AISHITERU
Author Janna
Anime / Manga Inu Yasha
Genre Romance/ Business / Drama
Pairing Inuyasha Takahashi X Kagome Higurashi
Rating M
Disclaimer
I do not under any circumstance own the cast or characters of Inu Yasha. Sole property rights go to Rumiko Takahashi. Go talk to my lawyers if there is a problem ;P
I own only the plot and the new characters introduced during the course of the story.
I'm just a poor person trying to create my story with the existing characters from Rumiko's show, Inu Yasha. (wipes tears) Sole property rights go to Takahashi- san.
The standard disclaimers apply.
Summary
Inuyasha, top-notch businessman is blackmailed into marrying Kagome to produce an heir for her father to save his family island. Kagome is forced into the mess to save the person she loved the most. They claim to hate each other. Do they really?
Aishiteru
CHAPTER ONE
The Deal Between The Devils
December, the universal month of joy and unadulterated happiness had never seemed so bleak in prospect. It passed by wreaking her very fiber of her being, threatening her to the point of insanity.
January had arrived with a fixated vengeance, determined to wreak havoc, thereby destroying the mood of serene calm.
Standing by the window behind her father's antique ornate desk, Kagome absently watched the way the wind was hurling the fat droplets of the rampant rain against the glass in violent gusting squalls— whilst behind her another singular kind of storm was raging, one where two very powerful men pitched heated invectives at each other.
Both were boiling hot tempered and both were looking ridiculously furious. If the situation was not how it was shaping out to be, then Kagome would probably be trying hard to quell the laughter which would have bubbled up.
But then, it seemed like it was an eternity before she had cracked a smile in genuine joy. There was too much to lose……
And it wasn't like she was taking much notice of what they were actually fighting about. She knew it all already like the back of her hand, so her presence here was really quite subsidiary.
She was merely a unvoiced prop to use as a cunning leverage by an equally heatless man who she had the misfortune of calling a father.
'Look, that's the final deal, Takahashi!' she heard her father affirm with a delicate grip on what was left of his tested patience.
'I'm not into haggling so either take what is on offer or damn well leave!'
'But what you are proposing as a deal is absolutely barbaric!' the younger man hit back furiously.
'I am a businessman, not a dealer in white slavery! If you have some ridiculous complexity in finding a suitable husband for your daughter I suggest that you try a marriage agency or a broker, Higurashi,' he derisively suggested, 'for I am not for sale!'
Oh No?
Having reached way beyond the point of being insulted by stinging comments like that one thrown indirectly at her, Kagome's remarkably feminine lips twitched in a cross between astringent admiration for the shrewd answer that Inuyasha Takahashi had tossed back at her father with a grimace of ridicule.
Did he honestly believe he would be standing here at all if Akira thought that he couldn't be bought?
He definitely needed a reality check. Soon.
Akira Higurashi dealt only in absolute certainties.
He was a forceful, hard-hitting, self-made, proud man who, having spent most of his early life clawing his way up from nonentity to become the world renown corporate monster he was today, had become erudite very early on that, the awareness of the finest detail before he stepped in for the kill was the key of the success mantra and that was what still kept him among the top.
He left nothing whatsoever to chance.
Inuyasha, on the other hand, was the absolute exact opposite of Akira.
He was silky, smooth, sleek and beautifully refined by a family history which could be traced back so far into world history it made the common and normal mind boggle, only, while the Higurashi fortunes had been rising like some brand new star in the galaxy during the last forty odd years, the Takahashi fortunes had been steadily sinking their way to almost bankruptcy - until this man had come on the scene, and waved his magic wand, weaving a sheen of pure knowledge, astuteness and intelligence that had left the world gasping.
And to be fair, Inuyasha Takahashi had not only blocked the deterioration in his great family's monetary affairs but had also spent the last decade of his life repairing that disintegration, and so effectively and profitably that he had almost completely inverted the deterioration— except for one final goal.
And he was having the grade misfortune of coming up in opposition to Akira Higurashi in his labors to attain that one little goal.
You poor devil, Kagome thought with a dour kind of pity, because, ruthless and merciless, unshakable though he was in his own dark way, Inuyasha Takahashi didn't stand a snow flake's chance in hell of obtaining what he sought after from her father, without paying the price Akira Higurashi was demanding for it.
'And is that your final answer?' Akira Higurashi dourly challenged, as if to substantiate his daughter's calculated guess.
'If so, then you may get out for I have absolutely nothing left to say to you Takahashi.'
'But I am willing to pay double the market price here! Multiple times over if necessary.'
Oops. Wrong move.
You show that you're desperate, you hammer the final nail in your coffin. Nice knowing you Mr. Takahashi…
'The door, Mr Takahashi, is right over there...'
