Page 89 of Boss of the Year

“He died a few months ago,” I finished. “Murdered by a mob boss from our neighborhood. They kidnapped him and Joni and shot him just as they were making their escape.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah. I was still in Paris?—”

“Thank fucking God for that.”

I looked up. “You don’t mean that. You didn’t even know me then.”

His gaze didn’t waver. “I knew enough.”

I huffed. “I keep thinking I could have done something. Perhaps I could have kept Joni from getting wrapped up with those people to begin with. Helped more with Lea and kept Mike out of it too, somehow.”

“That sounds like survivor’s guilt.”

“Maybe it’s just that I love my sisters.”

“Is that your role in your family? To keep everyone else from making poor choices?”

I shrugged. “Sometimes? I don’t know. If it is, I haven’t been very good at it.”

He chewed on his bottom lip for a moment as he looked around the onsen. “We may have that in common.” Then: “So how is Lea doing now?”

The concern in his voice surprised me. “Oh, um. Well, she lost her job, if you really want to know. And she’s struggling with Tommy—her oldest. He’s been acting out at school.”

“I can imagine. It’s not easy losing a parent that young.”

Because he knew exactly what losing a parent felt like, of course.

“How old were you when you lost your mom?” I wondered.

His eyes met mine like a bullet train. “She’s not dead, Marie.”

“I know.” Not for the first time, I wished I could reach across the pool to take his hand. Let him know I understood. “But when a parent leaves, it’s still a loss.”

He looked at me, then nodded. “Yes, she, ah, left for Arizona when I was four. Traded me for freedom, or so the story goes.”

“Whose story?”

He shrugged. “Everyone’s. I would still see her from time to time. I used to spend a week every summer in Sedona until I wastwelve and left for boarding school. That was the year Winnifred conceived Daniel.”

What it must have felt like for him, being the only child of a rich man like his father, only to have both parents leave him at such a young age?

Actually, I didn’t have to speculate. I knew exactly how the last part of that equation felt.

“Itishard to lose a parent at a young age,” I told him. “It hurts. A lot.”

Our eyes met, each mirroring the painful knowledge we saw in each other. A knowledge that bonded. A knowledge that hurt.

“I’m so scared for her,” I admitted as I swirled figure eights through the water with one hand. “Lea, I mean. She’s thinking about leaving New York entirely. Starting over somewhere new.”

Lucas tipped his head as he pulled his elbows up over the side of his bench to dangle his fingertips in the water. “Why scared?”

“Because…what if she makes the same mistakes the rest of my family has made? What if she’s alone out there in a strange place, and she chooses the wrong person to depend on, or starts drinking like our parents did, or just…disappears into whatever seems easier.” I took a shaky breath. “Sometimes I feel like I’m always scared. All the time. I don’t want to feel that way, but I do. Maybe that’s why I’ve never…maybe that’s why I’m still…”

I couldn’t quite bring myself to say it. Not here, sharing a bath naked with a man of Lucas’s age and experience.

“A virgin?” he offered for me.