BILLONIARE SECRETARY BABY

Chapter 11

Cami was still thinking about how much she would have loved to see the views from the observation deck of the Sky Tree while they were being ushered into the restaurant by Ms. Inokawa, who’d been waiting for them at the entrance. Their party was being held in an extremely traditional Japanese room. It had straw mats called tatami on the floor, and rice paper—or shoji—doors and panels. The décor was very minimalist, featuring only one long, very low table in the center of the room, with flat cushions known as zabuton on the floor beside each place setting. There were no chairs.

Cami immediately felt intimidated by the room, not sure what would be expected of her and not wanting to offend in her ignorance.

“Gaspy-san, please.” Ms. Inokawa gestured toward a spot close to the end of the long table before she ushered Christain up to the pride of place, dead center of the table. She bowed, left him there on his own, and rejoined Cami.

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Other somber-suited people filed into the room, while Ms. Inokawa gestured for Cami to sit down beside her. Wondering if there was any graceful way to sit on the floor in a tight skirt, Cami clumsily sank down flat on her butt with her legs folded to the side.

“Gaspy-san.” Ms. Inokawa leaned over to whisper abashedly. “Because this is a formal party, we will sit in seiza.”

“In what?”

“Like this.” Ms. Inokawa sat beside Cami, folding herself up delicately on the way down. Cami grimaced, already dreading what was to come because there was no way in hell she could sit like that. The other woman was on her knees with her legs folded beneath her thighs and her feet tucked neatly beneath her bum.

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“How long will we have to sit like that?”

“It is usually proper for women to sit this way for the entire party.”

“Really? And the men?”

“They too will sit in seiza, but after a while they will probably cross their legs.”

“I can’t sit like that,” Cami whispered urgently. Ms. Inokawa’s perfect brow furrowed ever so slightly, and she affected a lovely look of helpless distress. Christain, who could see everything from his central position on the opposite side of the table, got to his feet and ambled around to their end of the table.

“Is there a problem here?” he asked, and Ms. Inokawa bowed gracefully before shaking her head.

“There is no problem, Greys-san.” Rather surprised that the other woman didn’t rat her out, Cami slanted her a shocked glance before meeting Christain’s eyes.

“I can’t sit like this.” She gestured to where Ms. Inokawa sat like the perfect epitome of modesty and beauty.

“Everybody will be sitting in seiza,” Christain pointed out. Cami nodded and tried very hard not to react to his impatience.

“So I’ve heard,” she said. Christain sighed and glanced up as several important-looking men—some of whom she’d never seen before—entered the room.

“I don’t have time for this, Gaspy. Stop playing childish and attention-seeking games and don’t embarrass me,” he growled, before striding away, leaving Cami humiliated. She was absolutely—and unexpectedly—shattered that he had spoken to her like that in front of Ms. Inokawa, who was very discreetly keeping her gaze focused on her place setting. Cami blinked hard when she realized that her eyes had actually gone misty, and she was annoyed with herself for letting him get to her. Still, after a week of sexing her up, surely he’d noticed the extensive scarring on her right knee. Surely he’d wondered about it. She knew every single detail of his body, every little imperfection—of which there were few—every nook and crevice, and he hadn’t noticed the huge and ugly vertical scar on her knee? Well, wasn’t that just a much-needed reality check for Cami? She had to be careful around this man; she had to guard her heart, because while she had started to soften toward him, he hadn’t ever seen her as more than a casual hookup.

“We can start in seiza,” Ms. Inokawa leaned over to whisper conspiratorially, “but after everybody has had a few drinks, no one will notice if we move our legs to the side and sit on our behinds.”

Surprised by the sympathy and camaraderie in the other woman’s voice, Cami looked up and saw genuine warmth in her eyes. Great. As if the whole situation with Christain wasn’t bad enough, she’d gone and completely misjudged Ms. Inokawa as well.

“I’d like that,” she said with a watery smile. “I have a bad knee. I don’t know how long it’ll hold up if I were to sit like that for too long.”

“Don’t worry,” Ms. Inokawa said with a swift pat on Cami’s hand. “It won’t be long before the beers start to take effect.”

Cami giggled when the other woman winked dramatically, and started to think that maybe this entire evening wouldn’t be too much of an ordeal after all.

Fifteen minutes later her knee was screaming in agony, she could no longer feel her lower legs, and yet another man had started yet another long-winded speech. She suppressed a moan and wished there was some discreet way to shift her legs out from beneath her thighs without drawing everybody’s attention to the movement. She was very much aware of the glances Christain was throwing in her direction and fought to keep her face impassive even while she felt like weeping.

Finally, everybody raised their small glasses of beer and held them aloft. The speaker said a few more things before ending with a word Cami was happily familiar with.

“Kanpai!” He yelled the Japanese version of “Cheers,” and everybody followed suit.

