“Checked out how?” And how had Ronin’s sister found out about it?
“Having the investigative company Okada keeps on retainer call your known associates, your customers, your neighbors, your friends, and your family.”
That bastard. It hadn’t been the insurance company after all. Another wave of anger rolled over her.
“So you know nothing of our family’s background?” Shiori asked.
“None,” she said flatly.
“Our grandfather married an English nurse who treated his injuries after World War Two. She was assigned to Japan during the allied occupation. She was quite a bit older than him, but they married anyway. Evidently my grandmother had been exposed to chemicals during the war and with a weakened immune system, she died during an influenza outbreak a few years later, leaving my grandfather a widower at age twenty-two with a year-old daughter. In his grief he threw himself into his food supply business and ended up building an empire.
“Our mother fled his control and married an American soldier. After our father’s death, our mother chose to bring us to Japan. I was five and Ronin was eight.”
While Amery appreciated the family history, she wasn’t sure why Shiori felt the need to tell her. Simply because Ronin hadn’t? Nothing she’d said had helped Amery understand why Ronin had kept so much from her.
“Earlier when I asked you who you thought I was, why did you hesitate?”
“I wondered if you were Ronin’s ex, Naomi. I don’t know much about her beyond that she’s Japanese. Someone told Ronin a few weeks ago she planned to visit Denver. I imagine since she and Ronin were together for a while you knew her.”
“I was at the club when Ronin met Naomi. In fact, the only reason he went there that night was me. Did he tell you about it?”
Ronin’s sister was aware of his club activities? Or maybe she was fishing for information. For some stupid reason Amery wanted to protect Ronin’s secrets.
Because you’re in love with him.
And right about now that made her the biggest idiot on the planet—how could she possibly love someone she didn’t know?
When she realized Shiori was still waiting for her response, she shook her head.
“I’d just been granted a divorce and I came to the U.S. with a friend. She wanted to go to the Denver Japanese Social Club and I was afraid she’d hook up with her old boyfriend and ditch me, so I begged Ronin to accompany me. He hates those places, but he agreed and that’s where he met Naomi. She was involved in international finance and was in the U.S. to oversee her father’s business interests. They hit it off. For a while anyway. Until Ronin found out . . .” Shiori looked uncomfortable for the first time. “Sorry. I talk too much.”
But Amery’s mind had already latched onto the fact that Ronin hadn’t met Naomi at a sex club as he’d led her to believe, but at a social club.
Was there anything he hadn’t lied to her about?
His lust for her.
“So knowing all this . . . what are you going to do with the information I gave you today?”
Something in Shiori’s tone seemed off. Amery turned the question back on her. “What did you hope to gain from telling me this?”
“An insight into my brother’s frame of mind.”
“Through me?”
“Yes. And I’m afraid I can’t say any more than that.”
“You don’t have to.” Amery stood. “You’ve said plenty.”
A panicked look flashed across Shiori’s face. “Wait. You’re leaving?”
“No point in staying here and listening to more of the Okada/Black/Hirano saga since it no longer affects me.”
Shiori’s eyes narrowed. In that moment she looked so much like Ronin that Amery’s chest tightened. “How does this not affect you?”
“Okada Foods dangled the carrot and I bit. Shame on me for being hungry. But now that I found out it wasn’t a real carrot, I won’t make that judgment error again. You got the answers you wanted and so did I.”
“You’re not pitching the project?”
No f**king way. “No.”
That shocked Shiori, but she recovered quickly and tossed off, “Petulance doesn’t make good business, Ms. Hardwick.”
“Neither do lies.” Amery picked up her portfolio and dumped all of the design work on the conference table. As she reached inside for her keys, her fingers brushed crinkly wrapping paper. She pulled out the package and all but threw it on the table. “Oh, I almost forgot to give you this.”
“What is it?”
“A parting gift, a cheap token of my affection, a meaningless gesture I’d brought in good faith. Take your pick.”
Amery walked out with her head held high.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
AFTER the meeting with Ronin’s sister, Amery found herself at loose ends. She drove aimlessly for an hour, knowing once the shock wore off, her wrath would kick in again—full force this time—and she’d go off the rails.
She had no one to talk to. Although she and Emmylou had mended fences, her friend hadn’t revised her opinion on Ronin Black. She’d just accepted that the man would be in Amery’s life. So showing up to cry on Emmylou’s shoulder, about Ronin’s lies, and deliberate omissions, would make Amery look like a naive idiot for blindly trusting him and not heeding any of her friends’ concerns about him.
Was saving face really more important than unloading all the heartache that was threatening to choke her?
Yes.
She couldn’t go to Chaz either. He’d been marginally more supportive about Ronin than Emmylou, but Chaz defined materialistic. He’d be wowed by Ronin’s status as a billionaire heir. He’d encourage her to forgive Ronin for misleading her about his true colors—which were apparently green, the color of money. Then he’d toss off a comment that he could think of a billion reasons why she should just let this issue go.
Yeah, it sucks to be involved with a gorgeous sex-god billionaire.
But Amery wasn’t that shallow. And she couldn’t give a damn about Ronin’s financial status—until she’d learned that he’d withheld the truth about it.
What burned her ass, scarred her soul, and shredded her heart was that Ronin hadn’t trusted her enough to tell her anything about who he really was. But he’d demanded full disclosure, body and soul, from her.
A sick feeling started to take root.
That wasn’t really true. Ronin had never demanded anything from her. She’d just been so crazy about him, so happy that he’d helped free her from some of the moral confines that’d held her back her entire life, that she’d given him every part of herself without question. She’d willingly handed herself over to him physically, emotionally, sexually because she’d trusted him, because she’d believed he was being equally honest with her.