InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Husband Hunters ❯ The vengeful husband 2 ( Chapter 13 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THIS STORY, OR THE CHARACTERS. The story belong to Lynne Graham, and the characters belong to Rumiko Takashi .I'm not gaining absolutely nothing with this story.


Chapter Two


“So what sort of impression did Kougas make on you?” Dai demanded, minutes later.
_
“It’s not Kougas, it's Kouga... my impression?” Ayame studied her friend with a frowning air of abstraction. “That’s the odd thing. I didn't really get a proper impression—at least not one I could hang onto for longer than five seconds,” she found herself admitting in belated recognition of the fact. “One minute I thought he was all brawn and no brain, and then the next he would come out with something razor-sharp. And towards the end he was as informative as a brick wall.”

“He didn't accuse you of dragging him down here on false pretences? He didn't laugh like a drain? Or even ask if you were pulling his leg?” it was Dai's turn to look confused.

Ayame shook her head reflectively. “He was very low-key in his reactions, businesslike in spite of the way he was dressed. That made it easier for me. I didn't get half as embarrassed as I thought I would.”

“Only you could conduct such a weird and loaded interview with a male that gorgeous and not respond on any more personal a level.”

“that kind of man leaves me cold.” but Ayame's cheeks warmed as she recalled that humiliating moment when she had reacted all too personally to the sheer male magnetism of those dark good looks.

Dai’s keen gaze gleamed. “He didn't leave you stone-cold... did he?”

Cursing her betraying fair skin, Ayame strove to continue meeting her friend's eyes levelly. “Dai —“

“Forget it... I can tell a mile off when you're about to lie through your teeth!” Ayame winced.

“Ok...I noticed that Kouga was reasonably fanciable—“

“Reasonably fanciable?” her friend caroled with extravagant incredulity.

“All right.” Ayame sighed in rueful surrender. “He was spectacular ...are you satisfied now?”

“Yes. Your indifference to men seriously worries me. Now at least I know that you're still in the land of the living.”

Ayame pulled a wry face. “With my level of looks and appeal, indifference is by far the safest bet, believe me.”

Dai compressed her lips and thought with real loathing of all the people responsible for ensuring Ayame had such a low opinion of her own attractions. Her cold and critical father, her vain and sarcastic stepmother, not to mention the rejections her unlucky friend had suffered from the opposite sex during her awkward and vulnerable teen years. Being jilted at the altar and left to raise her child alone had completed the damage.

And these days Ayame dressed like a scarecrow and made little effort to socialize. Slowly and surely she was turning into a recluse, although the hours she slaved over that wretched house meant that she didn't know what free time was, Dai conceded grimly. Anyone else confronted with such an immense and thankless challenge would've given up and at least sold the furniture by now, but not Ayame. Ayame would starve sooner than see any more of the folly's treasures go to auction.

“I get really annoyed with you when you talk like that,” Dai said truthfully. “If you would only buy some decent clothes and take a little more interest in—“

“Why bother when I’m quite happy as I am?” visibly agitated by the turn the conversation had taken, Ayame glanced hurriedly at her watch and added with a relief couldn't hide, “it's time I picked up Shiori from the playgroup.”

As Ayame left the gate lodge, however, that final dialogue traveled with her. Demeaning memories had been roused to fill her thoughts and unsettle her stomach. All over again she saw her one-time fiancé, Houjo, gawping at her chief bridesmaid like a moon sick calf and finally admitting at the eleventh hour that he couldn't go through with the wedding because he had fallen in love with Kagome. And the ultimate insult had to be that her former friend, Kagome, who was so beautiful she could stop traffic, hadn't even wanted Houjo! That devastatingly public rejection had been followed by the Venetian episode, Ayame recalled wretchedly. That, too, had ended in severe humiliation. She had got to play Cinderella for a night.

And then she had got to stand on the Ponte Della Guerra and be stood up like a dumb teenager the following day. She had waited for ages too, and had hit complete rock-bottom when she finally appreciated that prince charming was not going to turn up. Of course another woman, a more experienced and less credulous woman, would have known that that so casually voiced yet so romantic suggestion had been the equivalent of a guy saying he would phone you when he hadn't the slightest intention of doing so, only she hadn't recognized the reality. No, Ayame reflected with a stark shudder of remembrance, she had been much happier since she had given up on all that ghastly embarrassing and confusing man-woman stuff.

