Boss's Christmas Proposal Read online

  Other than Grace and an occasional word from Tanya, nobody seemed inclined to include Kimi in the desultory conversation that filled the short drive to the elementary school.

  He was no better, though his problem was that he couldn’t seem to stop watching her, while hunger sat, low and hot, inside him.

  It annoyed the hell out of him, too—that lack of control.

  He’d never felt particularly confounded by members of the fairer sex. He’d shared their company—both in and out of bed—for half of his life, and he was no more immune to a beautiful woman than the next guy.

  But he’d never been so damned disturbed by one, not even by Sydney James, and he’d been ready to marry her until she’d summarily dumped him. But not once could he recall thoughts of Sydney keeping him awake at night. She sure in hell had never distracted him from his work.

  If it had ever come to a choice between her and his career, even at twenty-five, he’d known what he would choose.

  Unlike Kimi, who stuck under the edge of his thoughts like a constant, little burr.

  By the time they arrived at the school, he was as grateful as a caged animal to get out of the limo. Their car was met by the school’s administrator, and after a round of bowing and introductions, they were escorted into the school’s auditorium. It was already crowded with students and parents.

  They took their places in the closely positioned seats. This time Greg was stuck next to Charity Smythe, and she leaned closer to him, as if they weren’t already wedged in like sardines. “A group of us are going out after work this evening. A little celebration, actually. You’re welcome to join us.”

  “Thanks, but I’ll be making up for losing this afternoon.”

  “Well, maybe you’ll change your mind.”

  He gave a noncommittal smile and contrarily wished that it were Kimi’s warm body next to his.

  The group of children had taken the stage, bearing their impressive collection of instruments, and Charity fell silent.

  Fortunately, the children proved to be as spectacularly talented as they had been when he’d seen them playing a few months earlier at a fund-raiser in Tokyo, and Grace was more than pleased. “I now forgive you for making me schedule an unknown group,” she patted his cheek with old familiarity, as they headed back toward the cars.

  “They were just wonderful,” Charity gushed. Once again, she’d managed to wedge herself next to Greg. He couldn’t tell if she was flirting or sucking up to him. Either way, it left him unmoved. “When my sister and I were in school, we both played the oboe. Very difficult instrument, you know. What did you play in school?”

  “Hooky.” He thought he heard a muffled laugh come from Kimi, who was walking ahead of them.

  He caught up to her at the car, feeling like some damn teenager who’d just earned an unexpected smile from the homecoming queen. “What about you? You went to elementary school in Tokyo?”

  “Boarding school.” She seemed willing—for the moment—to overlook their habit of butting heads as she looked back at the school.

  Aside from the colorful posters hanging in the windows, the multistoried building looked to Greg just as institutional and indistinguishable as the cluster of businesses that flanked it. Even the shiny silver Christmas tree standing near the front was the same as the row of them marching down the street. If he hadn’t already become accustomed to similar sights throughout Kyoto, he would have found it amazing that such modern structures could stand in such proximity to the temple that was across the street. It seemed to stand there, staring back at the interlopers in time with ancient patience.

  “My school was the same one my father and his brother attended,” Kimi added. The December breeze drifting over them was cold, and it lifted that loose lock of hair across her lips. “It was very different from this place. There were no posters at all there. No multiple stories. It was very traditional. The headmaster—” She broke off and shook her head slightly. “He was probably a credit to the boarding school, but as a child I found him unbearably stuffy. I sneaked away as often as I could, much to my father’s dismay.”

  “Then I take it that you didn’t miss the place when you left.”

  “No.” She tucked the strands behind her ear. “I did not miss anything about Japan when we left.” She gave him a sidelong look. “Are you shocked?”

  “I didn’t miss California when I finally left it behind. Should I be shocked?”

  “Perhaps not.” She was silent for a moment. “My father married Helen, and she changed our lives, for the better in every respect. Eventually we made our permanent home in Chicago. There were still private schools in my life, of course, but at least I was allowed to go home at the end of the day.” She toyed with her neck scarf, standing aside while the others arranged themselves inside the limo. “What about you? I find the hooky line hard to believe. You look like the sort who earned top grades, ran the student body and was the fantasy of every tall, blond cheerleader.”

  “Not the brunettes?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Them, as well. And the redheads and everything in between, I am certain.”

  “Believe the hooky part,” he advised wryly. “By the time I left elementary school behind, earning good grades wasn’t nearly as important to me as earning enough dough to keep me and Mona—my mother—off the streets.” He ignored the shocked surprise in Kimi’s eyes and took her hand to help her into the car. “After you, Ms. Taka.”

  He felt her fingers flex as if she wanted to draw away from his touch.

  But she didn’t.

  She merely climbed in the car without further comment. She asked no more questions when they stopped at a ramen bar for lunch or when they rode back to the hotel again.

  Maybe now that she had a hint of his background, she’d learned all she’d needed.

  It had been as effective as hell with Sydney all those years ago. The second she’d learned how ignoble his beginnings were, she’d walked away and never looked back.

