I Just Can't Stop Loving You (25 page)

Yori pulled both Takumijo and Satoshi away from the window.

****

Cristal had just turned out her light for the night when she heard her drunken friends coming down the hall. Damn, she wished she would have gone out with them instead of fighting off Tae for the last couple of hours. She looked over at the clock on the nightstand. “One.” She sighed. Well, at least they hadn’t been escorted home by the police.

Cristal closed her eyes. Tae had turned in early after striking out with her. She just didn’t see him in a romantic capacity, even though he bore a striking resemblance to Satoshi. The fact that she didn’t trust him either played a lot on the decision she had made tonight. She knew his only interest in her was hurting Satoshi and making a name for himself. But, not even she was foolish enough to fall for it. Luckily, he took the rejection easy enough and went up to his hotel room to pack. After he left, she telephoned her family in California to wish them a happy Thanksgiving, and then she worked on the promotion for Ichiro’s birthday party that Mr. Niigata was planning.

Someone knocked on her door.

Cristal crawled out of bed, wondering who it could be. “Who is it?”

“It’s me.”

Satoshi
? She opened the door. “What do you want? It’s late.”  He smelled like he’d been drinking hard liquor and a lot of it.

“Where is he?” Satoshi asked, pushing the door open and entering without an invitation.

Cristal quickly closed the door. “Have you lost your mind? No one is here.”

Satoshi turned on his heels and looked at her. “Is that what you wore to seduce him?”

She tried to cover up her teddy. “What are you talking about? I didn’t seduce anyone. I’ve been in my room working since I returned from dinner.”

“Don’t lie to me. I bet he’s in your bed sleeping it off.”

He slurred his words. Cristal frowned. She didn’t like where this was leading. She pushed past him. “There’s no one in my bed and even if there was, it’s none of your business.” She guarded her door.

Satoshi shoved her aside roughly and entered.

Cristal rubbed her arm. Satoshi had never treated her that way before. What had he consumed besides liquor? She entered the room. She found him checking out the bathroom and the closet. “I told you that no one is here.”

“Then he must have gone back to his own room after fucking you,” he shouted.

She frowned at his crude language. He sounded and acted more drugged than drunk. What had those other idiots let him take? “You need to go to your room and sleep off that attitude.” She turned to exit the room and Satoshi grabbed her arm and kicked the door closed. He threw her on the bed so hard her head ached.

“Hey, what is wrong with you?”

Satoshi unloosened his tie and tossed it on a chair. He unbuttoned his shirt and took it off too. “You're what’s wrong with me,” he shouted at her. “Now shut up and fuck me.”

****

What the fuck have I done
? Satoshi sat up straight in the bed the next morning after he woke up. He was still dressed in his clothes, reeking of bourbon, and had one hell of a headache from the drug he had taken. And he deserved to suffer for what he had tried to do to Cristal. Oh yes, he remembered everything, each and every second of the verbal attack on her until she got him out of her room. He trembled. She was his best friend and he deserved to go to jail for how he had treated her.

Satoshi punched the side of the mattress. He’d never tried to take a woman by force before, and he had even slapped her when she cried. And Cristal hardly ever cried. He looked over at the phone
. Should I call her and apologize
? No, she probably wouldn’t answer the phone and he wouldn’t blame her. No. He would have to face her like a man, clean and sober, and beg her forgiveness. And he would probably need to get a good defense attorney if she decided to press assault charges against him for slapping her. The attack had happened on foreign soil, so they would probably lock him up for a good long time. His brother might be his best bet if he needed an attorney, but he’d rather rot in jail than ask him for help. He looked over at the clock. It was nearly noon. That meant Tae should be on his way back to Japan by now to tell his parents on him.

Someone knocked at his door.

That was probably the police coming to arrest him.

He manned up and walked to the door to meet his fate. A fist caught him in the face the minute he opened the door. “Fuck,” he screamed from the pain and the surprise. He fell to the floor.