And if Kouga, whoever he was, decided to go ahead and accept her proposition, she would soon be able to tune him and his macho motorbike leathers out entirely...

Perspiration beading her brow, Ayame wielded the heavy power-saw with the driven energy of necessity. The ancient kitchen range had an insatiable appetite for wood. Breathing heavily, she stopped to take a break. Even after switching off the saw, her ears still rang with the shattering roar of the petrol-driven motor. With a weary sigh, she bent and began laboriously stacking the logs into the waiting wheelbarrow.

“Ayame...?”

At the sound of that purring, accented drawl, Ayame almost leapt out of her skin, and she jerked round with a muttered exclamation.

Kouga stood several feet away. Her startled green eyes clung to his tall, outrageously masculine physique. Wide shoulders, sleek hips, long, long legs. And he had shaved. One look at the to-die-for features now revealed in all their glory struck Ayame dumb. She wasn't even capable of controlling that reaction. In full daylight, he was so staggeringly handsome. High, chiseled cheekbones, sharp as blades, were dissected by an arrogant but classic nose and embellished by a wide, perfect mouth. Even his skin had that wonderful golden glowing vibrancy of warmer climes...

“Is there something wrong?” an equally shapely ebony brow had now quirked enquiringly.

“You startled me..." heated color drenching her skin as she realized that she had been staring, Ayame dragged her attention from him with considerable difficulty. As her dazed eyes dropped down, she blinked in disbelief at the sight of her cocker spaniels seated silently at his feet like the well trained dogs they unfortunately weren't. Strangers usually provoked Humpf and Bert into a positive frenzy of uncontrolled barking. Instead, her lovable but noisy animals were welded to the spot and throwing Kouga upward pleading doggy glances as if he had cast some weird sort of hypnotic spell over them.

“I wasn't expecting you,” Ayame said abruptly.

“I did try the front entrance first...” his deep-pitched sexy drawl petered out as he studied the sizeable stack of wood. “Surely you haven't cut all that on your own?”

Threading an even more self-conscious hand through the damp and wildly curling tendrils of hair clinging to her forehead, she nodded, aware of the incredulity in those piercing dark eyes.

“Are there no men around here?”

“no, I’m the next best thing...but then that's nothing new,” Ayame muttered half under her breath, writhing at her own undeniable awkwardness around men and hating him for surprising her when she wasn't psyched up to deal with him.

Forgivably thrown by that odd response, Kouga frowned.

Ayame leapt straight back into speech. “I assumed you would phone—“

“Nobody ever answers your phone.”

“I’m outdoors a lot of the time.” stripping off her heavy gloves, Ayame flexed small and painfully stiff fingers and averted her scrutiny from him, her unease in his presence pronounced. What on earth was the matter with her? She was behaving like a silly teenager with a crush. “You’d better come inside.”

Hurriedly grabbing up an armful of logs, Ayame led the way. The long, cobbled passageway that provided a far from convenient rear entrance to her home was dark and gloomy and flanked by a multitude of closed doors. Innumerable rooms which had once enjoyed specific functions as part of the kitchen quarters now lay unused.

But not for much longer, she reminded herself. When she achieved her dream of opening up the house to the public all those rooms full of their ancient labor intensive equipment would fascinate children.

And she was going to achieve her dream, she told herself feverishly. Surely Kouga wouldn't take the trouble to make a second personal appearance if he intended to say no? She trod into the vast echoing kitchen and knelt down by the big range at the far end.

Opening the door, she thrust a sizeable log into the fuel bed. “Did you come all the way from london again?”

“No, I stayed in Penzance last night.”

Ayame was so rigid with nervous tension; she couldn't bring herself to look at him as she breathed tautly, “so what's your answer?”

“Yes. My answer is yes,” he murmured with quiet emphasis.

Her strained eyes prickled with sudden tears and she blinked rapidly before slamming shut the door on the range. The relief was so immense she felt quite dizzy for a few seconds. Feeling as if a huge weight had dropped from her shoulders, Ayame scrambled upright and turned, a grateful smile on her now softened face.

