But the word no would have been a lie, and she was tired in a way that went deeper than her feet. She had studied that morning before her shift, flashcards spread beside a mug gone cold, while other people slept.
She had studied on the train. She had studied in the locker room on her break, murmuring verb conjugations while her coworkers talked about rent and boyfriends and a manager who played favorites with the weekend schedule.
Fourteen years of studying. A scholarship earned word by word. Six months in Osaka where old women at the market had corrected her accent with delighted ruthlessness until the Kansai rhythm lived in her mouth like a second heartbeat.
"No one in this room needs to know that," a cautious voice inside her said. And another voice, her mother's voice, answered: "Knowing a thing and hiding it are not the same as being free of it, baby."
"Yes, sir," Jasmine said quietly. "I speak Japanese."
For a moment, nobody moved.
Pierce laughed. It came out loud and sudden, a bark of genuine amusement that bounced off the wood paneling. He looked at Ishida, at Kuroda, inviting them to share the joke with a sweep of his eyes.
"Japanese," he repeated. "Of course you do."
The Japanese executives did not laugh.
Ishida's hands, which had been resting beside his cup, went completely still. Kuroda's head came up. Fujita stopped breathing for a visible second, and Takagi sat straighter in his chair as if someone had called his name.
Their silence was not embarrassment for her. Jasmine understood that instantly, the way you understand a change in air pressure. It was attention, sudden and serious, turned toward Pierce and what he had just done.
He did not see it. He was too pleased with himself, turning his laugh down into a chuckle, shaking his head at the delightful absurdity he believed he had uncovered at his own dinner table.
"That's wonderful," he said. "Really. Wonderful. Everyone has a hidden talent these days. Last month a driver told me he was writing a novel. A novel! People are full of surprises."
"You asked, sir," Jasmine said. Her voice stayed even. "I answered."
"And I appreciate the honesty." He lifted his coffee cup in a mock salute. "Truly."
Ishida had not taken his eyes off Jasmine since she spoke. His gaze was not rude. It was measuring, and beneath the measuring there was something that looked almost like concern.
"Miss," Ishida said, speaking to her directly for the first time that evening, "you studied Japanese here, in Chicago?"
"Here, and in Osaka, sir," she said. "I lived there for six months."
Pierce's eyebrows rose. "Osaka! Well. This gets better and better."
He said it as entertainment. Ishida received the information differently. He gave one slow nod, as if a piece he had not expected had been set on a board he thought he already understood.
Jasmine felt the room rearrange itself around that small exchange. She was no longer furniture. She had become, unwillingly and irreversibly, a person in the middle of a table where powerful men were pretending a deal was done.
Her tray felt heavier than it was. She shifted it against her hip and wished, briefly and fiercely, for the kitchen door, for Marco's noise, for a world where an honest answer stayed the size of the question that asked it.
"Can I bring anyone more coffee?" she asked, because service was the only script she trusted right now.
Pierce smiled up at her, and there was a gleam in it she did not like at all, the gleam of a man who has just thought of something amusing to do with the rest of his evening.
"Not yet, Jasmine," he said. "Not just yet. Stay close, will you? I have a feeling you are about to become the most interesting part of this dinner."
Jasmine stepped back to the sideboard and set her tray down with more care than the tray required. Her hands were steady. She was grateful for that small mercy and annoyed that she needed to be grateful for it.
Pierce turned his chair a few inches toward her, a king adjusting his court. The movement told the whole table where the evening now pointed, and no one at the table missed it.
"Come on, then," he said, bright and generous, like a host offering a party game. "Say something in Japanese for us. Give us a demonstration."
"Sir, I don't want to interrupt your dinner," Jasmine said.
"You're not interrupting. I'm asking." He spread his hands. "We have distinguished guests from Japan at this table. It would be rude not to honor them. Go ahead. Something nice."
The request sat in the air between courtesy and command. Refusing a guest in the private room was not a real option, and Pierce knew the geometry of that as well as she did.
Jasmine drew a breath. If she had to speak, she would speak properly. That much, at least, belonged to her. She turned toward Ishida and the others, lowered her head in a small, correct bow, and spoke.
Her Japanese came out formal and graceful, the polished register reserved for honored guests. She welcomed them to the restaurant, thanked them for traveling so far, and wished them sincere enjoyment of their meal and a pleasant evening in Chicago.
The words moved through the room like a change of music. Even the sounds were different, the soft edges and measured cadence replacing the hard, flat noise Pierce had been making all night.
When she finished, she raised her head. Fujita was smiling, openly now, with surprise and something warmer underneath it. Takagi gave a small exhale that might have been a laugh of disbelief.
Ishida leaned forward slightly. He answered her in Japanese, his voice gentle, saying that her pronunciation was beautiful and her form was excellent, and asking where she had learned to speak with such respect.
Jasmine replied, also in Japanese, that she had learned first from a kind teacher and then from grandmothers in Osaka who refused to let her be lazy. It was a modest answer, and it was true in every syllable.