Boss's Christmas Proposal Read online

  He raked his hand down his face. “Not now, Grace.” He brushed past her and left the office, too.

  Not because she had no business asking the question of him. They went back way too far for that.

  But because he didn’t know how to answer.

  No matter which way he looked at it, Kimi Taka was off limits, and he’d better start remembering it.

  Chapter Seven

  Kimi was still shaking after she made it up to the twenty-first floor.

  She practically ran down the hall to her room and fumbled the key out of her pocket only to realize that the traditional lock had been removed.

  In its place was an electronic model.

  For which she would need a key card.

  She pressed her palms against the door for a moment and drew in several long, calming breaths.

  There was still no one working in reception. With no guests to receive, yet, there was no need. She could go find Greg, she knew, and he would be able to cut a key card for her. Common sense, however, told her that she would be better off—safer, that annoying voice inside her head whispered—visiting the security office. As she well knew, guests or not, it was already being staffed twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

  Thank heavens Grace had interrupted them before Kimi had succeeded in making a monstrously huge fool of herself.

  She could not believe how close she had come to pressing her mouth against his.

  Could not believe how desperately she had wanted to.

  Greg Sherman was the last person with whom she needed to complicate her life. She kept telling herself that, yet didn’t seem to get any further along in believing it.

  She was an adult. Or at least she was supposed to be proving that particular fact. Getting involved with Greg—no matter how tempting—was simply out of the question.

  She was in Kyoto to work.

  Not to be caught dallying with the boss!

  She blew out a shaking breath, ran her sweating palms down the sides of her salmon suit and turned on her heel.

  At the wholly unexpected sight of Greg, however, the oversized brass key fell from her nerveless fingers, and her feet suddenly felt rooted in place. “Greg.” He was already halfway up the hall toward her. “I did not…not hear the elevator.”

  “I came up the service elevator.”

  Of course he had. Never to cross the line between employee of the hotel and guest of the hotel.

  While she—intentionally or not—was straddling the line of both, and at this point not feeling particularly successful at either.

  He stopped several circumspect feet away, but she could still see the way a muscle ticked unevenly in the hard line of his jaw. What she could not see, however, were his thoughts.

  They were too well hidden behind his shuttered green eyes.

  “We should talk.” His voice seemed even deeper than usual.

  She lifted her hand. “Stop. Please, no talk. I…I crossed a line that I never should—” she inhaled quickly “—have crossed.”

  “You?” He took a step closer, only to stop and drag his tie another inch looser. “What happened—nearly happened was—”

  “—just a moment,” she inserted hastily. “Nothing more than that.”

  “It was a moment—” his voice dragged over the word “—that we can’t repeat.”

  “Do you think I do not know that?” She pressed her hands to her hot cheeks. “Even I am aware that throwing myself at you is inappropriate!”

  He let out a harsh breath. “You didn’t do anything inappropriate. I’m the one who can’t seem to keep from wanting you.”

  Everything inside her jolted to a standstill as his words settled over her. Then, with an unsteady jerk, her heart tripped back into rapid action. Her shoe slid forward. “Greg—”

  “Stick with Mr. Sherman,” he said roughly. “We’re both safer.”

  She gave a jerky nod. “Of course, you’re right. Mr. Sherman.”

  “Okay.” He flipped his hand down his tie. “Good night then, Ms. Taka.”

  He turned on his heel, striding back down the hall with unmistakable finality.

  Protest screamed through her, and she actually took another thoughtless step after him before she managed to rein in the impulse. But then she noticed the key she had dropped on the carpet.

  She quickly picked it up and hurried after him. “Wait. I need a key card.” She held out the brass key when he looked back at her. “The lock was changed today.”

  “You should have been given a card, already.” Without touching her fingers, he plucked the key from her. “I’ll get it sent up to you immediately.”

  “I could just go down with—no.” Staying away from confining spaces with him was probably wise. “I will wait up here. Thank you.”

  He gave a faint nod and walked away.

  Kimi had paced the long corridor several times over when Shin Endo arrived bearing the key card.

  She told herself that it was her imagination that the man gave her a knowing look in the moment it took to hand over the key and depart again. It wasn’t as if she expected Grace to start off a spate of gossip about what she had very nearly seen.

  Kimi’s supervisor had seen nothing, anyway, because nothing had happened.

  The jittering inside her gave lie to that as she went into her suite where the message light on her telephone was blinking. The message was from Helen, warning her that her grandparents had mentioned dropping by to see Kimi.

  “Too late.” Kimi erased the message. She would call Helen in the morning when it would be a more reasonable hour in Chicago.

  There were class assignments that she needed to work on, but instead of settling in front of her computer, she found herself wandering around the spacious suite. From the windows overlooking the twinkle of lights outside the hotel, beyond the infinitely patient computer, to the wide, turned-down bed complete with a mint on the pillow.

  She realized she did not even know who had been cleaning her room.

  She had occupied the suite for more than a week. Each day when she returned from her duties, the rooms were clean. Fresh flowers were placed in the vases scattered around the lovely tables. The clothes that she had left laying in a heap on her bedroom floor showed up laundered and pressed and hanging in her closet.

