Boss's Christmas Proposal Read online

  All around them, it was as if everyone—the laborers, the staff—had decided it was time to stop whatever it was they were supposed to be doing so they could witness the moment.

  The pampered heiress had arrived.

  Early.

  “Here.” Shin appeared, pushing a luggage cart that Greg knew he’d had to retrieve from the mezzanine level, where they were all being stored until the hotel opened for guests. “This might be useful.” He shot Greg an amused glance as he stopped beside Kimiko Taka.

  The girl swept a slender, ivory hand over her shoulder, pushing aside her thick tumble of deep brown hair. She turned, not even needing to beckon before Marco hurried into action, deftly stacking her luggage onto the cart, and treated Greg to her rear view.

  The hair—he’d seen it photographed in newspapers and gossip rags looking any number of ways from straight and nauseatingly pink, to black and rainwater slick—was now swirling down the back of her white fur jacket in a mass of ringlets that almost reached her waist. But it was the minuscule skirt beneath the hip-length jacket that damnably caught even Greg’s attention.

  Tasty.

  The word was printed right across her derriere, outlined in sparkling pink stitching.

  He felt a pain settle between his eyebrows. Taka hotels were all about taste. Good taste. “Ms. Taka.”

  The girl whirled on her impossibly high heels to face him. “Yes?”

  “Dzo yoroshiku.” Despite his misgivings about her, he greeted her with the faint bow that had become automatic for him in the month since he’d been at the Taka. “I am Greg Sherman, the—”

  “—the general manager here at the Taka,” she finished in slightly accented English. “Yes. My parents speak most highly of you.” Despite the fact that she was the Japanese-born one here, she eschewed the usual practice of returning his circumspect bow and stuck out her hand instead in a thoroughly Western greeting. “How do you do?”

  “You’ve taken us by surprise, actually.” He clasped her hand briefly. Long enough to feel how slender her fingers were, how cool her hands were and how electricity shot up his arm at the contact. He released her and reached for the strap of the rescued case that she’d looped over her shoulder. “We didn’t expect you until next week.”

  Her hand brushed against his again as she released the strap. Her deep brown eyes were sparkling. “Better early than late, surely?” In a smooth move, she slid her jacket off her shoulders to reveal a shimmering white, silk blouse through which a pink, lacy bra was plainly visible. Before she could toss the jacket on the mountain of geometrically stacked luggage, half a dozen hands reached out to catch it, earning a seemingly delighted little laugh from her. “In any case, this is quite a welcoming committee.”

  “Who have other matters to attend to,” Greg said pointedly. Looking over her head was easy because, even with the stiletto-heeled boots, the top of those bouncing brown curls didn’t reach his shoulder. He gave Marco a look, but the young man was evidently not ready to give up his impromptu bellman duty.

  “I can take these to Ms. Taka’s room,” he offered.

  Kimiko looked over at Marco. “Oh, would you mind?” She gave him a smile that could have melted a glacier. On Marco, it was devastating. Greg could practically see the maintenance worker dissolve into a puddle.

  His annoyance deepened. “Focus that attention on the pallet, Marco. I expected it to be moved the first time I told you.”

  The young man flushed at the rebuke. “Sorry, Mr. Sherman.” He moved from hoarding the gleaming-bronze luggage cart to the pallet jack. He ducked his chin as he maneuvered the pallet away from them. “Ms. Taka.”

  Kimi smiled gently at the remorseful man. For pity’s sake, it was just a stack of chairs amid a thoroughly chaotic and unfinished hotel lobby. “It was very nice meeting you, Marco.”

  His smile was sudden and beaming. “You, too, Miss Taka.” He pushed the contraption bearing several high stacks of chairs across the concrete.

  The construction noise around her suddenly seemed loud, and Kimi sucked in a quick breath before turning back to Greg Sherman.

