Love Doesn't Have a Price - Chapter Nine

Love Doesn’t Have A Price

Chapter Nine : Choices

After an unnerving encounter with Syaoran and what she presumed to be his tongue Sakura renewed her efforts to forget the ‘spawn of Satan’ as she had so aptly named him.

Mei Ling for her part made every attempt to secure Sakura a date for the night, although Sakura currently wasn’t sure whether it was for her sake or for the sake of making Syaoran jealous.

Either way, any eligible male within a five-mile radius was chatted up for Sakura’s benefit before being sent her way.

Rae and Sarah were little better, the latter having departed some twenty minutes ago with a very cute guy that she’d been dancing with, and the former appeared to be in on Mei Ling’s little plot.

Four hours and an uncountable number of males after their arrival Mei Ling finally decided that it was time for them to leave and pulled Sakura off with her having been assured by Rae that she would find her way home…eventually.

So, dragging her exhausted feet out after Mei Ling she walked with her to the car, shooting a glance towards the bouncer to see his reaction to her going home with the people he had thought she’d been excluded from.

“Hop in.” Mei Ling called, opening the car and waving a casual hand towards the car.

Deciding to ‘hop in’ as Mei Ling had so casually termed it Sakura sat in the passengers side, fiddling with her purse and pulling her phone out.

Mei Ling sent her an amused look, “Little tipsy there aren’t you.”

Sakura sent her a confused look before her face twisted in denial, “No, all I had was the bacardi…and the cruiser…and whatever it was that Jason gave me in that cup.”

Mei Ling smiled and nodded her head at the other girl encouragingly, “Come on, we’ll go home avoid the two annoying people and go to bed.”

Sakura grinned, feeling suddenly sleepy. “Sounds good.”

“We can yell at the boys tomorrow.”

Sakura murmured something encouragingly as the barely heard words filtered slowly through her foggy mind.

L l L

“Good morning!” a disgustingly cheerful voice echoed through the small room as the curtains were pulled aside and light was allowed to stream into the room.

“Go away!” Sakura mumbled, trying to hide further into the covers, her head pounding.

The cheerful voice seemed to contemplate this action for a moment before replying, “Nup, you’ve gotta get up, I got a call from Fei Chin magazine, apparently you’re meant to do an interview for them this morning.

Giving up any chance of rest as the words filtered through her mind Sakura sat up abruptly, a hand moving to her head. “WHAT!”

Mei Ling sent her a curious glance, “You look like crap darling.”

Sending her a sour look Sakura got up and with halting steps and much moaning managed to make her way to her wardrobe.

“Here.”

Mei Ling was holding some sort of drink out to her, which Sakura eyed suspiciously before taking it and sniffing it carefully, “What is it?”

“Just something to get you back on your feet.” Mei Ling replied, urging her to sit down in front of the small glass table in her room currently laden with all sorts of breakfast materials.

“I have to pick something to wear though.” Sakura protested weakly as the other girl pushed her into the seat demandingly.

Mei Ling rolled her eyes at this statement, “I’ll pick something, you need to get yourself cleaned up, now drink up.”

Sighing Sakura brought the drink to her lips taking a large gulp before choking on it.

Forcing herself to swallow the noxious substance she sent an incredulous glance to Mei Ling, “What is this crap?”

“It’s for your head, trust me it works.” Mei Ling responded, her voice muffled as she searched through Sakura’s clothes.

Sending her a cynical look Sakura forced the rest of the drink down, noting that her head instantly seemed to clear. Picking up a croissant she broke a bit of it off and popped it into her head, feeling amazingly better.

“What was in that Mei Ling?”

Mei Ling seemed to stop for a moment before replying evasively, “Ah nothing.”

This answer led Sakura to believe that she wouldn’t want to know and instead she continued to eat the food placed before her.

Mei Ling came out of her wardrobe and glanced down at the tray wryly, “You certainly don’t eat like a model.”

Sakura grinned back at her, “I never had to, I’ve just always been thin.”

A strange expression flitted across Mei Ling’s face momentarily before it disappeared, “Here.”

Sakura looked at the clothes Mei Ling was handing to her, not exactly something she had expected Mei Ling to pick. Her favourite pair of jeans and a pink tank top with a brown jumper that casually fell off of one shoulder when it was worn, it was definitely far more tame than Sakura had expected.

