"Come on," a soft, feminine voice said encouragingly. Ten turned from staring at Johnny's back, barely able to tear his gaze from the man who was walking away from him and towards his father. 

The woman who smiled at him was beautiful, and her smile was full of warmth. "Who are you?" he asked. 

She smiled, flashing even white teeth. "My name is Irene." Ten blinked, unable to do much else. This beautiful woman was Johnny's assistant? "Don't judge me by looks, Ten. I can be an evil when I need to be," she informed him softly. The way she smiled and the friendly tone of her voice made it difficult to believe. 

"What are you doing here?" he asked. His own expression was unguarded, and it would have been possible for a near-sighted man to see the pain in his eyes. 

"I'm here on business. We're about to pull the carpet out from under your father's feet," she told him, smiling as if she was talking about the weather. "Come on," she took his arm and started to follow after Johnny, pulling Ten with her. 

He tried to drag his feet, but her grip tightened on his arm, making escape impossible. "I don't want to go. I'm not needed there-" 

"On the contrary, you're very important." Ten's head whipped around as Jay came up on his other side and took his other arm. His cousin winked at him. "Hey, Ten. Sorry I'm late for the party. Hope I didn't miss your big moment." 

Ten shook his head, his shoulders drooping as he was lead into the house and towards the study. "He said 'no'." 

"He didn't explain?" Jay asked, looking confused. He looked at Irene, and she shook her head. He sighed. "What an ." 

"Yes," Irene agreed with a nod. They entered the study in time to see the head of the Leechaiyakul family take his seat behind his desk. Jay let go of Ten's arm to shut the study door, and Irene led the young man to one of the empty seats across from his father. She sat down in the chair next to him, and Jay and Johnny took up positions behind either chair, Jay behind Irene, Johnny behind Ten. 

"Well, well. Isn't this a happy gathering?" Mr. Leechaiyakul asked, looking quite pleased with himself. "I assume my son presented you with a proposal, Seo?" 

"Of course," Johnny answered pleasantly. 

"And?" The old man was smug already, and under the false assumption that he had played Johnny well. 

"And we've declined the offer, Mr. Leechaiyakul," Johnny replied. The smirk left the old man's face, and he turned to his son with an incredulous glare. "You didn't misunderstand my intentions, Mr. Leechaiyakul, simply my will to succeed how -I- see fit." 

If Leechaiyakul hadn't already been sitting, he would have fallen backwards into his chair. As it was, he slumped and, for the first time in Ten's memory, looked defeated. "What do you want?" 

"Wrong question, Mr. Leechaiyakul," Irene answered, taking the reins from Johnny. "The question you want to ask is: what are we going to do? The answer is simple. We're taking your company and making it an affiliate of ours. We will not assume direct control." 

Johnny smirked and took the ball back into his court. "Instead, we will assign a new president and vice president, and we'll put our man in as Chairman of the Board of Directors. What arguments there may have been will be waylaid by the fact that we're not taking the company out of Leechaiyakul hands." 

"Instead," Irene was speaking once again, "We'll be placing control of the company in another generation of Leechaiyakuls." 

"Namely, your youngest nephew and your son," Johnny finished. He grinned. "Jay will take over the day-to-day running of the company, with the assistance of one of our top people. Ten will continue his education, in whatever field he desires, and then he may fulfill any position within the company that he wants. -If- he wants. If he should wish to pursue another career, an allowance from Leechaiyakul Corp will see to his education until he has a stable income of his own, at which point he will continue to draw a smaller amount from his share of the stock." 

"The paperwork will be delivered to your office tomorrow, Mr. Leechaiyakul. We suggest that you relinquish control of the company peacably. At this point, we're still playing what -we- consider to be nice-ball. If you don't cooperate, we will not hesitate to play hard-ball." Irene's eyes had hardened, and her tone was cold and professional. "Understood?" 

Ten stared as his father slowly nodded in acceptance. Twenty years of abuse and control, and his father was defeated in five minutes. It didn't seem real, somehow. He turned to look up at Johnny, but the older man was already heading towards the door. 

"Ten" Irene's voice pulled his gaze from Johnny. "The paperwork that you and your cousin will need to go over will be available in our office tomorrow morning." She stood up and held out her hand. "For now, though, why don't you show me around this party and introduce me to some possible new clients?" 

He rose to his feet, accepted her hand, and wrapped it around his arm. "Of course, Miss Irene," he smiled tightly. 

The smile she returned to him was reassuring and sympathetic. The one she turned to Jay was challenging. "Jay, why don't you come along and keep us company? I don't trust you to wander by yourself. You might get lost." 

Jay rolled his eyes and preceded them from the room. Conversation was put on hold until they reached the conservatory, which would take them out to the back lawn. Ten stopped. "That was too easy." 

Irene, smile gone, shook her head in disagreement. "No, it wasn't. You just saw the end product of eighteen hour days, seven day work-weeks for a two-year period." 

"Why did he do this?" he asked, sounding as uncertain as he felt. "Why did he give it to us?" 

She gave him a considering look, and then nodded. "Come with me." She moved back through the house to the front door. The valet seemed to recognize her, and they only had to wait a moment for her car to be brought around. Uninvited, but understanding that he wasn't allowed to be alone with his uncle, Jay followed. 

