Mr. Blackwell's Bride: A Fake Marriage Romance (A Good Wife Book 2) Read online

  I spread the paper across the tatami mat floor and laid out my paints, the tubes bulging with magic.

  Yes, I was much too selfish. Look at me now. Without anyone around, I was indulging in fruitless wants, in dreams as whimsical and thin as smoke. Who ever made a good living out of art? What a waste of my time. Laundry needed cleaning. Dishes needed washing. Dinner needed prepping.

  All these things fell away as I lifted my brush. Every slash of color cut me free from the ropes around my heart. My soul mirrored every dot and stroke of vibrant paint. While I painted I forgot my responsibilities. I let go of my gray, dusty life. I lost myself in dreams and stardust. From nothing grew water lilies, then a lake and around it, a French garden.

  I’d never been to France. I’d never even left Japan. I’d painted this scene from memory from a book on Monet I found in my university library when I should have been looking up a book on statistics.

  I pulled back from my work, studying it with a critical eye. I shook my head slightly, a small smile on my lips. I could never get the light glinting off the water right. How did Monet do it? How did he capture sunbeams and press them into the canvas? Did he use magic?

  Art is never finished, only abandoned. Leonardo da Vinci said that.

  This work would definitely have to be abandoned. I sighed when I spotted the time. I needed to get ready for my lectures at university. Painting would not pay the bills. That’s why I was studying something realistic—international business with a major in English—even though I was already fluent, thanks to my father.

  The child inside me withered at the thought of a lifetime of working in this dry, dull field, my wild mind stuffed into a box, my future laid out. Endless hours in a cubicle in an anthill city, saving money to send back home.

  I had no choice.

  Papa wouldn’t be an English teacher forever. At nineteen, I was the eldest and I was responsible for this family, even if I wasn’t a boy. Perhaps it would have been better if I’d been born a boy. Or not born at all. My resentment hung out like an untucked shirt before guilt’s hand shoved it all back in and straightened out my facade.

  “Noriko,” a familiar male voice called to me.

  I looked up to see my father standing at the front door, slipping off his shoes, the dying light glinting in his silver hair.

  “You’re home from work early.” I smiled. “I have some ongiri left over in the fridge, if you’re hungry.”

  He didn’t smile back. “I didn’t go to work today.”

  Something jarred inside me. He didn’t go to work? He didn’t tell me that. He usually told me everything. I thought it was strange this morning when I woke up and he was already gone. “Where did you go?”

  He ignored my question. “I need to talk to you.”

  “Can it wait, Papa? I have classes.”

  “No,” his voice trembled. “It cannot.”

  I frowned as I looked closer. His face was drawn and pale. He suddenly looked ten years older than his forty-one years. Oh God.

  Something was very, very wrong.

  3

  ____________

  Drake

  “I’m afraid, Mr. Blackwell, you have a weak heart.” Dr. Tao leaned forward in his chair. “And I’m afraid at the rate you’re going…”

  I’d given bad news before. I gave bad news all the fucking time in my position. I knew the longer he paused, the worse it was going to be. I began to count the seconds.

  …three…four…five…

  Fuck me.

  “How much will it cost to cure me?”

  Dr. Tao cleared his throat. “I’m afraid it’s not that simple.”

  My eyes narrowed on his face. Was this some kind of lead-up? A windup where he buttered me up for a ridiculously expensive procedure? Or several? “Make it simple.”

  “It’s not something that we can operate on. But with some lifestyle changes you can manage it.”

  “What?”

  “You’re putting yourself under too much stress. You work too hard. Slow down. Take some time off. Spend time with the ones you love.”

  I bristled. Slow down? Take some time off? Did he fucking know who he was talking to? “I’m not listening to any more of this bullshit.” I shoved away from his desk and stormed out of his office.

  In the elevator, alone, traveling down to the lobby where my driver was waiting, I caught sight of my face in the mirror. There were light smudges under my dark eyes. The downlights in this cursed tin can didn’t help. My lips turned down at the corners. My tie was askew. At least my hair was still in place.