  When they arrived at the hotel, there was a limousine parked in front. The vehicle wasn’t one of the hotel’s fleet, and he studied it curiously as he waited by the car for the women to alight.

  But when Kimi stepped out onto the sidewalk and eyed the elderly Japanese couple exiting the other vehicle, he felt her sigh. “I should have known,” he heard her murmur.

  He looked again at the car. The couple was eyeing them and Kimi put a strained-looking smile on her face. “My grandparents,” she told him, and headed toward the couple.

  The woman was shorter than Kimi, and she hugged her, clearly delighted. Even Kimi’s grandfather looked pleased, though his greeting was considerably more circumspect.

  What Greg was noticing more, however, was the subdued manner Kimi displayed around her grandparents.

  He walked over to join them. “Konichiwa.”

  Kimi gave him a decidedly grateful look at the interruption and quickly launched into introductions.

  Greg bowed again and presented Kimi’s grandfather with the business card he’d pulled out. “Dzo yoroshiku. It is an honor to meet you both. I understand that I owe you my gratitude for the encouragement you extended Kobayashi-san to attend our luncheon yesterday.”

  Yukio Taka tilted his iron-gray head, accepting the card with the gravity that Greg had only found here in Japan. “It was my pleasure to assist.” Yukio’s English was gruff but smooth. He looked up at the hotel soaring above their heads. His expression was hard to decipher. “I have seen TAKA on many buildings, but I am still surprised to see the name on a hotel. This is what has happened when my son married a gaijin.”

  “You have learned great respect for Helen, O-jii-san,” Kimi reminded. “Taka hotels will be among the best in the world.”

  He made a low “hmm” that didn’t sound particularly convinced, but he didn’t argue outright.

  “You will please to forgive us for interrupting your day?” Kimi’s grandmother asked in a soft, lilting voice. “I could wait no longer to see
my Kimi-chan again.” She kept Kimi’s hand clasped between hers.

  “Oba-chan,” Kimi protested, “I saw you just a few days ago.”

  Her grandmother made a dismissing sound that transcended language. “For too brief a time. We were too rushed to…what do you say? Catch up all the way. I wish to see you here in this place where you say that you are doing your work.”

  “Naturally. If you’ll excuse me,” Greg said, “I’ll leave you to enjoy one another’s company. I apologize for our unfinished state, but I’m certain that your granddaughter will give you an admirable tour.” Another round of bowing ensued before he left them. The hint of abandonment in Kimi’s eyes went with him.

  Grace and the others had already disappeared into the hotel, and the second he showed his face through the lobby doors, he was accosted by half a dozen people, and the wave didn’t stop even after he finally made it down to his office.

  That didn’t stop him from noticing, however, when Kimi walked by hours later.

  Alone.

  He went to the door of his office. “Ms. Taka.”

  She looked back at him. “Yes?”

  Most of the workers on the floor had long departed for the day. “What are you doing down here?”

  She hitched the cardboard box she was holding higher in her arms. “Finishing an internal mailing about the staff holiday party that Grace wants out by tomorrow.”

  Grace, he knew, had also left for the day. Kimi looked braced for him to crack down on her again for some imagined sin.

  He hid a sigh. “Where are your grandparents?”

  “No favor goes unpunished. They are dining with Mr. and Mrs. Kobayashi this evening. Their trip here was not simply to see their disgraceful granddaughter in her new job. They have to repay the price of Kobayashi’s favor to them.”

  “Give me that.” He took the heavy box from her and headed down the corridor toward sales. “Your grandparents don’t think you’re disgraceful.” If anything they’d looked typically doting.

  He’d never known his grandparents—doting or otherwise. For that matter, he’d never known his father.

  “Maybe my grandmother does not find me to be.” She trailed after him. “My grandfather is another story. But he blames much of my willful ways on my father for not having married me off by now in some advantageously designed match. He is thoroughly dismayed that instead of being truly useful, I am being allowed to play around in the family business.” She held open the department’s smoked-glass door so he could carry the box through. “If it were not for Helen’s influence, I think an arranged marriage is exactly what my father would be most happy to do.”

  “I’ve met your father. He doesn’t strike me as holding that deeply to old customs.”

  She swiped her hand at that still-loose lock of hair, but it drifted back to tease the gentle point of her chin. “At one time he did. And then he met Helen and didn’t seem to mind causing his own piece of scandal. My grandfather even wanted to take back the running of TAKA from him when he realized my father was interested in Helen on more than just a business level, though he reconsidered. My mother—my real mother—and my father had an arranged marriage. Considering the way she ended up, she was no happier with the match than he was. She just took a coward’s way out.”

  He set the box on the space she cleared for him on top of her desk. “I’m sorry.”

  She studied him for a moment. “I actually believe you mean that.”

  “Surprise, surprise,” he murmured. “A heart beats inside me, after all.”

  “I would not presume otherwise,” she offered with undue politeness, then pressed her lips softly together as if to prevent them from revealing the real truth.

  He dragged his gaze from her mouth. “Do you remember your mother?”

  “Only from her pictures. I look like her. Maybe that is why it is so easy for some in my family to expect the worst of me.” She flipped open the box and began pulling out banded-together packs of colorful flyers.

