Page 10 of Blossoms of the Heart
Chapter 3
Phoebe
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Ididn’t think I would feel like this seeing him again.
I just assumed time would dull my interest. Or, maybe it was just that I hoped it would.
The minute I saw Tai that spark of interest and excitement I used to feel came rushing back to me. It clenched at my stomach and sent my nerves into a crazy frenzy.
Getting all weak-kneed, hot and bothered about a guy was not in the cards for me. After all I was here on business.
Tai, however, was always the exception to every rule.
Maybe it would have been wiser for me to get settled in first.
I landed at Narita International a few hours ago. Mitsuke picked me up and took me to Akito’s place. She insisted on going shopping, but I was too eager to get here and see the journal.
Sure, I’d thought about Tai but I just figured we’d have more of a ‘hey there and goodbye,’ meet.
I didn’t think Akito would pair him up with me.
I never told anyone about our last encounter, and thinking about that now just felt so childish. It wasn’t as if I slept with him… much as I wanted to.
With everything that had happened to me over the last few years that time seemed like it happened in another life.
At eighteen, I may have been a levelheaded young woman who could handle herself, but I was like every other helpless female who fell prey to his charms and dreamy looks.
I’d never seen anyone that looked like him.
Tai was biracial half Japanese and half white. A deadly combo of beauty and rugged handsomeness that made you want to stare.
His face was all angles and planes. The kind that would make most women a drooling mess.
He had the slightly down-slanted eyes, thick eyebrows and angular face from his mother. From his father he got the GQ looks, the height and muscles. I remembered his father being tall and built like a tank.
Tai basically looked too good for his own good and knew how to make you do whatever he wanted. It was all the more easy for him when what he wanted you to do was what you wanted.
We had that weird awkward silence as we both stepped out of the meeting room and started walking down the corridor.
“So, Dr. Phoebe, it’s been awhile.” He cast a sideways glance at me.
“Long time.” I raised my shoulder slightly and tucked my hair behind my ear.
“How’ve you been?”
I wasn’t really sure how to answer that question. The truth was I felt like shit, but telling him that would open the door for questions on why I felt like that. And I doubted he would care to hear it.
So I guess I could go with the standard answer, as I was excited to be back in Japan.
“Great. It’s good to be here. You, how are you doing? When’d you get back from the Marines?”
“A little over two years. Spent most of the time being a free spirit.”
“Weren’t you always a free spirit?” I smirked.
Maybe that was a little too blunt for a first meeting in years. It just seemed weird he would say that. I’d already counted five more tattoos that I hadn’t seen before. He mostly went for Japanese characters which looked cool but there was what I thought looked like a dragon’s wing creeping up the side of his neck, and the tail looked like it snaked around his arm.