“Kanpai!” There was loud and manly laughter—Cami and Ms. Inokawa being the only women present—as everybody clinked glasses and started drinking.

“It’s okay for you to move your legs to the side now,” Ms. Inokawa whispered, obviously sensing her distress.

“I don’t think I can move my legs,” Cami whispered back, while she painfully tried to shift her position without crying out.

“Daijoubu?” the woman asked, and Cami recognized the question—which she’d heard often over the course of the week—as “Are you okay?” She shrugged miserably.

“I’ll probably be okay once I get the feeling back in my legs. They’ve fallen asleep.” Although her knee was a different matter entirely, she wasn’t sure if she’d done some damage to it, but it definitely didn’t feel all right. She tried to placate the woman with a smile and picked up the bottle of beer placed in front of her and held it up to Ms. Inokawa. “May I?”

It was traditional to pour for the people seated closest to you and considered poor form to allow your neighbor’s glass to run dry. The guy on her right, whom she didn’t know at all, was holding a bottle up and smiling expectantly, and even though she pretty much hated beer, she managed a smile and a nod while he added the drop of beer that would be needed to fill the glass to the brim again. If she didn’t stay alert, she would probably wind up extremely drunk, because it was almost impossible to monitor one’s alcohol intake in a situation like this.

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Things got rowdy quite quickly, and it was a little shocking to watch the previously somber Japanese businessmen get wasted and exceptionally loud and cheerful in pretty short order. Nobody remained seated—pouring etiquette went out the window—and soon people were crawling about on the floor from one person to the next, chatting and topping up each other’s beers. She noticed that quite a few of the men had immediately moved toward Christain and were all vying to pour his drinks. He took the time to chat amicably with each and every man, looking sober as a judge but cultivating a jovial manner that Cami didn’t believe for a second was genuine.

A few of the younger men made a point of talking with her, some in great English, others a little less fluently. Cami forced aside her pain, kept smiling, and delighted the men when she butchered a few of the standard Japanese phrases she’d learned over the course of the week. They were ridiculously flattering of her bad Japanese, and remembering Daisuke’s reaction in the car earlier, she modestly waved off their compliments.

She turned to say something to Ms. Inokawa, but the woman was gone. Cami cast her gaze toward Christain, expecting to see the woman fawning over him, but she wasn’t there. Christain, however, met and held her eyes for a few long moments. His face was completely inscrutable, almost grim. Cami frowned and wondered if he was pissed off with her yet again. She was the first to break eye contact, still looking for Ms. Inokawa, and she was surprised to see the other woman blatantly flirting with Craig Templeton, the contractor for the hotel build. The handsome older man was smiling and flirting back.

Well, that was new.

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Cami turned her gaze back to Christain to see if Ms. Inokawa’s shift in romantic attentions bothered him, but he was still watching Cami intently. His complete focus was starting to make her a little hot under the collar, and she shifted restlessly. Unfortunately, the inadvertent movement caused a shaft of pain to shoot through her knee, and she flinched. Christain’s entire body went still, and his head tilted slightly to the left as he watched her quizzically. In that moment he reminded her of a wild animal on the scent trail of something small and wounded, and Cami desperately tried to throw him off that trail with a casual grin and a careless wiggle of her fingers. As expected, the frivolous and flirtatious wave did the trick, and he gave her a frown before returning his attention to one of the many sycophants huddling around him. Cami heaved a relieved sigh and gave her knee a surreptitious little massage before focusing on one of the earnest young men trying to have a conversation with her.

It was going to be a long night.

At around two the following morning, Cami was more than ready to call it quits. The merry group had dragged Cami and Christain from one night spot to another and was now insisting on karaoke.

“I have to get back to the hotel,” she whispered to Christain, who didn’t look as drunk as the rest of their loud group. In fact, he looked much too sober for a man who’d been drinking all night, and she wondered about that for a few moments before he distracted her with a glare.

“You have to do no such thing,” he snapped, keeping his voice low. By now her knee was radiating almost constant pain, and all Cami wanted was a hot bath, pain medication, and a long, long sleep.

“You don’t need me here. This isn’t part of my job description, and you can’t force me to stay.”

“One of your unofficial duties is to accompany me to business lunches and dinners.”

“Unofficial as in not contracted,” she pointed out, and he rubbed the nape of his neck before switching tactics.

“Okay, then, what about coming along in a personal capacity, as my . . .” He struggled to find a definition, and she raised a brow and folded her arms across her chest.

“Girlfriend?” she supplied, and he blanched.

“God, no.”

“Mistress?” If possible, he went even paler.

“Absolutely not.” He hesitated a few moments longer before shrugging and continuing, “As my friend.”

“We’re friends?”

“Of a sort.”

“Well, be a pal and let me go to bed. I’m tired and in pain.” Okay, she hadn’t meant to reveal that last bit; it just slipped out. His eyes narrowed.

“In pain?”