Boss's Christmas Proposal

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  He watched her silently.

  “It, um, it is okay if you do not,” she added hurriedly. A blatant lie if ever there was one. “I would just r-rather know.”

  “I warned you that there would never be anything more.” His voice was deep. Low.

  “That is not what I asked, Greg.”

  “It’s the only answer you’re getting.”

  “I know you feel something for me.” She stepped closer. “I can see it in your eyes when you look at me.”

  “Then what the hell are you asking me for?” Irritation drew his brows together. “It doesn’t matter what I feel, Kimi.”

  “I think it is the only thing that matters.”

  “Spoken like the young woman that you are.”

  She laid her palm along his jaw. It was hot against her palm. “And you still have not answered me. I can only wonder why? If you felt nothing, you would simply say so.”

  He caught her fingers in his, squeezing them. “I want you in my bed,” he said flatly.

  She frowned, realizing that his hand was as hot as his jaw. She pressed her other hand to his face. “You are burning up.”

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  “I heard.” She moved her palm to his forehead. “You are ill. Why did you not say something?”

  “I’m not ill,” he groused.

  She made a face. “Lie down. I will get a cold cloth for your forehead.”

  “Damn it, Kimi, I don’t want your coddling.”

  “You do not want anything from me outside of the bed. I get it.” She planted her hands on his iron midsection and shoved him toward the bed. Surprise was on her side, and he took an unsteady step back, only to find the bed behind his shins, and he went down like a ton of bricks. She pointed her finger at him. “Stay there.”

  He grimaced. “You’re pretty full of orders all of a sudden.”

  “Fire me for insubordination.” Her voice was flat. “It would solve all of our problems.” She went into his bathroom. It was a mirror image of hers, right down to the artistically arranged display of bath linens on the stone shelf alongside the granite counter. Except for the shaving paraphernalia and the bottle of his aftershave, anyway.

  She ignored the desire to open the aftershave to inhale his scent and snatched up a washcloth, ran it beneath the faucet and returned to his bedside.

  Miraculously—or perhaps just in proof that he really did not feel well—he had stayed put.

  “Here.” She held out the dripping cloth.

  He ignored it. “I don’t need that. I told you. I’m fine.”

  “Of course you are. That is why you have an obvious fever.” She hiked her knee on the mattress and leaned over him to dump the cloth over his forehead for herself. “Did you get one of your flu shots that you were nagging the rest of us to get?”

  “Did you go up that day I had the clinic set up?”

  “I was in Nesutotaka that day,” she reminded. “Catering to my grandfather’s whims so that your mayor’s luncheon was better attended.”

  He lifted the cloth off his eyes, giving her a baleful look. “I didn’t ask for that particular sacrifice,” he pointed out. “And you’re dripping water all over me.”

  “You are a big boy. Did you get the shot or not?” She snatched the cloth from his fingers and replaced it, holding it there with her hand lest he try to evade it again. “You need to cool off.”

  “Yes, I did, and there is no cooling off,” he muttered. “The daily cold showers I’ve been reduced to these past few weeks have proven that.”

  She ignored the part inside her that clenched hard in response to that revelation. “We need a thermometer.”

  “No, we don’t.”

  “I bet you were a trial to your mother when you were young and not feeling well.”

  “My mother was a trial to me.” Without rising from the bed, he started to toe off his shoes.

  She left the wet cloth in place and slid off the bed. “Let me help.”

  Greg lifted the edge of the cloth that was dripping water down his face and eyed her. She tucked his foot against her flat abdomen with no regard whatsoever for the fine cashmere of her dress, and with great seriousness attacked his shoelaces.

  His head was pounding, his throat was raw and he was so abruptly turned on that it took every speck of self-control not to reach for her. Instead, he just lay there while she pulled off his shoes and tossed them aside. “I don’t get sick,” he said.

