Twelve Months of Kristal: 50 Loving States Maine

“This is your fault, not hers.”

Still clinging to my dead fiancée, I’d looked up to see my father now standing up behind his desk.

His tailored suit and elegant office radiated dignity. But the dark eyes blazing beneath his otherwise cold expression, told the true tale of his merciless fury.

“She is dead because of your lies. Obviously, my earlier punishments in your boyhood were not enough.”

“You shouldn’t have done this!” My voice cracked with rage as I hugged her already cold body to my chest.

My father’s answer to that was to bring out his phone and push a button.

Satomi’s voice suddenly filled up the air between us, “Nakamura-sama, I thought I could marry Hayato as you wished. He is so handsome and smart and from such a good family. But he has told me some very strange things about himself. I fear for his mental health….”

My father pressed the pause button before Satomi could finish her confession.

“If you had not persisted in this nasty habit of making up stories, your fiancée would still be alive.” My father regarded me with a sneer, his complete and utter disgust written plainly across his face. “Now I am forced to deal with disappearing the body of a girl from a prominent family, and as for you…”

He shook his head at me. “This should have been the year you received our family tattoo, but you are not in the least bit worthy.”

My father’s sneer abruptly disappeared, his face settling back in the coldly placid lines he had become famous for in Japanese business media.

“Further punishment is obviously required. Better punishment,” he declared.

Then he picked up the phone and calmly asked his secretary to send in two specific guards. A few minutes later I was pulled off Satomi’s body. But not by my father’s official bodyguards.

Those were clean-cut men in suits, who never took off their designer shades even when inside. But the men who pulled me off of Satomi’s body had beard scruff and visible tattoos.

This was the real power of our family I came to find out later on after my father and older brother went to war with each other. These secret guards were tied to the yakuza background that my father had worked hard to keep secret in his mostly legitimate business dealings.

But my father was dead now. Those yakuza ties had been cut by my brother, the only of Kazuo Nakamura sons who had been deemed worthy enough to receive it.

And as for me, I have to keep my mind steady on the present prize.

One more night, and then we’ll be headed back to San Francisco. It won’t be necessary to get off the plane there, I remind myself, like a mother assuring a fearful child.

We’ll merely refuel, then we’ll be off to my main residence. A penthouse suite in the Tokyo high rise I had built from scratch after my father died. There I’ll have uninterrupted time with Kristal. We’ll settle into a routine of work and sex, and without all of this strange outside stimulus, I’ll have the opportunity to grow tired of the elf.

The current infatuation will fade and I’ll send her back to San Francisco with a nice bonus to assuage any overly attached feelings she might have developed for me.

It’s a good plan. But this whole situation makes me tired. No fun with Kristal tonight, I decide as I open the door. Just a shower and bed.

As soon as I enter the room I find out neither are immediately possible. The door to the lavatory is closed and I can hear a shower going in the background. Along with Kristal singing “Monday, Monday” at the top of her lungs. Another The Mama and The Papas song.

There’s also a tall, stocky woman cleaning our room. She’s wearing a cardigan with the same golden name plate as Rodge. And her similar size and cragginess tells me she must be related to Rodge in some way. I would guess his mother; she looks so much like him. But she doesn’t appear all that much older than the innkeeper. Perhaps Siobhan’s disapproving mother? That would certainly make more sense.

“Oh, you’re back. I thought I’d have a bit more time to pick up. Poor Roddy’s so overburdened with all the New Year’s Eve guests. And I tell you, you’re not helping him much with you’re not leaving today like you said you would.”

I lift a brow at her. If she thinks she’s been inconvenienced, she should see how I feel after spending several crucial days on what was supposed to be a simple 24 hour trip with a turnaround.

It strikes me as entirely unprofessional that she’d act so put out by the unexpected extension of our stay. Also, why was she cleaning our room while Kristal was obviously in the shower? In my experience, most cleaners only came into a room when it was occupant-free. But I have a feeling neither Rodge nor his mother knew or cared much about the concept of good customer service. It was yet another reason I was dying to leave this inn behind.