Page 44 of The Queen's Denial

As I’m finishing my fencing lesson the next afternoon, I feel my father’s presence behind me and step away from my instructor, turning around to face him and giving a bow of acknowledgement.

“Good afternoon, Chichi-chan. I have come to remind you that you meet with your first match in three days time.” I hope he’s been watching me to see if I’m as astute a pupil while he’s not here as I am while he is. I have been on point during this lesson, so I hope he’s satisfied. I even won a whole match just 20 minutes ago, and I silently pray with all my might that he was here to see it.

I incline my head in respect. “Yes, Papa. I’m excited to finally continue this process.”

I’m not at all, especially as my brain flashes to the sweet but intense lightning bolt of an orgasm Andy gave me yesterday. Unfortunately, honor requires me to say a lot of things I wish I didn’t have to say.

It always pays off when he looks at me with that satisfied expression and nods his head. “Yes, we have been delayed quite a bit, but now that there is relative peace, we’ll be able to quickly move forward. This should all be taken care of in a matter of months. You will have five matches, and after you meet with all of them, you will choose two for another round of interviews, and then make your final choice.”

I feel like the host of a game show when he says it like that, but I just nod sharply, almost aggressively, at his description, determined to make the best of it. “Yes, Papa.”

The few days I still have pass by quickly. Nothing will change, at least for now, I tell myself. I hold Andy a little closer, and as if he knows why, he squeezes me back. The week comes and goes, and the only buzzkill to mine and Andy’s time together is my personal assistant reminding me about my upcoming visitors each day.

Andy leaves early in the morning on the day that I’m scheduled to meet with the first match. I sigh as I watch him stalk toward the guard house out my bedroom window, as enamored with his ass in his tactical pants as I am with the prospect of surprising him with my Princess Leia bikini and fucking him while the Star Wars theme song plays in the background later.

My father comes in to speak with me about the man I’ll be meeting and possibly marrying. He gives me short details, reminds me to be charming and demure, and gives me a list of approved topics to discuss. I already have all of this information, but I know it makes Papa feel better to remind me, so I nod after each reminder to show that I understand.

My father leaves me to get ready after our talk. Although I have to play the meek role, Papa lets me dress up more or less the way I want to for these things, even when they are to be as formal as this one will be. I wear my black lotus print Yukata dress. My red lipstick is a dark contrast to the pink flowers, and the manicure I got yesterday perfectly shapes my nails into the slightly pointy claws he will feel tearing his eyes out if he comes too close to me.

I look just the way I want to look while I’m forced to stare shyly and prettily into his eyes. I’m sure he’ll be completely uninterested in me anyway, as all the others will be, but I can hope he’s perhaps a little bit scared when he thinks of what it would be like to cross me.

As I expected, when I come into the room to sit down to tea with him, he has his eyes glued to his cell phone. They dart to me so quickly I can’t even discern his eye color, and he huffs and puts the phone down on the table, as if I’m bothering him during private time.

We are formally introduced by Daiki while he stares at his phone from the corner of his eye, and then gives a hurried bow and gets right back on. Meanwhile, of course, I wasn’t even allowed to bring a phone into the room with me today. It wouldn’t do for it to vibrate while my full attention should be on the pinnacle of Japanese male wealth and power before me.

Although the pinnacle of male wealth and power, this one decidedly is not. As it turns out, even after he sighs and puts his phone away, he makes little conversation or eye contact. I pour the tea for us both in silence, the way I’ve been taught to do it and practiced my entire life, and then sit back down across from him.

He stares at the steaming liquid in disinterest. I give the entire required minute to allow him to say the first word, but apparently, it will be on me to jumpstart this conversation. It will be a bit of a juggling act, though, because I’m not allowed to show that I have too many thoughts in my pretty little head.

I throw out the most mundane comment I can think of. “I hope your flight was satisfactory, Sota-sama,” I say with my head lowered before taking a dainty sip of tea.

“Yes, it was fine,” comes his clipped reply, and then silence again. This is going to be like pulling fucking teeth. Especially since I’m not allowed to bring up much outside of the weather and his appearance. And I’m not supposed to look at him too much, especially if he isn’t engaging me.

I take a centering breath. “I enjoy reading during the long trip.”

He finally takes a sip of his tea before his back pocket buzzes again, and out comes the phone, his gaze riveted to it. “Mmmhmm,” he says as his eyes dance across whatever the fuck has popped up on there. I would love to throw my tea in his face and stomp out of the room, but I swallow down my annoyance and calmly wait for him to put it away.

I feel a bit uncertain of my next move to steer the conversation in the right direction, but the wrath of this asshole’s father can’t be worse than the pain of sitting in silence with him right now. “Daiki-sama tells me you enjoy and are quite adept at throwing pottery. Are you self-taught?”

He finally looks at me, but even though I’m not really supposed to look him in the eye yet, I catch his gaze out of my peripheral vision. He’s a little frustrated, it seems, and the sigh that leaves his lips a moment later feels like confirmation of that suspicion.

“Our fathers are billionaires, Kohai. Do you really think I would teach myself?”

He calls me by the condescending nickname “Junior,” like I am beneath him. I bite down on my back teeth, slowly lifting my cup to my mouth and blowing over the hot beverage while counting backward from five. I want to smack this motherfucker, but I have to consider my words before I spout off something that I will most certainly regret later.

Finally, I come up with a good enough retort that I can play dumb later and pretend I was simply innocently trying to submit to the junior role he seems to have made for me.

I widen my eyes to appear innocent and purse my lips in serious contemplation. “Oh, of course not. Molding clay into pots seems like a skill that would take you an immense amount of time to learn. You must not be the only person who needs help with such an undertaking.” I make my tone as cloyingly sincere as I possibly can.

Luckily, or perhaps unluckily for me, Sota takes the hidden meaning behind my words: that he is a brick-headed, ignorant simpleton. At least he’s smarter than I thought he was.

His eyebrows furrow in anger. “Are you showing insolence, Chichi-san?” He asks this as though he can’t possibly believe this could be the case.

“Oh, I would never, Sota-san.” I put just the hint of an inflection on the lesser, more informal honorific that he is using for me instead of the more formal “-sama” that I used earlier. I bow my head in an apparent sign of respect, but really, it’s to hide by burgeoning smirk.

He looks off to where his father is likely waiting outside of the room to see how our meeting is going, and then does something incredibly stupid. “You give me a baka na komusume who dares to disrespect me? Instead of Akina?”

Ah, so it’s another woman that he’s being pulled away from that has him in such a shitty mood. Along with calling me an “idiotic little girl” in Japanese, he’s also invoked the name of a woman he’s likely involved with in Japan. I couldn’t give a shit less, but I force tears to form in my eyes. I’ve been able to do this since I was a child, and it comes in quite handy in situations such as this when I have to make it appear that I’m the fragile, emotional, thin-skinned little shrinking violet I’m supposed to be.

---