Kagome's spine began to quiver in expectation, the fine muscles lining its long, slender length tensing as she waited with bated breath to ascertain as to what Inuyasha Takahashi was going to do next.
He had a straight option, the way she saw it.
He could walk out of here with his arrogant head held high in the sky and his colossal pride still resolutely undamaged, but put to the side for ever the one special vision that had brought him to this point in the first place, or he could surrender his pride, let his own morality sink to Akira Higurashi's atrocious level and pay the price being asked for that special dream.
"There has to be some other way we can resolve this,' he muttered almost to himself.
No there isn't, Kagome countered wordlessly.
Just because of the simple reason that her father did not need another way.
The man had called Akira Higurashi barbaric, but barbarism only half enclosed what her father really was.
As she, of all people, should know.
Akira Higurashi didn't even trouble to answer the statement.
He just sat there behind his desk coolly and waited for the other man to give in to him or depart as suggested.
'Damn you to hell for bringing me down to this,' Inuyasha Takahashi grated harshly.
It was the driven resonance of a resentful surrender.
The next sound Kagome heard was the creak of old black leather chair as her father came to his feet.
It was a familiar sound, one she had grown to identify with terror and trepidation when she was younger, and even now, at the reasonably mature age of twenty-four, she was still able to experience the same stomach-clutching reaction as she had in her early years.
Akira Higurashi was a beast and a tyrant.
He always had been and always would be.
Man or woman. Friend or foe. Adult or child. Strong or weak.
His need to dominate made no exceptions.
"Then I'll leave you to confer the finer particulars with my daughter,' he completed with a hint of finality.'Get in touch with my attorney tomorrow. He will straighten out any questions you may have and then will have a contract drawn up. You know the business.'
With that last word, and sounding contemptuously perfunctory now that he had the answer he desired from the other man, Akira Higurashi, bitter, vindictive, cold- blooded man that he was, walked out of the room swiftly and left them to it.
And with the closing of the study door came quite an entirely different kind of silence.
Acidic was the only word Kagome could come up with to express it— a silence so bitter it was attacking the back of her neck like acid.
I should have left my hair down, she mused in the same parched, scornfully fatalistic way she had dealt with all of this horror.
It was the possible only way, really. Since she couldn't exactly battle it, she mocked it.
It was either that or weep to the next century, and she'd done enough weeping during her twenty-four drawn out hellish years to come to the sickening realization that tears did nothing but make you feel worse. She was now frustrated to the point where she had just given up caring. That only lessened your status and destroyed your life.
'Drink?'
The sound of glass chinking against the fine crystal had her revolving to face the room for the first time since the meeting had begun.
Inuyasha Takahashi was serving himself to some of her father's best whisky.
'No, thank you,' she refused, and stayed where she was, with her arms flippantly folded beneath the gentle thrust of her full breasts, while she watched him toss back yet another rather large measured shot.
Poor devil, she thought again. Au contraire, he looked like an Angel.
Goes to show just how deceiving appearances can be.
Men of his ilk just weren't used to yielding anything to anyone— never mind to a cruel piece of work like her father.
Inuyasha Takahashi had arrived here this afternoon, looking absolutely convinced in his aptitude to strike a fair contract with Akira Higurashi.
Now he had to deal with the very revolting fact that he had been well and truly cornered — caught hook, line and sinker by a man who constantly knew precisely what enticement to use to capture his prey.
And even the fine flavour of her father's best wine wasn't masking the foul tang that capture had sited in his mouth.
He glanced at her thoughtfully, his deep-set, dark green eyes flicking her a whip lashing look of derision from beneath the angry dip of his frowning eyebrows.
'You had a lot to say for yourself,' he remarked in a brusque voice.
Kagome gave a blank minute shrug.
'Better men than me have taken him on and failed,' she countered as her eyes flickered over the shelves lining the wall.
She was referring to him, of course, and the way he grimaced into his glass agreed the point grudgingly.
'So you are quite pleased to agree to all of these turns of events, I must imagine.'
Pleased?
Kagome singled out up the word and turned it over her head for a few moments, before deciding contritely, that — yes — she was, she believed, pleased to do whatever it would take to fulfill her side of this indecent bargain.
'Let me explain something to you very clearly, Mr. Takahashi' she offered in a tone gauged to appease not aggravate and provoke.
'My father, never puts any plan into action unless he is utterly sure that all participants. For lack of a better word we are going to agree to whatever it is he wants from us. It's the way he works. It's the way he has always worked,' she continued on pointedly. 'So, if you are hoping to find your deliverance through me, I'm sorry to thwart your escape.'
'So, in other words—' His smolderingly furious gaze was back on her again '—you are willing to sleep with anyone if Daddy instructs it.'