“That’s great...that's really great. Would you like some coffee?”

Lounging back against the edge of the giant scrubbed pine table, Kouga stared back at her, not a muscle moving in his strong dark face. It was a rather daunting reaction and she swallowed hard, unaware that that shy and spontaneous air of sudden friendliness had disconcerted him.

“Ok...why not?” he agreed, without any expression at all.

Ayame put on the kettle and stole an uneasy glance at him in the taut silence. She didn't know where the tension was coming from, and then she wondered if his brooding silence was a kind of male ego thing. “I suppose this isn't quite the sort of work you were hoping to get,” she conceded awkwardly. “But I promise you that you won't regret it. How long have you been unemployed?”

“Unemployed?” he echoed, strong features stiffening.

“Sorry, I just assumed—“

“I have never been employed in the UK.”

“Oh...” Ayame nodded slowly. “So how long have you been over here?”

“Long enough...”

Ayame scrutinized that slightly down bent dark glossy head, taking in the faint darkening of color over his sculpted cheekbones. He was embarrassed at his lack of success in the job market, she gathered, and she wished she had been a little less blunt in her questioning.

But then tact had never been her strong point. And when she had interviewed him she had been so wrapped up in her own problems that it hadn't occurred to her that Kouga must have been desperate to find a job to come so far out of London in answer to one small ad.

Furthermore, now that she took a closer look at those leathers of his, she couldn't help but notice that they were pretty worn.

Sudden sympathy swept Ayame. She knew all about being broke and trying to keep up appearances. She had looked down on him for wearing motorbike gear to an interview, but maybe the poor guy didn't have much else to wear. If he hadn't worked since he had arrived in the UK, he certainly couldn't have financed much of a wardrobe. Smart suits cost money.

“I’ll give you half your first month's salary in advance,” Ayame heard herself say. “As a sort of retainer...”

This time he looked frankly startled.

“You probably think that's very trusting of me, but I tend to take people as I find them. In any case, I don't have a lot of choice but to trust you. If you were to get the chance of another job and decide to back out on me, I’d be in trouble,” she said honestly. “How do you like your coffee?”

“Black...two sugars.”

Ayame put a pile of biscuits on a rather chipped plate. Setting the two beakers of coffee down on the table, she sat down and reached for the jotter and pencil lying there. “I’d better get some details from you, hadn't I? What is your surname?'

There was a pause, a distinct pause as he sank lithely down opposite her.

“Wolf...” he breathed.

Ayame bent industriously over the jotter. “And Kouga —is that your first and only other name? You see, “I have to get this right for the vicar.'

'Kenji Kouga. Wolf, Kenji Kouga.'

“I think you'd better spell that one.” she took down his birth date. Wolf, she was thinking. Why did she have the curious sense that she had come across that name somewhere before? She shook her head. For all she knew Wolf was not a common name in Italy as smith was in England.

“Right,” she said then. “I’ll contact my solicitor, Mr. Mioga. He’s based in Penzance, so you can sign the pre-nuptial contract as soon as you like. Those references you offered...?” from the inside of his jacket he withdrew a somewhat creased envelope. Struggling to keep up a businesslike attitude when she really just wanted to sing and dance round the kitchen with relief, Ayame withdrew the documents. There were two, one with a very impressive letterhead, but both were written in Italian. “I’ll hang onto these and study them,” she told him, thinking of the old set of foreign language dictionaries in the library. “But I’m sure they'll be fine.”

“How soon do you envisage the marriage ceremony taking place?” Kouga enquired.

“Hopefully in about three weeks. It’ll be a very quiet wedding,” Ayame explained rather stiffly, fixing her attention to the scarred surface of the table, her face turning pale and set. “But as my father died this year that won't surprise anyone. It wouldn't be quite the thing to have a big splash.”

“You’re not inviting many guests?”

“Actually...” Ayame breathed in deep, plunged into dismal recall of the huge misfired wedding which her father had insisted on staging three years earlier. “Well, actually, I wasn't planning on inviting anybody,” she admitted tightly as she rose restively to her feet again. “I’ll show you where you'll be staying when you move in, shall I?”