  He did not look anywhere near as kind as the departing Marco. Even though she had done her research about the man in her few weeks before leaving Chicago, she was unaccountably nervous now that they were face-to-face.

  Sadly, the black-and-white head shot that had accompanied his vitae in Helen’s files had done little to prepare her for the real thing. The photo had only shown a severely conservative man with darkish hair and light eyes who looked as if he rarely smiled.

  Helen had told Kimi that she had hand-picked Greg Sherman to be the general manager of the Kyoto location, and Kimi had been surprised, because her stepmother usually liked people with a little more…life…to them.

  But Greg Sherman, in the flesh, was definitely fuller of life than that bland photo had been. Oh, his hair was conservatively short, but the medium brown waves looked like they would escape over his brow given the least provocation. The deep brown suit he wore was well-tailored if not exactly cutting the edge of male fashion, but she supposed it was the ideal choice for a man helming a new first-class hotel.

  Then there was the fact that just the brief graze of his hand had left her skin tingling.

  She reminded herself that this was her boss. Nothing more. Nothing less.

  “I am sorry to have caused a distraction,” she said sincerely. “It is good to be here.”

  The light eyes of the photograph were actually a very distinctive, very pale shade of green. No bluish tinge. No hint of brown. Just a pale green surrounded by a defining black ring that made them all the more startling, and they were looking her over without a single hint of expression.

  He did not even acknowledge her sentiment. Instead, he eyed the cart. “Is this all of your luggage?”

  She was not certain if he had stressed the all or not. But she was absurdly grateful that she had decided to leave a few things back in Chicago, or there would have been more. Still, she might as well admit to the obvious. “I never did learn the art of packing light. And yes, this is all.”

  He did not return her smile. “Mrs. Taka-Hanson told me that you’ve asked to stay on-site. You’ll want to settle in.”

  She would not lose her good humor just because the man had the personality of a plank of oak. A very tall, very broad in the shoulder plank of oak. “Yes, if only to get this stuff out of the lobby.”

  He seemed to let out a faint sigh. “If you wouldn’t mind waiting, I’ll get your room key.”

  Kimi looked past him to the wide, curving sweep of the reception desk. She imagined that beneath the thick plastic and protective paper covering nearly every surface, it would be as spectacular as the one at the Taka San Francisco. She had heard that things were a little behind here, but she had expected the hotel interior to look a little more…finished. “Is the rest of the hotel in such—” she hesitated for a moment, trying to find a suitable word that would not sound as if she were being judgmental.

  “—chaos? Today seems somewhat more so than usual.” For an infinitesimal second—so brief that she would later wonder if she had imagined it—his gaze dropped from her face to her toes, hitting all points in between. “Our computer network isn’t operational yet,” he added. “It adds a fresh dimension to the challenges our team’s already facing.”

  The explanation was smooth. Almost smooth enough that she could brush away the idea that she was a contributing factor to his chaos. Almost.

  So, Mr. Sherman figured he had her number, did he?

  She swept away the sinking disappointment and lifted her chin a little, giving him the same kind of direct look that she had learned at her father’s knee. “Well, I appreciate the opportunity to be here.” She rested her hand on the cool bronze of the luggage cart and smiled with as much good humor and grace as she had learned from her stepmother. “As you can see, I come hoping to be prepared for anything.”

  He remained unimpressed. “Shin.”
r />   The slender man who had brought the luggage cart snapped to attention.

  “Arrange for Ms. Taka’s things to be taken up to the Mahogany Suite.”

  “Right away.”

  Kimi retrieved her jacket and draped it over her arm, smiling at the man as he guided the cart across the concrete, before it was handed off to two other younger men. She was not surprised. She recognized Shin Endo from his photo, too, and it seemed unlikely that the security director for Taka Kyoto would concern himself with bellman duties.

  Speaking of which. She hurriedly fell into step behind Greg, who was striding toward the reception area. “Have all the staff positions been filled now?” Three weeks ago, when she had pretty much begged her father not to have her drawn and quartered for dropping out of school, the staff roster here had been only partially filled.

