Page 23 of Crossed By the Stars
I’d kissed her and told my father I wanted to date her, and he’d told me, with sadness in his eyes, that it was impossible. He’d told me the first truth of our families’ histories?not the one about my aunt, though. He’d saved that one until he could do nothing else but tell me. Instead, he’d told me the story of our beginnings, of fortunes made in ways that would lead the world to think we were in bed with the Moris and theKyodainaif we showed up next to them. He’d insisted that if I continued to pursue her, I’d ruin the family.
I couldn’t do that toMaman’scareer…let the world spread rumors about her. I couldn’t take seeingPapa’ssmiling face disappear into worry. I loved them both too much.
So, I’d done the unthinkable. I’d stopped sending Jada flowers, stopped signing up to attend every single charity event I thought she’d be at. I’d hidden away at university without a word to her of why I’d disappeared. It had been a jerk move, but at seventeen, I hadn’t known another way to handle it.
I’d never stopped thinking of her, though. I’d wondered on a regular basis, with a heart-searing ache in my chest, who was getting her kisses. By the time I saw her again, hanging around Dawson, she’d discovered what and who her father was, but not the secrets of our families.
Whatever had happened in the years between our kiss and her reappearance in my life, it had ensured that, instead of slowly opening to the world, Jada had slammed into it with full force. Her gentle, enticing ways had turned into a fiery flame that absorbed all the oxygen in a room.
She’d become a tiger lily instead of a stargazer. A single bloom standing alone.
But I knew the truth. Somewhere below the surface flame, the stargazer still existed.
Jada
TOO CLOSE
“This heart beat's tricking me into wanting to come close to you,
But I can't afford getting hurt again.
So, I'm just going to take a step back.”
Performed by Yuna
Written by Zara'ai / Hannibal / Braun
My gaze had strayed to thefogoutside the office window even when it should have been focused on the trail of emails I needed to respond to. Other than the note that had appeared my first night back and the fact that my father was in the city, nothing else unpleasant had happened, and yet I’d still spent another night tossing and turning.
I’d lived two years waiting for this shoe to fall.Otosanhad insisted that Dawson and I were safe. He’d been clear in his instructions to the entire syndicate to keep their hands off, but I knew exactly how much theKyodainaprized loyalty. I knew exactly what they did to people who tried to turn on them.
The door of the office opened, and Ashton walked in. Tall, skinny, and freckled, he looked like he should have been entering high school instead of having a Master’s in Business Administration and Marketing from Stanford. He’d lost a leg in a car accident as a child, but you’d never know he had a prosthetic by the smoothness of his gait. Violet and I had hired him to help with administrative tasks, social media, and marketing ideas. His was a catch-all kind of position that we’d been grateful for as the company had blown up over the last year. He’d probably need his own assistant soon, but I wasn’t prepared to do any hiring while Violet was on her honeymoon, just like I wasn’t prepared to shop for bigger production space until she returned.
Ashton made his way over to the brocade chairs and round table that sat between my desk and Violet’s in the office we shared. When we’d bought the facility with its lab and production space, we’d decided to share an office because we worked better together. But instead of filling the room with normal office furniture, it looked like a family room. My desk was a reclaimed buffet, and Violet’s was an antique that we’d restored. Quirky, unmatching, but all us.
When Ashton didn’t sit down, I raised an eyebrow. “What’s up.”
“So, Nyra is having a conniption fit because of some woman trying to get in to see you. I thought I better ask if you want us to let her in before Nyra tossed someone important out of the building.”
My heart lurched, the pace increasing. We hadn’t told the employees about the threat against me, but they were smart enough to know something was up. My security team had doubled, and getting in to see me had become almost as difficult as seeing the President of the United States.
“Who is it?”
“Akari Matsuda,” he said, frowning as if he should know the name.
Goosebumps littered my skin just as they had when I’d run into her and her mother the day before. I couldn’t imagine she was here of her own accord. I felt a great amount of sympathy for her, for the life she led that I would have drowned in.
“Tell Nyra I said to let her in.”
Ashton nodded, taking me in. “You look like shit. Have you slept at all?”
I snorted. “It’s a good thing Violet loves you, because otherwise, I’d put you out on the street with a box of your belongings.”
He chuckled. “You talk big, but you know you wouldn’t survive without me.”
It was probably true. He and Joel were the two team members we’d be hard-pressed to replace if we lost them. They’d been with us since the beginning. They’d not only seen us grow but helped us every inch of the way. Their paychecks and the stock we gave them definitely reflected how much we appreciated them.
He left and, about a minute later, reappeared with Akari Matsuda and Nyra both trailing him. I rose to greet Ken’Ichi’s sister, returning the half-bow she gave.
