LITMIR.BIZ

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my grapefruit. They’d dropped through the bottom of my bag. He rescued my fruit and then, oh, honey, he just rescued my heart. What can I say?”

      Greg pinched the bridge of his nose. “When is this vacation supposed to occur? What about your job?” Her latest was as a clerk in a bookstore. Not that she needed the money, considering that Greg had been supporting her for years. But her history had proven that when she was working, Mona had a much easier time staying clean and sober. “You haven’t been there long enough to merit vacation time.”

      “Oh, them,” she dismissed airily. “Stuffed shirts. I should have known it when they told me what to wear to work.”

      His brain flashed back to Kimiko Taka. Something it had been doing too often in the past twenty-four hours.

      Just because he’d told Kimiko what to wear didn’t mean he was a stuffed shirt. He was the general manager, for God’s sake. He was responsible for the image they presented. As a Taka, she ought to appreciate that fact. It was his problem he couldn’t get the girl out of his head.

      He focused on his mother. “In other words, you’ve already quit your job.”

      “No matter,” she said swiftly. “I’ll find another.You know that.”

      That was true enough. Mona Sherman had never had difficulty finding jobs. She could charm employment out of anyone. It was keeping them that had always been her challenge. He knew he could spend an hour arguing with his mother about the wisdom of her actions, or he could save himself the breath, since his arguments had never had any impact in the past. It was just always his job to clean up the mess afterward.

      “What’s Ralph’s full name?” He wrote it on the pad next to his phone. “Does he have an address?” He was somewhat surprised when she provided one. He’d half expected her to blithely impart that Ralph had already moved in with her since the grapefruit rescue. “Take your cell phone in case something happens. I’ll call the company and make certain you’re covered for international calls.”

      “Don’t be such a worrywart, Greggie. Now, I love you. Be sure you’re taking those herbs I sent you. They’ll keep your sex drive healthy.”

      He rolled his eyes. He lectured his living-in-the-sixties mother on taking her blood pressure medication.

      She worried about him being able to get it up.

      “Call and check in,” he reminded, ignoring the herbal advice, much as he’d ignored the package. It might have made it through customs, but the box had been relegated, unopened, to the bottom of Greg’s closet.

      “I’ll try,” she said before hanging up. Which, in Mona-speak, meant don’t count on it.

      A soft sound behind him had him looking around.

      Kimiko Taka stood in the open doorway of his office.

      Yesterday she’d been the picture of brassy American boldness. Today she was the epitome of professionalism. Couture professionalism, anyway, he allowed, giving the cut of her closely tailored ice-blue suit an experienced eye. The just-from-bed tousled ringlets had been replaced by a sleek knot behind her head. Even her makeup was subdued. Her full bowshaped lips looked soft and pink and unadorned, but that just made her wide, almond-shaped eyes stand out even more.

      Unfortunately, she was no less attractive today than she had been yesterday. If his mother could see into his head, she’d realize that he needed no help from some damn herbs.

      As for what Kimiko Taka was doing standing in his doorway? He had a sinking feeling in his gut. “Don’t tell me HR sent you.”

      She looked genuinely puzzled. “Um, okay. I will not tell you.” She lifted a folder at her side. “Grace asked me to come and have you sign off on these orders.”

      He let out a breath. God. He was losing it. Of course HR wouldn’t have assigned Kimiko Taka to be his temporary assistant when he’d already told them to put her in sales. He waved her forward and took the folder from her to scrawl his signature where she indicated, then eyed her from across his cluttered desk. She wore a small hand-printed name badge on her lapel—a far cry from the engraved ones the rest of the staff already possessed. “You’ve obviously had your personnel orientation.”

      “This morning.” She took the folder back from him. “It was very informative.”

      He glanced at his watch. “You’ve already toured the hotel?”

      “Well, no. We did not get that done yet. I will return there during my lunch break for the tour. Grace was anxious for me to start. Evidently two people in her department called in this morning with the flu.”

      That made three staff members to bite the bug. Great. “You needn’t give up your lunch break for a tour.” Though he gave her points for being willing to do so. That is, if she’d actually follow through. Despite her impassioned speech after the staff meeting the evening before, he still questioned her commitment.

      What did the girl want to work for, anyway? She was an heiress, for Christ’s sake. She should be a guest in hotels like this, not some junior underling.

      “I do not have any other plans for my lunch break,” she said reasonably.

      “How about eating?”

      She looked at the tray sitting on one side of his desk that held the Western-style scrambled eggs and bacon that he’d never really gotten to. “Like you are doing?” She lifted the folder a little. “Thank you for the signatures.” She turned as if to go, but paused. “I hesitate to tell you this, but—”

      He was a fair-minded manager, he reminded himself. Or he was supposed to be despite his desire for some space from the disturbing young woman. “What is it, Ms. Taka?”

      She moistened her lips. “Your shirt is misbuttoned.” She smiled faintly and hurried out of his office. The hem of her skirt swayed slightly above her knees. Perfectly circumspect. Perfectly…perfect.

      He forced himself to look away from the view she presented and looked down at his shirt and tie that he’d managed to forget all about.

      She was right.

      With a sigh, he began reworking the buttons.

      Too bad he couldn’t seem to realign his unwanted reaction to her just as easily.

      Kimi was still smiling when she made it back to the sales and catering department. Aside from the office that Grace used, there were two others; one set up as a consultation room, and the other—far more spacious—housed several desks in an open area. It was to one of these desks that Grace had assigned Kimi. It had started out as empty as Mother Hubbard’s cupboards, but, after just an hour, was now piled high with project files that Grace wanted her to quickly review so she was up to speed with the rest of the department members.

      She left the folder on Grace’s desk and headed to her own considerable pile of work. There were three other associates in the room, though, huddled over a round table spread with charts. They looked over at Kimi when she entered, barely returning her smiling hello, and she stifled a sigh, making herself approach them anyway. “Hi. I am Kimi Taka.”

      It was regrettably obvious that they already knew and had formed their opinions about her, too. It seemed that Greg’s expectations about her fitting in with the rest of the staff members were all too accurate.

      One of the group, a young dark-skinned woman who looked around Kimi’s age, started to smile, but faltered at the fast looks she got from the others. But she still provided her name. “Tanya Wilson. Welcome to Kyoto,” she added in a slightly southern-sounding rush.

      Kimi’s smile warmed a little in response. “Thank you.” She looked at the other two—a natty blond guy in a beige suit who looked about her stepbrother Andrew’s age, and a stylish woman who had probably been perfecting the art of looking down her nose in front of a mirror since she was five. Kimi stuck her hand out toward the snooty woman. “And you are…?”

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