Boss's Christmas Proposal Page 6

“Not since this morning,” she assured. “We’ve lost an attendee, too.” She shot Greg an I-told-you-so look. “Yoshi Kobayashi sent his regrets this morning, though his office most humbly assures us the next in command at Kobayashi Media will be very honored to attend.”

  “What does it matter?” Their fourth, Lyle, was rarely concerned with anything that didn’t involve a computer and his almighty cyberspace.

  “It’s an insult to the mayor, Lyle.” Grace shook her head as if it were obvious. “They’re going to use our first event as a forum for their dignified pissing contest over their opinions about the Taka even being built. I fold.” She dropped her cards onto the table and wandered to the window that overlooked the city. “There’s no place quite like Japan. Astonishing beauty. Amazing hospitality. Magnificently subtle barbs. How’s Bridget?”

  “Still out. We need to ensure that all the staff has an opportunity to get their flu shots, if they haven’t already. Better late than never. Eight percent of our crew called in sick today.” Greg squared his cards and raised the bet. Lyle never could bluff worth peanuts. Greg wasn’t quite so sure about Shin’s hand yet.

  “Well, I’ll take my chances with my vitamins because nobody is coming near me with a needle.” Grace was emphatic. “Anyway, I’m tapped out, so I’m going to leave you little boys to your games and go home to reacquaint myself with my husband. Play nice, now.” She headed out of the room.

  But instead of settling back into the game once Grace departed, it soon broke up. Shin ended up the big winner. “It’ll buy me a Starbucks in the morning,” he said wryly, pocketing the change. With Lyle and Shin’s departure, Greg slowly shut down the lights in the lounge and left, too.

  Going down to his room on the fourth floor didn’t appeal. Despite the hour, he was too restless. He tried his office, but even the matters awaiting him there didn’t succeed in holding his attention for more than a few hours.

  When he realized he’d reread the same paragraph of a memo from Housekeeping for the third time, he scrubbed his hands down his face and shoved away from the desk. He took the stairs up to the ghostly lobby level.

  The perimeter lights were still lit, casting a golden wash down the unfinished walls. His shoes squeaked slightly on the concrete floor as he headed up the curving staircase, looking down at the nearly completed reception area. From his vantage point on the curving stairs, he could see the dark-eyed gleam of the blank built-in computer monitors behind the high desk. In just a few weeks, those monitors would be constantly alive, 24/7. For now, they looked like mysterious black holes.

  He continued up to the mezzanine and paced past the glass-fronted shops—he’d just inked the deal to fill the last space with a New York shoe designer—and at the end of the looping floor, found himself at the elevator.

  He should go to his room. Get a decent night’s sleep for once.

  Instead, he let out a long breath and pushed the button for the twenty-first floor. The soft strains of a koto and shakuhachi flute masked the faint hiss of the elevator. He ordinarily found the music soothing. Now, the meditative tones only underscored his disquiet.

  He watched the clock-hand floor indicator smoothly tick its way around the half circle. Another moment and the doors slid open and he stepped off. His hand held the elevator door open, and he eyed the closed door of the suite at the end of the long hall.

  What the hell was he doing? It was nearly midnight.

  Exhaling a soft oath, he removed his hand, and the elevator door silently closed.

  He walked to the end of the hall and rapped on the thick mahogany door. There was no response, and he knocked harder. Still no response.

  He scrubbed his hands down his face. Was it lack of sleep muddling his head, or was it just her?

  Midnight or not, it was Friday night. She was Kimiko Taka, the spoiled heiress whose nightlife and social exploits had been well-documented since she’d been a teen. Of course she was out sampling the night life, not the least bit affected by her encounter with the drunken security officer.

  Calling himself ten kinds of a fool, Greg turned on his heel and strode back to the elevator. The doors slid open immediately and he jabbed the button for the next floor up. The top floor, which was occupied only by their fine-dining restaurant, Sakura, and an outdoor, roof-top garden.

