her. But Helen hadn’t. She’d asked for entry level, and that was all.
So Greg would just have to tolerate Helen’s small measure of interference. Given everything on his plate, it would be only a minor nuisance until the reputably spoiled Kimiko became bored and moved on to her next escapade. It couldn’t come soon enough for him. The fewer hitches they had, the better he liked it.
Nothing was more important than proving he had what it took to helm this place.
And after this place…his own.
“Here.” He handed over a thick, stapled report. “The latest guest list for the New Year’s Eve gala.”
Shin took the report, grimacing. “When are the computers supposed to be online?”
“Last week. Lyle Donahue’s got his entire department working on it. You’ll see that we’ll need extra security for the event.” The list contained not only the expected Hanson and Taka faces, but government officials, several celebrities from a half dozen countries and a handful of crowned royals.
Shin was perusing the pages. “You got it. Where’s Bridget, anyway?” Bridget McElroy was Greg’s secretary.
“Called in sick.”
Shin’s dark eyebrows rose a little. “That’s a first.” He turned to leave the office. “I’ll get back to you on the numbers for the extra security.”
Already turning his mind to the dozen other matters needing his attention, Greg barely heard him. With Bridget out and their computer network still dysfunctional, it was proving to be a trying day.
He grabbed the folder of items he still needed copied for the staff meeting he’d be holding in another hour and left the office. He’d take the materials down to Grace’s office. She’d loan him a body who could put together the packets for him.
But he stopped short at the sight that met him.
The pallet of chairs was still sitting in the middle of the lobby floor. Almost eclipsing it, however, was a stack of luggage.
A growing stack of luggage, thanks to the diminutive female directing Marco and a half-dozen other eager helpers. “Please do be careful with that one.” The luggage owner darted forward and took a small case from a guy who, ten minutes earlier, had been on a scaffold twenty feet off the ground painting trim work. “Rather fragile, you see.” Her smile was impish.
The painter didn’t look offended when she took the case. Probably too busy looking at the legs displayed between her over-the-knee white boots and one of the briefest skirts Greg had seen outside of a fashion runway.
All around them, it was as if everyone—the laborers, the staff—had decided it was time to stop whatever it was they were supposed to be doing so they could witness the moment.
The pampered heiress had arrived.
Early.
“Here.” Shin appeared, pushing a luggage cart that Greg knew he’d had to retrieve from the mezzanine level, where they were all being stored until the hotel opened for guests. “This might be useful.” He shot Greg an amused glance as he stopped beside Kimiko Taka.
The girl swept a slender, ivory hand over her shoulder, pushing aside her thick tumble of deep brown hair. She turned, not even needing to beckon before Marco hurried into action, deftly stacking her luggage onto the cart, and treated Greg to her rear view.
The hair—he’d seen it photographed in newspapers and gossip rags looking any number of ways from straight and nauseatingly pink, to black and rainwater slick—was now swirling down the back of her white fur jacket in a mass of ringlets that almost reached her waist. But it was the minuscule skirt beneath the hiplength jacket that damnably caught even Greg’s attention.
Tasty.
The word was printed right across her derriere, outlined in sparkling pink stitching.
He felt a pain settle between his eyebrows. Taka hotels were all about taste. Good taste. “Ms. Taka.”
The girl whirled on her impossibly high heels to face him. “Yes?”
“Dōzo yoroshiku.” Despite his misgivings about her, he greeted her with the faint bow that had become automatic for him in the month since he’d been at the Taka. “I am Greg Sherman, the—”
“—the general manager here at the Taka,” she finished in slightly accented English. “Yes. My parents speak most highly of you.” Despite the fact that she was the Japanese-born one here, she eschewed the usual practice of returning his circumspect bow and stuck out her hand instead in a thoroughly Western greeting. “How do you do?”
“You’ve taken us by surprise, actually.” He clasped her hand briefly. Long enough to feel how slender her fingers were, how cool her hands were and how electricity shot up his arm at the contact. He released her and reached for the strap of the rescued case that she’d looped over her shoulder. “We didn’t expect you until next week.”
Her hand brushed against his again as she released the strap. Her deep brown eyes were sparkling. “Better early than late, surely?” In a smooth move, she slid her jacket off her shoulders to reveal a shimmering white, silk blouse through which a pink, lacy bra was plainly visible. Before she could toss the jacket on the mountain of geometrically stacked luggage, half a dozen hands reached out to catch it, earning a seemingly delighted little laugh from her. “In any case, this is quite a welcoming committee.”
“Who have other matters to attend to,” Greg said pointedly. Looking over her head was easy because, even with the stilettoheeled boots, the top of those bouncing brown curls didn’t reach his shoulder. He gave Marco a look, but the young man was evidently not ready to give up his impromptu bellman duty.
“I can take these to Ms. Taka’s room,” he offered.
Kimiko looked over at Marco. “Oh, would you mind?” She gave him a smile that could have melted a glacier. On Marco, it was devastating. Greg could practically see the maintenance worker dissolve into a puddle.
His annoyance deepened. “Focus that attention on the pallet, Marco. I expected it to be moved the first time I told you.”
The young man flushed at the rebuke. “Sorry, Mr. Sherman.” He moved from hoarding the gleaming-bronze luggage cart to the pallet jack. He ducked his chin as he maneuvered the pallet away from them. “Ms. Taka.”
Kimi smiled gently at the remorseful man. For pity’s sake, it was just a stack of chairs amid a thoroughly chaotic and unfinished hotel lobby. “It was very nice meeting you, Marco.”
His smile was sudden and beaming. “You, too, Miss Taka.” He pushed the contraption bearing several high stacks of chairs across the concrete.
The construction noise around her suddenly seemed loud, and Kimi sucked in a quick breath before turning back to Greg Sherman.
He did not look anywhere near as kind as the departing Marco. Even though she had done her research about the man in her few weeks before leaving Chicago, she was unaccountably nervous now that they were face-to-face.
Sadly, the black-and-white head shot that had accompanied