  “Whereas I don’t have that excuse,” he concluded. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Again, I apologize. I jumped to conclusions.”

  “Forget it.” She didn’t look at him as she turned to the cabinets against the wall. “There is no denying that I have pulled some foolish stunts along the way.” She dumped the box of envelopes she’d pulled out alongside the flyers.

  “You haven’t since you arrived here.”

  “I have been here little more than a week.” She gave him a breezy look that he wouldn’t have bought even if he hadn’t seen the sheen in her eyes. “Give it time,” she advised.

  “Kimi.”

  She dragged another packet out of the box and sat down behind her desk. “If you’re going to just stand there, I could use another box of these envelopes.”

  He silently found another box and set it on top of the first but caught her hands in his, stopping her movements. “What’s really going on here?”

  She tugged her hands free. “Nothing.” But she suddenly propped her elbows on her desk and pressed her forehead to her hands. “I came here wanting things to be different than they had been at college.”

  “How were things at college?”

  “It does not matter,” she whispered.

  “From where I’m standing, it looks like it matters a lot.”

  She straightened, dashing her hands across her cheeks. “Everyone in my family is successful. I suppose you know that.”

  Unless a person lived under a rock, it was hard not to. Despite the hitches that her family encountered in business or in their personal lives—hitches that had more often than not been recounted in the media in one way or another—the Hansons and the Takas seemed to end up turning the hitch into golden success. “Yes, I know that.”

  “Everyone but me.”

  “You’re young.”

  “Do not remind me.”

  “There’s no point in forgetting it,” he said quietly. “It doesn’t mean you’re not capable of attaining your own success. But even for people like you, it takes some time.”

  “People like me.” She looked pained. “I almost feel it would be easier if I thought you were referring to my culture, but I know you are not. If anything, you are more in tune with the Japanese than I am. Sue—I do not even know her last name, but I met her that first day at the staff meeting—”

  “—Huang,” he provided.

  Her lips lifted a little. “Of course you would know. She likened the staff here to the United Nations, and she was right. You treat everyone fairly and with great respect.”

  “Not everyone.”

  She ducked her chin and looked away. “You want what is best for the Taka. I realize that you do not necessarily think that my involvement here furthers that goal. I am the only one working within these walls who does not meet even your basic criteria of qualifications. Three years of work experience in a first-class hotel, is it not?”

  He didn’t deny it. If she didn’t have the pedigree that she did, she would never have made it through the doors as an employee. “You have a qualification that others don’t. You’re a Taka. This—” he waved his hand over their head “—is a Taka hotel.”

  “Which brings us back to people like me.”

  “I meant people raised in wealth.”

  “Yes. I know.” She was obviously making an effort to shake off her troubled thoughts. “And I suppose I only proved my naïveté when I thought that things would be different here than they had been at school.”

  He bent his knees, crouching down beside her chair, and swiveled it around until he could see her face. “Different how?”

  She was silent for a long moment. “Do you know where the rest of the department is?” she finally asked.

  “No.”

  “They are all out celebrating Charity’s birthday.” She looked down at her hands. “Everyone but me.”

  So that was Charity’s little celebration. “You could have gone if you’d wanted.”

  “
I was not asked,” she elaborated, as if he didn’t understand the finer points of the matter. “And believe me. I know how pathetic that sounds.”

  “You want to fit in.”

  Her lips twisted. “And as you so plainly told me, I will never really be part of—” her fingers sketched out quotation marks “—the family.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For being truthful?”

  He covered her fingers with one hand. “Because I know how hard it can be to fit in.”

  Her lashes lifted. “When have you ever not fit in?”

  He couldn’t help himself.

  He brushed the stray lock of hair away from her cheek. The hair was as silky as he’d suspected. The cheek as satiny and cool.

  “Plenty of times,” he admitted. Most of the time. Even here at the Taka was no exception.

  It didn’t seem possible, but her eyes darkened even more. She sucked in her lower lip for a moment, then softly let out a breath.

  His gaze dropped to the faint gleam she left behind on that soft, pink mouth. He felt her fingers move beneath his palm to thread, ever so slowly between his.

  “Kimi.” Damn it to hell, he was losing his mind. “Ms. Taka—”

  She leaned closer. “Mr. Sherman.” Her voice was little more than a whisper across his chin.

  “Oh! I didn’t realize anyone was here.”

  Greg yanked back at the intrusion of a third voice. He looked past Kimi to see Grace eyeing them.

  Kimi’s cheeks flushed, and she quickly snatched up another flyer to shove into an envelope.

  “I thought you’d left for the day,” he told Grace.

  “I came back for this.” She lifted her briefcase. “Kimi, dear, I think the mailing can wait until morning.” There was no mistaking her meaning.

  She was sending Kimi out.

  Kimi still gave him a quick glance before she slid out of her chair and pushed it neatly beneath the desk. She passed Grace. “Good night, Grace. Mr. Sherman.”

  Greg watched until she’d slipped out the smoked door.

  “What the hell are you doing, Greg?” Grace’s voice finally broke the strained quiet left between them.