by Mia Caldwell
Goldman met her eyes. “Then perhaps I am thinking of another ‘Vanessa Reese’.” The stress that he put on the name left Zoe in no doubt that he suspected something was wrong. The only question that remained was: did he just suspect? Or did he know?
Apparently not feeling the need to press his advantage any further, or not wanting to break his suspect too early, Mr. Goldman let Zoe alone for the rest of the evening. But if he did not interrogate her further, Zoe more forcibly interrogated herself. What had she done? How stupid could she be? Had the last three weeks training with Nick all been a complete waste of time? What must he think of her now?
He would probably never so much as look at her again.
Dinner concluded. Zoe knew that she should go on to the drawing room (whatever the hell a drawing room was) with the other guests to try to repair some of the damage she had done in witty, cultured conversation, but she could just not face it. In fact, even had she felt able to face it, she had little confidence in her ability to make things better – more likely she would just make them worst. She therefore pleaded a headache and headed for her room.
“Miss Reese…” Just the sound of Nick’s voice made her stomach tie itself in knots at the thought of how much she had let him down and what he might say to her.
Nick came up to her and whispered. “Don’t worry about it. Jourdan is the only one that matters. Get a good night’s sleep and put all this from your mind.”
“But I…”
“It’s fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He squeezed her hand, and then said, “I love you.”
He had said it casually, almost reflectively, the way one did when hanging up the phone. He seemed shocked by his own words.
Zoe looked up, startled by his statement, and to see if he realized what he had said, or if he might now try to desperately reel it back. But all she saw was Nick looking back at her with strength and kindness.
He inhaled deeply, and looked at her in the eyes, taking her hand in his. It might have been a casual reflex, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t become the truth.
“I love you,” he repeated, in case she might have any doubt.
“I love you too,” Zoe said in a shocked whisper.
“You coming, Rothberger?” Of course it was Mr. Goldman who intruded on the greatest moment of Zoe’s life.
Nick snapped into business mode on the instant. “Just coming. Good night Miss Reese. I hope you feel better in the morning, you really weren’t yourself tonight.”
Zoe nodded. “Jetlag.” She raised a hand to her forehead. “Goodnight Mr. Rothberger.” And how much more could be read into those few words.
Despite the horrible events of dinner, Zoe woke with a big smile on her face. Over the last week she had gotten used to waking up happy, but that was because Nick had enjoyed experimenting with fun ways to wake her up. This morning she was alone, and her happiness was of a completely different kind.
He loved her.
And she loved him.
Let the Goldmans and Jourdans of life come; none of them could take away anything from her.
She showered, dressed and headed down for breakfast with a spring in her step and ready to talk about anything from Rudolph Nureyev to the Grand National. But as she entered the breakfast room (separate to the dining room, of course), she found the whole company assembled and Mademoiselle Guilbert standing.
“Ah, Mademoiselle Reese, we were waiting for you.”
A horrible chill seethed through Zoe: had she been found out? Was this to be a grand unmasking? Had the Gendarmerie already been called?
“I regret to inform you all,” Mademoiselle Guilbert began, addressing the gathered business people, “that Jourdan Wines and Spirits was sold last night.”
A chorus of indignation muttered around the room. Zoe and Nick gaped.
“To RothCo,” Mademoiselle Guilbert concluded, smiling widely and gesturing toward Nick and Zoe.
The infuriated eyes of the room turned, not for the first time that weekend, to Nick and Zoe, but they could only gape still wider.
Chapter Ten
With Mademoiselle Guilbert’s announcement, Nick and Zoe suddenly and unexpectedly became the two least popular people in the room. And, what was worse, neither of them knew why.
Nick grabbed Zoe’s hand and led her quickly towards the door. Behind them, voices started shouting their names, demanding explanations: had they known this all along? Was their presence here a ruse – a distraction? What sort of a way was this to treat your industry colleagues? “Underhanded trickery!” Nick heard one of the men mutter.
Of course it was all nonsense – any one of them would have undermined any other in a heartbeat if the money was right – but when it happened to you then it suddenly became a moral issue.
Nick listened to none of it but simply quickened his pace, pulling Zoe along behind him and making for the stairs, his mind a whirl. He was not concerned about those other bidders he had left behind, he felt no obligation to explain all this to them, but he had to explain it to Zoe.
Which was problematic, because he had no idea what had happened. Would she believe that? Right now it looked as if he had used her to create an elaborate diversion to distract the other bidders while the real deal went down somewhere else. Nick’s mind sped on: was that what had happened? Was it possible that this had been his brother’s plan all along?
It was widely known that RothCo had been the front-runners in the deal so all of the other bidders would have been focused on undermining them. Had Adam used Nick and Zoe to draw attention and draw fire while he closed the actual deal in secret? It was certainly possible. His brother was devious enough. But right now what had happened was less important to him than whether Zoe thought that he himself was involved in it. What if she thought that he was complicit? What if he thought she had lied to him? What if she thought that he had put her through all this just so she could be a conspicuous patsy? Worst of all, what if she thought that he had slept with her just to further the ploy?
