Page 42 of Mafia King's Surprise Baby

So the person sent to get me knows I’m French, addressing me in the tongue.

I turn to look at him, surprise making me blink. He’s young, which I didn’t expect from that rich voice that addressed me. There’s something familiar about him, though I can’t pinpoint it. Must be reminding me of the handsome manga princes I used to drool over when I was a teenager. Endymion fromSailor Moon? One of my first crushes.

“That’s all your luggage?” he asks, still in French.

French isn’t a language I’d expected a Japanese person to know, and even though his is good, I aim to help make us more at ease. “I speak English, too, you know.”

He laughs. “Gives me a chance to practice.”

I smile at him, taken in by his easy, open manner. “I must learn Japanese. Maybe we can help each other?”

I leave a pause at the end, and he picks up the cue I was asking for his name.

He stops, bows slightly. “I am Hiro.”

I bow, too. “Pleasure to meet you.”

*

And that was it. How I was introduced to my new life, staying in a high-rise luxury apartment in Minato City in Tokyo, the iconic Tokyo Tower visible from one side of my place that covers half a floor, Hiro Sanada living in the other half.

He took me there from the airport, and I jumped in fright when I came out of the shower, thankfully dressed in a robe, to find him in my kitchen, bare-chested, making me dinner—the bestcaccio e pepeI’ve ever tasted in my life. Hiro is a huge fan of Stanley Tucci.

Hiro is also Hana’s little brother.

And that first day, more than his presence in my kitchen, it’s the sight of his near-naked body that gave me pause. At first, I’d thought Hana had sold me off to him or something, until he revealed their family bond. I still wasn’t convinced he didn’t expect more from me—there was, after all, a connecting door between our apartments—but he’s been the ultimate gentleman all this time.

I let my gaze find him across the ball room. In the tux, nothing gives away his secret. Well,un secret de Polichinelle, as the French say: supposedly well-kept, but everyone knows it. Looking at the men talking to him tonight, it’s obvious they know who he really is.

I’d wondered, upon first meeting him at the airport, how and why he’d wear a long-sleeved shirt buttoned up all the way to histhroat in the extreme humid heat of the Japanese capital. I got my answer in the kitchen later that day.

From his collarbones to his biceps, all the way down his chest and back, the middle line of his torso along the sternum bare, run intricate and colorful tattoos.

The marks of the Yakuza.

Hiro Sanada is thekobunof theoyabunof a powerful branch of theninkyodantai—the foster son of the renowned boss of their chivalrous organization, as they refer to themselves despite the police calling themboryokudanor violent groups.

Hana is his blood sister, and this secret, nobody knows about it.

I was floored when I found out. But Hana is keeping my secret for me, so I’ll keep hers. Hiro is the only one who knows who I really am, the sister of the man his sister is married to.

The ambassador’s wife is still talking to me, and she stops mid-sentence as Hiro approaches us with a tall man in tow.

“Sir Arthur, dah-ling,” she croons in English. “It’s been too long.”

She makes the presentations; the man is Sir Arthur Hewitt, from Hong Kong.

“Sir Arthur,” Hiro is saying. “Bérénice is the woman I was telling you about. She’s the perfect artist for your new children’s division.”

I smile at the man.

It turns out he owns a publishing house based in Hong Kong. Italso turns out that, bored out of my mind inside the apartment where Hiro says I’ve been moping, I’ve started to sketch and dabble in watercolors again. On the side, I’ve also started a children’s book I’m illustrating with the paint as I go along.

Hiro winks at me and smiles. I take a deep breath and face Sir Arthur.

It seems my moping days are over—I’m getting a job as a children’s book illustrator.

And so starts my new life in Tokyo. I have a baby on the way, and the man I’m with is not the one I yearn to be with. Leo… I have just the memory of him now, even though a piece of him is growing in my womb. This: our child, my memories—they’re all I’ll ever have. They’re going to have to be enough.

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