“Meeting’s still on,” she told Margot. “Forget the blue I originally picked out. Wear the black. We need to be serious given the fuckin’ cloud hanging over our head. What a shit show. You know, Nori, I think you should come. It would make a definite statement if the CEO of Ineffable appeared to lend his support. Now that I think about it, we may be able to stretch this deal to include you.”
Nori raised a brow at her and grinned. “You’re a marvel.”
“Yeah,” she said, tossing back the rest of the juice. “I gotta go take a nap and get ready. Black,” she told Margot, on her way out. “And a top knot and gold accessories if you have it. We need old school glamour for real.”
Nori laughed softly when the door closed behind her. “That woman amazes me.”
“You ain’t the only one,” Margot smirked. “I still can’t believe you’re not pissed. I know they say all publicity is good publicity, but a video of Margot Temper fuckin’ some guy up in public isn’t the kind of thing CEOs usually want associated with their brands.”
“No, but it is what it is,” he dismissed.
He’d seen the video, it was blessedly short but quite explicit. It was just as Margot said. For the first half of it he watched, furious as she and Tommy were treated like common streetwalkers by a drunken lout they didn’t know from Adam. The manager appeared, apologizing as he and a tall waiter led the drunk away. But he came back, and started in worse than before.
He leaned in to grab for Margot’s neck or face, he couldn’t tell which, knocked her water glass into her lap, and she snapped. He’d only seen that look once before, at his father’s dinner party. He’d never wanted to see it again, and he was sure after this that drunk idiot didn’t want to either. She rose up like a tidal wave, scooping her dinner plate up and mushing it into his face like a cream pie on one of those old school variety shows. If it wasn’t so tragic, it would have been hilarious.
Margot didn’t even stay to watch the fool fall down, she spun on one high heel and left the room with her head high, Tommy right behind. The publicist made it a point to walk over the fool sprawled on the ground, pausing to look over one creamy shoulder and say, “Dummy,” before she followed Margot from the room. For a spur of the moment incident, it couldn’t have been filmed better. It was almost beautiful.
“Are you coming to this meeting?”
“Do you want me too?”
“Yeah, but do you want to? I haven’t been in trouble in a while. The paps are gonna be after me tough for this. They’ve probably got the front of the hotel staked out.”
Nori shrugged. He really didn’t care. This would blow over, perhaps quicker if he stood by her side and behaved as though nothing was wrong. “This viral video isn’t important. And I’ve been on the phone to Irv – the lawyer – he thinks he may be able to get the charges dismissed.”
“Yeah? From your mouth to God’s ear. I so don’t need a bunch of legal crap right now.”
She’d been stringing a necklace since Tommy came in. Beads, chunks of stone, amber, even pearls, and the center piece was a large shiny crystal shaped like a diamond. It was brilliant, simple and very sexy. He watched, amazed as always by her skill as she attached the clasp and rose to put the necklace on.
“It’ll have to do,” she muttered, looking in a mirror. “I was gonna finish this last night, but.” She shrugged.
“Is that crystal Swarovski?”
“Yep. You like it?”
“Very much,” he stood behind her and reached both arms around to finger the different textures around her soft throat. “It’s both elegant and slightly barbaric, if that makes sense. It’s very you.”
She grinned at him in the mirror. “You recognize my aesthetic.”
“Of course. I know you.” He pressed a kiss to the side of her throat. “You should rest a bit, darling.”
She nodded. “Yeah. Lay down with me?”
“If I do you won’t get any sleep.”
She smiled, slow and sexy. “We’ll take a cat nap after.”
“I’ll be quick,” he said, scooping her into his arms.
She laughed. “Me too!”
The meeting went well. The woman from Swarovski loved the necklace, which Margot took off her own neck and gave her, and she didn’t hesitate to discuss the details of their pending partnership.
“I can’t believe they even arrested you. You poor darling. How horrible, spending a night in jail after you were assaulted! Why, it was practically self-defense, plain and simple. And that’s what I told everyone who called this morning,” she winked, and they all laughed.
Nori’s father wasn’t so forgiving. After the meeting, while Margot was sleeping off the night’s drama, he called.
“Did you see it?”
“Oui,” said Aro.
“Then you know it wasn’t Margot’s fault. She was accosted. She did nothing to initiate the situation.”
“But she most certainly ended it! Nori, be reasonable. This is not someone you can seriously think you have a future with. She could cost the company millions! This is an old French brand, our primary constituents are very traditional, conservative even.
“She’s volatile. Trouble follows her around like a bad smell. I know she’s a beauty and chaud dans le lit, but –”
“Silence! You don’t talk to me about Margot hot in bed or anywhere else,” Nori spat in French. “She belongs to me, and whatever you have to say about her, save it. I don’t care what our supposedly conservative consumer base thinks about my lover. You don’t know what you’re talking about. I will spin this little incident into a fucking cash cow surement! I have to go,” he said abruptly. “I’m angry, and I don’t want to argue. I told you how I feel about this.” He was referring to their conversation at the gym. “This is no longer up for discussion. If you will excuse me.”
