Page 5 of Boss of the Year
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” The deep, take-no-prisoners voice I usually heard from rooms away quieted to a hushed purr. “Here, let me help you.”
I looked up to find Lucas’s broad palm extended toward me. Reluctantly, I let him pull me back to standing, then steady me with both hands on my shoulders.
Those hands were broad and heavy. Warm and surprisingly grounding.
I sniffed back my tears, wiping furiously at my cheeks. God, this wasmortifying.
Two fingers slipped under my chin and tipped my face up toward his.
“I’m—sorry,” I managed to squeeze out around hiccups. “I’m n-not usually like this.”
“I know you’re not.”
He did?
We stared at each other for a good long minute.
Up close, I had to admit that Lucas was better looking than he was given credit for. Younger, too. As the story went, he was an accident, his father’s first child at a much younger age. Tohear the staff gossip, Lucas was old enough to be Daniel’s father. Fifty, they alleged. Sixty, even.
Up close, I doubted he was even forty. He was quite handsome, with intense blue-gray eyes, chestnut brown hair that matched his ruddy skin, and a serious, purposeful manner that seemed to see right through me.
He wasn’t Daniel. No one could be Daniel. But for a split-second, I wondered what Lucas Lyons might look like if he smiled as much as his younger brother. If he might charm the world a little bit more. Maybe he’d be happier too.
“Thank you.” I found my voice again now that the tears had abated. “I just…had a moment.”
Lucas stepped back and shoved his hands into the pockets of the staid black tuxedo that had to be custom-made, just like all the Lyonses’ clothing was. How could it fit those strangely broad shoulders so well otherwise?
“I’m admittedly not the most perceptive man in the world,” he said. “But I don’t think a little stumble is responsible for the waterworks.”
Tears welled again, but I shook my head. “I—it’s nothing. Only?—”
I cut myself off. This was my employer. He didn’t want to hear about my unrequited love for his brother.
“Tell me.”
A clear command, no question even implied. I doubted anyone said no to him.
“Don’t you ever just want to be someone else?” I sighed. “Only you can’t see how you could ever get there? Like you’re just stuck in the box everyone’s made for you, and you don’t know how to get out?”
The more I babbled, the sillier I felt. What had gotten into me, treating Lucas Lyons, of all people, like my freaking therapist?
To his credit, Lucas didn’t seem disturbed by my incoherent confession. He rubbed his cheek, studied me a bit more, and then, to my surprise, gave a curt nod.
“Yes,” he said. “I do.”
We watched each other for a moment more. The longer the moment continued, the harder I found it to look away.
This time, he was the one to break the silence.
“You’re the cook,” he commented as he picked up the T-shirt he had brought Daniel and set it on the unmade bed. “The one who used to be a maid. We’re sending you to Paris to replace Ondine.”
I swallowed. “That’s—that’s correct, sir.”
He looked up sharply. “You don’t need to call me that, Marie.”
I bit my lip. What was I supposed to call him? “Sorry, Mr. Lyons.”
His grim expression tightened, but he didn’t correct me further. Instead, he took a seat at the end of the bed and folded his hands over his knees.
