The billionaire was less than three seconds away from drinking the matcha when the beautiful Black waitress slapped the ceramic bowl out of his hand.
The sound of breaking porcelain exploded through the private dining room.
Bright-green tea splashed across the enormous black lacquered table, staining the white sleeves of an executive sitting nearby. Fragments of an expensive handmade tea bowl scattered between the carefully arranged bamboo whisks and traditional Japanese sweets.
For one terrible moment, everyone stopped moving.
Then the billionaire sprang to his feet.
"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?"
His voice echoed against the enormous Japanese shoji screens lining the walls.
The woman standing beside him was twenty-eight years old, with flawless deep-brown skin, expressive dark-brown eyes, an elegant slim figure, and black hair arranged into a sophisticated high braided bun. She wore a beautiful crimson-red and ivory-white kimono-inspired waitress uniform with white lapels, delicately embroidered sleeves, and a wide ivory sash.
Her name was Naomi Brooks.
And five minutes earlier, the man now screaming at her had publicly humiliated her because he assumed a Black American waitress couldn't understand Japanese.
He was sixty-five-year-old Japanese billionaire Kenji Takamura, chairman and chief executive of Takamura Heritage Group, a multinational corporation with investments in luxury hotels, agricultural exports, Japanese tea estates, commercial real estate, and international transportation.
His estimated personal fortune exceeded five billion dollars.
He was accustomed to people obeying him.
He wasn't accustomed to being contradicted.
And he certainly wasn't accustomed to a waitress striking an expensive tea bowl out of his hand in front of seven senior executives.
"Do you have any idea how much that bowl costs?" he demanded.
Naomi didn't answer in English.
She took one step toward him, her face pale with fear, and shouted in fluent Japanese with an unmistakable Kansai accent.
"そのお抹茶、飲んだらあかん！誰かが何か入れはったんです！"
Don't drink that matcha! Someone put something in it!
The room fell silent.
The billionaire stared at her.
For a moment, he seemed more shocked by her Japanese than by the shattered bowl.
Then he looked down.
Green tea was spreading across the glossy table.
One of the younger executives abruptly pulled back his chair.
Another man reached for a napkin.
And near the far side of the table, something small rolled from beneath the cuff of an expensive navy-blue suit.
A transparent glass vial.
It struck the polished wood with a delicate sound.
Then rolled toward the edge.
Naomi saw it immediately.
So did the billionaire.
For one second, nobody moved.
Then the man in the navy suit reached for the vial.
"Don't touch that!" Naomi shouted.