He tossed his phone to the couch angrily.
“I knew it.”
He spun around. Margot. Looking rumpled and beautiful in a baby doll nightie, hair hanging around her face.
“He wants you to dump me.”
“He’s crazy. My father still thinks our main customer base is made up of old French farts who vacation at the beach with their families twice a year!”
“It’s not?” she teased.
He gave her a look like, please. “No. It’s not. Why aren’t you sleeping?”
She shrugged. “You weren’t beside me.”
He liked the sound of that. “Serves you right. Now you know how I felt last night.”
She walked the last few steps into his arms and sighed when he held her close, her cheeks against his chest, her hands up the back of his shirt. “I am bad news, Nori. I don’t try to find it, but trouble always seems to find me.”
He laughed. “Yes, my girl. It does. But that’s what makes you, you. Do something for me.”
“What?”
“Come with me to Ineffable in Beverly Hills. I told my father I would spin your video hit into a cash cow for the company, and now I have to make good on my word.”
“Yeah?”
He nodded.
“Okay. Lemme go wake up Tommy. I know exactly what to do.”
Two hours after they arrived at the store, several products modeled by Tommy and Margot, and photographed for Instagram, were sold out on the website, and back ordered to hell and back. Once they learned Margot was there, people filtered into the shop, and she posed for a few pictures while Tommy suggested items for them to buy.
He could see why the publicist was in such demand. She asked where they would wear things, probing questions to ensure there were no impulse buys, that what they chose was flattering and would be worn and loved.
She gave the women permission to spend more than they ordinarily might by telling them to wear it over and over in different situations with different items.
“Don’t believe that shit trend whores would have you believe about never wearing the same thing twice,” she dismissed, removing one necklace from an ol
der woman’s neck, handing it off to an assistant and replacing it with something bigger and more striking. “Fashion is for the very rich or for suckers. What you want to cultivate is style. Hmmm?”
The older woman’s shoulders were already pulled back. “You’re a very smart young woman. I can think of three outfits I can wear this with.”
Tommy just winked. “You better get it then. ‘Cuz that blonde is hovering to snatch it up if you put it down.”
“And tell everybody you were styled by me,” she told people.
They nodded ecstatically, running all over themselves to do just that. The store manager was ecstatic. In between helping customers, she kept clutching Nori’s arm and hissing, “Margot and Tommy are fabulous!”
When Tommy wasn’t using her as a living prop, Margot sat behind the counter chatting to customers and working on a necklace with tools from that huge, vintage LV purse she was rarely without. People seemed to love watching her work.
Nori, who found himself the subject of quite a few pictures too, one or two in which he was kissing or holding Margot, tried manfully to curb his smugness. But he did have the manager text his father the final tally for the day’s earnings. An increase of 230 percent over the same day last week.
Margot and Nori were inseparable after that. They weathered the storm of Plate-gate, as Tommy insisted on calling the LA restaurant debacle, and Margot managed to avoid legal sanctions. Irv went to court on her behalf and the judge said, “I’ve seen the video. She was provoked. If the fool hadn’t been drunk he wouldn’t have fallen. Case dismissed.”
When the chief legal officer tried to talk to him about the risks of dating one of the company’s artisans, Nori laughed in his face, but the look on his face shut the man’s mouth instantly. As did his, “I don’t want to discuss this again.” He mentioned it to Margot, who just raised a brow.
“You think I’ma sue you if we don’t work out?”
“No.”
“You want me to sign something absolving you from any scorned lover Margot Temper tantrums?”
“You’d do that?”
Margot laughed. “Sure. I ain’t the type-a bitch to chase a man don’t wanna be caught, so I think you’re safe. But I will if you want me to.”
He didn’t want her to. He had bigger things to worry about. Like the fact that Margot refused to stay overnight in his apartment. She liked it, she told him, but it was more convenient for him to come to her, so she could have all of her tools at hand to work. “You can bring your papers and computer anywhere.”
So slowly his things began to migrate into her home. He watched to see how she would react when he commandeered drawers in her bathroom and bedroom, and moved in a small organizer to hold his project files.
But Margot never said a word. She just smirked at him, and he came in one night to find she’d pushed her things aside to make room for his clothes in the closet, and bought him a fabulous office desk set from Ineffable. Happiness rose inside him like champagne bubbles, and he squeezed her until she pretended to go upside his head with her fist.
He insisted on helping with the household expenses, and she let him, since “I don’t wanna feel like your rich ass is taking advantage.”
He answered her sass with a wink and a smack on the ass.
They continued to work side by side in the evenings, and when he had to travel, if she could, she went with him, shipping her tools ahead so she could work if she wasn’t sightseeing while he was tied up in meetings.
They went to parties together in whatever city they happened to be in, and Tommy eyed the photos she and others snapped with satisfaction and ruthlessly exploited the pairing via social media.
“It’s perfect,” she told Lani when she didn’t think Margot was listening. “They mirror each other’s actions, they’re glowing they’re so healthy, hands clasped tight more often than not. They’re like this little island. Remember how they were at Yardy’s do last week? She sat on his lap most of the night, the two of them staring at everyone like they were crazy – which half those motherfuckers are – or whispering together nose to nose.”