  Was it any wonder that most of the employees there found it hard to accept her as one of “them”?

  First thing she was going to do the next day was make arrangements to move out of the Mahogany Suite.

  If she wanted people to look beyond the name of Taka, then she had better start showing them there really was more to her than the name. And that went beyond filling water glasses at a banquet or stuffing envelopes.

  She resolutely ignored the whisper inside her that warned the approval of the person that was becoming most important to her lately had little to do with her job, at all.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to come in?”

  Greg looked at the invitation in Sondra Fleming’s eyes. Not only had she been willing to accompany him to a business dinner that evening on only a few hours notice when he hadn’t bothered to call her even once over the past several weeks, but she was obviously interested in extending the evening into much more personal hours.

  She was sexy and intelligent and even though he’d enjoyed spending time sharing her bed before, Greg now couldn’t summon the slightest interest.

  Maybe he needed those herbs of his mother’s after all.

  He put some regret into his smile. “I have another middle-of-the-night conference call and an early-morning breakfast meeting.” The excuses were true enough.

  She pouted lightly. “On a Saturday?”

  “Time’s drawing short before our first guests check in,” he reminded. “There won’t be any Saturdays off for me for some time.”

  “I suppose not. Don’t wait so long to call me next time, though, darling. My schedule might not be so readily available.”

  “Much to my
loss,” he assured smoothly. “Good night, Sondra.”

  She leaned forward and pressed her mouth to his before he could climb out of the limo. Then she leaned back, looking satisfied. “Good night, darling.”

  Greg climbed out into the cold night air, closed the limo door, and the sleek car smoothly moved away from the curb. He let out a long breath. Thank God women just didn’t get it that when a man really wanted to get horizontal with her, late night conference calls and early morning meetings didn’t get in the way.

  “Kombanwa, Sherman-san.” Johnny Ito, the security officer on duty pulled open the lobby door when Greg reached it.

  “Good evening, Johnny. Everything quiet?”

  “Hai.” Johnny deftly locked the doors once more. “I will enjoy it while it lasts,” he admitted. “Next week the hotel will be alive with guests, and quiet will be a thing of the past.”

  “Let’s hope so. That’s what keeps our paychecks coming.”

  Johnny grinned, and Greg strode across the newly laid floor. For once he didn’t head down to his office but took the elevator up to his room.

  But the sight of Kimi Taka stopped him before he reached his room. She was barefoot and wearing a pink sweat suit with a waist-length top that didn’t come close to meeting the waist of the pants clinging low enough over her slender hips to reveal a small, glittering diamond in her navel.

  She looked no less startled, though her lashes swiftly fell, hiding her expressive eyes from him. “Hello.”

  It was their encounter the prior evening that had spurred him into calling Sondra. For all the good that had done in helping him forget it. He definitely didn’t need to be thinking about it now with just the two of them standing within feet of his room.

  He’d never particularly understood the appeal of a pierced navel before, but there was something expressly distracting about the stone that glittered against Kimi’s smooth skin, and he dragged his attention from it, only to get hung up along the way on the lush curves of her soft mouth.

  Swearing inwardly at himself, he looked down at her bare feet, ignoring the curiosity of the ice bucket held against her midriff. “Where are your shoes?”

  She looked down at her bright pink-painted toes, wriggling them against the carpet. “In my room. I did not expect to run into anyone.”

  Which hardly explained why her shoes were in her room, yet she was down here on this floor. His floor.

  He gestured toward the filled bronze bucket, diligently refraining from eyeing that little shining stone just below the hem of her pink sweatshirt. “You could call for ice, you know. Or there are the machines actually on your floor.”

  “I know.”

  Something was off, and it wasn’t just her shoes.

  There were only three rooms in use in the hotel. Her suite on twenty-one. His room behind him and Shin’s room across the hall and around the corner. “Do you play poker?”

  Her lashes lifted at that. “Poker? No. Why?”

  Because Greg had excused himself from the game in order to attend the dinner. Which had left at least two open seats at the table, since he knew that Grace had been in Tokyo for the day courting the planners of an international jewelry expo. “No reason.”

  Kimi’s fine brows twitched together over her nose. “Hmm. Well, good night.”

  “Good night.” But he didn’t move toward his room.

  She didn’t head toward the elevator.

  He gave her a close look. “What’s going on?”

  She lifted her chin a little. “Nothing.”

  “Right.” He slowly closed the distance between them. “That’s why you’re more than a dozen floors away from home.”

  “Chicago is a lot farther away than that.”

  “Kimi—”

  “I thought we had agreed on the Ms. Taka, Mr. Sherman route.”

  His teeth closed together. “Kimi.”

  “Oh, all right. If you are going to make such a big deal about it. I just moved out of the Mahogany Suite after work today,” she announced with studied casualness. “That is all.”

  He suspected the answer to come, but the pained awareness inside him forced him to ask, anyway. “To…where?”

