Page 19 of Boss of the Year

“Kay, this is officially getting weird.” Lea grimaced. “Boys, I can handle. But I don’t think I can give my baby sisters sex tips. Both of you are still, like, twelve in my brain.” She started for the back door. “I’ll go round up the kiddos. Be done when I get back.”

We waited until she was gone before Joni turned back to me and rolled her eyes with a grin. “Once a prude, always a prude.”

I chuckled, but couldn’t she call me the same thing?

“The thing no one talks about, though, is how magical it is when you both cross that line,” Joni continued. “Together.”

She wasn’t going to let this go.

“‘Magical’? I thought it was ‘just sex’ for you.”

Joni shrugged. “Well, it’s not ‘magic’ with everyone. Or pretty much anyone except Nathan, actually. When we’re together, it’s like the deepest, most secret part of me is on display, and so is his. But we’re seeing each other, right? And it really is fucking magic, Mimi. Love isn’t love if it’s not honest like that. Nathan knows all of me, and he loves me for it. Just like I love him the same way.”

I squeezed my hands, weaving my fingers tightly together. Part of me wanted what she was describing so badly, I wanted to scream. But another part was strung up with panic.

The thing she didn’t talk about was the risk.

“Nathan loves you now. But what would you have done if you had shown those parts of yourself and he hadn’t? Or evenworse, if he didn’t accept you?” I shook my head. “You thought he didn’t at first. You came all the way to Paris and basically decomposed in my bed for two months because you couldn’t handle the rejection, and that was after knowing Nathan for, what, six months?”

“Nine,” Joni corrected me, though she seemed to understand my point.

“I’ve known Daniel Lyons for tenyears. If I took a chance like that, and he rejected me…” Just the thought was paralyzing. “I don’t think I could handle it.”

My sister considered my words for a long time. Then looked toward the door, in the direction Nathan had gone. It was a brief glance, but her yearning was palpable. Like just talking about this bond had her craving it like a junkie.

I wasn’t sure I wanted that either. That sort of dependence seemed dangerous.

“It’s hard to explain, but I think when you find the right person, sometimes you can find your courage too,” she said. “Not every relationship is like mine, but I was lost until I met Nathan. We had to go through a lot to get here, but he makes me feel like I can do anything. Like I needed to meet him to become the person I always wanted to be.”

She didn’t need to point out that for the last year, I’d been trying to find that person in myself too. Most of the steps had been taken. There were just a few more obvious ones to go.

“It’s just a party, Mimi. A boy you liked asked you out. All you need to do is say yes. You can worry about the next step when you get there.”

She had a point. I had a long history of putting carts before horses, making mountains out of mole hills, and every other over-reactive cliché there was.

I sighed. “Fine. I’ll go. But I want your opinion on my dress options. I don’t want anyone to see me at this thing and think the word ‘nun.’”

4

BÉCHAMEL

*use a pinch of garam masala instead of nutmeg if you’re feeling adventurous.

“You can do this.”

My whisper echoed down the corridor connecting the main house at Prideview to the staff quarters behind the kitchen and above the garage. It was literally a fork in the road.

If I continued to the right, I could follow the caterers streaming in and out of the kitchen that was so familiar, it had been my second home since high school. The only home I had left now that Nonna had moved back to Italy.

I could even change into one of the spare uniforms and pretend I’d never put on the vintage Dior slip dress Louis had forced on me at an estate sale in the Sixteenth Arrondissement last month. It would be completely appropriate and completely expected.

Completely old Marie.

If I turned left, I would cut through the rose garden and join Joni and Nathan when they arrived, as if I, too, were alegitimately invited guest along with some of the wealthiest and most influential people in the country, if not the world.

According to Joni’s last text, they were five cars from the valets. I had until then to make my choice.

I stared at my reflection in one of the mirrors lining the hallway.