A very angry Takumijo stood over him. “What did you do to Cristal?”

Satoshi scooted away from Takumijo.

Takumijo closed the door and turned the security lock.

Satoshi gulped. He hadn’t seen Takumijo this mad, ever. “I made a mistake.”

Takumijo grabbed him by the hair, pulled him to his feet, and punched him in the gut with the other hand. “You want to beat up on women? I’ll teach you how to do it properly.” He punched Satoshi in the gut again, and he went down on his knees.

“I’m sorry,” he whined. “I didn’t mean to slap her. I just got so mad at her for cheating on me with Tae. I didn’t mean for it to go this far.”

“But it did,” Takumijo said angrily. “Are you crazy? You should see her. She has a black eye. You slapped our princess, you bastard. I don’t think I can ever forgive you for this.”

Satoshi rolled around on the floor, groaning from his injury.

“And for the record, she did not invite Tae here. He came on his own and she was just being polite keeping him from bothering you. That’s all it’s been all along. I thought you knew Cristal well enough to how she feels about you.”

“I’ll make it up to her,” Satoshi said, spitting blood. It felt like one of his vital organs had exploded from Takumijo’s punch. “I’ll even go to jail.”

“All she ever did was love you. All of this is your fault and you better fix it,” Takumijo told him, pacing the carpet like a caged animal.

Satoshi struggled to sit up. “Does anyone else know?”

Takumijo sat down on the chair. “No. She just called me. She’s too embarrassed to face anyone else.”

“Tell me how to fix this,” Satoshi cried. “I’m so sorry.”

“Just stay the fuck away from her. I’ll fix this.” Takumijo rose. “And take a bath. You’re a mess.” He walked toward the door and unlocked it. “I am so glad we’re going back to Osaka soon.” He walked out the door, leaving Satoshi to wallow in his own sorrow.

Shaundra wiped the drool from Raiden’s face. “You’re a sloppy baby,” she teased. “But you have the cutest little chubby cheeks.”

“I think that borders on spoiling him,” Dae-Hyun said as he wrestled Ryoto into a clean diaper. “Besides, I think this one has the chubbiest cheeks. All four of them.”

Shaundra smiled. She hadn’t felt this happy in a long time and she had Dae-Hyun to thank for it.  They were taking the boys out for a walk around the property in the stroller. December had arrived and it was getting colder, so they needed to bundle the twins up before taking them out. And she also needed some exercise. She had only left home once for her check up and she was getting a bit stir crazy.

“We’ll just walk around the property a couple of times and then we’ll come back inside,” Dae-Hyun said. “Hopefully, the walk will put them asleep so we can have another lesson.”

They’d been practicing for seven weeks now and she was getting pretty good and liking every moment of her martial arts lessons. He’d started her off with karate and then jujitsu and now he was teaching her tae kwon do. And when they weren’t sparring, he was teaching her Japanese and Korean. Dae-Hyun tested her by making her hold a conversation with him without using English.

Shaundra looked forward to today’s lesson. She had finally stopped bleeding and her stitches had dissolved. Other than a slight pull around her navel and a little backache, she felt almost back to her old self again. Once a day she spoke to Ichiro’s people on the phone. She put off visiting them or allowing them to visit her because she didn’t want them to tell Ichiro that she had moved out of the farmhouse. No one else knew except Harper and Damien and she knew neither one of them was going to say anything. And she made sure she told everyone to call her on her cell phone and not the house phone because she didn’t want them to disturb the babies.

And the stupid security guards had bought the story that she was staying with Ichiro’s people until he returned, so they probably hadn’t even gone back to the farmhouse to check to see if she had returned. Mr. Niigata should fire all of them. She’d driven off the property and met Dae-Hyun the same day and she never went back.

