Christmas at the Tycoon's Command

by Jennifer Hayward

  Billionaire boss’s festive seduction!

  Shy Chloe Russo is dreading her first Christmas running the family business. Working with Nico Di Fiore is the last straw! Once, Nico’s kisses promised Chloe every sensual delight, until he coldly rejected her. Now he’s her very commanding, very arrogant boss!

  Control is paramount to Nico—after his father’s bankruptcy lost him everything, nothing will distract him from succeeding. He’s always kept a tight rein on his craving for Chloe, well aware she alone has the power to disarm him. But now, unable to deny their connection, Nico is determined to reclaim control and take Chloe as his own!

  “Come over here, then,” Nico murmured, the hard lines of his face pure challenge. “If you’re so sure of what you want.”

  He expected the invitation to frighten Chloe off. She could tell from the look on his face. And for a moment it did, freezing all coherent thought. She sucked in a breath, delivered necessary oxygen to her brain. She knew in that moment this was the only opening she was ever going to get with Nico. She either seized it or wondered what if? forever.

  She shrugged her shoulders and let the towel fall to the chair. Got to her feet and walked over to him.

  He didn’t resist, but he didn’t move to meet the kiss either. She found his lips with hers. Hard, betraying none of that inherent sensuality that was so much a part of him. She thought for a terrifying instant he was going to reject her. Then a soft curse escaped him, his arms clamped around her waist and he lifted her astride him, his hands cupping her bottom in his palms. She had just enough time to take a deep breath before he took her mouth in a hard, demanding kiss that slammed into her senses.

  Demanded everything.

  As if it would make her run. As if he wanted her to run.

  Instead, it made her skin burn.

  The Powerful Di Fiore Tycoons

  Ruthless in the boardroom

  and masters in the bedroom!

  Nico, Lazzero and Santo Di Fiore

  saw their lives crumble when their father bankrupted

  the family and their mother abandoned them.

  Since then these three brothers have worked tirelessly

  to rise to the top of their game and become

  powerful tycoons envied the world over.

  Having lost everything once,

  they now have everything they could ever desire…

  except the women they can’t resist!

  Read Nico and Chloe’s festive story in

  Christmas at the Tycoon’s Command

  Available now

  And don’t miss Lazzero and Santo’s stories

  Coming soon!

  Christmas at the Tycoon’s Command

  Jennifer Hayward

  www.millsandboon.co.uk

  JENNIFER HAYWARD has been a fan of romance since filching her sister’s novels to escape her teenage angst. Her career in journalism and PR, including years of working alongside powerful, charismatic CEOs and travelling the world, has provided perfect fodder for the fast-paced, sexy stories she likes to write—always with a touch of humour. A native of Canada’s East Coast, Jennifer lives in Toronto with her Viking husband and young Viking-in-training.

  Books by Jennifer Hayward

  Mills & Boon Modern Romance

  A Debt Paid in the Marriage Bed

  The Magnate’s Manifesto

  Changing Constantinou’s Game

  The Secret Billionaires

  Salazar’s One-Night Heir

  The Billionaire’s Legacy

  A Deal for the Di Sione Ring

  Kingdoms & Crowns

  Carrying the King’s Pride

  Claiming the Royal Innocent

  Marrying Her Royal Enemy

  The Tenacious Tycoons

  Tempted by Her Billionaire Boss

  Reunited for the Billionaire’s Legacy

  Society Weddings

  The Italian’s Deal for I Do

  Visit the Author Profile page

  at millsandboon.co.uk for more titles.

  For my editor, Nic.

  I couldn’t have written this without

  your guidance and inspiration.

  You are amazing and I look forward to

  working on many great books together.

  Contents

  Cover

  Back Cover Text

  Introduction

  The Powerful Di Fiore Tycoons

  Title Page

  About the Author

  Dedication

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Extract

  Copyright

  CHAPTER ONE

  SHE WAS NOT losing this one.

  Chloe Russo fixed her gaze on the bright yellow taxi that had appeared like an apparition from heaven in the ferociously snarled First Avenue traffic, its lit number her only chance at salvation in the monsoon that had descended over Manhattan.

  Shielding her eyes from the driving rain, she stepped a foot deeper into the layers of honking, snarling traffic and jammed her hand high in the air. The driver of a Bentley sounded his horn furiously as he swerved to avoid her, but Chloe, heart pounding, kept her eyes glued to the taxi driver’s face, willing him to stop.

  The taxi slid to a halt in front of her in a cacophony of screeching horns and spraying water. Heart soaring, she waded through the giant puddle that stood between her and victory, flung the door of the taxi open and slid inside, reeling off Evolution’s Fifth Avenue address with a request to step on it that made the cabbie roll his eyes.

  “Lady,” he muttered caustically, “have you looked outside?”

  She’d been standing in it for half an hour, she wanted to scream. While thirty-five of his coworkers had passed her by—she knew because she’d counted every one of them. But picking a fight with the last remaining cab driver in Manhattan seemed unwise, given her present situation.

  She was late for her first board meeting as the director of Evolution’s fragrance division. An inauspicious start.

  Her teeth chattered amid a chill that seemed to reach bone-deep. She pushed off the hood of her raincoat and mopped her face with a tissue, thankful for her waterproof mascara. Let out a defeated sigh. She should have left earlier. Had forgotten taxis on a rainy day in Manhattan were akin to spotting a western lowland gorilla in the wild. But in truth, she’d been dreading today and everything about it.

