Page 85 of Boss of the Year

As I made my way across the pool toward a stone bench nestled between a pair of Japanese maples, the heat relaxed muscles I didn’t even realize were tense. I sank down until the water reached my shoulders, leaned against the water-polished lava rock, and closed my eyes.

As a child, I relished time alone. Growing up in a house of eight, Joni and I shared a queen-sized mattress until we were maybe seven and eight. Even after Lea and Matthew were out of the house, we still shared a room. During the rare moments I had to myself in the small brown house on Hughes Street, I used to suck on the silence like candy.

In the city, no one is ever truly alone. Beyond the house, there was always the B60 bus huffing down 187th, neighbors calling directions to the nearest butcher, or tourists humming around Arthur Avenue. In Paris, it had been the same. My littleapartment in St. Germain was perched over one of the main pedestrian thoroughfares of Rue de Seine, which meant it was full of charm, but also full of the chatter from brasseries and cafés.

Here I had only my skin and the sound of trickling water for company.

I was free to be myself.

If only I knew who that was.

When I had come home from Paris, I thought I knew. After shedding years of long black dresses and low-key misanthropy like a chrysalis, I had thought that everything would be different. That my fears had all been conquered, and I would finally be able to reach out and take the life I wanted, just like all my family members seemed to do for themselves.

How naïve I was.

For so long, I’d held everyone, even my family members, at arm’s length. I saw what love and closeness did to them, costing them nearly everything, time and time again. Likewise, I saw what the cost of attracting the wrong type did to them.

As the heated water cupped my body in its warm embrace, I had to admit one thing: I was still hiding. And I was tired of it.

Not of solitude. Not of peace, like this.

But I didn’t want to be lonely in my life anymore.

My hands moved absently through the water, and I wondered what it would be like to share this space, this silence, with another. To have hands other than my own sliding up my arm, pinning me to the rock.

Like I’d been pinned to the refrigerator.

I closed my eyes, and the memory appeared of Lucas’s body, solid and warm, pressed against mine in the São Paulo kitchen. The way his hands had felt on my arms, steadying me. The intensity when he growled that I could never be invisible.

Not to anyone.

My breath quickened as I imagined those broad hands moving over my skin, that low voice murmuring my name as he did…what?

I could see it. Sort of. Between Joni, Hollywood, and the internet, I had enough images in my mind to fill my imagination. I knew which ideas made my body heat with anticipation instead of fear. But lately, my imagination hadn’t been enough.

Maybe that was because with Lucas, I was coming to realize that I couldn’t anticipate anything he did at all. One moment, he was the epitome of control. The next, he was a live wire. In the kitchen, every inch of him moved on instinct, demanding that I submit with just a quiet few words.

And the thing was, I wanted to. There was a strong possibility that I would have done anything he ordered, right there in the kitchen. A simple hand on my shoulder would have sent me to my knees.

The thought was so vivid, so immediate, that heat that had nothing to do with the spring water bloomed low in my belly.

No.I shook my head, trying to clear the dangerous thoughts. Lucas was my employer. Daniel’s brother. Completely off-limits, no matter how he made me feel.

The sound of footsteps on stone made my eyes snap open.

Through the steam, I could make out a tall figure approaching the pool. My heart stopped as I recognized the silhouette.

Lucas.

Moving with the same quiet purpose he always had, he undid the sash of his cotton robe with quick, efficient movements as he stepped toward the pool. A glimpse of bare chest caught my eye as the fabric parted—hair curling over muscle honed from discipline, not vanity, which narrowed to a ladder of abdominals and down to—oh,God.

I jerked my gaze away, face burning, shielding my eyes with a hand that was too late. I’d already seen him. All of him.

His hips narrow, his thighs strong. And his—I had to force myself even tothinkthe word—cock, soft, but still thick and substantial as he made his way down the steps into the spring.

The part of him that had been distinctlynotsoft when it was pressed against my hip in the kitchen.

What was a woman supposed to do with something that large?