Page 71 of Boss of the Year

Fact one: I was attracted to Lucas Lyons.

There. That wasn’t so bad to admit, was it?

It didn’t matter that his younger brother was my one true love.

Or that he was a full sixteen years older than me.

Or even that he was my boss.

Fact two: Pheromones don’t listen to logic or the heart.

They thought about how Lucas somehow smelled betterafterhe worked out than before. Or about the way the man filled out a three-piece suit criminally well. Or about the one lock of hair, tinged with silver, that always seemed to escape his neatly combed hair, like the rebel Lucas secretly wanted to be.

I shivered.

Last night, when we’d shared a plate of tuiles and fresh mango after dinner, it had taken every ounce of willpower not to brush that lock off his forehead. Or trace that annoyingly sharp jaw with my fingertip. Or try to make him smile again just to see the scatter of crow’s feet that mysteriously made the man even more beautiful.

No, the laws of attraction had absolutely nothing to do with logic.

On to fact number three: I was an adult, fully in control of my faculties.

I didn’t have to give in to these feelings now any more than I had for the last twenty-five years. Even if it seemed exponentially harder the more time I spent in the company of my brooding employer.

The thought made me spend a little extra time cutting mango, banana, and papaya into perfect roses, if only for something to distract my mind. I had just started the process of making Lucas’s cappuccino when the elevator doors opened.

I glanced at the clock over the stove and frowned. 6:45. Weird. Lucas was nothing if not punctual—never late andcertainly never fifteen minutes early. Normally, he returned from his workout at seven, showered, ate, and was out the door by 7:45 for whatever corporate battle awaited him that day.

His footsteps echoed down the hallway, but they seemed slower today, less rushed. I turned toward the refrigerator to grab the bottles of water he always took with him and was bending to reach the water on the bottom shelf when the kitchen door opened behind me.

“Good morning.” His deep voice filled the room. “I finished early with the trainer, so I thought we might have breakfast—oh,Christ.”

The last word came out so quietly I almost missed it, but Lucas’s tone made me freeze, half-bent over with my hand on the refrigerator handle. I straightened slowly and turned to find him motionless in the doorway.

Sweat soaked his gray workout shirt, the fabric clinging like a second skin. I could see the defined ridges of his abdominal muscles, the powerful breadth of his shoulders, the way his chest rose and fell with his heavy breathing. His hair was damp with perspiration, a few strands falling across his forehead, making him look younger and less controlled than usual.

Holy crap, Lucas wasfit.

He wasn’t looking at his carefully arranged breakfast spread, thought. Those storm-gray eyes were locked on me. And not on my fact. Substantially…lower.

“Marie.” His voice was hoarse, like he’d swallowed something sticky. The muscles in his neck moved like ropes. “What—what are you wearing?”

I looked down. “Oh. Shit.”

In my attempt to distract myself from daydreaming about Lucas, I’d forgotten that instead of my normal chef’s garb, I’d put on swimwear this morning with the intent to leave just after Lucas for a day at Santos Beach. I had packed none of my own,so Robbie had gone shopping for me yesterday. Unfortunately, the only thing he’d found in my size was a coral bikini that wasfarmore revealing than anything I would have chosen for myself. The top was two minuscule triangles, and the bottoms took the concept of “cheeky” to a whole new level.

“It’s Brazil,” Robbie had said with a shrug. “‘Full coverage’ is a relative term here. You should see the Speedo I got for myself.”

“But…this covers like a quarter of my boob.” I held the top over my shirt to measure.

“Honey, please. You’re perky, and you’ve got the goods. Didn’t anyone ever teach you to show them off?”

He’d gotten me a cover-up too, a pretty crocheted piece that was, yes, technically see-through, but covered me up enough to be decent. By Brazilian standards, I thought I was back to being a nun. That is, until Lucas walked in.

He was glued to the doorway, his steely gaze traveling from my bare feet, up my exposed legs, touching the curve of my hips where the bikini bottoms sat, and finally moving to where the coral fabric barely contained my chest.

For the tenth time, I wondered if anyone in Brazil wore anything bigger than a C-cup.

Lucas’s gaze was so intense and thoroughly appreciative that heat bloomed across my skin everywhere his eyes landed. But I didn’t want to hide. In fact, I straightened.