“I’m fine.” I don’t know if that’s the right thing to say or not, for Ms. Junri already looks like she’d rather be anywhere but a location of her aunt’s choosing. I take it this is not her thing.

She keeps a perfect poker face as she slips her briefcase beneath her arm and texts someone on her sleek Softbank phone. “My apologies if my aunt has overstepped her bounds,” Junri says. “She jumps at any chance to take business associates out to places like this.”

“Seems like a weird place to take one’s niece.” A man with moppy blond hair gestures for us to follow him to a private corner already prepped with snacks and expensive alcoholic drinks. “Or any member of one’s personal family.”

Junri shrugs before following the young man in a bespoke navy suit. “You get used to it.”

I could see someone like Caroline bringing me here, but my own mother? One of her sisters? No fucking way. I have no idea if this is a normal thing in Japan, but I think it’s a train I can avoid taking.

Fujiko is definitely the center of attention tonight. From the pouring of the first drink, she’s already slurring her speech and acting like someone’s lecherous grandmother as she implores her favorite young man to give her a kiss and pour her associates drinks.

“We must cheer,” she insists, holding up her margarita. “To forever being the best women in the world!”

Junri and I clink our glasses with hers, but not before we share a look of this is happening, huh? At least I have one compatriot here. It will help me from drinking too much and making too much of an ass out of my American self. (Not hard to do. At least I’m not as bad as I used to be when I was younger. Absolutely shameless.

If I had any doubts that this place wasn’t also a boyfriend-for-hire bar, I’m oh-so-humbled to find two men fighting over me within ten minutes. Oh, they’re not doing it in English, although they both claim they can speak it, but I can tell from their body language and the way they keep nodding their heads in my direction that they’re challenging the other to a bet about bedding me. I feel so special. Nothing makes a woman and a professional Domme feel good like two pretty guys snapping at each other over little ol’ me. They know I’m rich as fuck and it’s only a matter of time until I betray the pretty promise ring on my right hand that says I’m beholden to a man even richer than myself.

I can’t help but notice a ring on Junri’s left ring finger. Fujiko I know is single, but Junri? She’s a mystery. No woman, whether in Japan or America, wears an elegant ring like that and doesn’t have a lover she’s committed to. Yet she mustn’t be married, because one thing I do know about Japanese culture is that women are heavily pressured to take their husband’s last name, and Junri still very much represents herself as an Isoya.

Curious. I’m allergic to ever changing my name to Mathers, so I can understand.

One of our randy hosts slyly slides across the back of Junri’s chair and whispers something in her ear. She furrows her brow before brushing him off. I don’t know what she tells him in Japanese, but it’s curt and gets him off her ass in fewer than five seconds. He takes a moment to bow at her. He doesn’t even look at me when he takes off from the room.

“Mou, Jun,” Fujiko scolds her niece. “Don’t scare off the nice young men here.” Is she speaking in English for my sake, or because she’s already so toasted she doesn’t realize she’s speaking a foreign language? “They only want to say hello and get in your pants for a price.”

Junri finishes her drink. I’m on the same wavelength as her.

“Kyasarin!” Fujiko tossed her empty glass into some man’s lap once she remembers I’m here. “Don’t be shy! The men here are very friendly and don’t often get to talk to American women. You’re super popular.”

“Actually,” I say, careful to choose my tone so it doesn’t sound like I’m monumentally uncomfortable and therefore ungrateful for Fujiko’s hospitality, “I have a boyfriend.”

She holds her finger up to her lips. “Shh! It’s a secret here! Nobody cares.” Fujiko smacks her niece on the arm. “You don’t tell, I don’t tell.”

I send her niece a silent plea with my bright blue eyes. Come on, lady who also looks as uncomfortable as a mouse in an impending trap, help me out here.

“You enjoy yourself, Auntie. Ms. Alison and I will enjoy your enjoyment.”

That’s one way to put it. Regardless of whether or not we want to partake in all the beefcake filling our corner of the club, Fujiko is going to enjoy herself, all right. She’s going to start by announcing a game to the men her company has rented for our amusement tonight: they must make us feel like the goddesses we are without daring to touch us. “Surely it is okay?” She’s referring to the fact that I have a boyfriend. She knows it’s Ian, right?

Tags: Cynthia Dane Billionaire Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net