  The withered face of my late father flashed before me. When had I started looking like him? I growled and turned my gaze away. I would never become him. Never.

  Except at thirty-four my father had a wife and a son he could pass his company on to. What did I have?

  Spend time with the ones you love.

  A strange chasm seemed to crack out all around me. Somewhere in the distance, a clock began to tick. I didn’t like this feeling at all. Not one fucking bit.

  I would fix it. I was Drake Blackwell. If I could build a billion-dollar company, I could fix this little problem. I just wasn’t sure how…yet.

  4

  ____________

  Noriko

  “Cancer.”

  I blinked rapidly, staring at my papa. We were sitting alone in our tiny back garden underneath our favorite cherry blossom tree, his and mine, the dying sun casting a dim light across the world. In the distance the great figure of Mount Fuji stood watching over us like an old uncle.

  “I don’t understand,” I said, my voice coming out like a ghost.

  “I have six months. Eight if I’m lucky.”

  Inside me every cell had gone numb, drained of heat and life, prickles of ice skating across my skin, making the hairs on my arms stand on end. “B-but they can operate. The state will pay for it.” Our healthcare system was excellent. The government wouldn’t let him die.

  My father pressed his lips together. “It’s too late for that.”

  “No!” I cried. “There must be something.” I found I was wringing my hands together.

  “There is. But…”

  Something. There was something. Hope. I grasped on to it like grains of sand. “What is it?”

  “There is an experimental treatment. It will give me a chance…” I could hear the but in his tone. Unspoken, it clanged like a gong. “…but the state won’t pay for it.”

  I felt like the ground underneath me was falling away and I was suddenly grasping for something—anything—solid to hang on to. “You have money saved.”

  “For you girls.”

  “We can use it—”

  “It’s not enough, Noriko. It’s not enough.”

  My head spun and my chest squeezed as if a clammy invisible hand was crushing it. This cannot be happening. Not to Papa, the kindest, most loving man in the world. What kind of God would let this happen?

  “I haven’t told anyone else yet. Except you, hime.” Princess, his nickname for me. The weight of his secret bowed my neck like a too-heavy crown.

  In the background, I could hear my sisters banging through the front door, home from school, their voices muffled through the thin paper walls. I envied them. They were blissfully ignorant to the earthquake that had broken my world in two.

  “When are you going to tell them?” I whispered.

  “Soon. Tomorrow night, maybe. They’ll have the weekend to…get used to it.”

  Get used to him dying?

  Papa must have seen the horror on my face because he clutched at my knee. “They will be fine. They have you.”

  Who do I have if you die?

  I shook my head as panicked fear shook my insides. “I can’t be their role model. I’m too resentful of my responsibilities. Too outspoken. I selfishly want too much. I’m not patient enough. You’re always telling me to have more respect.”

  Papa laughed softly, his eyes crinkled with affection, tears wel
ling in the rims. He was trying hard to be strong. But he was close to breaking down. If he broke, I would too. “Hime, you are everything this family needs to hold together. Your heart is bigger than all of us.”

  I barely heard him. You can’t leave us. You can’t. My heart cracked and threatened to spill out all over my lap.

  I should bow to him as my father, as my elder. I should accept what he was telling me. I won’t. I couldn’t.

  “You can’t leave me,” I cried. I’ll never forgive you if you do.

  “I have enough saved that you can finish your studies, get a job.”

  No, damn him. He was talking like he was already gone. Like he had already given up. Like there was no chance left.

  There was a chance, he said so himself. We just needed the money.

  How would I get money?

  “I won’t let you die,” I whispered, a promise to the gods that I would fight to keep him on this Earth. I would fight for him with everything I had.

  Papa merely sighed, picking up a fallen petal on the ground and twisting it in his fingers. “Our lives are like these blossoms. Beautiful and short. We all must die, hime.”

