Boss's Christmas Proposal Read online

  He scratched his name on the paperwork the truck driver presented him and handed back the clipboard, already turning away. Shin kept pace, and they entered the echoing, vast exhibition space that occupied most of the lowest level of the hotel. In comparison to the rest of the establishment, the space, which was thankfully finished, looked almost industrial. Greg knew, however, the magic that could be done with the concrete and metal. All it took was imagination. And come the beginning of the year, the space was steadily booked for nearly two years out with everything from luxury automobile shows to wine auctions.

  They went up the rear service stairs to the next floor where the bulk of the hotel offices were located. Concrete gave way to carpet, metal was replaced by wood. Even the staff who worked within the walls of the Taka were treated to excellent conditions. He’d managed a number of houses in his career, and he could truthfully say that wasn’t always the case. For some hoteliers, the only thing that mattered was the front-end appearance. But Taka was first-class from front to back, bottom to top.

  When Greg made a success of this hotel, he’d be able to command any position anywhere he chose. Gone would be the days of never feeling quite part of the exclusive world in which he lived and worked.

  But first, he had to get this hotel operational. So far, there’d been more than a few setbacks. By the time Helen had brought him on board little more than a month ago, he’d definitely had his work cut out for him.

  “Don’t spend all that Franklin in one place,” Shin said before disappearing into his office as they passed it. “I might want to win it at poker Friday night. Unless you’re going to blow us off again to see Sondra Fleming.”

  “I’ll be at the game,” Greg assured drily. “So keep on dreaming about the hundred.”

  “Cards beating out the charms of the lady lawyer?”

  He’d met Sondra shortly after arriving in Kyoto. They’d shared some entertaining time, but that was as far as it went. “She’s looking for serious.”

  Shin grinned. “And you don’t do serious.”

  “Only when it comes to work, my friend.” Greg continued on until he reached Sales and Catering where he found Grace in her office, frowning over the table linens draped over her conference table. “What’s wrong now?”

  She pushed her hands through the long, blond hair that was courtesy of her Swedish mother. “Obviously, the color.”

  He eyed the linens. “They’re red.”

  She sighed mightily. “In all the years I’ve known you, you’d think that by now you would have learned the difference between scarlet and red.”

  “I don’t need to know the difference. You do. That’s why I stole you from that shack in Tokyo.”

  She smiled. That “shack” was one of the most famous, premier hotels in all the world. “And I came because you do amuse me. This,” she flipped out a napkin and dropped it atop the cloth already spread on the table, “is scarlet silk damask.”

  He could barely discern the difference between the two. “And that is what the others are supposed to be?”

  “Exactly. We’re using scarlet silk when we host the luncheon next week for the mayor, not red linen. At this rate, I’m going to have to make a trip I don’t have time to make to Tokyo to beg, borrow and steal the right linens.”

  As far as he was concerned, the red ought to be fine. But he knew better than to step into Grace’s decisions. Her acumen couldn’t be topped. If she needed scarlet-colored whatever for some reason, then she needed it. “You’ve got staff,” he reminded. “Send them on the hunt for you.”

  “Speaking of staff, Tanya did your packets. She’s already taken them up to the training room.”

  “Thanks. Incidentally, you’ll have one more soul to boss around tomorrow. If it’s capable of being bossed.”

  Grace leaned back against her desk, crossing her arms. “Kimiko Taka’s in the house. I heard.”

  Not surprising, since the only thing that ran more swiftly than gossip in a hotel was the water in the pipes. “Send her on your scarlet-colored errand,” he advised, not entirely joking. “Rumor has it that shopping is one area where she really shines.”

  Grace’s phone rang, and she picked it up, waving him out of her office. He gave a tap on the oversized wall clock she’d hung alongside an enormous project board, reminding her to keep track of the time, before he left. He didn’t want anyone missing this meeting. They had too much business to cover in too little time as it was.

  He rounded the corner that would lead him back to his primary office—not the one located on the lobby level behind reception—and stopped short at the sight of Kimiko Taka exiting the elevator. She looked right then left, and spotted him.

