Chapter 11
1167 Words
James’s POV
His mother’s words hung in the air like cold steel.
“I thought it time you caught up with someone who understands where you come from.”
James didn’t move right away. He looked at Naomi—her dress crisp, her makeup minimal, her smile too gentle to be real. She bowed slightly, her long black hair falling forward like a curtain of silk.
“Naomi,” James said with a nod, voice guarded.
“James,” she replied softly, her voice like glass—refined, but sharp if handled the wrong way. “It’s been a while.”
He forced a polite smile and turned to Hiroko. “I wish you would’ve told me you were coming.”
“If I had,” she said smoothly, taking a seat uninvited, “you would’ve made yourself scarce.”
She wasn’t wrong.
Naomi sat beside her, clasping her hands in her lap with grace, and Harold gave James a look that said, brace yourself.
James returned to his seat slowly, never letting his eyes stray too far from his mother’s. “You brought Naomi all the way from Tokyo for this?”
“She’s attending business school in New York. I asked her to make a weekend of it.” Hiroko tilted her chin. “It was time she and you reconnected.”
James let out a breathless laugh. “You mean it was time I humored your fantasy that I’ll wake up and decide to marry someone you approve of.”
Naomi gave him a look—something between sympathy and mild offense. “I didn’t come to force anything, James. I came because your mother asked, and I respect her. I also… missed you.”
That stung more than it should have. They had shared a past. Innocent, almost sweet—before the expectations sank in. But it was never love. Never real.
He looked back at Hiroko. “I’m not available. Emotionally, mentally, or otherwise.”
Hiroko didn’t blink. “You’re infatuated.”
“I’m in love.”
“With a girl who isn’t worthy of the Saito legacy.”
James’s jaw clenched. “Bianca is brilliant, strong, and twice as grounded as half the socialites you parade at our fundraisers. She doesn’t need your approval, and neither do I.”
Naomi cleared her throat. “Should I go—?”
“No,” Hiroko said sharply.
“Yes,” James said at the same time.
Harold sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “This is a dinner, not a battlefield.”
Hiroko stood, gathering her clutch. “We’ll speak again when your head is clearer.”
James stood too. “Don’t hold your breath.”
She left without another word. Naomi followed, offering James a small, regretful look.
Once they were gone, silence filled the space again.
James finally slumped into his seat and muttered, “I need a drink.”
Harold poured them both a glass of sake and lifted his own in a silent toast.
“To love,” the elder Saito said, “and the chaos it brings.”
James raised his cup. “I’ll drink to that.”
MOMENTS AFTER.
The Bribe
The black car pulled up in front of the modest but well-kept Lawson family home in Atlanta. Hiroko Saito stepped out, sleek in a dark trench coat, a silk scarf around her neck, and patent heels that didn’t quite belong on the walkway cracked with time and weather.
She wore elegance like armor, and judgment like perfume.
Savannah Lawson, peeking through the blinds, dropped the curtain with a gasp. “Uh… Mom? There’s a scary rich lady at the door.”
When Mr. and Mrs. Lawson opened it, Hiroko didn’t waste time.
“Good afternoon. I’m Hiroko Saito. May I come in?”
They exchanged a look. Mrs. Lawson, cautious but polite, nodded. “I suppose.”
Inside, Hiroko declined the offer of tea, instead pulling out a thin, leather-bound checkbook and placing it carefully on the table.
“I’m here to make a proposal,” she said, voice cool and deliberate. “Your daughter is intelligent and poised. I believe her future should be unburdened by distractions. Specifically, my son.”
Mrs. Lawson’s spine straightened.
“Distractions?” Mr. Lawson said sharply. “You mean love?”
“I mean illusion,” Hiroko snapped. “They are from different worlds. This ends one of two ways—scandal or heartbreak.”
She slid the checkbook across the table.
“You’re offering us money to make our daughter leave James?”
“I’m offering her a future. A house. Graduate school. Debt-free life. All of it. In exchange for a clean break.”
Mrs. Lawson stood slowly. “Get out of my house.”
Hiroko blinked.
“We raised our daughters to never sell their dignity,” she said coldly. “And we’re not about to start now.”
Mr. Lawson added, “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Hiroko’s lips tightened. “You’re making a mistake.”
“No,” Mrs. Lawson said. “You are.”
---
The Threat
Two days later.
Bianca's dorm.
It was raining outside when Hiroko Saito entered the building, holding her umbrella like a dagger. She walked the narrow halls with disdain, heels clicking like a metronome of war.
A resident assistant tried to stop her. She didn’t acknowledge them.
She found the door.
Knocked.
Bianca opened it, still in a hoodie and leggings, hair tied up with a pen sticking through the puff. Her smile faded instantly.
“Mrs Saito”
Hiroko smoothly stepped in uninvited. Her nose crinkled at the visible twin bed, the peeling radiator, the smell of old carpet. “So this is what ambition looks like in squalor.”
Bianca shut the door behind her, jaw tight. “How can I help you?”
“You can leave my son alone, that could be a start. Also I'm here to remind you of something very simple,” Hiroko said, circling the room slowly. “Scholarships are privileges. Not rights. You are here by grace—not inheritance.”
Bianca’s hands clenched at her sides.
“Do you think your brilliance makes you untouchable?” Hiroko continued, stopping to brush a nonexistent speck from her coat. “I can speak to the donors. To the dean. I can have your academic funding reviewed. Perhaps they’ll find… inconsistencies.”
“You’d sabotage a student’s education because your son loves her?” Bianca said, her voice low and shaking.
“I’d do far worse to protect the future of my family name,” Hiroko replied. “James will thank me when he realizes how close he came to sacrificing everything for a fling.”
Bianca stepped forward, trembling but defiant. “I’m not afraid of you.”
“Good,” Hiroko said, brushing past her toward the door. “Because the next storm won’t come with a knock.”
And then she was gone.
- Writer