  But not him. Not now. Six months.

  I would not allow him to disappear, the only connection left with him through our kamidana, the small shrine we have inside our home. I will not light a daily incense for him. He will live.

  My chest cavity filled with such hot, sticky resolve that it forced the pieces of my heart to remain in place. This absolute determination was the only thing keeping me from breaking apart.

  In life we must either be the water or the rock. Up until now I had accepted that I was water, allowing myself to fit the container I was placed in, allowing myself to bend around the obstacles in my path.

  Today I would become the rock. I would not bend. I would not flinch. I would stand in this solid faith, stubborn as stone. The universe around me would be forced to become water and to bend to me.

  My father would not die.

  I will find a way to pay for this experimental treatment. I would find a way to save him.

  How? How does a nineteen-year-old woman with no degree make a lot of money and fast?

  My mind turned to the curious foreign woman who approached me at my university several weeks ago.

  “You are very beautiful,” she said in accented Japanese. She was pale like milk with jade-green eyes staring back at me from under waves of thick hair the color of the tail feathers of black kites. She wore a tailored cream pantsuit and smelled of lilacs and money. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

  I raised an eyebrow and studied her. “I’m not gay, sorry.”

  She laughed, the sound like clear temple bells. “I’m not asking for me.”

  I frowned. “Then who are you asking for?”

  She ignored my question and studied my face. “Do you ever wish you could…leave? Get away from the constraints of your place in this society?”

  I blinked at her but did not speak to confirm or deny. It was a lucky guess.

  She continued, “You dream about seeing the world. Of seeing the Mona Lisa in the Louvre in Paris. Van Gogh’s Starry Night in New York. You dream of being an artist.”

  “You’re a witch,” I choked out.

  “No, just observant. You have paint flecks on your cheek.” She brushed my cheek with her thumb, firm yet tender. “And your book on Italian impressionist artists is not part of this business school’s curriculum.”

  I flushed, shoving the book in question—her window into my soul—further into my satchel. “Who are you? What do you want?”

  “Direct. Confident.” Her smile grew cat-like. “Unusual. I like that.”

  I bristled under her assessment. “You still haven’t answered my question.”

  “My name is Isabelle Taylor. I own an international agency.”

  I frowned. “Modeling?” I often had people tell me I was beautiful. Nevertheless I couldn’t see myself making a living out of something as fleeting as beauty. “No, thank you.”

  “Not modeling. Something more…exclusive.”

  I had no idea what that meant.

  “I could make you very rich,” she said. “I could give you the freedom you crave, the life you want.”

  I laughed but it came out like a strangled cry. Even so, a part of me lunged at the possibility like a kitten chasing a butterfly. I tamped that part of me down. “You’re crazy.”

  Now it was her turn to laugh. She pressed a card into my hand, black with silver font. Her jade-chip eyes glinted with knowing. “Call me when you change your mind.”

  Sitting under the tree surrounded with fallen blossoms, I thought back to the black card still sitting in the bottom of my bag. For some reason I had not wanted to throw it away.

  I could make you very rich.

  Unease wormed its way through me. Rich. At what cost?

  I shoved this unease aside. It didn’t matter what the cost was. I would pay it. I would do anything to save my father.

  Anything.

  5

  ____________

  Drake

  That night I attended a fundraiser for one of the charities that Blackwell Industries supported. After my delightful appointment with Dr. Tao, I wasn’t feeling up for people. Except I couldn’t cancel last minute because I was the one who had to deliver the keynote speech.

  Smile plastered on my face, I shook hands and made small talk with a blur of faces.

  Through the crowd, I spotted Jared Wright, a blond-haired snake in a suit. Instantly my shoulders tightened, my lip curled up. Trust that fucker to be here. He probably had a litany of heckles ready for when I got on stage.