'Yes.'
Despite the intentional insult, her coolly collected and self- possessed face betrayed absolutely nothing—no hint of offence, no revulsion, not even a hint anger.
His did, though, show all of those things plus a few others all meant to label her nothing better than a whore.
Maybe she was nothing better than a slut, allowing her father to do this to her, Kagome accepted ruefully. Certainly, past history had marked her as a whore. But there was a reason why it was called a rumour…
'Did you do the choosing yourself?' he asked suddenly as if hit by it momentarily. 'Is that what this is really all about?'
Taken aback by the implication, her eyes widened fractionally.
Then she laughed almost hysterically, clutching at her stomach—an astonishingly pleasant sound amidst all the animosity and pressure.
'Oh, no,' she said still laughing at the incredulity of that thought. 'You said yourself that my father is a first class barbarian. It would go thoroughly against his character to consent to his daughter to actually choose anything for herself. But how conceited of you to propose it so...' she added softly her eyes burning into his.
'Well, it had to be asked,' he said, stiffening a little at the mild censure of reproach.
'Did it, now?' Kagome was not so sure about that. 'It seems to me that you're seeing yourself as the only victim here, Mr. Takahashi,' she said more soberly, all traces of smile disappearing.
'And at this point in time it may well help if I jog your memory you that there are likely to be other kinds of victims in most of the disasters which occur.'
'And you are a victim of your own father's dictatorship — is that what you are trying to tell me Miss. Higurashi?'
His skeptical doubt was crystal clear.
Her brown eyes darkened with fury.
If Inuyasha Takahashi came to know her better he would take careful note of that little detail.
She was Akira Higurashi's daughter after all.
'I am not trying to tell you anything, Takahashi,' Kagome coolly countered. 'I don't have any necessity to justify myself to you, you see.'
After all, she thought, why should she defend herself when his own bloody reasons for agreeing to this were not that valid?
Not that he was seeing it like that, she sardonically acknowledged.
Inuyasha Takahashi was looking for a scapegoat on which to blame his own shortcomings on.
'No, he murmured mockingly. 'You will merely have to go to bed with me.'
And she, Kagome noted wryly, was going to be his scapegoat in the duration of their contact.
'Of course, I do understand that my lot is the much easier one,' she agreed, with that same dangerously misleading consideration.
'Being a woman, all I need to do is lie down on the wretched bed, close my eyes firmly and mentally switch off, whereas you have to bring yourself to...er...perform. But God help us both,' she added deprecatingly, 'if you find me so abhorrent that you can't uh,…, administer it because we will really have a difficulty then.'
She had managed to actually shock him with her startling frankness, Kagome was appreciative to note—had managed to make him look at her and see her, instead of just intent on screening her his hatred.
With a wry smile of satisfaction she abandoned her solitary post by the window at last to come around her father's huge ornate desk and walk across the room towards the high wing-backed leather armchairs that flanked the sophisticated mahogany fireplace.
A log fire was burning in the grate, the leaping flames trying their best to add some warmth to a room that did not know the meaning of the word in any sense — at the least not in Akira Higurashi's house, anyway.
But the flames did manage to call attention to the rich, burnished glossy mid night brown of Kagome's hair as she walked towards them.
Even though she didn't look at Inuyasha as she moved forward, she felt his narrowed gaze following her every move.
Eyeing up the merchandise, she thought, scathingly scornful of that thin veiled scrutiny.
Well, let him, she thought boldly as she felt his gaze sweep over the smooth lines of her chiseled face, which she had been told was beautiful although she did not see any beauty in it herself as she looked in the mirror.
But then again, she didn't like herself very much and they did say that beauty was in the eyes of the beholder.
Therefore, it followed that neither would this man be seeing any beauty in her right now, she believed, since he was so dynamically despising her at this moment.
Oh, she was no ugly woman. Kagome wasn't so eaten up with self-hate that she couldn't see that her long wavy hair, chiseled features of her remarkable face, the long and elegant neck, her curvaceous body and long endless legs combined together to present a convincingly striking image which could turn heads.
Whatever this man was feeling about her right now, she knew that he had looked at her before today and had wanted her with a passion so his expression of aversion simply failed to make an impression her.
Plus, she didn't give a damn about what he thought.
Reaching the two chairs, she turned fatally and felt his gaze dip over the slender curves of her womanly figure — so carefully muted by the simple cream - coloured pure business dress she was wearing—and chose to sit on the chair which would place him directly in her sight so she could watch those beautiful eyes draw down to the long length of her silk - stockinged legs as she sat and smoothly crossed one knee over the other gracefully.
Inuyasha Takahashi was no ugly man himself, Kagome had to acknowledge.
