Chapter 24: Tides and Temptations

The flight to Okinawa became a masterclass in territorial posturing. A red-lipped socialite in a bandage dress "accidentally" flashed her lace thong while stowing luggage overhead. I choked on my ginger ale. 

"Stop gawking," Zhì muttered, lips twitching. "You'll encourage her." 

When the woman asked for help, he obliged with glacial politeness—until my death grip on his sleeve betrayed my vertigo. "My *wife* needs quiet," he declared, draping a blanket over me like a claim flag. The lie tasted sweet as stolen champagne. 

By the time we landed, I'd memorized the cadence of his heartbeat. His Okinawan safehouse—a whitewashed villa overlooking moonlit cliffs—housed ghosts in its closets: Yō's sun-faded sundresses, Akira's abandoned golf clubs. I drowned in one of Zhì's old Oxford shirts, the hem skimming my thighs. 

"Lost something?" Zhì appeared in the doorway, coffee cup freezing mid-sip. 

The shirt gaped. I dropped to the floor, arms crossed over cotton thinner than dignity. "Knock much?" 

"Forgot this was *my* house." His retreating laugh lingered like smoke. 

Morning brought reckoning. At a Naha department store, Zhì studied lingerie displays with the intensity of a bomb defuser. "Practicality kills romance," he protested as I piled nude bras into a basket. 

"Romance dies in underwire chafing." I snatched a black lace negligee behind his back—petty revenge for last night's humiliation. 

The universe retaliated in swimwear. 

"Yuki?" Ryoji materialized between bikini racks, surfboard tan highlighting his hollowed cheeks. "Heard you quit the agency." 

"Transferred." I fiddled with a price tag. ¥15,000 for three triangles of fabric—highway robbery. 

His gaze drifted to Zhì conferring with a clerk. "So it's true. You're shacking up with the Dragon's heir." 

"Client relations." The lie curdled. 

Ryoji's laugh held no warmth. "Careful. His kind mates for life—or until the board votes otherwise." 

Zhì's return severed the conversation. Their handshake crackled with static—alpha posturing at its pettiest. 

Back at the villa, Zhì wordlessly uncorked awamori. We drank watching storm clouds devour stars. 

"Yō's dresses," I finally said. "Why keep them?" 

"To remember what happens when dragons hoard treasures." His thumb traced my knuckles. "They get stolen." 

The negligee stayed buried in tissue paper. Some fires burn brighter unlit.