  He caught me glaring and lifted his glass in a mock toast, a smug grin on his face, daring me to go over there and beat him to a pulp for the slimy trick he pulled last month, swiping the Mercer deal right out of my palm. I’d win, too. I worked out as hard as I worked. A weights room and shower adjoined my office via a connecting door. Exercise kept me sane. At least, until today. My hands clenched into fists as Jared’s blood splattered all over my imagination.

  Billionaire Drake Blackwell beats long-time rival, Jared Wright, half to death at a charity function

  Wouldn’t that make a nice headline for the papers?

  “What are you looking at?” James asked me as he stepped into my line of sight, breaking through my violent daydream.

  I turned my attention to James Firestone. I hadn’t seen James in, well, it must have been several months. Probably at the last fundraiser. Here he was, looking like he’d spent a month in a spa—rosy cheeks, bright eyes, animated hands, making him look at least ten years younger. The bastard was even smiling.

  But that’s not what caught my attention. On his arm was one of the most stunning creatures I had ever seen: delicate limbs like porcelain in a long, shimmering rose-colored gown matching her marshmallow mouth, dark slit eyes that sparkled with intelligence. “And who is this?” I asked, curiosity and envy eating me alive.

  James turned to the wide-eyed beauty. “This is Satsumi.” His eyes flashed. “My wife.”

  “Your wife?” Two words stuffed with unasked questions.

  James answered none of them. “Satsumi, this is Mr. Blackwell, one of the few men in this room who, dare I say it, is richer than me.” He let out a boisterous laugh.

  Satsumi bowed her dainty head. “Very pleased to meet you, Mr. Blackwell.”

  “Likewise.”

  “I was just saying to James,” Satsumi said, “how interesting your speech was.”

  “Really?”

  She nodded. “You make a good point about free higher education and the impact it would have on Americans living below the poverty line.”

  I raised my eyebrow. “You actually listened to my speech?”

  “Well,” she said with a glint in her eye, “somebody had to.”

  I let out a laugh. The three of us debated the topic until Satsumi excused herself to go the bathroom.

 
; When she was out of earshot, I turned to James. “She is a find, isn’t she?”

  “Indeed.”

  “Where did you meet her?”

  He paused. “Through a mutual friend.”

  “Last time I saw you, you swore up and down that you weren’t giving in to your grandfather’s will stipulations.”

  “Well, that was before…”

  “I didn’t think women like her existed. She’s stunning, exotic and dear God, those eyes. They look like they’re drilling right into you. She’s intelligent, funny and she isn’t intimidated by the Plastic Pack.” I glanced over to the gaggle of twenty-something trust-funders and shuddered. I turned back to James. “Her only downfall is that she chose you as a husband.”

  He laughed and I caught the twinkle in his eye. There was something he wasn’t telling me. “Careful, Drake, if I wasn’t so sure you had no heart I’d say you were half in love with her already.”

  “I have a heart.” Apparently, it’d kill me one day. “Just not for dodgy car salesmen like you.”

  James snorted. “A Bugatti is not just a car.”

  “I know. You sold me two already.”

  “Did I? Looking for a third? Perhaps one for your latest lady friend. How is the lovely…what was her name again? Katie? Kitty?”

  I flinched when I thought of Kristie. “Let’s not talk about her.”

  “Gold digger?”

  I made a face. “That. As well as being insipid and culturally ignorant.”

  “You’re too hard on them, Drake.”

  “She thought Jackson Pollock was an actor.”

  “Oh.”

  “And Salvador Dali was a pop band.”

  James chuckled into his whiskey before taking a large gulp and smacking his lips. “Welcome to LA,” he said, waving his arms with a flourish as if he were a ringmaster in a circus.

  Welcome to LA. I found myself gazing across the ballroom to where Satsumi was floating her way back through the crowd.

  James seemed to read the envy on my face. “Are you even ready to settle down?”

  “I don’t know.” I tore my gaze away from her. Dr. Tao’s words echoed in my mind again. Slow down. Take some time off. Spend time with the ones you love.