Paper-Thin Disguise

Chapter 6: It's Okay If It's You

Looking back on it now, his life wasn't completely without suffering.

At a young age, he lost his mother, father, and sister without warning. He was sent on his own to study in a completely foreign land with no one to help him. He torturously had to climb his way to the top of the corporate ladder, making more enemies than friends. Hell, half the world probably wanted him dead at one point or another.

But nothing he's ever been through could prepare him for the utter look of betrayal in her eyes.

"Was it fun?" she asked him, her expression uncharacteristically irate.

"What do you mean?"

"Messing with me. I know you're my boss and everything, but even I have limits to how much I can get pushed around." Her voice was dripping with a long-repressed bitterness, he ruefully thought.

"I didn't do this to mess with you, I swear. I just—I—"

She crossed her arms, as if to unconsciously shield herself from him even further. In all honesty, in the long time he's known her, not once has he ever seen her remotely angry, despite all the things he and the others have put her through. If anything, all she ever did was brush everything off with a tight smile.

Right now, however, she was seething with a quiet fury he never knew she had.

"Knowing you, you wouldn't do something this elaborate without a reason. Were you trying to get info out of me, or were you just genuinely bored one day and decided to mess with me? Was this another bet with the guys? If you were doing this for your own amusement—well—I guess I'm nothing more than a plaything to you, huh, Mr. Ichinomiya? I mean, you said so yourself when we first met at the auctions—I'm nothing but your property, right?"

He felt every single word stab him. Hearing his own cruel words thrown back at him stirred the regret he thought he kept long hidden.

"Wait, you don't understand. I wasn't trying to deceive you or anything. It was—I—" There was almost no trace of his usual eloquence, and he could only internally cringe at his lack of elegance when it came to her.

"It was what?"

She was carefully gauging his next words. Depending on what came out of his mouth, their relationship—or what was left of it—would change drastically. He was sorely tempted to pile on another lie atop all the other ones, but the morose look on her face made him hesitate.

Oh, fuck it.

"...I wanted to talk to you, okay?" he admitted.

That managed to surprise her.

"Talk to me...? I don't understand," she answered, skeptical.

"Look. It's true that this whole thing started off as a bet I had with the guys." He saw her expression sour quickly, but he continued anyway. "We were betting on how long I'd last trying to actually work at the hotel, so I posed as a worker for a day—which, by the way, is something I would never do again. At least, until you said you wanted to meet Keisuke again..." He looked off to the side, not wanting to meet her scrutinizing gaze.

"Mr. Ichinomiya, what are you—"

"Let me finish—please. I've come this far, so at least let me say my piece," he implored her.

"I have no idea what spurred me on to continue my charade, but for some reason, I was compelled to see you. And I'm not talking about seeing you work at the penthouse every day. I mean the real you. The you that knows the best places to eat, likes lavender vanilla soap, and buys people cake when they're having a shitty day."