The Boss's Christmas Proposal

Charity and crew had yet to return. She pushed away from the desk and started toward the coffee urn situated on a long counter that ran the back length of the room when Grace called her name. Kimi changed course and walked over to Grace’s door. “Yes?”

“I suppose your coat is up in your room?” She barely waited for Kimi’s surprised nod. “Run up and get it and meet me in the lobby. A car will take us to Osaka. I’d like you to sit in on a tour operator’s meeting with me. Bring the mayoral luncheon and the Nguyen wedding files along. We’ll review them on the drive.”

Pleased, Kimi quickly sifted through the files on her desk, found the appropriate ones and took the service elevator up to her floor though it was less conveniently located than the lobby elevators were. The twenty-first floor was as still and silent as it had been since she had arrived, though a slender, elegantly decorated Christmas tree had appeared just across from the elevator bank. She had not verified it, but she was certain that she was the only one on the floor. By placing her in a completely different location than any other staff members who lived on site, Mr. Misbuttoned Sherman was following true to form by pointing out that she really was not one of them.

And unfortunately, that particular sentiment was evidently more widely shared than Kimi had anticipated.

Within minutes, she had retrieved her coat, exchanged the project folders for her laptop inside her briefcase and was heading back down again. She hurried back to the lobby only to slow her pace decorously when she spotted Grace in conversation with Greg.

Not that she had expected otherwise, but his starched white shirt now looked very correctly buttoned beneath the dovegray tie he wore. She kept her gaze lowered deferentially as she stopped beside Grace; no one else need know that in doing so, her gaze was free to roam the undeniably perfect fit of Greg’s dark gray trousers. The only thing marring the lines was the hand he had shoved in one pocket.

Or perhaps mar was the wrong term.

She moistened her lips and looked away from the way the fine wool tightened across his hips.

“Mark my words, Greg,” Grace was saying. “The president of Kobayashi Media will find some reason to blow off the mayoral luncheon. Oh, there’ll be plenty of perfectly offered apologies and excuses, but I’ll bet you a week’s salary that he’s a no-show.”

“Excuse me.” Kimi interrupted the breath that Grace had stopped to draw. “Shall I see if the driver is ready?”

“Thank you, dear.” Grace did not look twice at Kimi.

The speculative glance that Greg gave her as she moved away, however, stuck in her mind throughout the drive to nearby Osaka, through Grace’s meeting and through the return trip back again.

By the time their driver left them at the hotel once more, Kimi still was not certain why Grace had wanted to include her in the tour operator’s meeting. But at the very least, it had been an interesting way to spend the morning, and it had been well away from the disturbing Mr. Sherman.

“I never realized how resorts and hotels vied for that sort of business,” she admitted to Grace as they returned to their offices.

“We’re all in it for a buck. Or, a yen—” Grace smiled “—as the case may be. Tourism is alive and well, even among—or particularly among—the high-end consumer that we court. The president of the local tour association is full of complaints that the Taka Kyoto is too cosmopolitan. Of course, he’s related by marriage to a local official who bitterly opposed the building of the Taka in the first place. Your presence there this morning was a not-so subtle reminder to them that while the Taka is cosmopolitan and international, its roots are nonetheless of Japan. Taka is an important name in this country, and not just because of the TAKA-Hanson corporation.” Grace patted Kimi’s shoulder and pulled open the door to the stairwell. “Don’t look so disappointed, dear.”

“I am not disappointed,” Kimi lied.

But Grace wasn’t fooled. “Of course you are.” Her voice echoed along with their footsteps. “You’d probably like everyone to forget who you are. To accept you purely based on your strengths and abilities.”

“Is it that obvious?”

Grace smiled slightly. “Maybe not obvious, but perfectly understandable. Everyone wants to be loved unconditionally.”

Kimi had never felt unloved by anyone who mattered to her. “Well-earned respect is what interests me,” she admitted.

They had reached the lower level. Kimi couldn’t help but look toward Greg’s office, but the door was closed.

“The fact that you realize respect has to be earned is to your credit,” Grace was saying, oblivious to Kimi’s furtive glances down the hall. “Whether I told you my reasons for wanting you with me or not, you represented the Taka name admirably this morning.”

Kimi skipped a little to catch up to her supervisor. “But I barely said a word.”

“You didn’t have to, my dear. They were all watching every move you did or did not make. How you greeted the other attendees, whether you were appropriately modest and deferential, whether you held to their highest ideals of good manners. And you did. You are a Japanese woman bearing a venerable name. They can find in you a suitable ‘face’ for the hotel, something that, for some, has been lacking.”

“My father would be surprised to hear that. He finds me distressingly Americanized.” She trailed after Grace into her office.

Grace’s smile widened. “Then perhaps you combine the best of both worlds. The drive was useful, as well. I’m confident that you know the details of these two events inside and out. And since Charity’s Japanese is still considerably less than perfect, I’m going to make you the point person for the Nguyen wedding.” Her gaze skipped past Kimi’s suddenly slack jaw. “Oh, good. Greg. I was hoping to catch you.”

