Page 125 of Boss of the Year
Lucas shrugged as he wandered past the family rooms to where the two guest rooms lay. Or so I thought.
“There’s only one.”
Not again.
I glanced around him to a room with lavender-painted walls, unicorn posters everywhere, and a four-poster twin bed with fairy lights strung around the top.
“Crap. They must have put Lucy in Sofia’s old room to be closer to them.”
Our eyes met. Lucas’s brow arched knowingly. “You could always…”
I shook my head emphatically. “I don’t think we can play the ‘only one bed’ game here. I’ll change the sheets and sleep in Sofia’s bed.”
“You really don’t have to?—”
“No, I really do,” I interrupted.
Just the thought of spending another night with Lucas Lyons made my skin prickle with excitement. It also made me feel very confused and conflicted.
I’m not your baby, I’d told him just hours ago, outside, even while he had been holding me like I was the only thing in the world that mattered to him.I’m not your anything.
Aren’t you?His response had been so simple.
The same question seemed to be in his eyes now.
I nodded toward another door. “There’s the bathroom. I’m going to change and go up to the roof deck to relax before bed.”
Before he could answer, I rolled my suitcase into Sofia’s room, as much to ignore his unspoken questions as to avoid my own reaction when I saw them on his face.
Twenty minutes later,I slid into the hot waters of the onsen Xavier had created on the rooftop deck that was exclusive to the penthouse. Half-Japanese himself, Xavier had shared about how he had spent some time in Japan with his mother’s family before starting his first restaurant in England. Among the many things he brought back with him, including a more refined knowledge of the cuisine he’d grown up with and professional connections to every artisan culinary goods manufacturer in Japan, he’d also made the bathing tradition there a part of his everyday life once he’d earned his fortune.
“It’s where he relaxes,” Frankie had told me the first time I’d visited, and she had shown me the little oasis here in the middle of the city.
The London skyline spread out around the building, which, as one of the tallest in Mayfair, looked out toward Hyde Park and Kensington Palace in one direction, Buckingham Palace in another, and beyond that, the familiar landmarks of Big Ben and the London Eye stared at each other across the Thames.
I stepped onto the deck in my robe and the coral bikini I’d brought with me from Brazil. The rooftop was also a secret garden. My sandals whispered over a raked gravel path winding through potted fruit trees, flowering hedges, and row upon row of planter boxes bearing herbs and vegetables. It was the perfect blend of a kitchen garden and a Japanese sanctum, made even more ideal by a fully functioning “spring” at the far corner.
Far smaller than the natural onsen we’d enjoyed in Japan and made of city water instead of the mineral-clouded spring, the little pool was still a marvel, framed with smooth river stones, ferns, moss, and a bamboo trellis with climbing jasmine. Tendrils of steam curled toward the sky.
I hung my towel on a rack next to the pool and slipped in, eager to rest after the long day.
“May I join you?”
I startled with a splash, then turned to find Lucas standing next to the onsen in a pair of red swim trunks, holding a towel of his own.
“Jesus,” I said, covering my heart with one hand. “How did you even get up here?”
“Xavier mentioned it to me before they left.” He hung his towel next to mine. “When you said you were coming up here, I assumed it was to enjoy the pool.” He looked around the garden. “He didn’t mention the rest, though. This is incredible.”
I, however, was no longer interested in admiring the flowers. Not with everything still raw between us.
I was tired. I was tense. I was furious.
And my body didn’t care.
Part of the problem was that the man clearly had no idea how attractive he was.
Men approaching middle age seemed to go in two directions. Some—okay, most—seemed to melt as their hair disappeared along with their muscles, and their bodies expanded like overproofed bread dough. Others seemed to age like fine wine until they reached a critical point in their forties, when they were devastatingly handsome to any woman between the ages of sixteen and ninety-six.
