At what price,love?

Chapter 23

"Kyoya! She signed the contract!" The door burst open and Tamaki bounded in only to be stopped dead by the sight of his best friend with his arms around Haruhi in what was - now - an interrupted kiss. "Oh, I see you already knew that."

Haruhi went beet red. Kyoya pulled her face to his chest to hide her embarrassment and glared at the interloper. "Don't you ever knock?"

"The door was ajar, so I thought..." Tamaki said weakly.

Haruhi pulled away. "I need to get back to my room anyway. I need to ..." She couldn't think of what she needed to do.

"Get ready for dinner?" Kyoya suggested. "We're taking you out to celebrate your new job."

She nodded like that was what she was going to say.

Kyoya held out a piece of paper. "But since you did accept, I need you to log into this account and purchase 5000 shares of stock. The instructions are all there."

She nodded again and made her escape.

"Sorry," Tamaki said after she was gone.

Kyoya shook his head. "It wasn't going anywhere tonight anyway. She's still bothered by what happened on Okinawa." And it bothered Kyoya that he hadn't realized it.

"What did happen on Okinawa?" Tamaki asked. The scene was forever etched into his brain: Kyoya sitting shirtless on his messed-up bed. Haruhi, in her flimsy dress, curled up in a ball, slightly closed in on herself, an obvious tension between them.

"I offered her ¥600,000 to sleep with me," Kyoya said matter-of-factly.

"Why would you do that?"

"Because I wanted her to hate me."

"Why?"

Kyoya's answer came out in a soft whisper. "Because I didn't hate her. And it seemed like the easiest way to restore our proper places."

Whatever answer Tamaki was expecting, this wasn't it. Suddenly, Kyoya found himself babbling like Tamaki. "If she accepted, even though I never would have told any of you, she and I would always know that she was a paid whore. And if she turned me down, she would despise me for trying to make her one."

Tamaki's blood went cold. Haruhi had never despised Kyoya. "So what happened?" He was unable to stop the words from coming out.

"She saw through it, of course. She turned me down because it wasn't what I really wanted." He ran a hand through his hair leaving it mussed and unruly. "I can't be in love with a commoner."

"But you are."

"But I am. And when I'm with her, I don't give a damn about all my plans and ambitions, I just want to be with her."

"You like gaming things out," said Tamaki. "Game this one out. Ignore all the other considerations; just date her. It will work out or it won't. If it doesn't, then you dated a girl in your teen years for a while. So what? If it does work out, then you stay with her. And you stay with her. And eventually, you marry her. Because if you try to turn her into your mistress, the rest of us will turn you over to Kasanoda's goons. But your father wants you and your brothers to keep working for him, to keep giving him your best, so he is not going to name an heir until he's ready to retire. He's in his forties. That's twenty years from now. You're telling me - given twenty years- you don't believe Haruhi can impress him as much as she impressed us in mere days?"

"She already impressed him, enough for him to give his consent. Then those idiots screwed it up."

"It wasn't intentional," Tamaki reminded him.

"Perhaps the initial incident was not, but their response was calculated." Kyoya said. "Their damage control efforts only brought more attention. Their solution was that she should leave me for them."

"So Kaoru saw an opportunity and took it. How is that different from what you did? How long after I told you that I had ended things with her did you start making plans?" Tamaki didn't mean to let the bitterness come through, but he couldn't stop it. Actually, that was to the good. If he'd kept it to the casual tone he used when speaking of his parents and grandmother, Kyoya would have known he crossed an unforgivable line.

"That was different. You had ended things." Kyoya stopped himself. Self-deception was a dangerous addiction. He had known he would hurt his best friend when he made a play for Haruhi. But the thought of missing out on her twice... he'd been willing to stand aside for Tamaki. In some indefinable way, they just made sense together. Like Cupid and Psyche. But if that was not to be...

Tamaki took a deep breath. "Look, I know that you paid for that funeral, and you can't even say it's because you're family. You weren't engaged at the time. I know you held her together in a million different ways through all of that. I know you were Ranka's favorite and that if he could've picked one of us, he would've picked you. I know that if it wasn't for you, she'd be in Osaka at this very moment living with the only alchemist in history who wants to turn gold into lead. But I also know that it would be a lot easier for her to be a Hitachiin than an Ootori. They'd want her to live up to her potential because it will make her happy, not because it will add to the legacy of seven generations. If you become the Ootori patriarch, she'll have to live under a whole set rules and restrictions that she wasn't raised with, whereas the Hitachiins only have a matriarch because it's easier to let the old lady boss them around than to argue with her."

"So you're saying you would rather she wind up with either or both of them?"

"Those twisted doppelgängers who can only be counted on to cause chaos?" Tamaki squawked.

Kyoya tilted his head to one side and waited for Tamaki to work it out.

"All I'm saying is... we are family... don't..."

"Cause a rift over something I would have done myself had our situations been reversed," Kyoya finished for him. He sighed in resignation. "She is an intelligent woman. They need to respect her decisions."

Which Tamaki took to mean 'I'll forgive them if they knock it off.' Who knew keeping a family together was so much work?

"Why don't you and the others go decide where we want to take Haruhi for dinner tonight? And while you're at it, you can vote her hiring bonus and let her treat us."

"Oh, she'll like that." Tamaki said.

"No more than ¥1 million," Kyoya added.

"Spoilsport."

"She freaked out over ¥10 million. Don't push it. Oh, and have Kaoru copy that contract and file it so she can't change her mind, tear it up, and deny it ever existed."

Kyoya rubbed his chin as he watched Tamaki go to tell the twins they could give her more money. He really was going to have to deal with the situation soon. It was a pity that Princess Ayanokoji turned out to be a bitch. She really had been perfect for Tamaki. She had family and money. "Princess" had not just been an appellation of Tamaki's, she really had been royalty. And if he had married royalty, it would've been enough to erase the stain of bastardy in his grandmother's eyes. She was beautiful and smart and crazy about Tamaki. But she hadn't handled jealousy well. And that was when she still thought Haruhi was a boy.

In the short run, he needed to distract them all. They were finished with the business he needed to be in London to conduct. They could move onto Paris early where the twins would have all of their time absorbed by fashion week. And Tamaki, well he was pretty sure he had something that would distract Tamaki.