Page 186 of Boss of the Year

“Just taking a second,” Lucas said as he followed him into the foyer and hung his coat in the closet.

“Before the firing squad? I understand completely.” Daniel looked him over. “Where’ve you been? It’s been almost a month since Paris.”

“I’ve been busy.” The rest could wait for all of them.

“Right. Busy.” Daniel studied him with knowing eyes. “You look like hell, by the way.”

“Thanks.”

Lucas followed Daniel below the grand staircase and down the corridor that led into the family room. Everything was exactly as he’d left it: the antique furniture, oil paintings of Lyons patriarchs, even the scattered orchids that were brought in from the greenhouse at this time of year.

Nothing here ever changed.

“It’s about time.”

Winnifred’s sharp voice rang out near the fire, where she was sitting near his father and Emma Hubbard—well, now Emma Lyons—while they played cribbage. Clifford Lyons might have been losing his mind, but he still remembered the rules to every card game on the planet.

“We were beginning to think you’d moved to Tibet,” Winnifred said. “Aren’t you going to say hello to your new sister-in-law?”

In her chair at the card table, Emma Hubbard—now Lyons—gave a weak smile.

“There was traffic,” Lucas said as he crossed the room to give his brother’s new bride a kiss on the cheek. “Hello, Emma.” He dropped a hand on his father’s shoulder. “Dad. You winning?”

“Damn right I am,” said Clifford as he struggled to move one of the pegs up the board. “Glad you’re here. We need to discuss the Morrison account.”

The Morrison account had been closed for fifteen years, but Lucas simply nodded. “Of course, Dad.”

Henry and Ondine appeared in the doorway, the latter carrying a tray of canapés. Her dark eyes met Lucas’s across the room, and the look she gave him could have frozen champagne.

It was all he needed to tell him she knew exactly what had happened between him and Marie.

It shouldn’t have surprised him. Ondine might have worked for the Lyonses, but to her, Marie was like a daughter. Right after Daniel’s wedding, she had pulled Lucas aside to tell him he had until the end of the year, and then she was beginning her retirement, whether they had a replacement or not. The former Michelin-starred chef had a bit of cutthroat left in her, for all her grandmotherly looks.

It had taken everything he had not to beg her for Marie’s whereabouts.

“Cocktail, sir?”

Lucas turned to find Henry gesturing toward the bar cart. “Just seltzer, thanks.”

Winnifred looked up sharply. “Since when do you drink seltzer at cocktail hour? Is everyone teetotaling now? Poor Emma has an excuse with the baby, but this isn’t prohibition.”

“Nothing wrong with taking a break, Mom,” Daniel said from where he was sipping on something that looked like a club soda with lime.

That’s what was different, Lucas realized. His brother’s face was missing its usual red tinge.

Something passed between the brothers—understanding, maybe even respect. Lucas felt a flicker of surprise. It hadn’t even required a fourth bout at rehab for Daniel to take anotherstab at sobriety. Maybe this forced marriage had actually been good for Daniel.

Henry set down Lucas’s seltzer as well as a plate for the tray of food Ondine put on the coffee table. As she turned to leave, Lucas caught her arm gently.

He kept his voice low. “How is she?”

The older woman’s eyes flashed before she muttered something to herself in French that Lucas would have bet his fortune was extremely impolite. “I think if she wanted you to know, she would tell you herself,non?”

But Lucas didn’t let go. “Please. I don’t want to bother her. Just know that she’s okay.”

Ondine glanced to where Winnifred was shuffling cards for Clifford, and Emma was gazing into the fire. When she looked back at Lucas, her expression had shifted from anger to something almost like pity. “She is making her own way, as she should. I hope you will let her.”

The finality in her tone was unmistakable. Lucas released her arm and watched her disappear back toward the kitchen, taking with her the last connection he had to Marie.