At an infinitely more graceful and leisurely pace, Kouga slid upright and straightened. Ayame watched in helpless fascination. His every movement had such...such style, an unhurried cool that caught the eye. He was so self-possessed, so contained. He was also very reserved. He gave nothing away. Well, would she have preferred a garrulous extrovert who asked a lot of awkward questions? Irritated by her own growing curiosity, Ayame left him to follow her out of the kitchen and tried to concentrate on more important things.

“What did you mean when you said you were the next best thing to a man around here?” Kouga enquired on the way up the grand oak staircase.

“My father wanted a son, not a daughter—at least...not the kind of daughter I turned out to be.” as she spoke, Ayame was comparing herself to her stepsister. Taro Uno had been utterly charmed by his second wife's beautiful daughter, Akane. Ayame had looked on in amazement as Akane twisted her cold and censorious parent round her little finger with ease.

“Your mother?”

“She died when I was six. I hardly remember her,” Ayame confided ruefully. “My father remarried a few years later. He was desperate to have a male heir but I’m afraid it didn't happen.”

She cast open the door of a big dark oak-paneled bedroom, dominated by a giant Elizabethan four-poster. "This will be your room. The bathroom's through that door. I’m afraid we'll have to share it. There isn't another one on this side of the house.”

As he glanced round the sparsely furnished and decidedly dusty room, which might have figured in a Tudor time warp, Ayame found herself studying him again. That stunning male profile, the hard, sleek lines of his muscular length.

A tiny frisson of sexual heat tightened her stomach muscles. He strolled with the grace of a leopard over to the high casement window to look out. Sunlight gleamed over his luxuriant black hair. Unexpectedly he turned, dark eyes with the dramatic impact of gold resting on her in cool enquiry.

Caught watching him again, Ayame blushed as hotly as an embarrassed schoolgirl. She was appalled by her own outrageous physical awareness of him, could not comprehend what madness was dredging such responses from her. Whirling round, she walked swiftly back into the corridor.

As he drew level with her she snatched in a deep, sustaining breath and started towards the stairs again. “I’m afraid there are very few modern comforts in the folly, and locally, well, there's even fewer social outlets...” she hesitated uneasily before continuing, “what I’m really trying to say is that if you feel the need to take off for the odd day in search of amusement, I’ll understand—“

“Amusement?” Kouga prompted grimly, as if such a concept had never come his way before. Ayame nodded, staring stonily ahead. “I’m one of these people who always say exactly what's on their mind. I live very quietly but I can't reasonably expect you to do the same thing for an entire six months. I’m sure you'll maybe want to go up to London occasionally and—“

“Amuse myself?” Kouga slotted in very dryly.

In spite of her discomfiture, Ayame uttered a strained little laugh. “You can hardly bring a girlfriend here—“

“I do not have a woman in my life,” he interrupted, with a strong suggestion of gritted teeth.

“Possibly not at present,” Ayame allowed, wondering what on earth was the matter with him. He was reacting as if she had grossly insulted him in some way. “But I’m being realistic. You’re bound to get bored down here. City slickers do...”

Brilliant eyes black as jet stabbed into her. A line of dark color now lay over his taut cheekbones. “there will not be a woman nor any need for such behavior on my part, I assure you” he imparted icily.

They were descending the stairs when a tiny figure clad in bright red leggings and a yellow t-shirt appeared in the great hall below. “mummy!” Shiori caroled with exuberance.

As her daughter flashed over to eagerly show off a much creased painting, Kouga fell still. Interpreting his silence as astonishment, Ayame flung him an apologetic glance as she lifted her daughter up into her arms. “My daughter, Shiori...I hadn't got around to mentioning her yet,” she conceded rather defensively.

Kouga slid up a broad shoulder in an infinitesimal shrug of innate elegance. The advent of a stray cat might have inspired as much interest. Not a male who had any time for children, Ayame gathered, resolving to ensure that her playful and chatty toddler was kept well out of his path.

“Is there anything else you wish to discuss?” Kouga prompted with faint impatience. Ayame stiffened. Minutes later, she had written and passed him the cheque she had promised. He folded the item and tucked it into his inside pocket with complete cool. “I’ll drop you a note as soon as I get the date of the ceremony organized. I won't need to see you again before that,” she told him.