Kimi barely kept herself from whirling around.

“What’s this about the Nguyen wedding?” he asked.

“I’m making Kimi the point person.”

Kimi wanted to cringe. Even after just those few minutes with Charity, she could well imagine the other woman’s reaction at being replaced at all, much less by Kimi. “Grace, I appreciate the confidence, but I have never—”

“Stop.” Grace waved her hand. “We’ll discuss it later. Just trust me when I warn you that, like Charity, you’ll spend most of your time answering a dozen inane phone calls from their wedding coordinator. A truly impossible man named Anton. He’s not French, however. He’s wholly American, and from all accounts, excruciatingly tiresome. Now go on. I need to bend Greg’s ear for a moment.”

Kimi half-expected Greg to voice his protest that she would be given any level of responsibility—even one merely to field a fussy wedding coordinator’s calls. But he didn’t, and she headed back to her desk. Tanya was on the telephone and looked to be taking copious notes, and Nigel was at the wide whiteboard that hung on one wall, writing entries in the calendar-style grid.

Kimi had no messages waiting for her, and she scrawled a note that she was taking a lunch break and placed it in front of Tanya, who glanced at it before giving an absent wave.

Kimi didn’t need lunch, however. She needed to finish her employee orientation. Namely, she needed to tour the entire facility. And now that she was point person on an actual event, it seemed even more important.

She took the wedding file with her, just in case she needed to make notes for herself, and went back to Human Resources. Unfortunately, the girl who was supposed to conduct the tour had gone home sick. Instead, Kimi was handed a detailed map with instructions to visit all the highlighted areas and sent on her solitary way.

With no better idea where to begin, Kimi decided to start from the ground floor and go up. Or, as the case was, two floors below ground level, where the soaring exhibition space sat hollow and silent except for the muted sound of power tools coming from somewhere nearby. She skipped the office floor since she had already seen most of it, as well as the main lobby level, and went up to the third floor where the first of the ballrooms were. There were two here, with a combined reception capacity of nearly six hundred. It was pleasing to see that the interiors looked fully completed.

She was standing beneath the enormous crystal chandeliers that hung from the grand ballroom’s ceiling when she felt the back of her neck prickle.

It was enough warning that she managed not to startle when Greg spoke. “They’re stunning. Ally Rogers had the chandeliers specially designed for the space. She was here last week overseeing their installation.”

Kimi’s grip tightened on the project folder, afraid he just might yank it out of her grasp. “All of the interiors that have been completed are stunning,” she agreed. She had never personally met Ally Rogers, but knew that the interior designer had stepped in to finish the San Francisco site when there had been problems with the original designer. She caught the tip of her tongue between her teeth for half a second but still could not refrain from asking. “Are you following me?”

He gave her a sideways glance. “Is that what it seems like?”

“Do you ever answer a question directly?”

“I’m in Kyoto now.” The corners of his mouth kicked up ever so slightly, but it was still enough to make Kimi’s breath catch. “Where all direct answers are often distinctly…indirect. But to answer your question, yes. I am following you. I heard you were here on your own.”

Kimi waved the folded map. “Even I can follow a floor plan.”

He let her acerbic tone pass. “Your…Mrs. Taka-Hanson called me while you were out with Grace.”

“Checking up on me?” She might have expected that from her father but not necessarily Helen.

“She does have business with me here that doesn’t concern you.” His voice was mild, but Kimi still felt a flush burn through her skin.

She refrained, however, from asking why he had bothered to even tell Kimi about the call at all.

“I assured her that we were all doing our best to assimilate you into the fold as quickly as possible.” His voice was inscrutably smooth.

“I am sure she was greatly comforted.”

“Are you always sarcastic?”

She lowered her chin slightly. “My most humble apologies if you have found this to be true.”

“I think I prefer the Kimiko Taka who stares me in the face when she has something to say.”

She peered up at him through her lashes.

He made a muffled sound she could not interpret, and then he did slide the thick project file right out from her grasp.

Her lips parted, dismayed. “Please do not take it away from me, Greg—Mr. Sherman. I know the wedding budget is substantial and that I have no real experience with—”

He lifted his hand. “It is up to Grace to distribute her projects. I trust she knows what she’s doing.” Even though he did not sound entirely confident of it. “I was merely intending to carry it for you.”

“Oh.” Her lips slowly closed but suspicion quickly reared. “Like you would do for a guest?”

His lips twisted slightly. “I’d like to think it’s just habit to carry a lady’s books.” He nodded at the map. “What else is on the agenda?”

Bemused, she looked from him to the glossy page. “Um, the rest of the meeting rooms, I guess.”

“Let’s go, then. You can lead the way since you’re such an experienced floor-plan reader.”

“You’re coming with me?”

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