Page 98 of Boss of the Year

“Okay.” My voice was smaller than I intended. “I’ll…call him on the way back to the ryokan.”

I did call Daniel again too, but once again, was sent to voicemail.

I didn’t leave a message.

The silence in the car was loud enough.

20

TORO BELLY

*slice against the grain, not with. It needs a challenge to stay together.

The rest of our time in Japan passed quickly.

I prepared Lucas’s meals, he attended his meetings, and we maintained the polite dance of client and personal chef, employer and employee, seeing each other for only brief moments in the morning before he was gone.

That was during the day.

At night, we both seemed to stop being Mr. Lyons and Chef Zola. As if drawn by some invisible force, we found ourselves at the onsen as the stars came out. There, we were just Marie and Lucas. We were friends.

I thought.

It always happened in the same way. I would slip into the spring first, eager to soothe my aching feet after a full day of cooking, shopping, and exploring the Japanese countryside with my driver (a venture that took me a little farther every day, I was always proud to report). Lucas would call out his presence well before he reached the pagoda, and I would grin and covermy eyes—always tempted to peek, though I hadn’t since that first night.

We never mentioned the kiss in the rice paddies. It was as if it hadn’t happened at all, no matter that my lips tingled for days.

Instead, we talked about everything else. Lucas shared memories of his childhood summers in the Catskills, boarding school in DC, and how going to Harvard at sixteen was both the best and worst thing that ever happened to him. I told him about Nonna teaching me to make pasta when I was seven and how I used to mark my side of the bedroom from Joni’s with painter’s tape because she was such a slob. We commiserated about bratty younger siblings, dreams about leaving New York, and fears of the unknown.

Eventually, one of us (was it me? Or was it him?) crossed the onsen so we sat on the same bench. There was still ten feet between us, but each night, we edged a little closer. It was just easier to talk that way.

Each night, too, I left having to remind myself firmly that I was desperately in love withDanielLyons, not Lucas.

Each night, I failed a little more.

Our last night in Japan felt different the moment I dipped my toes into the mineral waters. The air was cooler, with the first gusts of autumn beginning to assert themselves among the maples that were starting to turn shades of yellow and orange in the mountains. The steam rising from the spring seemed denser, like a curtain, and the ryokan lanterns created pockets of light through the settling shadows of fall.

Lucas was already there when I arrived, sitting on our stone bench, but closer to the center as he lay back, head tilted up to look at the stars.

“Good evening,” I called out as I toed off my sandals.

He turned, and a spark landed between us as his gaze traveled up my bare calves and seared through my robe. Just asquickly, he closed his eyes and draped a hand over them, giving me the privacy to disrobe and enter the pool. I took my seat on the bench a good five feet from him.

“How was your day?” he asked.

“Busy.Oh, this feels good.”

I closed my eyes as I sank into the water up to my neck. When I re-opened them, Lucas was watching me with a pained expression that quickly disappeared behind his usual courtesy.

“I finished packing up the kitchen for Robbie this morning,” I told him. “And then visited the Shinto shrine Tanaka-san told us about.”

“You went without me?” His tone was joking. “How was it?”

I smiled, thinking of the complex of old buildings positioned on the edge of a nearby lake. “Peaceful. A lot of space to think.”

“Sounds like heaven. Tokyo was a madhouse, as always.”

I edged closer, finding that I wanted to lean my head on his shoulder, to offer whatever comfort I could.