  If he wasn’t mistaken, the high heel of her boot actually moved back a few inches. But that hesitation was brief before she strode straight for him. She didn’t look quite like a runway model—for one thing, she was far too short. But she definitely had all of the attitude.

  She stopped a good yard away from him. “Would you mind pointing me toward Human Resources?”

  He touched the discreet bronze plaque hanging on the wall beside them on which the locations for the various departments were inscribed. “Go right at the end of this corridor.”

  An unexpected hint of pink rose in her cheeks, but her wide-set gaze didn’t falter from his. In that, he had to give her credit. The girl knew how to look a person dead-on.

  “Thank you.” She stepped sideways, veering around him.

  “Ms. Taka.”

  She stopped, slowly turning around to face him. “Yes?”

  Her dark gaze followed his hand as he pulled the hundred-dollar bill from his pocket and the pink in her cheeks became even brighter. She brushed those pinup-girl ringlets off her shoulder again. “I suppose I should apologize.”

  Supposing and actually doing were two different things, but he had no interest in debating the point. He held out the folded bill and after a brief hesitation, she reached out to take it.

  But he didn’t release it. “The next time I see you on the premises in a staff-related capacity, I expect you to dress appropriately.”

  “Yes—” she tugged harder on the bill “—sir.”

  “And by appropriate, I mean by my standards. Presumably one of those two dozen pieces of luggage that you brought contains a skirt longer than four inches and a blouse that buttons above your cleavage?” A surprisingly full cleavage, hugged by pink lace.

  He jerked his gaze upward, realizing he was nearly staring.

  Her glossy lips had compressed, and her long lashes had swept down. But when she spoke again, there was no hint of temper in her lilting voice. “Mr. Sherman, I can look like a nun if you’d like.”

  Even a full-scale nun’s habit wouldn’t dim the girl’s undeniable beauty. The fact that he recognized that beauty wasn’t bothersome.

  What was aggravating was his damnable response to it. He was too old to be going dry-mouthed around a woman. Particularly the boss’s daughter.

  He released the bill. “Exercise some judgment, Ms. Taka. That’s all I ask.”

  “Of course.” Her lips stretched into a smile he was positive she didn’t mean as she slipped the folded bill down into that cleavage. “Is there anything else, sir?”

  He could have told her that the HR office was empty. He should have. But that smile, that sir, got under his skin. “No.”

  She lifted her chin and turned around again, striding to the end of the hall.

  His teeth clenched when he realized he was watching the faint sway of Tasty until she turned out of sight.

  He went into his office and shut the door. The last thing he needed was to see Kimiko Taka strutting her way back to the elevator once she discovered that every person in Human Resources had already left for the staff meeting.

  Insufferable man.

  Walking away from Mr. Plank-o’-Wood, it was all Kimi could do not to tug self-consciously at her skirt. That was more than four inches long, thank you very much.
It reached a very respectable length, in fact, hitting her midthigh.

  She could practically feel his gaze burning a hole in her spine before she reached the end of the hallway and turned out of his sight. Only then did she let herself exhale shakily. So much for the pep talk she had given herself twenty-some floors up in her suite.

  She wanted to kick herself for not changing her clothes. But the truth was, she was so dog-tired that she had been afraid if she slowed down enough to change, she would just collapse in a heap.

  Before finding her way to this lower level, all she had taken time to do was send a few text messages back home to let everyone know of her safe arrival and hook up her computer to transmit the Economics paper she had finished writing during the flight.

  She may have dropped out of school to her parents’ dismay, but that didn’t mean after she had done so that she had not recognized the prudence of obtaining her degree anyway.

  She had wanted just to do it on her own terms. In her own way. Finishing the classes online was a lot more tolerable to her than endless study groups and crowded lecture halls. It had even been worth having to prevail upon the dean’s good graces where the Taka family name was concerned to be quietly reinstated.