  He let himself out into the garden area, welcoming the slam of cold air that met him. The sky was clear, the stars overhead overwhelmingly bright, as if he could reach up and touch them. With far too little appreciation for the garden—designed by an award-winning landscape architect—he walked to the protective stone wall that kept curious visitors from venturing too close to the edge of the building and braced his hands on top of it, staring out.

  His world was hotels, and this hotel was his. At least as much his as was possible.

  So why couldn’t he feel at home yet in his world?

  He exhaled roughly and turned his back on the view. If he were more honest with himself, he’d be wondering if he would ever feel at home in this world.

  He was a California hippie’s brat who’d scraped his way up the ladder of the hospitality industry filling any and every job that came his way. From Housekeeping to Engineering to Catering to Front Office. If it had involved a paycheck and getting him closer to never having to worry if he and his mother would have a roof over their heads that night or not, he’d done it.

  He’d been managing a small midlevel chain hotel by the time he was twenty-three, working on his graduate degree in night classes at the same time. He’d moved up and away from California, and up again.

  Always better properties.

  Always more money.

  Now Greg had made it to the very pinnacle. He knew what he was doing and what he was capable of doing. But that didn’t mean that he really belonged there.

  He was still the same hungry kid from California whose mom had more often than not been high on the marijuana she’d bought with his lunch money.

  The idea that he’d own his own hotel had been just an outlandish fantasy. Until he’d worked his way to this moment. This place.

  He could conquer the Taka.

  Would he be able to conquer what came after?

  More annoyed with his thoughts than ever, he went back inside.

  Through the dim gloom of the darkened restaurant, he could see a soft light burning from the open-styled kitchen and headed toward it. “Lorenzo? You’ve already redesigned your menu five times, and we haven’t even opened the doors up here, yet.” He stuck his head over the long glass-topped sushi bar to look toward the source of the light.

  The wide eyes staring back at him from the light of a doublewide commercial refrigerator most definitely did not belong to Greg’s six-foot-tall temperamental Italian head chef.

  “Kimi.” Her name escaped him.

  She seemed to unfreeze then and nervously moistened her lips as her hip nudged the door closed. The soft light gleaming up from the base of the sushi bar was the only thing that kept them from total darkness. “I am sorry. I probably should not be in here.” Her voice was low.

  For some reason, his was, too. “If Lorenzo finds out you’ve been rooting around in his territory, he’ll have a fit.” The kind he’d thrown each of the times he’d discovered Greg foraging in one of the hotel’s kitchens for a quick bite in the middle of the night.

  “Add him to the list,” she murmured.

  “List?”

  She shook her head slightly, and the hair that was pulled back in a tousled ponytail gleamed darkly. “Never mind.”

  “Why are you up here?” The question seemed obvious, given the collection of fresh vegetables clutched against her breast. But it was such a different setting than what his mind had conjured that he was still absorbing the surprise. “There are kitchens here that are actually open, you know.”

  “This seemed quicker. I just needed a bite before…” She shrugged again and moved over to the prep table, flipped on the task light, then dropped the vegetables on
top and selected a knife.

  “Before…what?”

  She slid a look over her shoulder at him, then turned back to her vegetables. With a whack she severed a carrot in half. “Before bed.”

  The answer was ready and smooth, and for some reason he didn’t buy it.

  He rounded the sushi bar and walked back to where she was deftly chopping the carrots into bite-sized sticks. He snuck one and popped it into his mouth, crunching down on it.

  “That is my supper you are eating,” she pointed out.

  “If you subsist on carrots and cucumbers, it’s no wonder you’re so tiny.” He stole a slice of cucumber when it fell off her flashing knife.

  “Yes, well, if I ever need a supply of herbs for stamina, I will know who to come to.”

  He slowly swallowed the crisp slice, his face flushed. “So you did overhear that particular bit from my mother.”

  Her gaze flew up, her lips parting. “That was your mother?”

  “I do have one.”

  Her lips compressed. “Obviously. I cannot imagine many mothers broach that sort of subject with their sons, though.”

  “She’s…unique,” he allowed. “I’m surprised you managed to refrain from commenting this long.”