^*^*^*^*^ 

"Welcome to Johnny's hobby-shop," Irene said sarcastically as they pulled into the parking garage of a tall office building. "You will notice that this building is half the size of your father's company. The reason for that is because the actual brunt of the business is split between three bases of operation. Johnny runs one, and his two partners run separate offices on the east and west sides of the country. We're too far to the east to be considered in the 'middle' of them, but we did our best when choosing a site that would be productive and central." 

"I thought Johnny ran the show alone," Jay commented from the backseat. The car stopped as Irene waved at a guard and a gate opened to let them into the interior of the garage. 

"He runs this company, and is allowed to do with it as he wants. What they share in common is the funding and the friendship of the three presidents. Johnny started all three businesses, and he signed over a third to each of his partners when they graduated from college." 

"Why?" Ten asked, more confused than ever. "If he keeps giving away everything he buys, he's going to end up with nothing." 

"Not quite. Johnny could have bought your father's company outright, and it wouldn't have put more than a small dent in his fortune. He's an eccentric rich-boy. However, his goal wasn't the company, something I only learned recently myself." 

"What was his 'goal'?" Ten asked. Irene didn't answer. She parked the car near an elevator, and they got out. Jay and Ten followed her and watched as she took a key out and put it into a keyhole on the elevator. 

She turned and smiled at Ten. "Access to the eighteenth floor is restricted to Johnny, his partners, and me. It's nothing more than a huge, empty floor, but it's where Johnny keeps his private records." 

"Why are we-" Ten stopped his question as Irene held up a hand to ward it off. He subsided to the back of the car as the elevator started it's ascent. The ride to the eighteenth floor was quick and uneventful, and the men followed Irene out of the elevator. 

"Jay, don't touch anything. Have a seat and I'll come back and entertain you after I've shown Ten what he needs to see." 

"Whatever," Jay muttered, dropping into the nearest chair. It was sitting in the middle of an empty space. The floor resembled an empty floor of a warehouse, and Ten was reminded of where he'd woken up the day before. 

"This way, Ten" Irene directed, walking towards a bank of windows across from the elevator. She turned let around a support column, and on the far wall, Ten could see a stack of binders and notebooks set on the floor. "Just start looking, Ten. There's no order there, only obsession. You want to understand Johnny? That's the biggest clue you're ever going to receive." 

"Thank you," he said quietly, already walking forward. 

The floor was swept, but he could tell the spot where someone else sat, either recently or often. All of the binders were placed around a circle, leaving a spot in the middle. There was even a coffee mug on the edge of the circle. Ten stepped over a short stack of papers and sat down, crossing his legs Indian-style. 

^*^*^*^*^ 

Hours later, as the waning sun disappeared behind skyscrapers and apartment buildings, Irene reappeared baring a paper sack and cup. "Hungry yet?" she asked. 

Ten looked up, eyes slightly blurred from hours of reading and gazing at black on white. "Thanks." There was an ink-smudge on his cheek and when he held out his hand, there was more ink on his fingerprints. 

Irene smiled and handed him the cup and sack. "Turkey on wheat and decaf. I didn't know what you liked, so I hazarded a guess." 

Ten sat the items down and turned back to pull a notebook out of a pile. He flipped a couple of pages and held it up for Irene. "Johnny knows." 

"Ham and swiss on rye, huh?" She smiled awkwardly. "Do you have questions?" 

"He did everything for me?" Ten asked. His voice said he already knew the answer, so Irene didn't bother to respond. Ten sighed and shifted so that he could pull his knees to his chest. "Destiny's a and Fate is fickle." 

"He never planned on you coming into the picture until after the take-over. He wanted-" 

Ten cut her off. "-Wanted to court me. How do you tell someone you meet on your balcony that you've been obsessed with them for two and a half years?" 

"If you're Johnny, you don't. You try to shift everything around until the things you don't want to explain are hidden away." 

"Hidden away on the eigtheenth floor, where only four people have a key to get in," Ten murmured softly. "You know, he told me he loved me, but never once in any of this... junk, does he say he loves me. Why is that?" 

"He said the words when you needed to hear them, but to Johnny, words are nothing more than a trap that can hold the speaker as easily as the listener. He doesn't believe in words like that. He can say them, he knows what they mean and how they're used, and he's capable of it, but Johnny's history with relationships is bad, to say the least." 

"So, he meant it, but he didn't really believe in it?" Ten groaned in frustration. "I don't understand." 

"And that is the key to understanding," Irene said sagely. "Johnny doesn't even understand himself. He created a list of rules to keep himself in line, to keep himself as true to his emotions as he could, all the while trying to deny that he had emotions. He used to seduce the most sophisticated and experienced of women, but he turns around and gets in by a . And not only a , but a male one. 

You're everything in his life that he never planned on, and everything that he needs. He grumbled about your constant grumbling, but then he gets this smile that, to me, says he doesn't mind the questions because he gets to 'reassure' you." 

He lifted his head to look up at her through his lashes. "What do I do now?" he asked. 

"You do whatever you want to do. Use your key and go home to the idiot; take the key and lease from me to the back-up apartment Johnny had me set up in case you hated him and never wanted to see him again; go stay with Jay, who's being less of an today because he feels guilty. The only option that's out is going to your father's house, unless you want to cause some damage to the property, in which case I would recommend contracting that work out to the professionals." 

That earned her a small smile from him. "Anything, huh?" he questioned. She nodded slowly, deliberately. He looked away for a moment, and when he turned back to her, he was serious, face hard.

It was the first glimp