  None of which would matter a bit to Greg Sherman.

  He was overreacting where her clothing was concerned anyway. The hotel was not yet open for guests, and the only people she had encountered were other employees.

  Like her.

  For now, though, the reminder that she was an employee—for the very first time in her life—was enough to have excitement dissolving her irritation, and she quickened her pace along the empty, carpeted corridor until she found the Human Resources department. It, too, was marked by a tastefully engraved metal sign, and she pushed through the double doors, entering a small lobby furnished with a half dozen chairs and a glass-topped reception desk.

  All unoccupied.

  “Hello?” She peered down the hallway behind the desk, but heard no response.

  More unfilled staff positions?

  She wondered if Helen knew just how bare some of the holes were here, but Kimi supposed she must. According to everything Kimi had learned, Helen and her father were satisfied that after a rocky beginning plagued by financial misdealings and construction delays, the hotel was firmly back on course under the guiding hands of Greg Sherman and continuing on its path to the height of its class.

  She walked around the desk and down the hall, glancing in the half dozen offices that opened off of it. “Hello?” She reached the last office door. Closed and locked.

  She exhaled and turned on her heel, striding out of the empty suite.

  Greg could have told her that she was wasting her time. Probably the man needed to have some sort of amusements, though she found it hard to believe he had ever cracked a real smile.

  She returned to the elevator but grew impatient when the call button she pressed remained lit and the doors remained closed. She could hear the faint swoosh of the car moving in the shaft, but it never seemed to make it far enough to stop there at the basement level. She tapped her toe and watched the minute hand on her wristwatch slowly move and then nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard a soft footfall behind her.

  “Might as well take the service stairs, my dear. That elevator’s already busy running back and forth to the fifth.” A tall Nordic blonde wearing a deep blue running suit approached. “That’s where the training room is, and that’s where all the staff is supposed to be as of five minutes ago for a staff meeting. Grace Ishida.” The woman stuck out her hand. “Director of Sales and Catering. And you must be Kimiko Taka.”

  “Yes, but make it Kimi, please.” She shook the older woman’s hand.

  Grace was nodding. She pulled a folded piece of fabric out of her pocket. “Tell me. What color is this?”

  She hesitated for a moment, feeling abruptly in the middle of a pop quiz. “Scarlet.”

  The other woman’s eyes narrowed. “Not just a simple red?”

  “I think it has too much orange in it to be a true red.”

  “Yes. It does.” The fabric disappeared back in Grace’s pocket, and looking satisfied, the other woman gestured Kimi past the unresponsive elevator. “You were born in Japan, weren’t you?”

  “Yes. I lived mostly in Tokyo until I was a teenager.” Around another corner, and through a doorway, they entered the stairwell. Kimi had to nearly jog to keep up with the woman’s long legs. The stairwell echoed with the sound of Grace’s athletic shoes and Kimi’s thin heels as they hurried up the steps. “But even before we moved there, I was enthralled with the United States.”

  “And now you’re back in Japan.”

  Kimi managed a noncommittal agreement. She was there, yes, but not entirely by choice. It was just where her parents were allowing her to sink or swim.

  Once they realized that she was not going under, she fully intended on returning to the country she loved.

  They reached the main level, and Grace pulled open the door there, letting them out into another hallway, through which she led a circuitous way to the lobby. In comparison to the busyness there when Kimi had arrived, now the soaring, unfinished space was eerily silent. Fortunately, the bank of elevators beyond the dry fountain were responsive, a door opening the moment Grace called for it.

  Inside, Grace leaned against the wall and studied Kimi. “Were you downstairs to look for Mr. Sherman?”

  Kimi had seen Mr. Sherman, who had knowingly sent her on a wild goose chase. Seemingly, she imagined, to keep her away from his sanctified staff meeting. “I was trying to check in with Human Resources. I arrived earlier than they were expecting, but I thought it would be good to get started right away.”