  She made a mocking sound. “How manly of you.” The bed barely moved from her slight body when she climbed back up beside him. Her fingers settled on his shirt and began working at the buttons.

  “Whoa.” He tossed aside the dripping cloth and sat up. “What are you doing?”

  Her expression was uncommonly patient. “Is something wrong?”

  “I can take off my own shirt.”

  She folded her hands in her lap. “All right.”

  “You don’t have to sit here and watch me!”

  “Such modesty. Does it make you nervous?” She gave an exasperated sigh and slid off the bed. “Fine. Where is your aspirin?”

  “I don’t have any.”

  She tsked. “Good thing that I do. But when I return, you had better be properly in bed.”

  “I’m quaking in my boots.”

  “You are not wearing any.” She padded out of the room, and he wearily threw off the rest of his clothes and climbed into bed.

  “Now I know you must be miserable,” she said when she returned, bearing a glass of water. “You actually did what I said.” She perched beside him and dropped a few white pills into his palm.

  He tossed back the aspirin and leaned back against the cool pillow.

  “How long have you been this way?” She found the washcloth again and folded it against his forehead.

  “A couple of days. I thought I could shake it off. The fever’s new.” He sighed, pressing his hand over hers against the cloth, as much to feel her as to feel more of the coolness it offered.

  “Not a very fun way to spend Christmas.” Her soft voice seemed as soothing as her hand.

  “I’ve had worse.” He thought of Helen’s display in the Presidential Suite versus the meager holidays of his childhood. “None of them were ever like yours, that’s for sure.”

  “What were they like?” She managed to lay herself alongside him, and he didn’t have the energy to protest.

  At least that was the reason he gave himself. Which didn’t excuse him folding his arm around her, or sinking his fingers into her cool, silky hair. He was supposed to be keeping his distance from her. “They were like most any other day. Mona looking for her next high. Me looking for our next meal.”

  “Oh, Greg.”

  “Don’t get all sympathetic and gooey.”

  “I would not dare.”

  He lifted the edge of the washcloth. “You’re humoring me.”

  “Perhaps a little.” She pressed her lips to his cheek.

  “I’m probably contagious. I’ll be responsible for sending the plague through your entire family.”

  “And people accuse me of being melodramatic.” She pressed the cloth back in place. “What is your mother like now? Aside from sending you…medicinal…herbs? By the way, I can attest to their effectiveness.”

  He exhaled. “Honey, that wasn’t herbs. That was you.” What was Mona like now? “She’s been clean and sober five years now. I had to get her into rehab three different times to accomplish it.”

  “But she did accomplish it,” Kimi pointed out.

  Unlike her mother, who’d succumbed in the most final of ways. “She’s clean, and maybe it’ll stick, but she’s got no idea how to handle her life. She’s tootling around Europe right now with some guy she met in a parking lot.”

  “But is she happy?”

  He grimaced. “How could she be?”

  “Perhaps for her, finishing something is not the important part of life.” Her voice was calm. “It is the journey, not
the destination, and all that.”

  “Good thing,” he muttered. “Only, her journeys are mostly abbreviated pit stops.”

  “Did you invite her to the grand opening gala?”

  He grimaced. “Yes.” He’d sent plane tickets, too. Which he knew wouldn’t be used. “She won’t come.”

  “You sound very certain.”

  “I know Mona.” And he’d accepted that some things—some people—couldn’t be changed.

  “It is no wonder why you are Mr. Responsible. You have had to be.”

  “Don’t go making more of it than it was, Kimi. I learned early on that I liked my creature comforts. So I found a way to get ’em.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Her fingers stroked over his neck. “And to take care of her, I’ll bet. Go to sleep. You will feel better in the morning.”

  “You’re beside me on my bed. You think I want to sleep?”

  She started to move away. “Then I will go to my own room now.”

  “Don’t.” He tightened his grip, and she subsided once more against his side. His fingers slid through her hair, blindly stroking it down over her shoulder, meeting the edge of that soft, clinging dress. “I didn’t tell you how pretty you look in blue.”