  “No.” His answer did not invite further inquiry and she did not know whether to be delighted or aggravated. Yes, she knew she was coming in at a very junior level. Helen had made that more than clear when she had told Kimi what she could expect once arriving in Kyoto. But did that mean he could not discuss even some basic matters with an interested staff member, junior or not?

  He slapped a thick folder down on the long, curving desk and walked around where it very nearly met the opposite and inner curve of an open staircase. Even behind the chest-high reception desk, Greg looked ridiculously tall. More like an American quarterback than an urbane hotel manager. That detail also had not shown through Helen’s black-and-white photo.

  Kimi dropped her jacket onto the desk and the thick plastic covering the wood crinkled. “How many employees live here on-site?”

  He did not look up from whatever it was he was focusing on behind the desk. “Not many. Will you need more than one key?”

  For what? All the wild parties he assumed she would be having? She kept the thought to herself and smiled demurely when he looked up at her. “Not unless I lose it.”

  With a faint snap, he pushed a traditional brass key into a small padded portfolio. But when she expected him to hand it to her, he held on to the small square and rounded the desk again. Her tote containing the only items that Kimi considered truly essential—her laptop and her few framed family photographs—was still hanging from his shoulder. “If you’ll come this way, I’ll show you to your room.” He extended his hand in a smooth, indicating gesture. “Our main elevators are through the lobby and beyond the fountain.”

  Aggravation was edging out delight. “I am sure you have more important things to do.” He was treating her as if she were a guest. A not particularly welcomed one, at that. “I can find my way on my own.”

  “Not at all.” Olympic ice-skating could have been performed on that deeply smooth voice.

  Learning how to mimic Mori Taka’s direct and intimidating stare was one thing. Maintaining it against those stained-glass eyes of Greg Sherman’s was another.

  She looked away, busying herself with the jacket and sailed across the lobby passing what she assumed would be the fountain once it received the advent of water. Greg still beat her to the elevator bank, his long stride easily eclipsing hers. He pressed the call button and the wood-paneled doors of the nearest car opened.

  She stepped inside. The floor of the elevator was carpeted in a taupe, tonal stripe that still smelled new. He pressed the button for the twenty-first floor and the doors sighed closed. Kimi knew that she was successful in keeping a pleasant expression on her face, because she could see their faint reflections in the mottled, mirrored interior.

  Above the elevator doors, a beautiful, old-fashioned clock face showed the progress of their ascent. Unfortunately, that progress seemed dauntingly slow. If he were any other hotel manager, he would have been falling over himself to please her.

  That was something she was not interested in, she reminded herself. She was here to work, not to be fawned over. She had had enough of that at college.

  “Is there someone in particular I should see about my duties?”

  “Human Resources is located on the lower level. I’ll tell them to expect you in the morning.”

  That had not exactly answered her question. She rather doubted it was because he was unaware of the particular details of her assignment there. But she did not question him further. Her gaze rose to the floor indicator again. One floor to go.

  She tucked her hair behind her ear. She probably should not have spent the morning before shopping in New York with a friend. Lana Sheffield was a friend from years ago who now worked for a fashion magazine. But she had her eye on being a designer, and Kimi had gone along with being Lana’s “practice” project. As a result, Kimi had stepped onto the plane in New York—having nearly missed the flight in the first place—looking exactly the way she had looked after Lana had finished having her fun.

  Kimi had spent more than half a day in the air, trying to sleep and mostly failing. Now here in Kyoto, the workday was nearly done. She had never enjoyed the time difference between Japan and the States. It always left her feeling dim.

  The elevator slid to a seamless halt, emitting a soft, mellow chime the moment before the doors opened. She stepped past her new boss onto more new carpet—champagne-colored this time and stretching across the wide corridor so perfectly it looked as if no human foot had ever trod on it. This level was as beautifully finished as the lobby was decidedly unfinished. She wondered if the twenty-second floor—the top floor—was finished, as well.

