Sold #3 - A Haunting Hope

Chapter 24

Three months later, Michael was beginning to watch Darcy very closely. That first day back home, he had approved of her hearty appetite and known that the time difference and the jet lag would affect her for the first few trips back and forward between New York and Tokyo. But recently, in the last few weeks, he had noticed her appetite increasing again and small differences that he hoped, and thought of as signs of a new chapter in their marriage. He was going to keep watching her closely for a few more weeks and at the first sign of anything being wrong, or the first sign of a progression, he would encourage her to see a doctor. At the moment, he wasn't sure that he could trust his instincts, since he had never had experience of such things before. So he waited...and he watched.

And in those three months, he talked with Tai and Darcy about their impending move to Tokyo. Tai agreed that he would like to go back home since his visits there had been rare and infrequent, but treasured. His relationship to Lani, however, made things complicated, until he asked her, in the second month of their relationship, if she would want to move with them. And to everyone's surprise, she did. Lani had family in Tokyo and the surrounding areas, that she was still relatively close to and so it was decided. Together, the four of them planned and thought about the move, gathering house leaflets and using the money Nara had given Michael for his birthday to buy nursery furniture. Darcy insisted that she wanted to be prepared, no matter how long it took for them to get pregnant, while Michael kept his suspicions to himself. He did agree, though that forward planning was for the best. So that was what they did. They got themselves organised on a family level, for the move while Michael had the paperwork taken care of, to hand the law firm over to Antony and Travis, as equal partners.

Tai was going to take a job at the investment firm. He had made up with Kyle and Natasha and he looked forward to seeing their baby and becoming godfather, but he had decided that one pair of friends wasn't enough to keep him in New York. He missed Tokyo, he missed his mother and everything about Tokyo just screamed to him of his mother. He had to go, even if just to put the ghosts to rest. So he had given up his job at the garage working for Mac, he had given up his job at the firm and informed all his racing buddies that he was giving it up for good once he reached Tokyo. Lani had much less to prepare to lose.

Darcy was so desperate to have a family that she and Michael agreed she wasn't going to work when they got to Tokyo, until her wish had come true. Even then, she would decide when she was ready to give up her free time for such a venture. Lani had chosen to open up a crèche inside Michael's investment firm, for all the single parents who were currently forced to go elsewhere or pay for day care. She had decided that giving the firm its own crèche was much more productive to his employees happiness and financial stability, and Michael was glad to have someone so enterprising on his staff. It took them a while, but they had finally agreed on which house they liked best and Michael had used his influence to purchase the house on the condition that when they finally arrived to view it, in just two weeks time, they could still refuse it. The permanent move was just around the corner and they were all excited; Darcy had even gathered up the courage to call Jonas and find out that the girls had all been sent back to their families or given a stipend to head out into the world and find a life of their own. It was enough to comfort her that they hadn't been mistreated, but it was hardly the good news she had been hoping for. Jonas had, however, had the school shut down shortly after and the rest of the girls moved to a more secure, happy, boarding house.

Tai was surprised when he got back from work in the start of that fourth month, to find that there was a restless body pacing on the doorstep of the house. They weren't putting it on the market or giving it back to their father, so there was no chance of the person being a buyer. The house was being handed over to Jonas with a large sum of money, so he could open his own boarding school. Tai squinted at the figure as he removed his helmet and stepped off his bike; he didn't look like he fitted Jonas's description so he was cautious as he approached the stranger. "Hello...can I help you?" Tai called as he stepped up to the front door. The man spun round looking hopeful only for his face to fall when he spotted him. Obviously he was hoping to see someone else, and Tai wondered who he was expecting.