Free Wasabi Heat by RaeLynn Blue Page A

strong as Nadia. Few women he had met were.
    “As father would say, a man in love mistakes a pimple for a dimple.” Zen shot her a warning look. “He would know.”
    Asuka gasped, and lowered her eyes. “You disrespect my mother!”
    “Asuka!” His sharp rebuke made her eyes snapped back up to his. He gave her his full attention now. “It was you who first disrespected your oji.”
    “Gomenasai, oji.” Asuka said. Her expression still held anger, despite her apology.
    “I think your customers at table 10 need you,” he said, wanting her away from him. Asuka only parroted what her father said. Her prejudice wasn‟t really her fault, but at 22, he believed his niece needed to develop some independent thought.
    She nodded and bowed, leaving the registers to go see about her customers.
    Through the darkly-tinted glass walls of the foyer, he watched the African-American woman stroll into his restaurant‟s double maple doors. Dressed in a light gray suit jacket, pencil skirt that skimmed her sexy pear-shaped body and lush thighs, Nadia Crammer held the door for another woman, someone Zen hadn‟t seen before. That was common. Nadia entertained clients here. Sometimes she stayed after her clients had left, and they discussed the pros and cons of running a business. Smart, sexy, and seductive, Nadia had him hooked, and Zen knew it.
    “Asuka looks upset,” came Ichiro‟s accusing Japanese from behind him. He wore his white chef hat and a relatively clean apron. Only in the bright revealing light of the kitchen could you make out the watery pink stains of fresh fish. His Japanese came fast with fury.
    “I see your black friend is here again.”
    “African-American,” Zen corrected in English. Then in Japanese, over his shoulder, he continued. “She has a name. It is Nadia. Besides, you should get back to making sushi. We are getting busy.”
    Ichiro scowled, his eyes disappearing into the meaty folds of his flushed face.
    “My daughter is upset and she said you disrespected Haruna.”
    Zen turned to face his brother. He didn‟t want to get into this tonight, but obviously Asuka hadn‟t conveyed the entire tale. She‟d somehow circumvented her route to table 10 and went in the back to rant to her father. If he didn‟t disarm Ichiro‟s attitude, they‟d spend too much time here arguing instead of getting the sushi to the patrons.
    He sighed and explained in Japanese.
    “Asuka forgot that I am her uncle and spoke out of turn.” “You called Haruna a pimple.”
    “No, you did.”
    His brother folded his beefy arms over his chest. “I did?”
    “Asuka recited the old proverb about a man in love…” So, in English, Zen said, “She said it. I reminded her that you would know.”
    Ichiro‟s eyes lit up in understanding and nodded, chuckling, his anger spent as fast as it had
    come.

    “About a man being in love? Yes, I would know about love.” Ichiro nodded, putting his hands on
    his hips. He looked across the seating areas. “She is beautiful, yes, Zen, but she is not one of us.”
    “It is a new time, a new country,” Zen said, looking at Nadia as well. “The world is smaller. Love is bigger, wider. The president is an African-American man—something many did not think would ever happen.”
    “Our culture would be lost on her. She‟d be an outsider ,” Ichiro said, his voice softened by what Zen heard as fear. “Even if she agreed to date you, you will be outcasts among our community and hers. Never fitting into any real place. Would she be able to handle that?”
    “Yes.” Zen had no doubt. She‟d have him. He would have her . They‟d form their own community. Zen wasn‟t interested in dating the community or living with the community or having children with the community.
    “Will you?” “Absolutely.”
    “Think, brother, of what you are saying? For what? To satisfy a curiosity? There are other beautiful women. Midori…”
    “Nadia is NOT a curiosity! She is a person . Damn