It was when Keiko came back from work, her shoulders and arm tired from serving trays all night long, that she got a call from her grandmother.
Her grandmother hardly ever called. Phones and any kind of technology went against everything Ami had ever believed in.
'Two men came to see me,' her grandmother snapped immediately, without even a hello.
Keiko, caught off guard, pressed her mobile into her ear as she walked for her room, closing the door gently behind her.
‘Sorry, grandmother?' she asked politely, completely confused.
'Two men came to see me. They asked about you. They wanted your picture.'
Alarm rising through her, Keiko paused, halfway through removing her shoes. The fingers tightened over the buckles as she practically flopped on the bed behind her. ‘What are you talking about, grandma?' her voice was high and tight.
'Today. A man, calling himself Chase Harlow came to see me. He wanted your picture,' she said in broken English, her accent peaking around her hastily-said and slurred words.
Keiko actually gave a shake. 'He what?' her voice was so high it was practically a shriek.
'He wanted Aiko, he wanted to see her, wanted a picture,' her grandmother continued.
The alarm that had built up within Keiko gradually subsided as she closed her eyes and briefly shook her head. Her grandmother sometimes got confused.
‘He wanted your picture,' her grandmother repeated.
‘You mean he wanted a picture of Aiko,' Keiko said softly.
'I know what I said,' her grandmother answered, her tone quick.
'Just calm down, grandma, what happened?’ Keiko pulled her legs up, tucking them neatly into her middle, bringing one hand around and locking them in place as she still held the phone hard against her ear.
'When he left, another man came in. I had to call the nurses. He wanted a picture of you. I wouldn't give him a picture,' her grandmother said, voice shaking now.
‘It's okay, grandma, it's okay.’ Keiko tried.
Except it wasn't okay. As she sat there, listening to her grandmother's harsh and rapid breath, a mix of emotion swirled around in Keiko. Alarm, yes, but anger to.
That man, Chase Harlow, had gone behind Keiko's back, found out where her grandmother was, and had gone to see her.
Keiko didn't care if he was rich and handsome, that was a terrible thing to do.
Curling her fingers into her palms and digging her fingernails into the flesh, she told her grandmother it would be okay several more times.
But the woman was beside herself. Scared, for some reason, her English kept on dropping out and turning into Japanese halfway through her sentences. Eventually Keiko had to hang up, call the nursing home, get them to send a nurse to her grandmother's room, and then she sat there on her bed, rocking back and forth as she breathed hard.
She didn't know what to do. A part of her wanted to call the police, but she knew that technically Chase Harlow had committed no crime.
‘What a jerk,’ she said. Then she gave a stuttering laugh. Jerk did not begin to describe what he had just done. It wasn't just creepy, it was borderline criminal. Tracking down an old woman, berating her, then sending in one of his men afterwards – it sounded like organized crime, the activities of a Mafioso, not the head of the country's largest Fortune 500 company.
It took Keiko a long time to calm down after that. She called the nursing home several times to see how her grandmother was going, and it wasn't until they confirmed that she had gone to sleep that Keiko allowed herself to hop in the shower.
When the water was running down her face, dripping down her hair, she kept on balling up a fist and hitting it lightly against the shower door.
He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with something like that, she thought to herself.
Just because he was rich, didn't mean he could run around doing exactly what he wanted, harassing old ladies, and creeping out young women in the rain.
When Keiko got out of the shower, pulled on her robe, and tucked her hair neatly into a towel, she came out to see Jenny swanning around the kitchen with an enormous bunch of flowers in her hand.
'What's wrong with you?’ Jenny asked her as she nodded her way. 'You haven’t lost your job or something, have you? You look terrible.’
Keiko shook her head. ‘I'm fine,' she lied as she tugged at the ties of her dressing gown. ‘Who sent you those flowers?'
Jenny's eyes twinkled, her cheeks tweaking up into the strangest of smiles. 'Don't you mean who sent you these flowers?'
Keiko faulted. The flowers were incredible. They looked incredibly expensive too. They were lilies and roses and irises and all of Keiko's favorites, and considering it was winter, they’d probably been brought in from another state.
No one ever sent her flowers, and no one ever spent that much money on her.
Before she could get caught up in the idea that she had a secret admirer, she frowned.
There was one man she knew who could afford flowers like that.
'You have to tell me, you really honestly have to tell me, why Chase Harlow has sent you these,' Jenny said, her voice shaking with excitement as she brandished the flowers like a sword, several of the petals falling off to the floor lightly by her feet.
Keiko didn't suddenly jump forward, grab the flowers up, and dance around on the spot like a girly girl should.
Instead she crossed her arms and frowned. 'Was there a letter with them? A package? Any documents?'
Jenny looked at her askance. 'What exactly have you been getting up to with Mister Chase Harlow? Did those lacy white knickers pay off?' Jenny squealed at the mere thought of it.
Keiko didn't join in. 'I'm serious, was there a package?'
'There wasn't a package.' Jenny narrowed her eyes, brought the flowers up, smelt them, batted at her face coquettishly, then handed them to Keiko.
Keiko ignored them though. ‘There's not a letter with them, is there?
‘You know, for a girl who is getting incredible flowers from the country's richest and most eligible bachelor, you look sour as hell. What's up?’
Keiko still didn't answer. She walked over to the flowers, checked them, and finally pulled out a card.
She opened it, and tracing her fingers over Chase’s terrible handwriting, she frowned even deeper.
The card read, 'thank you for the documents, if I can't compensate you, at least I can get you flowers.'
'Are you sure there wasn't a package with these?' Keiko closed the card and looked up at Jenny sharply.
She shrugged her shoulders. 'A courier brought them in. He didn't say anything about a package, he said he’d brought these express from Harlow Enterprises.’
Keiko let the hand holding the card drop to her side.
Her whole life people had called her timid. Mousy. The kind of girl that would let herself be trodden on by anyone, just as long as she never had to confront anything.
Well right now she was angry. Angry at Mister Chase Harlow. Not only had he seen her grandmother without her permission, but now it looked as if he’d stolen her documents too. Why else would he send flowers, mention the documents, but not have sent them back? How long would it have taken to run them through a photocopier?
‘I don't know what's happening between you two, but you need to turn that frown upside down,' Jenny said in a sultry breath. 'Because we are talking about Mister Chase Harlow. I don't know if you've taken a long hard look at your life recently, Keiko, but you are never going to come across a man like him again.'
Jenny was right. It was a fact Keiko didn't have any problem with though.
Because though maybe she had been taken with the idea of Chase to begin with, right now didn't want to have anything to do with the man. Rich or not, handsome or not, he was a jerk.
'You need to go over to his company tomorrow,' Jenny said excitedly as she wiggled a little, her hips shifting from side-to-side, her long shirt dancing over them, 'and say thank you.'
Keiko opened her mouth to say that would never happen.
Then she stopped.
She looked down at the flowers, she twisted the card around in her fingers, and she got the sudden idea that just maybe she should go down to Harlow Enterprises tomorrow. Demand to see Chase, and then ask him exactly who he thought he was for stealing her documents and harassing her grandmother.
Keiko really didn't like confrontation, but maybe she had never faced something that had made her this angry before, because as she finally went to bed, the plan solidified in her mind.
Tomorrow morning she was going to make a visit to his offices. It would not be a friendly one.