Shaundra got into her coat and gloves while Dae-Hyun put the coats on the babies. Minutes later, he left her to put the double stroller on the sidewalk outside and then he came back inside to get Ryoto while she carried Raiden. This was her life now and she was making the best out of it. The only other person she kept in constant contact with was her editor, and just the other day she found out that some movie studio was interested in turning her latest best seller into a movie. That didn’t concern her too much at the moment because she had things on her mind. Aomori would be returning soon and she wasn’t prepared to face Ichiro.

It took about an hour to go around the property twice. It was a beautiful winter view. Snow fell lightly and the leaves crackled under their feet as they strolled. Dae-Hyun told her some more about his life back in Korea, and she promised that she would go with him the next time he went back because she wanted to visit Seoul in the spring time. They arrived back at the house, took the boys out of the stroller, and carried them back into the warmth of inside. Dae-Hyun went back for the stroller while she got the twins out of their coats. She changed both of their diapers and tucked the sleeping infants into their cribs. After that, she changed into her tae kwon do costume and went down to the exercise room. She put on some music to entertain herself while she waited on her sensei to join her.

Dae-Hyun showed up a few minutes later. “Sorry to make you wait. I had to answer a phone call.”

“Anything important?”

“Just Mr. Kehoe checking up on us,” Dae-Hyun answered.

The look on his face told her there was more to the conversation, but she didn’t pry. “I like this song,” Shaundra said, dancing with an imaginary partner.

“You dance real well,” Dae-Hyun said, watching her.

“I used to have a life before I had kids,” she told him. “My first husband and I used to go dancing every chance we got. Do you dance?”

“A little.”

“Then join me. I need a partner.”

Dae-Hyun hesitated at first and then walked over to her.

“Put your arms around my neck.”

“I don’t know if I should,” Dae-Hyun said. “It wouldn’t be appropriate.”

“We are just dancing. I don’t know what’s up with you Asian guys. It is the oldest form of exercise and entertainment. It’s an expression of joy.”

Dae-Hyun wrapped his arms around her neck and Shaundra put her arms around his waist and moved him around the floor. “See. No harm, no foul.”

Dae-Hyun was a fast learner. Their roles reversed and he waltzed her around the floor.

The music changed to a faster pop number and Shaundra left his arms and dance around him. “This is how we do it down south in America,” she told him. “It’s called backing that thing up.”

Dae-Hyun folded his arms in front of him and watched. “That should be considered illegal.”

Shaundra laughed. “It probably is in some prudish country, but not in this exercise room.”

“And were you doing that when you caused a fight in that nightclub?”

Shaundra rolled her eyes at him. “Ooh, low blow. Who told you about that?”

“Mr. Kehoe.  He told me never to take you to a club.”

She chuckled. “No.” She walked over to her CDs, found Silk, and put on “Freak Me Baby.”

Dae-Hyun listened to the song in its entirety. “Oh, now I understand why your husband got so upset.”

“You think he got mad then, wait until he comes home and finds his kids gone.”

“I’m prepared,” Dae-Hyun said. “Now please re-start the song. I’m interested in dancing to it with you.”

Shaundra smirked at him and her cougar reared its head.
Why do I feel like I should say no
?

****

“Are you excited that your boss is returning tomorrow?” Barbara asked Damien as he sorted through Cristal’s correspondence and organized her appointment and meetings into her calendar.

“Yes,” Damien answered. “I’ve heard so many wonderful things about her.”

“She’s a fun boss too,” Barbara added. “She curses and she’s dating Yi-jun Lee.”

“Who is Yi-jun Lee?” Damien asked. The name sounded more Korean than Japanese.

“He’s a famous Korean actor,” Barbara told him. “He’s in the United States right now filming a movie.”

“Oh, so they’re having a long distance relationship?”

“It’s a long distance relationship any way you look at it. Yi-jun lives in Korea and she lives in Japan. But he takes her to wonderful places like France and she joined him in the United States a couple of months ago before the tour.”