They reached Zoe’s room and Nick pulled her through after him and locked the door behind them. He spun around instantly to face Zoe.
“I have no idea what’s going on – you have to believe me. I know how this looks but I had nothing to do with it. I don’t even know what’s happened. Or how it’s happened. Or what part or to what extent we were involved in any plan that my brother might have had. I really…”
Zoe held up her hands. “What?”
“What?”
“What do you mean ‘you know how this looks’?”
“Well,” Nick was loath to explain further, “like I used you?”
“Used me how?”
“Well,” again Nick hedged – it felt like there might be a right and wrong answer here. “Like I tricked you into being an attention-grabbing distraction while the real deal was done elsewhere.”
Zoe thought about this. “Is that really so much worse than the original plan? Me pretending to be Vanessa and putting the deal through under false pretenses isn’t exactly above the level.”
“I just didn’t want you to think that I put you in this position.”
Zoe shrugged. “Well you did. But I knew that and I went along with it anyway. What’s happened is weird but even if you knew about it – and I believe you when you say you didn’t, by the way – what difference would that really make? In a way you actually used me less than you were originally going to because I don’t have to play Vanessa for Jacques Jourdan.”
“That’s true,” mused Nick, who was now wondering what he had been worrying about. “I guess I…” What had he really been worrying about? “I guess I worried that you might think that if I was lying to you about that then I might have lied to you about other stuff.”
“What?” Zoe frowned.
“That you might think I got you into bed just to get you to go through with the plan,” Nick admitted.
Zoe’s frown deepened. “I was already going through with the plan.”
Nick nodded. “That’s true.”
“I think you might be over thinking this.”
“That’s true too. I just didn’t want you to think that…”
Zoe silenced him with a finger on his lips. “I don’t. I trust you completely, Nick.”
She kissed him and Nick felt a rush of sensation flood through him. By whatever odd paths they had come to this point, all the rest of it – the deal, the bet, everything – faded into nothing. The fact that he was not exactly worthy of her trust – he still had not told her about his brother’s little bet – tickled his conscience; but he pushed it aside. He wouldn’t think about that now.
He had come away with a greater prize.
He had won Zoe.
Getting out of the Jourdan chateau was of course the first order of the day, but where were they going next? There were a lot of practical things to think about – you couldn’t defer real life forever just because you were in love, but their romance thus far had been conducted entirely under the cloud of preparing Zoe for being Vanessa. It would be nice to take a few days at least (maybe a few weeks) just for them. Of course Zoe had a job to get back to (Didn’t she? Who knew at this stage.) And Nick had a failing business to tend to and a conversation to have with his brother, but such things could wait.
Where they might go for this little loving holiday from reality was not even a question. There was an idyllic vineyard in the South of France that they were anxious to get back to, and a bed in which they had unfinished business.
With this goal in mind, they packed as quickly as possible, and it was as he was throwing clothes in the direction of his suitcase that Nick heard a knock at his door. His first thought was that it must be Zoe and he hurried over. His second thought was that it could be a mob of angry business men, eager for a beheading (they were in the land of the guillotine, after all), and he slowed his pace. At the door he ducked and peered through the keyhole: a business man from the look of his suit but he seemed to be alone. Nick opened the door to find Mr. Goldman on the other side.
“Ah, Mr. Rothberger, so glad I caught you.”
“If you have some problem,” Nick cut off the possibility of conversation, “take it up with my brother. He’s the one who pulled this little bait and switch.”
“Oh, I know,” replied Mr. Goldman dismissively. “And he sends his regards.”
“What?” Nick was stunned.
“He sends his regards,” repeated Mr. Goldman. “And he says you lost the bet.”
“He didn’t give me the chance to win.”
Goldman shrugged. “As I understand it, you had to pass this little nothing secretary off as Vanessa Reese. Do you want me to go around the other bidders and ask how many of them think that she’s Vanessa Reese?” He threw his head back and laughed. “You can take the cat out of the gutter, but you can’t turn it into a purebred.”
With that, Mr. Goldman strode away, leaving Nick, nonplussed and furious. As it had stood, the bet had left Adam Rothberger with a choice between winning the Jourdan contract and losing the bet, or losing the Jourdan contract whilst winning the bet. But Adam Rothberger did not like losing, even if he was doing it whilst winning, he had found a way to win bet and contract in one act of sabotage.
He had Jourdan Wines and Spirits and he had finally excluded his brother from the family company.
It was win-win for Adam Rothberger.
And it was slowly dawning on Nick that he was the one who had been lied to. He had been given this little task to distract him from noticing that his brother was stealing his inheritance right out from under him.
Nick went back into his room, slamming the door behind him. French vineyards would have to wait, there was a showdown to be had between himself and his brother.
Of course Zoe was disappointed that they were not going straight back to the vineyard to pick up where they had left off (horizontal, naked and sweaty), but she understood that Nick had business to conclude in New York and they could go back to France as soon as that was done. Nick wondered if he should have told her the truth; that he was going to have it out with his brother. But there seemed no way he could do that without revealing the bet, and whichever way you cut it, the bet did not make Nick look good. The bet had hinged entirely on Zoe’s inability to become Vanessa Reese.