“Thanks.” She responded, taking the clothes and moving in front of the mirror to pull them on and look at the effect they created.

Mei Ling sat and looked at her, a shrewd expression on her face, “With the brown strappy wedges and your hair pulled back in a loose ponytail it’d look good, casual but classy.”

Sakura sent her a confused look, she never would have dreamed that Mei Ling was so good at this sort of thing.

Seeing her look Mei Ling grinned, “I’m the fashion editor of Chinese Vogue.”

Gaping at this new information Sakura looked at Mei Ling with a grin, “Nice.”

Shrugging off Sakura’s awe Mei Ling hurried her along, handing her a glass of orange juice and rushing her out of the house.

L l L

Syaoran watched the two girls leave from his window, grinning at Mei Ling’s antics.

Turning away at the ringing of the phone he pressed the speaker and returned to his work.

“So cous, you having fun!” Eriol’s cheerful voice asked on the speaker.

Syaoran’s mood instantly darkened, “What do you want Eriol?” he asked rubbing his temples to relieve them of the headache he felt coming on.

“Is that anyway to talk to your favourite cousin.” Eriol answered, Syaoran could almost envision his currently pouting face with the underlying ever present smirk.

“Your not my favourite cousin.” He responded, grabbing his next set of papers to look through.

“But I should be.” Eriol responded cheerfully.

Biting back a retort to that he put a hand out and quite cheerful hung up on Eriol. Hoping that it would get the message across where he had failed Syaoran was despondent to see that not even a minute later the phone began ringing again.

Putting it back on speaker he said firmly and calmly, “Bugger off Eriol.”

“Well with that kind of attitude it’s no wonder Eriol doesn’t come and visit us more often.” A biting voice cut through before he could press the speaker off, thus cancelling the call.

As it was this happened to be a very large stroke of luck for Syaoran. “Hello mother.” He responded wincing as he said it.

“I called to see if you had managed to secure yourself a bride yet however I seem to have called at your abuse Eriol session time instead.”

She spoke calmly and cuttingly, each word chosen with precision to shame him.

“Have you secured a bride for yourself yet Syaoran? Or am I mistaken in thinking that you are wasting your time with petty arguments towards your cousin.”

“You’re right of course mother.” Syaoran mumbled sighing. He no longer went a very interesting shade of red when his mother reprimanded him however he could not keep the shame from his voice each time she did.

“I’d like you call your cousin back after this and explain to him how very sorry you are, then I would like you to come by and see me this afternoon.”

“But I still have two and a half months mother.” Syaoran responded confused.

“Am I such an amazing person that I am able to plan a wedding in whatever small amount of time you leave me at the end of your deadline then Syaoran?”

“We’ll elope.” He replied stubbornly.

“You will do no such thing!” she responded almost shrilly. “The clan needs to see for themselves that you have found a perfect wife, and that you have in fact married her, I’m afraid your deadline on finding a bride has been brought forward Syaoran. You now have a month to come up with the perfect bride.”

The conversation ended on that note, leaving Syaoran in a particularly sour mood and once again pondering his initial situation. How exactly was he supposed to complete the multitudes of work that needed to be done for the company and STILL find a bride. Jason’s suggestion was looking better and better every second although he forced the thought from his mind.

It was time to look through his little black book again.

An hour and two coffee’s later found Syaoran in the same position he had been to begin with, utterly hopeless. The women in his book were all beautiful that was a definite yet none of them were marriage material, and none were people that his family would approve of.

So, doing the only thing he could think of at the time, he called his sisters for help.

L l L

Sakura managed to finish the interview in record time, leaving her and Mei Ling who had decided to come with her for the day, time to wander around the streets and have lunch.

Mei Ling was dressed in a sleek brown suede suit jacket with matching skirt. Her hair was elegantly pulled back into a twist, secured by two decorative chopsticks. Mei Ling hadn’t stayed during the interview although she’d told Sakura that she would have liked to, instead she’d needed to be at a meeting for the representatives of some fashion company or anything.

It was all very boring she had told Sakura who wouldn’t have had the faintest idea of what she’d been talking about if she herself hadn’t been jumped by around five different fashion labels trying to get her as a model for their clothes.

