Page 58 of Boss of the Year

“Regardless,” she continued, “we could do it. Just let the little urchin disappear back to whatever godforsaken corner of the world she came from.”

“Belmont,” Lucas said quietly. “It’s the old Little Italy in the Bronx. Near Fordham and the zoo.”

“Wherever. Daniel will find a different distraction, and in the meantime, he’ll learn to face his responsibilities.”

Lucas shook his head before she’d finished speaking. “Not an option. We’ve invested too much in her.”

“Lucas, please. Her year in Paris cost us, what, four hundred? Five hundred thousand?”

Lucas sighed. His stepmother was the kind of rich person who thought a gallon of milk was fifty dollars instead of six. “More like one fifty. But I see your point.”

“Is that all?” She batted the idea away like an insignificant fly. “It’s pocket change, Lucas, not an investment. Daniel spendsmore on cars every year. I spend nearly a million every season on couture.”

“I’m aware,” Lucas said dryly, having seen the expense reports from his chief accountant. “But it’s not about the money.”

Winnifred’s eyes sharpened below her impossibly smooth brow. “Then what is it about? Don’t tell me this girl has woven a spell on both Lyons boys? Is she a veritable siren from the deep?”

“Hardly.” His voice was hoarse with the bald-faced lie. After all, there was a moment in the greenhouse when he might have followed her anywhere. Tonight, too, if he was being honest. “Marie has potential. Real potential. Ondine says she’s never seen natural talent like hers, which is why we went through the trouble of managing her education ourselves instead of poaching another restaurant chef. And we’re getting that for a bargain. She knows what we like. She’s been molded by our tastes, raised to make us happy. ”

Unbidden, a sudden vision of Marie, on the floor, wicked red mouth open in supplication, flashed through his mind. Arms bound behind her trim waist, bosom out as she batted those big green eyes at him and asked in that impossibly sweet way of hers:What can I do for you today, Lucas?

A groan escaped him before he could stop it, which he masked by grabbing his water and taking another long gulp. He was a sick man. A very sick man.

Winnifred, thankfully, was too absorbed in her own drink to notice his torture.

“And Daniel?” she pressed.

“Will marry Emma Hubbard and do his duty to this family.” Lucas’s voice was flat. “Just like the rest of us.”

13

SORBETTO

*soften with a splash of vodka and a pinch of salt.

Ayear ago, I’d barely traveled anywhere. Once to Italy for my brother’s wedding, a few times to Atlantic City. When I was ten, Nonna used every penny she had to take all of us to Washington, DC so we could spend Christmas with my brother while he was in officer training.

That was about it for the worldly travels of Marie Zola. All my siblings had been places and done things. I was the only one who had barely seen the world; even my time in Paris had mostly consisted of classrooms and markets.

That all changed once Lucas Lyons insisted I travel with him as his personal chef.

The scents of jungle, chocolate, and cigarette smoke blasted me in the face the moment I stepped off the jet in São Paulo. It didn’t matter that it was seven o’clock at night and the sun had already set. I knew immediately that I was in another country.

Lucas had practically sprinted off the plane into a car waiting to take him to a late dinner meeting. I hadn’t even gathered my things before he was gone.

The ten-hour flight had felt more like school detention than luxury transport. Upon boarding at Teterboro, Lucas had all but ordered me to take the bedroom at the back of the plane (to help me adjust to the impending time change, he said) and then buried himself in work at the conference table near the front. When I emerged to use the bathroom or grab water from the galley, he was either asleep in one of the leather recliners or bent over his laptop. I might as well have been invisible.

Well, that was just fine with me.

The fantasy I’d been nursing for a decade, that Daniel Lyons—or any Lyons brother, for that matter—might see me and accept me in their world, had no place at thirty thousand feet.

It was better this way. Safer. I could handle being invisible to Lucas Lyons. I’d had plenty of practice.

“Marie!”

I squinted at the short, dark-haired man in a creamy linen suit waving at me from the bottom of the boarding stairs. “You’re not Lynette.”

As a member of the household staff, I’d known Lynette Rogers, Lucas’s personal assistant, for years.