  “Maybe I should call the doctor. Your fever has you being entirely too sweet.”

  He started to snort, only to grimace at the rawness in his throat. “I know. I’m a bastard.”

  “No.” Her fingertips strayed up, over his lips. “I am a smart aleck.”

  “That’s true.”

  She lightly tapped his cheek. “Do you want me to lie beside you, or not?”

  His fingers found their way beneath the cashmere. “You always look good. Even in that ridiculous excuse of a skirt that first day.”

  “I will convey your exuberant praise to my friend Lana.”

  “Were you really wearing anything at all under that dress?” He didn’t have to elaborate more than that; she knew good and well what dress he meant.

  “Greg.” She shifted against him. “I don’t think now is the time to—”

  “I’m a dying man here, Kimi.”

  She pressed her head against his jaw. “You are more like an incorrigible boy at the moment, and sadly, I find it amazingly irresistible.”

  “Were you?”

  She lifted her head. Moistened her lips. “A…a new belly ring. It has a, um, a small monogrammed charm on it.”

  “Your father should shoot me,” he muttered. “It’d put us both out of our misery.” He shouldn’t have asked. “Is that all?” He definitely shouldn’t ask that. He was already too damned hot.

  “Use your imagination.”

  He dragged the washcloth off his face and pitched it off the side of the bed. It felt nearly as hot as he did. It would take a snow bank to cool him off. “I’m sorry I asked.”

  “As well you should be.” The bed barely moved when she left it. Moments later, she returned, with the washcloth wet and cool again. Standing beside the bed, she handed it to him. “Here.”

  “You’re not going to mop my brow?”

  Her hair tumbled in tangled strands around her shoulders. Tangles that his fingers had caused. “For a sick man you are managing to summon a lot of attitude.”

  “Are you wearing that new monogrammed charm thing right now?”

  Her long, lovely throat worked. “I should go into my own room so that you will stop this jabbering and go to sleep.”

  “I’d rather you stay.” And not just to show him the new jewel glinting against her navel.

  Her lashes swept down, hiding those dark eyes that drowned him in his dreams. “Which you would never admit if you were not feverish. It is nearly midnight, Greg. Get some rest.”

  He grimaced. “Merry Christmas to you, too.”

  “Do not grouse.” She leaned over and pressed her lips to his forehead. Over his eyes. Barely grazed against his mouth. “Merry Christmas, Greg.”

  He caught her shoulders before she could straighten. “Why can’t I get you out of my head, Kimiko Taka?”

  Her eyes were wide. “Don’t worry, Greg. I will leave here as soon as a replacement can be found.”

  “There is no replacement.” He grimaced. “Damn it.” Because he was weak, he pulled her down onto the bed beside him again. “Humor me.”

  “I thought you did not want that.”

  “I want you.”

  “Don’t sound so delighted about it,” she murmured, but she’d stopped straining against him and turned on her side, tucking herself against him as if they’d been sleeping that way for eons.

  He worked the comforter out from between them, leaving only the sheet, and scooped her closer. The soft nape of her neck was more of a balm to his feverish skin than any wet washcloth could ever be. “Is it a K or a T?”

  “What?”

  He splayed his hand across her flat abdomen. “The monogram.”

  She was silent for so long he thought she wouldn’t answer. “It is a G. Carved in a tiny piece of jade.”

  He weathered the blast of that. But it wasn’t easy. “How old were you when you pierced your belly button?”

  He felt her deep sigh. “Sixteen. When my father found out he was livid. Helen convinced him it was better than a tattoo, since a ring can always be removed.”

  “I’d be livid if my daughter pierced her navel, too.” But there was definitely something about hers that got under his skin.

  “You said you were too ancient to consider daughters or sons.”

  He dragged his fingers along her flat belly until he felt the faint indent of her navel. “You’re wearing it now, aren’t you?” His voice was low.