He would definitely be happier if Zoe never found out about it.
But he would also be happier if he did not lose his stake in RothCo.
He might have had little or no impact on the company but if it was gone then his only source of income was his bar, which was currently losing money. Overnight, the fact that he could not even run a simple business like a bar would go from being an annoyance to being extremely worrying. Nick Rothberger would be willing to admit that he had had an easy life, in which he had never had to work to get the financial security that he enjoyed – it was very unfair that so many should struggle while he had it so easy. On the other hand; life was unfair, and he was not about to just give up that financial security over a crooked bet. There was not just him to think about; now he had Zoe in his life he suddenly had someone to lavish money on. Someone, it occurred to him, that he could see a future with.
Somewhere in the course of the last three weeks he had started to picture what life would be like with Zoe Blanchared. What she would be like to live with, to have kids with, to marry; all of which cost money.
He was apparently too incompetent to work for that money, so reclaiming his birthright seemed his only option.
The day after their arrival back in New York, Nick made his way to the RothCo building. He had spent the night with Zoe, said goodbye to her that morning and they would be meeting for dinner later, but this still felt like an unnaturally long period to be apart. But it was all for a good cause.
He arrived in the outer office on the top floor to find the usual hive of activity one side and the usual harassed Eddie on the other, struggling to figure out the phone system and cutting callers off, left, right and center. Nick strode up to the efficient, severe assistant outside his brother’s office.
“Is he in?”
The assistant shot him glance which an assistant ought not to have been allowed to shoot a CEO. “Mr. Rothberger is on a conference call.”
“I don’t care.” Nick strode towards the office door and found a wall of interchangeable severe women blocking his path.
“We said: he’s on a conference call,” one of them intoned, the use of the word ‘we’ doing nothing to dispel Nick’s long-held suspicion that they were clones or androids.
“I…” Nick began, eager to force his way through. But, even if they proved to be robots, they still looked like women and for all his myriad faults, Nick would not use force against women. “Right.”
“You can wait.” A third severe assistant indicated one of the seats by the wall.
Nick grit his teeth: he was not a guest, he was a CEO of this company! “I’ll wait in my office, thank you.”
He strode across the room. “Eddie, hold my calls.”
Eddie nodded with as much confidence as he could muster. Nick thought he heard a snicker from one of the robots-secretaries, but no; they never displayed emotion. He must have been mistaken.
Nick entered his office and slammed the door behind him. It did not sound loud enough so he opened it again and slammed it once more, this time harder. He hurled his coat across the room, tossed a pile of paperwork to the floor and threw himself down in a wheeled swivel chair.
“ARRRHHHHH!”
Screaming didn’t help as much as he’d hoped.
A soft tap at the door was followed by Eddie’s head peeping around. “Did you call?”
“No. Just screaming.”
Eddie nodded. “Been there.”
“You know, you can use the intercom, Eddie.”
Eddie nodded uncertainly. “I’m not sure it’s working. Did you want a coffee?”
Nick shook his head. “I doubt that’s a good idea.” He was stresse
d enough.
Eddie nodded and ducked back out.
Nick focused his gaze on the opposite wall and tried to put in order what he was going to say to his brother. It wasn’t easy – even in the confines of his mind he kept shouting and name-calling and getting off topic.
He was not sure how long he sat there in rigid, impotent frustration before his phone started making a series of odd noises.
It stopped and, a few seconds later, the soft tap at the door was once again followed by Eddie’s head. “I really don’t think that intercom is working.”
Nick pressed a button on his phone and spoke. “I think it is, Eddie.”
He could hear his own voice coming from the outer office.
“That’s funny, that is,” mused Eddie.
“Was there something?”
“Your brother… That is to say, Mr. Rothberger – not you, Mr. Rothberger, Mr. A. – is outside. Should I show him in?”
“Please.” Nick composed himself and drew a deep breath.
Adam entered with a smug smile on his face. He waited until Eddie had shut the door then turned to Nick. “Thanks for showing up to work.”
“What the hell, Adam?!” Nick’s plan to remain calm was not off to the best of starts. “What the hell?!”
Adam shook his head. “Boy, are you a bad loser.”
“I didn’t lose!”
“I have compelling evidence that says otherwise.” He waved his cell phone at his brother.
“You cheated!”
“In what way?” asked Adam.
“You never gave me a chance!” Nick yelled back. “If you’d let Zoe speak to Jourdan then…”
“Then RothCo would have lost a valuable contract,” Adam snapped back. “I’m not letting that happen just to spare the feelings of some girl you’ve shacked up with.”
“Why would you even make the bet if you didn’t intend to let her go through with it?!” Nick’s voice was strangled. His ire and indignation on Zoe’s behalf were rising. He would circle back round to the ‘girl you’ve shacked up with’ part of that sentence but for now he wanted to know why all this had happened.