm and passion
leads you.” She gave a bright smile, beaming. “After all, we can’t go back, can
we?”

His father spoke. Usually he let his mother take the lead
but with her last statement Cyn had declared war, whether she knew it or not. “If
our passion is also our ordained path, why rebel against it?”

“You love making screws for machines?” Riku asked. His
father had never shown any passion for anything except maximizing profit.

“Indeed I do.”
No, he didn’t.
“Furthermore, we are
renegotiating with our Japanese counterparts. You would not know this, Riku,
but we have many contacts in Japan these days. We initiated the links when the
Japanese economy began to soften a few years ago.” He inclined his head. “To
answer your question, the challenges are interesting.”

Interesting.
Good word. Useful. Not descriptive of
love though. Challenges, another useful word. His father didn’t mean facing his
opponent in the tiltyard, although he’d give a substantial amount of money to
see that happen. “You have an advantage in dealing with the Japanese.”

“We do.”

A sudden, jarring scream of “Riku!” from the direction of
the restaurant entrance echoed through the relative quiet, wreaking aural havoc
with the gentle light classical music playing in the background and the quiet
hum of conversation. Then silence again. Riku didn’t move. Everyone else at the
table including Cyn started and the smooth expressions disappeared for a
moment.

Riku watched, as he always did when something interested
him. He marked the sounds and the different pitches because the sound delved
deep inside him to a part he needed to discover more about. For his music.
Nothing else. He turned aside any consideration he might have felt something,
until he caught himself doing it automatically. Because he always did. No other
reason except his psyche was protecting itself from harm.

So what lay behind that part of him he never explored? Why
did the single, uncontrolled shriek remind him of something from his childhood?
Try as he might he couldn’t remember a specific example. He’d buried the
memories too deep. He recognized the desperate cry. To be loved, to be wanted,
to feel
something
.To get a response.

A realization shot through him with the strength of an
epiphany but it needed more consideration. Not here, not now but at least he’d
recognized a part of him he needed to explore and resolve. Swallowing, he
turned to Cyn.

She was waiting for him. She smiled, just for him, then she
turned to the rest of the table. “This happens all the time. He has to live his
life through this.”

“He chose it,” his mother snapped.

That gave him a cue to smile. “Yes, I did. I chose it.”

He watched her force the responding smile to her face,
smooth her skin as if an invisible hand had done it. Creepy. “Several people
have enquired about you, my son. My friends are impressed by what you have done
and their children know all about you.”

“You want me to meet them?” Not a difficult logical step to
take.

“Yes. Several young ladies. There is one I think you will
like. Suzi Fukushima. She went to Harvard but she has a great interest in
modern music. She is eager to meet you.”

Riku froze in shock. If he wasn’t mistaken, his mother was
matchmaking. “Trying to bring me back to the family fold, Ma?” He used the word
deliberately, enjoyed the slight twitch of one thin, dark brow when it hit
home. She didn’t encourage familiarity. Calling her
Mom
was strictly
banned once the child reached double figures.
Mother
and even her given
name were preferred. For that reason, Riku never did it.
Ma
seemed to
annoy her the most. Good, because she had annoyed him.