  She exhaled. Finally whispered a soft “yes.”

  He felt parched in a way that had nothing to do with an elevated temperature.

  She lifted her head suddenly, looking over her shoulder at him. “I thought you were feeling ill. You are—” She blushed. This woman who could walk into a room of three hundred people wearing that naked dress.

  “Hard.” His lips twisted. “Believe me. I know.” He didn’t bother pulling back from the sweet curve of her rear. The sheet and her cashmere dress was not much of a barrier, but it was enough. “It’ll go away.” In a couple of decades. “Thanks for the CD.”

  She lowered her head again. Her fingers slid through his and she brushed her lips against the inside of his wrist. “You are welcome. Go to sleep.”

  He reached back and hit the light switch next to the bed, dousing the room into darkness but for the faint glow coming from Kimi’s room.

  His hands slid along her hip. Slowly inched along the cashmere. Felt the gentle rise of her hip. The taut slope of her thigh.

  She caught his wandering hand in hers. “Stop that.”

  “Do you want kids, Kimi?”

  “Why? If I say that I do, you will either tell me I am too young to know my own mind, or warn me not to include the idea of you and children in the same thought.”

  He couldn’t deny it. “I’m too old to start a family.”

  “Yes.” She drew out the word and managed to wriggle even closer to him. “Thirty-two is decrepit.”

  “I was right when I said Mori never spanked you, wasn’t I?”

  “He did not need to. All he needed to do was give me that very stern look of his, and I knew I was done for.”

  “He probably gave you one hellacious look after I left tonight.”

  “He did. For once it did not have the usual effect. Maybe that means I have grown up at last.”

  While he felt like a green youth in the god-awful throes of first love. He blamed the escape of that particular notion on the deep ache inside his head.

  It couldn’t be the ache inside his chest.

  “Don’t let anyone kid you, Kimiko. Age is not necessarily an indicator of maturity.”

  “If you are not going to go to sleep, then I am going to my own room.” But she made no move to go.

  He was glad. “I don’t want you quitting your j
ob because of me.”

  “I do not want you to quit your job for any reason, most especially me.” She drew his hand up to her heart. “If things were different—”

  “They aren’t.” This time he was the one to say the words. “Go to sleep, Kimi.”

  She exhaled. Her slender form was warm and soft against him. He knew she was just as wide awake as he was, but she said no more.

  And finally, wrapped together, they both slept.

  “Mori. It is just a picture. It means nothing.” Helen eyed her husband over their intimate breakfast table.

  He slapped the newspaper down on the table between them. A grainy photo of his daughter very intimately entwined in the arms of their general manager stared up at them. “This was taken in this hotel.”

  “Would you prefer if it had been a competitor’s hotel?” She smiled, trying for levity. “Darling, the photograph isn’t that terrible.”

  “She looks—”

  “She looks like a young woman kissing the man she’s in love with.” She rose from her seat and stepped behind him, leaning her head down onto his. “What bothers you more? The fact that this somehow found its way to the papers, or the fact that your daughter is no longer a little girl?”

  “He’s groping her.”

  “Oh for heaven’s sake. His arms are around her.” She slid her arms around his shoulders. “Hers are around him. It happens. Unfortunately, with this family of ours, some of these things tend to feed some foolish public curiosity. You need to go and talk to her.”

  “Shall I take a copy of the paper with me?”

  “Forget the paper.” She reached over him and pushed it right off the table. “You heard her last night. She needs to know that she’s not a disappointment to you, Mori.”

  “Kimiko has no desire to hear what I think.”

  “She knows what you think. What she needs to know is what you feel. She needs to hear that you love her.”

  He grimaced. “She’s a bright girl. She should know.”

  “She’s an adult, and it doesn’t hurt to say the words!”

  “Are you going to argue with me over Kimiko?”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  He exhaled noisily and pulled her around to sit on his lap. “What are we going to do about this business between them?”