  “At the end on your right.” Greg’s voice seemed even deeper there in the hushed silence.

  Kimi headed down the hall, looking curiously at the spaciously separated guest-room doors they passed. All were closed. The room numbers were displayed on small metal origami sculptures affixed to the wall beside each door. She had no way of knowing for certain if any of the rooms were occupied. Given the state of the lobby, she did not imagine that they were, but who knew? Maybe Greg’s room was on this floor, too.

  A faint shiver drifted down her spine at the thought.

  Dread or excitement? A draft, she thought, quelling the debate inside her head.

  He had reached the door ahead of her and unlocked it. “We’ve been using this suite for some advance photos, which is why it has a lock at all. The access control won’t be activated until later next week. After we’d expected you.” He gave her a glance.

  She refused to apologize again for being early. So she just kept her smile in place.

  A smile he did not return. “You’ll be issued a key card at that point. Until then, you’ll have to use the old-fashioned method.” He tucked the metal door key into the portfolio and handed it to her as he pushed open the door and waited for her to enter. “Security monitors for the suite will be up next week, also. The phones are operational now, of course,” he said, following her through the short foyer to where the suite opened up into a gloriously spacious living area.

  She could appreciate why the space had been used for photos. It was magnificently appointed.

  He set her tote bag on the spotless surface of a mahogany dining-room table, complete with eight chairs upholstered in a beautiful deep sienna silk. “You have three lines. More can be arranged if necessary. Wireless internet is available here in your suite and throughout the facility.” He waved at the beautifully polished desk. “Printer and fax machine are located behind the drawer on the lower right. It slides out.” He crossed to the bank of windows and drew open the bronze-colored silk drapes, leaving the pale oyster translucent sheers beneath in place. She could not tell for certain, but she suspected the view beyond would be as lovely as the view inside.

  “Three of our five restaurants are already open on a limited basis,” he continued blandly. “But Chef Lorenzo will make certain that all of your needs are met, no matter the time of day. The spa isn’t yet open, but it, too, will be available for use in the next week.”

  “I’m here to work, not idle away my time in a spa.”

  He lifted an eyebrow and continued as if she
hadn’t spoken at all. “You can access the fitness center now, if you’re not bothered by the interior finishing that’s still being done. Otherwise, Michel St. Jacques—our concierge—can arrange any services you desire with another establishment.”

  He was not finished, though, as he introduced her to the individually controlled climate systems—one for the living area, one each for the two bedrooms and the three bathrooms—and showed her how to operate the safe hidden inside the walk-in dressing room, how to program the plasma televisions and on and on.

  Kimi heard his smooth spiel but did not listen.

  How could she, when her temper was rumbling inside her ears? She was not a guest.

  But at last he finished extolling the virtues of the Mahogany Suite.

  She was somewhat surprised that he did not actually say he hoped she enjoyed her stay at the Taka Kyoto as he ended near the door once more.

  She gave him a practiced smile—the one that she had learned how to use when she was barely a teenager to combat the shyness that had plagued her—and slid a folded bill into his hand even as she opened the door herself for his exit. “Thank you so much, Mr. Sherman. I am sure I will be very comfortable.”

  Then, because it pleased her immensely to see the discomfited surprise cross his unrelentingly handsome face as he realized he had just been tipped, she closed the door on him.

  Chapter Two

  “She actually tipped you?” Shin was laughing at Greg as they watched a mattress delivery at the loading dock a short while later. “Was she generous, at least?”

  Greg held up the U.S. currency between two fingers. Benjamin Franklin’s face peered out from the folded hundred.

  Shin just laughed harder.

  Greg shoved the bill back into his pocket and rolled his shoulders against the itchy irritation that had tightened them from the moment he’d seen the pampered heiress’s “tasty” behind.