Easier said than done. Akira cranked her head on her shoulders, the nagging restlessness that had ridden her all weekend settling over her like an unwanted mantle. Running hadn’t gotten rid of it. Neither had furiously reverse alphabetizing and then alphabetizing her extensive book collection.
Work called. She was in the process of acquiring a chain of a hundred pubs and bars in Europe, which would take her business to the next level. A purchase of this magnitude was huge for her, and she needed to ensure everything was going smoothly.
Right…now.
Now?
Now.
She scratched at a small stain on her desk.
Damn it.
She should have called a friend this weekend. How long had it been since she’d enjoyed an athletic, sweaty bout between the sheets? Between her mother’s death and the issues with her estate, as well as her preoccupation with finding her grandmother’s legacy, too long. Maybe that was why she’d been ready to climb Jacob like a tree. Maybe that was why she hadn’t been able to get his ass out of her dreams.
Yeah, sure. It wasn’t because she’d spent a good chunk of her life battling her attraction to the man. And the man’s ass.
Nope, this was old-fashioned sexual frustration, something remedied as easily as dialing a number. Ready to do just that, Akira pulled out her cell phone and scrolled through the list of available candidates. Models, actors, socialites, politicians, businessmen and women, lawyers, doctors, even a lumberjack or two from when she’d gone through her outdoorsmen phase.
Oh, yes. A lumberjack might be nice. She had a sudden and inexplicable hankering for a nice, thick beard.
Did she know any green-eyed lumberjacks?
Akira snarled and tossed her cell on the desk. Heaven help her.
It’s because you have so much on your mind.
She snorted, too viciously honest to lie even to herself. Multitasking was her life’s blood. She was capable of feeling raw and juggling a multibillion-dollar business. Unless, it seemed, she added her unwanted attraction to a man who despised her to the mix. Then, you know, everything went to shit.
The phone rang, shrill and loud, interrupting her thoughts. Distraction! Not checking the display, she snatched it up on the second ring. “Akira Mori.”
“Akira! My love. You are a hard woman to get a hold of.”
Ice spread through her veins, chilling her. That would teach her not to pay attention. “Father.” The single word was mocking. Over the years, she’d made an art form out of paternal annoyance, rivaled only by her aptitude at maternal rage. “That should tell you something. I’m busy.”
“Too busy for your own father?”
“Too busy for the cameras following my father around.”
Her dad gave a chuckle, roughened from years of smoking. She knew he was probably tucked away in his lavish Calabasas home this early in the morning, his new family sound asleep from whatever late-night escapade they’d enjoyed the evening before.
Thank God the Mori Corporation had been dissolved long ago, the great hotels once bearing her family name now Hiltons and Marriotts and God knows what else. Granted, the move had probably made her paternal grandfather turn over in his grave, but his son had been an inept idiot when it came to business. Anyway, her father was far too busy to run a hotel empire now, since he was busy running his second family. Or, more accurately, letting them run him.
“Speaking of cameras…” She swiveled in her seat and stared out the window. She had a view of a lush green park not far away. A child was playing there, running behind a ball. “Take me off of speakerphone. And tell the film crew to leave.”
A pause lasted a fraction of a beat too long. “What do you mean, my love?”
“You know I have attorneys,” she said quietly. “And I’m not afraid to use them.”
There was a click on the other end, and then the muffled sound of her father speaking to someone. A second later, he was back, much of the manufactured warmth amazingly leached from his voice. “They’re gone.”
“What do you want?” Because, without a doubt, her father wanted something. He had no use for his only biological child otherwise.
Without an audience to thrill, her father didn’t bother to beat around the bush. “We want you to be on the show.”
The freak show. Who would have thought the American public would embrace the wild exploits of a rich ex-hotelier, a washed-up actress, and her five insane asshole children?
Oh. Everyone. Four years later, it was still a ratings powerhouse.