Kouga printed a phone number on the front of the jotter she had left lying. “If you need to contact me for any other reason, leave a message on that line.”

A fortnight later, Ayame unbolted the huge front door of the folly and dragged it open, only to freeze in dismay.

“about time too,” Sumiko Uno complained sharply as she swept past, reeking of expensive perfume and irritation, closely followed by her daughter, Akane. Aghast at the un-forewarned descent of her stepmother and her stepsister, Ayame watched with a sinking heart as the tall, beautiful blonde duo stalked ahead of her into the drawing room.

She hadn't laid eyes on either woman since they had moved out after her father's funeral, eager to leave the privations of country life behind them and return to city life. The discovery that Ayame could not be forced to sell the folly and share the proceeds with them had led to a strained parting of the ways. Although Taro Uno had generously provided for his widow, and Sumiko was a wealthy woman in her own right, her stepmother had been far from satisfied.

Sumiko cast an outraged look. “Don’t you think you should've told me that you were getting married?” she demanded as she took up a painfully familiar bullying stance at the fireplace. “Can you imagine how I felt when a friend called me to ask who you were marrying and I had to confess my ignorance? How dare you embarrass me like that?”

Ayame was very tense, her tummy muscles knotting, up while she wondered how on earth the older woman had discovered her plans. The vicar's wife could be a bit of a gossip, she conceded, and Sumiko still had friends locally. No doubt that was how word had traveled farther a field at such speed. “I’m sorry...I would've informed you after the wedding—“

Sumiko's scornful blue eyes raked over the younger woman. “But of course, when it's safely over. You’re terrified that your bridegroom will bolt last minute, like Houjo did!” at that unpleasant and needless reminder, which was painfully apt, the embarrassed color drained from Ayame 's taut cheekbones. “I—“

“Just when I thought you must finally be coming to your senses and accepting the need to sell this white elephant of a house, you suddenly decide to get married,” Sumiko condemned with stark resentment. “Is he even presentable?”

“With all this heavy secrecy, it's my bet that the groom is totally un-presentable...one of the estate workers?” Akane suggested, with a disdainful little shudder of snobbish distaste.

“You’re not pregnant again, are you?” Sumiko treated Ayame to a withering and accusing appraisal. “That’s what people are going to think. And I refuse to have my acquaintances view me as some sort of wicked stepmother! So you'll have to pay for a proper wedding reception and I’ll act as your hostess.”

“I’m afraid I haven't got the money for that,” Ayame admitted tightly.

“What about him?” Akane pressed instantaneously.

Ayame flushed and looked away.

“Penniless, I suppose.” reaching that conclusion, Sumiko exchanged a covert look of relief and satisfaction with her daughter. “I do hope he's aware that when you go bust here, we're entitled to a slice of whatever is left.”

“I’m not planning to go bust,” Ayame breathed, her taut fingers clenching in on themselves.

“I’m just dying to meet this character.” Akane giggled. "Who is he?”

“His name's Kouga —“

“What kind of a name is that?” her stepmother demanded.

“He’s Italian,” Ayame confided grudgingly,

“an immigrant?” Akane squealed, as if that was the funniest thing she had ever heard. “I do hope he's not marrying you just to get a British passport!”

“I’ll throw a small engagement party for you this weekend in Truro,” Sumiko announced grandly with a glacial smile. “I will not have people say that I didn't at least try to do my duty by my late husband's child.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Ayame mumbled, after a staggered pause at the fact that Sumiko was prepared to make so much effort on her behalf. “But—“

“No buts, Ayame. Everyone knows how eccentric you are, but I will not allow you to embarrass me in front of my friends. I will expect you and your fiancé at eight on Friday, both of you suitably dressed. And if he's as hopeless as you are in polite company, tell him to keep his mouth shut and just smile.”

Her expectations voiced, Sumiko was already sweeping out to the hall. Ayame unfroze and sped after her. “But Kouga... Kouga’s got other arrangements for that night!” she lied in a frantic rush.

“Saturday, then,” Sumiko decreed instead.