In fact, she supposed he was what most whimsical females would have seen as ideal husband material—tall, slightly tanned and undeniably handsome, with the kind of tightly contoured Greek-god body on which top designers liked to hang their very exclusive clothes. He was oh – so – handsome, with supposed impeccable manners, a flair for business undoubtedly, with an aura of danger around him which appealed the women to fall on their knees before him. Kagome also acknowledged the fact that she was probably one of the very few women to be able to resist him. Well, not completely she thought as an involuntary shiver traversed her spine.
Indeed, that iron black silk suit looked very unquestionably top designer wear. He wore his messy silver hair of longer length than normal, and the rich smoothness of his tan - toned skin enclosed fantastic bone structure that perhaps said more about his high-born lineage than anything else about him.
Her hands were just itching for a pencil and a pad to capture his stillness… they did say that pictures lasted longer…
He had a wonderful mouth, too — even if it was being blemished by resentment and revulsion at the moment — and his long, rather crooked nose balanced well with the rest of his cleanly chiseled features. He was equivalent to a Greek God and he knew it.
She remembered the flirty smile he had aimed at her, and remembered that it had dazzled her. Not only her, but also all the women around her. His smile was magical, which made her wonder if there was even a minute chance that smile would be aimed at her any time in the future. At least once……
But it was his eyes that made him special—deep-set, dark smoldering amber and butterscotch, lushly fringed, misleadingly lethargic eyes that, even when they were showing disdain, could still stir the her feminine senses.
Her senses, she noted in fascination as she watched those eyes settle on the point where her slender legs vanished under the hem of her modest dress and felt a warm, tingling sensation drag along her inner thighs in response.
'Well,' she provoked, unable to resist the dig, 'do seem you have a problem there?'
He stiffened expectedly, the finely corded muscles along his strong jawbone clenching when he realized that he had been caught staring.
'No,' he admitted on a grating mutter.
At least he's being sincere about it, Kagome reflected humbly.
And so he should be, having spent the last month trying to get her into his bed albeit unsuccessfully.
'Then your only problem,' she went on coolly as if discussing a funeral, 'is having to make your mind up on whether you want your lost island of Atlanta— or whatever it is called,' she mocked flippantly and deliberately continued, 'badly enough to hand over your single status to get it.'
'But it isn't just my single status I'm being tapped here for, is it now?' he threw back.
'No,' she agreed demurely, with another wry smile of admiration at his wit, even in the face of all this horror.
'And you are going to have to...er...produce… pretty potently, too, if you want this agreement kept… short-term.'
That had his gaze narrowing sharply on her studiedly unemotional brown eyes.
He didn't like the tone of voice she had used and also the fact that she didn't care that he didn't like it.
She didn't like Inuyasha Takahashi. Period.
However, she would go to bed with him, make herself do it, if that was what it would take to get what she needed to gain from this immoral deal.
'And what is the motivation that makes you agree to all of this?'
Kagome didn't answer immediately, wondering bleakly what his reaction would be if she told him the truth.
He was still standing by her father's drinks cabinet by the book shelves, his body still tense and his expression still tight with anger and contempt— was it for her, for himself, or even for both of them, she wasn't sure.
And it really didn't matter because there was a whole lot more at stake here than his personal contempt— or even her own self-contempt, come to that.
Her father desperately wanted a grandson in substitute of the son who had irrationally got himself killed in a car accident several months ago.
Inuyasha Takahashi had been chosen to father that grandson—Kagome to be the vessel in which the poor child would be seeded. All very… mechanical.
This man's reasons for agreeing to any of this were based on his own personal ambitions and aspirations. He wanted to get back the family island that lay somewhere off the mainland, which his father had been forced to put up for sale during the downfall of the family fortunes.
Akira Higurashi was the only person who could return it to him since he now owned the deeds to the island.
Kagome, on the other hand, stood to gain far more than what amounted to a pile of ancient familial rock. What was more, she was quite ready to do anything to complete her side of the bargain she had personally made with her father.
'Like you, I get back something that once belonged to me,' she murmured eventually, taking in a deep breath.
'And am I to be told what?' he questioned.
Her eyes clouded over instantly, her mind shooting off to some place dark, a dark place inside her that made her look so desolate and saddened it actually endangered to breach his bristling contempt.
Then her lashes blinked a few times, bringing her eyes back into focus, and the bleak look was gone.
'No,' she replied, and rose to her feet. 'That, I'm afraid, is none of your business.'
'It is if we are going to be declared man and wife,' he claimed.
'And are we?'
Kagome raised her dainty brows in counter-challenge.
'Going to be man and wife, you ask?' he asked again.
To be continued…
A/N :
Likey?
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