Page 177 of Boss of the Year

I gave my niece and nephews each a kiss, then crossed the room to give Lea a hug too.

“Welcome home,” she told me as she brought the basket of folded dish towels into the kitchen. “The couch is all yours for as long as you need it.”

“I doubt that will be necessary.” I sidestepped a few toy servicemen as I followed her.

With a quick check that his siblings were all right, Tommy darted upstairs, clearly eager for some alone time in the crowded house.

Lea watched him go. “At least he’s not headed for the park again.”

“Still getting into trouble? I saw the bruise.”

She sighed as she shoved some towels into a drawer. “He was suspended for a week last time. I’m scared he’s going to get kicked out permanently.”

“Can a public school even do that?” I wondered.

“Oh, yeah. The principal called me in last week to tell me he’s got one more chance before they contact the district to have him transferred to the alternative learning center in Hunts Point. To make matters worse, Pete started a fight the next day.” She looked pained. “Marie, I can’t have my kids going to school there.”

I nodded in agreement. Although I’d spent plenty of time in Hunts Point at the enormous restaurant supply markets on the piers, it had always been straight trips to and from Prideview with the estate’s driver or Ondine. Anyone who grew up in the Bronx knew it as one of the most dangerous parts of the city. No one, especially young kids, should be walking around there on their own. On top of that, Lea certainly wouldn’t want her children in a school full of other troublemakers.

“What does he say about it?” I asked.

She refolded a few more towels and put them away. “He says he’ll try harder. And the school counselor agreed to start seeing him more than once a week, which I hope will help. I’m trying to find some extra work so I can afford to send him to an actual therapist, but it’s just so expensive. I don’t know what else to do.”

“Why not just ask Mattie or Frankie to spot you?” I asked. Granted, it was their spouses who were absurdly wealthy, not them, but that shouldn’t matter now that they were married. “You know Nina and Xavier wouldn’t mind.”

Right on cue, Lea shook her head. “I can’t do that.”

“Not even for Tommy?”

She seemed to consider that for a moment but still shook her head. “I need to help my kid myself. Not teach him to depend on handouts.”

Unbidden, Lucas’s advice about taking advantage of connections, of accepting help from people who care enough to give it, pointing out that it was a fundamental part of the world, not something that made you weak, echoed through my mind.

I opened my mouth to tell her that myself. But then I remembered the advice had, in fact, come fromLucas, and swallowed it right back up.

“So, everything with you and your boss is…”

“Over,” I said flatly. “I quit this morning.”

Lea’s brows lifted. “Permanently?”

I nodded. “I got my things from Prideview this morning. Ondine helped me pack everything up for storage until I get settled.”

Lea raised an eyebrow. “And did Mr.Lyonshave anything to say about it?”

My family didn’t know all the gory details that brought me back to New York, but they knew the fundamentals were basically the same.

“He did not.”

I avoided her shrewd gaze. Not because I feared her reaction. And not because my extremely protective family members were more than happy to condemn Lucas Lyons to a horrible and fiery death when asked.

It was mostly because I didn’t want her to see the disappointment I’d felt when I’d arrived at Prideview this morning to find Mrs. Lyons more than happy to hand me a severance check. It wasn’t quite as much as the one Lucas had imagined, but it was still quite generous. When I accepted it, she instructed Lawrence to transport me and my two suitcases’worth of clothing back to New York as fast as she could possibly get me off her property and away from her son.

Neither Lucas nor Daniel was anywhere to be found.

Ondine bid me goodbye and implored me to visit her in France when she made it out there eventually. She also gave me a list of towns to explore when I was ready to pursue the restaurant idea still gestating in the back of my mind.

An idea that involved the permanent residency visa sticker now on my US passport.