Page 106 of Boss of the Year

As an adult, it still took a lot of mental coaxing to succumb to fatigue, and my struggle was made even worse when I traveled, which meant that even though Lucas offered the guest room on the jet for the fifteen-hour flight to London, I didn’t sleep.

Not a wink.

Also not great, since I hadn’t slept even an hour after our interlude in the hot spring.

A consummate coward, I had spent the entire flight bingingChef’s Tableepisodes and completely ignoring the six feet, threeish inches of broodiness on the other side of the cabin door with the ability to bring me to orgasm in five minutes flat, who called me Sweet Marie like I belonged to him. I also ignored the fact that his brother, whom a month ago I would have sworn was my soulmate, had sent me two more texts since our last exchange, consisting of the following:

Im thinking bagels for sure

Send me pic?

I was pretty sure the first one wasn’t even for me. And the second, well, let’s just say after I looked up exactly what those emojis meant, I felt somehow both better and worse about what had happened in the onsen.

I took a polite selfie just before we boarded but didn’t notice until after I sent it that Lucas was scowling in the background. There had been no reply, although another ill-advised Google search revealed a few more pictures of Daniel in the Hamptons with an actress and two models.

Maybe Lucas was right, and I didn’t need to feel bad after all.

Or maybe I did.

I honestly could not tell.

Lucas looked just as exhausted as I did when the plane touched down at a private airfield south of London. His suit was wrinkled, his hair mussed from running his hands through it during phone calls, and there were dark circles under his eyes that bespoke poor sleep that had nothing to do with jet lag.

I still wanted to climb the man like a tree.

Bad Marie. Bad, bad Marie.

This was what they called a “sexual awakening,” right? I had never understood the way Joni used to miss curfew for herboyfriends or go home with a stranger because she “needed to get laid.” But now?

I owed my sister a lot of apologies.

Because I couldn’t stop thinking about the texture of my boss’s lips or the exact length of his?—

“Almost there,” Robbie called from the front of the Rolls we were taking to the hotel in London that would be our residence for the next ten days.

Lucas had been watching landmarks like Big Ben and the Eye of London come into view with a look approximating dread.

For what, I didn’t know.

“Do you think I could have a different night off while we’re here?” I asked.

I’d been getting every Sunday off since we’d started this trip, just like at home, but I hadn’t really done much with the time other than watch movies and sleep in.

Lucas turned like he’d just realized I was there. “Of course. Do you have plans?”

“I’d like to see my sister while we’re here, but I’m not sure what her schedule is.”

“Francesca, right? But her family calls her Frankie.”

I held back a smile. Lucas had apparently memorized all my family members’ names, though he’d never met any of them.

Sometimes I wasn’t sure if Daniel still remembered mine.

“That’s right. She had a baby, and I’d like to see my nephew.”

He didn’t answer, and for a second, I wondered if he was waiting for me to invite him along.

Even stranger, I sort of wanted to.