Ma?l’s thoughts echoed perfectly Oroshi’s sentiment. He was royally screwed.

  He was seating in a flashy pink getaway car in the middle of Tokyo, with an angel in purple underwear. An angel who had most likely been… what had she been doing? Japan was a pretty safe country, people didn’t get shot at for no reason; what was a woman like her doing, jumping out of a building in her underwear? Especially that kind of underwear.

  Who was she? A call girl who got on the wrong side of the wrong person? Perhaps. It would explain her attire, but he didn’t get that vibe at all. More than anything however, he didn’t want her to be one, but what else could she be? Having carried her for several minutes, he’d realized she had the physique of a serious athlete. That took training. Lots of it. And she had taken charge in a rough situation, guiding him through step by step. Was she a contract killer? A spy?

  He considered for a second abandoning the woman and saving himself—it wasn’t his fight—but even as the thought emerged, he knew he could never do that. In some mysterious way, he was bonded to that woman; he would take a bullet for her… He would have if “Mr. Window Guy” had been a better shot.

  And anyway, adventure had finally knocked at his door. Would he be the hobbit who turned down Gandalf and stayed at home eating cake? Hell no! This was it. It was his moment. And his handkerchief was properly stowed in his backpack. Take that, Bilbo Baggins!

  His imagination was on overdrive, but he forced himself to prioritize. Their relative safety would likely last only until the sunrise and that was but a few hours away. Afterwards, if they still were in that bright pink car in Tokyo, they would be found.

  Did he mention the car was pink?

  The car was well hidden for now, invisible from the main road. It was time to address the elephant in the room. An incredibly gorgeous elephant nestled in the seat next to him.

  As the car came to a stop, Kaori peered at the man by her side. In the rush of the action, she hadn’t given him much thought, she had to dodge bullets and run.

  Now?

  Now she was exhausted. It was the middle of the night and she was with a complete stranger. She was at his mercy and she knew absolutely nothing about him. Would he take advantage of her?

  No. That wasn’t fair. He had already saved her life at least twice in the last hour and risked his own in the process. Although he had not been given much of a choice about it, he had done what needed to be done to protect her. He’d even covered her body with his own when her fiancé was shooting at her!

  But who the hell was he? Nothing about him made any sense. To start with, he was clearly a foreigner, a Westerner at that. He didn’t speak Japanese, as far as she could tell, and he was impossibly strong. He had caught her from a two-story fall and carried her as if the weight made no difference to him. It might not sound like much, but she had enough training to understand the man had to be incredibly strong to move the way he did.

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  Inspecting him from the corner of her eye, she looked for clues. His clothes were torn and dirty, from the fall no doubt but not only—he had clearly slept in them! He was a large man, but not a giant. Caucasian, with short hair but not a military cut. His massive shoulders merged into a thick, strong neck. He seemed kind of good-looking, now that she thought of it. Not the way a model or a movie star would be, but he exuded strength and that was always attractive in a man. Who on earth is that guy?

  And his emotions were no less confusing. He’d been smashed to the ground, knocked flat, he’d been shot at and ordered around, none too nicely, she realized, by a complete stranger.

  She expected anger, confusion, or perhaps even fear. Instead, he wore a wide grin and seemed to be having the time of his life!

  Her train of thought made an unscheduled stop as she noticed he had turned toward her and was inspecting her in turn—just like she did him—but he wasn’t subtle about it.

  “Who are you?” the man said simply. There was no malice or accusation in the question, his voice was warm and carried a tinge of wonder and compassion. He truly didn’t know her. To him, she was simply a woman caught in a bad spot.

  She, the single most popular celebrity in Japan, perhaps even in Asia, sat next to the only man in the country who genuinely had no idea of who she was. For the first time in a decade, she actually had to introduce herself.

  Gosh that feels weird!

  What should she tell him? She needed him, she realized with a shock. She had no one else to turn to, at least no one Oroshi wouldn’t know about. And her father? How could she face her father now?

  This man was all she had; if he didn’t help her, she was probably going to die. She decided for a straightforward approach. If he knew how rich her family was, surely he would help her.

  “My name is Mashiro Kaori, and my father owns an industrial consortium controlling several of Japan’s top tech companies such as Sony and —”

  She stopped. The man was rolling his eyes at her and looked… disappointed?

  “Look, I am not stupid. Heiresses don’t jump out of windows wearing… that.”

  He glanced over her body and promptly turned his head away, blushing bright red in embarrassment.

  Kaori’s face turned red too. She had forgotten about her clothes, or lack thereof. She was naked. Worse than naked. Her underwear showed even more than those tiny bikinis she didn’t dare wear at the beach! She looked around the car for something to cover herself. There was nothing except for the man’s backpack.

  “Do you have something I can wear?” Her voice was timid and embarrassed.

  “Look in my backpack. I doubt anything will fit you, but at least you can cover yourself.” he replied, sounding almost apologetic.

  She reached inside and grabbed the first thing she found. It was a Judogi jacket. Probably the best she could have hoped for, she thought, as she wrapped it around her lithe body. It reached down to her knees and covered her like a yukata. She felt her way inside the bag and pulled a long black belt. All of sudden, the man’s physique made sense—Judo guys were often built like tanks.

  “You can look now,” she said. The man seemed embarrassed again. He had been looking. Not a perfect gentleman after all, she thought, but she had had enough of that in recent days. And she was having quite the effect on him. He was a man, looking at her as a woman, not as a celebrity or a heiress. Just as a woman. It felt nice for a change.