Taking a sip of the vegetable soup she had ordered Sakura watched Mei Ling as she fiddled with what Sakura assumed to be a palm pilot.
Their lunch was cut short however by some frantic employee swearing that there was a matter of huge importance at the office that needed her Mei Ling’s attention right away.

Grinning at Mei Ling’s exasperation Sakura sat listening to Mei Ling’s instructions on how to get home from her current location as Sakura wanted to walk around and look at some things and refused to take the car back.

L l L

Tomoyo glanced at Eriol unobtrusively wondering if he was even the slightest amount annoyed that his cousin had just hung up on him.

If her cousin had just hung up on her Tomoyo would be fuming!

He didn’t appear to be.

In fact he actually seemed to be enjoying it.

Sighing in disgust she ruled it off as some weird male practice and slumped into an armchair.

Strange really.

Daidouji Tomoyo never slumped.

But there she was slumped very uncomfortably in the arm chair refusing to budge as she was making a statement.

If only she could actually remember what the statement was. It didn’t matter however, she was making it nevertheless, Eriol was smart, he would figure it out soon enough.

The statement didn’t go unnoticed by Eriol either who looked at her with an annoyingly raised eyebrow.

After almost a minute of staring in silence Tomoyo stood up and announced. “I’m calling Sakura!”

He grinned in come kind of triumph, “I was wondering how long it’d take you to say that.”

That he thought he had her all figured out made Tomoyo frown, falling back and slumping even further into her chair. Ah, here was the statement she had tried to remember so hard before.

“I was wondering how long it would take for Syaoran to hang up on you.” She replied mutinously.

“Touché.” Eriol responded tilting his head at her, unfazed by her obvious annoyance.

Standing with the full intention to simply stomp out of the room in an extremely juvenile display of temper Tomoyo stopped herself. What was happening to her?

She’d always be the calm collected Tomoyo Daidouji, famous fashion designer, and here was this idiot attempting to rile her. And what was worse was that he was succeeding.

Composing herself carefully she said quietly, “If you’ll excuse me Eriol.”

It seemed Eriol didn’t want to excuse her as he grabbed her arm and pulled her to him slowly, giving her ample time to attempt to run away from his hold.

She didn’t.

Instead she leant in closer and plastered her lips to his in a heated kiss.

Pulling back as soon as she felt him really get into it she said quietly with a small amount of victory in her tone. “Goodbye Eriol.”

And with that she walked away knowing that this time she’d managed to surprise him.

L l L

Sakura entered the mansion quietly. So quietly in fact that nobody actually knew she was there until she called out a cheerful greeting to Alek the doorman who scowled at her.

Alek took his job very seriously she’d discovered and didn’t like that Sakura often simply wandered in or out without waiting for him to open the door for her.

Grinning impishly back at him she wandered through the hallways aimlessly, having left her bags in the front hall knowing that she’d have a fight on her hands if she had tried to take them with her.

She found herself oddly enough at the door to Syaoran’s office, and gazed at it supsicously as if it had some kind of magic charm that drew her to it.

‘Accidently’ forgetting to knock she wandered in, shutting the door silently behind her and glancing at Syaoran as he worked.

“What do you want Sakura?”

She jumped at the sound of his voice. He hadn’t even looked up and he knew who she was already. What was he? Fricking omnipotent or something?

“I don’t know.” She replied truthfully. Sinking into the armchair directly opposite him.

He looked up now, eyes inscrutable.

“Then why are you here?” he queried lightly, face and voice bland.

She shrugged. She honestly didn’t know why she’d come in there, she’d simply felt like it at the time.

He stood up and came over, “Come on Sakura, we’ll go see a movie or something.”

She nodded letting him push her from the room, blushing at the hand he placed on the small of her back.

He stopped for a second just as they’d reached the door way and turned back, giving her very little time to think as he leant in and kissed her.

The sensation was light at first, giving her a warm butterfly feeling before it became hotter, more demanding.

A hand slid beneath her top to slide caressingly over her stomach while the other pulled up her jumper, taking it off over head, momentarily breaking the kiss.

He was guiding her the whole time backwards and she found herself unable to comprehend properly.

She knew what was happening. Some detached part of her mind understood everything that was occurring, and knew that if she didn’t stop him soon she would lose the chance to.

The other part of her didn’t care, was screaming out for her to give into the sensations of her body, promising her it would get better.

And unfortunately she realised that she had to make a choice.