  “A standard room on this floor. Obviously.”

  He scrubbed his hand down his face. “And you did this because…?” Because she wanted to torment him just a little more?

  “Because I never should have been in the Mahogany Suite in the first place.” She switched the insulated bucket from one arm to the other and pinned him with a suddenly accusing look. “You should never have stuck me up there.”

  “You’re blaming me for putting you, the owner’s daughter, in one of our best suites?”

  “I am staff.” Her voice was carefully dignified. “I should be treated like the other staff living on-site.”

  She should be placed far, far away—like the twenty-first floor far away—if only for his peace of mind. That peace involved even more than his fairly basic desire to keep his career from blowing up in his face. “Kimi, you can surely see that this isn’t a good idea.”

  Her chin lifted another notch. “Why? I checked reservations, you know. And I saw what you did. Ambassador and Mrs. Diggins are arriving next week. They were supposed to have the Mahogany Suite, but you switched their reservation to the Ginger Suite when I arrived.”

  “The Ginger Suite is almost identical to yours.”

  “It is not mine. Mrs. Diggins specifically requested the Mahogany Suite. What were you going to tell them when they arrived? That they could not have the suite they desired because spoiled Kimi Taka was in the house?” She shook her head, and her long hair rippled over her shoulders. “No, thank you.”

  “Honey, I’ve been pacifying the expectations of demanding guests since you were drinking milk and eating graham crackers in elementary school. I wasn’t worried about the ambassador and his supercilious wife.”

  “No, you were worried about keeping the boss’s daughter pampered, so she did not go complaining to her parents and make your life here even more uncomfortable. My father and Helen are prone to indulging me, Greg, but I can assure you that I would never be able to influence their business decisions in that way.”

  He couldn’t afford to believe that particular point. “If you don’t want the Mahogany, then you can use the Ginger Suite.”

  Instead of looking annoyed, though, she just tilted her head and gave him a searching look. “If I did not know better, I would think you were afraid of having me so close at hand.”

  “The twenty-first floor has extra layers of security.”

  Her lips stretched into a sudden smile. “Oh. This is about my security, then?” She shook her head. “I might still remember the taste of those graham crackers and milk, honey, but I am not that young.” She padded silently past him, stopping at the door—damn it all to hell—immediately next to his and, with a nudge of her slender hip, pushed the unlatched door open. “And by the way, Greg? If you are going to be indulging in late-night parties, I would appreciate it if you could keep it down.”

  He followed on her heels, right through the doorway. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She set the ice bucket down on the desk that was an exact duplicate of the one in his own room and plucked a tissue from the box sitting atop a thick stack of books.

  Then she stepped up to him and damned if he didn’t have to consciously hold his place when she reached up and dabbed the tissue against the corner of his mouth. “You tell me.” Her voice thinned as she held up the tissue. A deep red lipstick smudge stained it. “I would have not suspected that this was your color, but then you are often full of surprises.”

  He grabbed the tissue from her and rubbed it harder across his mouth, removing any vestiges of Sondra’s lipstick. “You can’t be next door to me.”

  Her smile looked demure, but beneath, he suspected it was really full of the devil. “Afraid your other women might get the wrong idea?”

  He crumpled the tissue and
tossed it aside. “There are no women.”

  “So the lipstick is actually yours.” She waited a mocking beat. “You know, you think you know a guy—”

  “Cut it out. Do you know what sort of gossip this is going to create?”

  “That the he-man macho Greg Sherman wears lipstick when he is off duty?”

  “What’s the matter, Kimi? Are you jealous that I was with another woman this evening?”

  Her mocking sarcasm fell by the wayside. “And if I am?” Her hands lifted at her sides and fell again. “There is nothing to be done about it. You have made that abundantly clear.” She crossed the room and stared out the window that he knew provided a stellar view of absolutely nothing.

  Which was why these particular rooms made excellent staff quarters. No guest would be likely to want the location.

  Yet Kimi had chosen it. The one room with a less desirable location than even his own.

  He eyed the perfectly formed line of her profile, outlined by the void beyond the window. A profile that had been haunting his sleep since the day she’d dumped her mountain of luggage in his lobby.

  The mountain that was now piled precariously in the corner of the room, obviously in the process of being unpacked yet again.

  He walked over to the closed door on the other side of the queen-sized bed. It was the one of the few differences between the furnishings in this room and his.

  He had a larger bed.

  Which was the last thing he needed to be thinking about.

  He rattled the doorknob on the door. “Do you know what this is?”

  She gave a flicking glance. “Yes.”

  “Connecting doors, Kimi. Do you really want everyone who works here to know that you and I are in connecting rooms?”

  “Maybe you just do not want that knowledge to make it back to my parents.”

  “I don’t,” he confirmed swiftly. “Hospitality is a bloody small world, and the last thing I need is for anyone to start thinking I’ve gotten where I am here at the Taka by riding on your very sexy coattails.”

  “That is ridiculous. Helen had already hired you long before I came on the scene.”

  “A detail that will be easily forgotten in most minds, I guarantee.”