  “I will not mistake that as flattery.” She swept the vegetables into a small bowl. “But I will be sure to pass on to Helen that your diligence has you prowling the darkened corners of your hotel even this late at night. I am certain she will be most impressed.”

  “And she’ll be interested, no doubt, when I report on your nighttime feeding habits. Are you a vegetarian or something?”

  “No. I just like vegetables. And maybe you and I should agree to refrain from reports of any kind.”

  A fine idea if he really believed that she wouldn’t run to Mama and Papa under the right provocation.

  He eyed her ivory face, searching for signs of what, he didn’t know. “What happened with the security guard today, Ms. Taka?”

  “A minute ago, it was Kimi.” She flipped the end of her ponytail over her shoulder and took the knife to the sink. For a moment her shoulders seemed to bow beneath the brilliant pink T-shirt she wore.

  He was so surprised by the vulnerability that seemed to suddenly sigh out of her that his hand started to lift toward her.

  “I should have known Mr. Endo would end up telling you about it.” She rinsed the knife and turned back to replace it, and her smooth smile seemed determinedly back in place. “But as I assured him, it was absolutely nothing.”

  He fisted his hand and lowered it to his side. “I’ll be the judge of that. Tell me what happened. Exactly.” He wanted to hear it from her lips, not from the printed report that Shin had filed.

  “Very well, Mr. Sherman.” She swiped a towel over the chopping block then tossed it onto the stainless steel table. “At exactly three twenty-seven, Security Officer Nelson and I were in the service elevator where he thought to impress me with his amazing wit, and once we left the elevator, he thought to impress me with his less than amazing dexterity.” She picked up her bowl and went to slip past Greg, but he caught her arm.

  She stopped, not looking at him. He hadn’t been exaggerating that she was tiny, but right then it seemed to strike him all over again.

  Everything about her seemed feminine. Delicate.

  And in his head he formed an image of Danny Nelson. Not as tall as Greg, but easily as heavy.

  He willed his fists to uncurl. “Kimiko.” His voice was low. Warning.

  “I prefer Kimi.”

  “I prefer a straightforward answer.”

  She exhaled. “It was nothing,” she insisted. “He merely told an off-color joke that he probably never would have if not for the sake on his breath, and tried to grab my…my hind quarters. Okay?”

  “No, it’s not okay!” He pulled her around slightly, until he could see her face. “Shin said the guy came on to you. He didn’t say he tried to assault you.”

  “There was no reason to tell Mr. Endo, when it was more than apparent that Nelson’s tail was already in a sling for working under the influence. I have dealt with worse than an attempted pinch on the rear, I assure you.” She wriggled her arm.

  The motion had the soft side of her breast nudging his knuckles, and he quickly released her. “I suppose you have had plenty of practice, considering all those romantic exploits you’ve packed into your short life that we get to read about in the gossip rags.”

  She tossed back her head. “I am surprised you even admit to looking at such things.”

  “This isn’t the only first-class hotel I’ve run,” he drawled. It was only the most important one. “Do you think I haven’t dealt with my share of celebrities and the media coverage they get?”

  “I am not a celebrity.”

  “No, you’re just the beautiful heiress who sleeps with them.”

  She looked pained. “I never—oh, for pity’s sake. I dated one celebrity, and that was only because we happened to meet on campus at my university where he was giving a speech at a fund-raising dinner.”

  “You went to the Oscars with him. You sunbathed topless with him in Monte Carlo.”

  “I was not topless, and what does it matter, anyway?”

  “He’s old enough to be your father.”

  She laughed. “Right. If he had been a very precocious eleven-year-old. Have you been following my exploits for long, Mr. Sherman, or just reading up on them since you found yourself saddled with me?” Her eyes were unreadable as she leaned closer. Her long ponytail slid silkily over her shoulder and her voice sank even more. Goading. “Tell me. Did you like what you saw in those photographs?”