Lani sighed. “I know. It’s terribly romantic. Reminds me of me and Jeremy, and they look wonderful together. Who buys Nori’s clothes, you know?”
“Bitch, focus! We gotta get these fools married so we can move on to the next trick.” She paused for dramatic effect. “The wedding.”
From her hiding place in the bathroom hallway, Margot heard Lani suck in an excited breath and just rolled her eyes.
Not that she hadn’t been thinking about it. She and Nori had only been together a few months, but she could see them making things permanent. She suspected he wanted to have that conversation too – hell, he’d already asked her, even if he had been joking at the time – but was hesitant because he was unsure how she’d react. That was a problem. So she’d been doing what she could to make him feel secure.
It wasn’t easy. She wasn’t secure herself. She was actually nervous as hell. Opening her heart hadn’t been easy since that psycho loser George. And though the two men couldn’t be more different, and it had been a lifetime ago, a big part of her was still scared. At one time she never could have conceived George would behave the way he had. What if Nori changed too?
Nori made it easier though. He enjoyed her so much, relished every moment they spent together in this very child with favorite candy kind of way. He was so proud, so pleased, recognizing the significance of each shared secret, every move they made to build their life together. He understood the power of what they were doing. That it was rare, important, that it could change them both for good or ill. So few men did. So few women did. It made every scrap of progress toward an open heart seem weighty, major.
And they needed to be a unit; Aro still did not approve of her. For the most part Margot could give a shit, but if they were to marry, he would have to be dealt with. Nori had been making noise about going out on his own. He thought they could make her idea for an online boutique of curated artisans work. Of course, he wanted it to be global and to have brick and mortar stores, but he also had a ton of ideas to grow her own business, some of which she had already implemented to great success.
But while the ambitious part of her wanted that expansion rather more than she wanted to breathe – she’d been tantalized by the picture Nori drew of different product lines, Margot-approved artisans, curated collections and exceedingly high profit margins – she didn’t want it to happen because Nori had to stop being CEO of Ineffable.
He was flip about the company and claimed he had no attachment to it. But Margot didn’t believe that. He couldn’t see and hear himself conducting business. He loved the business, and not as a challenge or as a business in general, which a man like him needed, but that business in particular.
It was his heritage, a piece of who he was. It was there in his walk, the way he groomed himself, his style and flair, the passion with which he made every decision, no matter how small. It was his legacy. She would never stand in the way of that. Pride and love were important, but legacy meant history, and that was worth fighting for.
Margot freely admitted she knew nothing about love. She recognized it in her friends and their spouses or lovers. She saw it on the street between strangers. She felt it for her work, her art, had felt it for her family before their deaths. But personally? No. Not until Nori. He was real. Scary.
He surprised her often. Something no man had done since she was young and naïve. She was completely unused to the depth of care and feeling he showed. Nori cared for her openly. He never asked if he could do something, if she needed anything. He’d just provide. Step up. Assume he had the right to make a difference in her life, to make a decision on her behalf. If he assumed incorrectly he didn’t get upset when she corrected him. He’d just nod and store the information away for next time.
It was one of his finer qualities, that memory for details. It came in handy because sometimes hers was like a sieve. He’d remind her to
put things in her computer calendar, call to wake her if she was up all night working and had an early appointment.
“Between you and Tommy, it’s like I still have a mother,” she grumbled, not meaning a word.
A novice in the love department she might be, but she wasn’t so fucked up she’d object to being cared for. He wasn’t pushy or bossy, which she’d have balked at immediately. He was considerate, thoughtful, clever, funny. And the sex. They hadn’t invented a word for how good he was. Sometimes just being on the other end of one of his hot ass looks got her ready faster than hands on foreplay from past lovers.
And his body was amazing, God bless his type A little heart. He got crabby if he didn’t work out for at least an hour every single week day, and he liked to do something physical on weekends too. They often took long walks to have brunch or to shop.
Tommy said their love affair had even improved his looks. He was already beautiful. Tall, with thick black hair with just a hint of wave, those piercing blue eyes and plush, cotton candy pink lips. But she claimed regular infusions of Margot had cranked up his masculinity even more.
“You bring out the beast in him,” she said, pointing out photos taken by the paparazzi where he was holding her by the neck, the upper arm, pulling her along behind him by the hand. Then there were the shots of him glaring at other men while sheltering Margot protectively in his arms. He had a way of looking at people, like he was trying to look through them, and he never, ever let her get more than a hands span away.
Candy seconded her theory and had used the couple’s notoriety to elevate sales in the Chicago boutique to ridiculous levels.
“There’s nothing like a little discount and some love to boost profits,” she grinned to Nori when he complimented her on the store’s turnaround once the old manager was gone and the assistant manager had been promoted and his replacement found.
Now they were considering expanding their stock, reorganizing the store, remodeling. Business, in other words, was great. And Nori made sure his father knew it.
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