  “We need all the hands we can get,” Grace agreed. “But you found everyone already had gone. Hate it when that happens, don’t you?” The melodious chime sounded and they left the elevator. “I assume you haven’t had a proper tour of our facilities, yet? No. Well, through there is where the fitness center and the spa are located.” She pointed toward the smoked-glass doors that blocked off the elevator banks. “There’s also one of the indoor pools. It will be open for all guests of the hotel, whereas the pool that’s up on seventeen has an age restriction of sixteen years and up. This way, though, are our training rooms.” She headed in the opposite direction through a hidden doorway that was indistinguishable from the wooden-paneled wall around it. “Ordinarily, staff would only use the service elevators for access, of course. But there’s no harm in using the main elevators for today. There are several floors in the hotel that are not available to the guest elevators at all, of course. The engine floors, laundry, et cetera. Before long, you’ll have it all down pat.”

  Kimi was not so sure. Yes, she knew there were hundreds of things that went on behind the scenes of a hotel. She had just never before been part of it.

  Their footsteps were silent on the carpet as they approached the opened entrance to the training room through which Kimi could see the backs of dozens of people already sitting at the narrow rows of tables facing the front of the room.

  Facing Greg Sherman, who was witnessing their noticeably tardy arrival.

  His gaze barely paused on Kimi and Grace as he continued speaking to the crowd, his deep voice easily carrying throughout the large room.

  There were a few empty chairs there at the back of the room, and Kimi slipped into one as silently as possible while Grace headed toward the front of the room to take up a standing position near Shin Endo and another man whose face Kimi did not recognize from her research in Helen’s files. A ponytailed Asian girl sitting to Kimi’s right was busy taking notes in a three-ring binder. To Kimi’s left, a dark-skinned young man was holding a microcassette recorder.

  For a moment, she felt as if she were back in a lecture hall where every student was focused on the professor who could make or break their academic career with a swipe of his red pen.

  “You’ve all been issued your security cod
es,” Greg was saying. “Beginning Monday morning, you’ll be required to use them when entering or leaving through the staff entrance. Some of you who’ve been here longer than a week have had plenty of time getting used to moving around without them. As of now, that ends.” His gaze settled on Kimi’s face as the order was met with a few groans. “The crews working on the lobby interior are being stepped up. Our first guests arrive December 15. That’s fourteen days, people.”

  His gaze moved on, touching on nearly everyone and disproving her suspicion that he had been singling her out. “That’s not a lot of time, and it will take all of us working together to ensure that when those guests do arrive, they’re welcomed with every bit of luxury and excellence we want them to expect from the Taka brand. If you have a concern or a problem, you take it to your manager or to me. Remember that a hotel staff is a family. What happens in one department matters to all departments.”

  Kimi glanced around. Unless they were busy scribbling notes on the stapled packets that were at each seat, or on something else, the employees sitting at the narrow tables were giving Greg their rapt attention. Even she had to admit there was something mesmerizing about the way he spoke to them; as if they were all part of the conversation, rather than merely observant listeners.

  He went on, talking about upcoming training schedules and staff rotations and project meetings.

  Kimi leaned closer to the ponytail. “Do you have a spare pen?”

  Without taking her pinpointed attention away from Greg, the girl pulled a dark gold ballpoint pen printed with a navy-blue TAKA logo on it and slid it to Kimi.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. She quickly jotted down the points that Greg was making on the back side of the packet in front of her and had started on another page before he turned the meeting over to Shin, who gave them an update on the closed-circuit security system.

  “Our main concern is, of course, guest security,” the man said. “We’re not trying to police people’s normal behavior. But we will act when there’s a situation that seems to be developing. All points of entry and exit, the guest corridors and elevators, reception, will be on the circuit, which a team of security specialists will be monitoring 24/7. So any of you planning to catch a forbidden smoke outside on a fire escape be warned.” He looked around the room, his expression seeming far too good-natured for the tough-as-nails expert he was reputed to be. “You’ll be caught, and we’ll have your walking papers ready before you blow out your light.” There was a twittering of laughter around the room.