Ayame’s tremulous lips sealed again. How could she refuse to produce her supposed fiancé without giving the impression that there was something most peculiar about their relationship? She should never have practiced such secrecy, never have surrendered to her own shrinking reluctance to make any form of public appearance with a man in tow. In her position, she couldn't afford to arouse suspicion that there was anything strange about her forthcoming marriage.

“I’m so glad you've finally found yourself a man.” Akane dealt her a pitying look of superiority. “What does he do for a living?”

Ayame hesitated. She just couldn't bring herself to admit that Kouga was unemployed. “He...he works in a bank.”

“A clerk...how sweet. love blossomed over the counter, did it?” utterly drained, and annoyed that she had allowed her stepmother to reduce her yet again to a state of dumbstruck inadequacy, Ayame stood as the two women climbed into their sleek, expensive BMW and drove off without further ado.



“Kouga, haven't you got any of my other messages? I realize that this is terribly short notice, but I do really need you to show up with me at this party in Truro...er...our engagement party,” Ayame stated apologetically to the answering machine which greeted her for the frustrating fourth time at the London number he had left with her.

“This is an emergency. Saturday night at eight. Could you get in touch, please?”

“The toad's done a bunk on you with that cheque!” Dai groaned in despair. “I don't know why you agreed to this party anyway. Sumiko and Akane have to be up to something. They’ve never done you a favor in their lives. And if Kouga fails to show up, those two witches will have a terrific laugh at your expense!”

“There’s still twenty-four hours to go. I’m sure I’ll hear from him soon,” Ayame muttered fiercely, refusing to give up hope as she hugged Shiori, grateful for the comforting warmth of her sturdy little body next to her own.

“Ayame...you have written to him as well. He is obviously not at home and if he is home, he's ignoring you—“

“I don't think he's like that, Dai,” Ayame objected, suddenly feeling more than a little irritated with her friend for running Kouga down and forecasting the worst. From what she had contrived to roughly translate of her future husband's references, one of which was persuasively written by a high court judge, she was dealing with a male of considerable integrity and sterling character.

Late that night the frustratingly silent phone finally rang and Ayame raced like a maniac to answer it. “Yes?” she gasped with breathless hope into the receiver.

“Kouga... I got your messages this evening—all of them.”

“Oh, thank heaven...thank heaven!” just hearing the intensely welcome sound of that deep, dark accented drawl, Ayame went weak at the knees. “I was starting to think I was going to have to ring my stepmother and say you'd come down with some sudden illness! She would've been absolutely furious. We’ve never been close, and I certainly didn't want this wretched party, but it is pretty decent of her to offer, isn't it?”

“I’m afraid we have one slight problem to overcome,” Kouga slotted softly into that flood of relieved explanation. “I’m calling from italy.”

“Italy...?” Ayame blinked rapidly, thoroughly thrown by the announcement. “It-Italy?” she stammered in horror.

“But naturally I will do my utmost to get back in time for the party,” Kouga assured her in a tone of cool assurance.

Ayame sighed heavily then, unsurprised by his coolness. What right did she have to muck up his arrangements? This whole mess wasn't his fault, it was hers. After all, she had told him she wouldn't need to see him again before the wedding. Obviously he had used the money she had given him to travel home and see his family.

“I’m really sorry about this,” she said tiredly, the stress of several sleepless nights edging her voice. “Look, can you make it?”

“With the best will in the world, not to the party before nine in the evening...unless you want to meet me there?” he suggested.

Aghast at the idea of arriving alone, Ayame uttered an instant negative.

“Then offer my apologies to your stepmother. I’ll come and pick you up.”

Ayame told herself that she was incredibly lucky that Kouga was willing to come back from Italy to attend the party at such short notice. “I really appreciate this...look, you can stay here on Saturday night,” she offered gratefully. “I’ll make up the bed for you.”

“That’s extraordinarily kind of you, Ayame,” Kouga drawled smoothly.

SO… here I am again… did you all miss me??? (I’m in a good mood, what can I say? XD) I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, I will be posting the next one soon enough, let me know what do you think about the story so far, ok??? =3

Take care people!!!

XOXO
Sahora.