  He’d never seen them. Only heard about them, like half of the rest of the world. And her softly accented whisper was not getting under his skin. “I couldn’t care less about celebrity gossip,” he assured smoothly. “I care about what happens under the roof of this hotel. Which brings me right back to you, and Danny Nelson’s assault.”

  She straightened again and swept back her hair. “Wandering hands,” she corrected briskly. “Most men I have met seem to be afflicted with the condition at one point or another.”

  “Maybe because you dress to invite it.”

  “Blame the victim, is that it? I assure you, Mr. Sherman, I was dressed most circumspectly today, per your decree. So, tell me, just how my wearing a tweed suit could possibly inflame Mr. Nelson?”

  “Honey, you could wear burlap and drive a man right around the bend, and you damn well know it.”

  “Oh, the compliments.” She pressed the back of her hand to her forehead. “They are overwhelming me.”

  What the hell had happened to this conversation? He ought to know better than to enter verbal skirmishes with rich little girls. Or to enter into anything, for that matter. “I expect everyone who enters the Taka to be safe. Whether they’re guests or…employees.”

  “Ooh.” She pursed her lips. “That is such a hard word for you to say when it comes to me.”

  Unfortunately, words weren’t the only things that were hard when it came to her. “You don’t exactly fit the job description. Any of them.”

  “Only because you want to think that way.”

  He snorted. “Typical employees usually don’t occupy one of the best suites in the house,” he reminded.

  “You are the one who put me there.”

  “Do you think I had a choice?” He grabbed another carrot stick out of her bowl, avoiding the hand she slapped at him. “Playing at your job here is one thing. Sticking you in a standard room on the fourth floor with no view and few frills is hardly what the boss’s daughter is accustomed to.”

  “Maybe you’re just afraid to have me on the fourth floor with you.” She leaned closer again. Close enough that the silky end of her ponytail drifted over his forearm as tickling and as taunting as the faint smile that played around her soft, perfectly sculpted lips. Her voice dropped again in that nearly intimate whisper. “That is where your room is, is it n
ot, Greg?”

  He deliberately brushed her ponytail away from his arm. “Rein it in, Kimi. I’m not interested.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “I don’t play with precocious children.” The last time he’d tried, he’d been twenty-five and Sydney just twenty-two. She hadn’t been an employee or the daughter of his boss. But she had been a guest of the hotel where he’d worked, and he’d still ended up chewed thoroughly and spat out when she’d decided his pedigree wasn’t up to snuff.

  She tilted her head, looking at him from the corner of her exotic eyes. “Or you are afraid to play with the daughter of your boss.”

  “Look at it however you like, Ms. Taka. No matter how you turn it—employee, boss’s daughter, whatever. You’re forbidden fruit.”

  “Is that not the sweetest kind?” She took the carrot from his fingers that he’d forgotten all about and slipped it between her lips. As if by magic, her knowing, taunting expression disappeared, leaving only a very young woman sneaking out for an oddly lonely nighttime vegetable raid. “Now, if we are through with this odd little inquisition, I have homework. Some work I have brought home, I mean. So bill the food to my suite.”

  “There is no bill for your suite,” he reminded. “Seeing as your parents own it.”

  “Then please convey my thanks to Chef Lorenzo.”

  “And invite him to have both our heads? Don’t think so. I’d rather him think there are rabbits sneaking into his fridge.”

  “Then I guess I will go.” She cradled her small bowl of vegetables and ducked past him, quickly weaving around the guest tables toward the door.

  “Ms. Taka.”

  Reluctance screamed from her when she stopped again and looked over her shoulder. “Yes?”

  “You’re sure you are all right?”

  Even in the thin light from the kitchen behind them, he could see the softening in her expression. “Yes. Quite sure.”

  “Okay. Enjoy your weekend.” Unless there was some special need, Grace’s department enjoyed a Monday-through-Friday work week.

  She pressed her lips together for a moment, her eyes wider than ever. “Thank you. You, too.” Then, almost shyly—which still seemed difficult to fathom given the direction their conversation had taken—she disappeared through the arching entry that led back to the elevator.