  Her cell phone vibrated in her bag. She rooted around to find it as a loud pop song joined the symphony of honking horns. Fingers curling around the sleek metal, she pulled it out and answered it before her grumpy driver deposited her back into the downpour.

  “I just landed,” her sister, Mireille, announced. “How are you? How was your flight? Did you get settled in okay? It’s so amazing to have you back in New York.”

  The verbal torrent pulled a smile from her lips. “Good, good and yes. Although it just took me half an hour to get a taxi. I’m soaked to the bone.”

  “You’ve been living in Europe too long.” Her sister’s voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper. “Of course, I’m really calling to see how your dinner with Nico went. I’ve been dying to know. Uncle Giorgio has himself all in a dither with this campaign of his to unseat him.”

  Chloe bit her lip. Nico Di Fiore, the new CEO of Evolution, her family cosmetic company, was a loaded subject of late. Her late father’s go
dson, Nico had been appointed CEO upon her parents’ deaths last spring according to the terms of her father’s will, assuming a position that should have been her uncle Giorgio’s. He had also been appointed financial regent for Chloe and Mireille until they reached the age of thirty, an unexpected and unacceptable development that had been the last straw for Chloe, because it meant four years of him in her life.

  “I didn’t have dinner with him.” Her offhand tone hid the apprehension dampening her palms. “I wanted to keep things professional. I suggested we meet tomorrow instead—on my first day back.”

  Mireille drew in a breath. “You blew Nico off for dinner?”

  “It wasn’t like that.” Except it had been exactly like that.

  There was a pregnant pause on the other end of the line. “That really wasn’t wise, Chloe.”

  “He summoned me to have dinner with him,” she came back defensively. Just like he’d summoned her home from Paris, where she’d been perfectly happy. “This is our company, not his. Isn’t it driving you crazy having him in charge?”

  “It was what Father wanted.” Mireille sighed. “I know Evolution’s your baby—far more than it is mine. That Uncle Giorgio has you all wound up, but you need to face reality. Nico is leading the company. I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but you’re going to have to come to terms with it.”

  “There’s nothing going on between us.” Hadn’t been since Nico had broken her heart far too many years ago to remember now. And she had been attempting to do exactly that—to process this new reality that had seen Nico take over Evolution when her parents had been killed in a car crash in Tuscany six months ago, turning her life upside down in the process. But she couldn’t quite seem to get there.

  Evolution’s stately, soaring, gold-tinted headquarters rose majestically in front of her as the taxi turned onto Fifth Avenue. A fist formed in her chest, making it hard to breathe.

  “I have to go,” she murmured. “It’s the board meeting tonight.”

  “Right.” A wealth of meaning in her sister’s tone. “Better you than me.” As a junior executive in Evolution’s PR department, Chloe’s younger sister was not a member of the board. “Promise me you won’t fight with him, Chloe.”

  “That,” she said grimly, “is impossible. I love you and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  She handed the taxi driver the fare as he pulled to a halt in front of the building. Slid out of the car and stepped onto the sidewalk, teeming with its usual wall-to-wall pedestrian traffic huddled under brightly colored umbrellas.

  A frozen feeling descended over her as she stood staring up at the giant gold letters that spelled out Evolution on the front of the building. Her parents—Martino and Juliette Russo—had spent two decades building Evolution into a legendary cosmetics brand. They had been the heart and soul of the company. Of her.

  She hadn’t been in the building since she’d lost them, buried in work in the Paris lab. The thought of going in there now without them present seemed like the final admission they were gone, and she couldn’t quite seem to do it.

  The crowd parted like a river around her as she stood there, heart in her mouth, feet glued to the concrete. A woman in a Gucci raincoat finally jolted her out of her suspended state, crankily advising her to “move on.” Her fingers clutched tight around her bag, she made her way through the glass doors, presented the security guard with her credentials and rode the elevator to the fiftieth floor, where Evolution’s executive offices overlooked Central Park.

  A slim, blond-haired woman with trendy glasses pounced on her as she emerged into the elegant cream marble reception area. “Clara Jones, your new PA,” the blonde introduced herself, relieving Chloe of her dripping raincoat in the same breath. “You’re the last to arrive. Nico is—well, you know...” she said, giving Chloe a meaningful look. “He likes to start on time.”

  Her heart crawled into her throat. “I couldn’t get a cab.”

  “It is awful out there.”

  Clara led Chloe down the hall toward the large, plush conference room with its expansive view of a wintry, lamp-lit Central Park. “Nico gave me your presentation. It’s ready to go.”

  Now if only she was. Memories deluged her as she stood surveying the crowded, warmly lit room full of Evolution board members and directors enjoying a glass of wine and hors d’oeuvres before the meeting began. Of her father manning the seat at the head of the table that Nico now would as the chairman of the board. Of her mother swanning around, captivating the executives with her sparkling wit and charm.

  Her stomach swam with nerves. She was a scientist. Her mother had been a self-made genius with a larger-than-life personality who’d created a multibillion-dollar empire out of a tiny bath products company she’d founded to serve her husband’s financial clientele. Chloe was far more comfortable in the lab creating beautiful things than presenting to a stiff-suited board like her mother had been. But this was her job now. A necessary evil.

  Any nerves about her presentation, however, faded to the background as Nico spotted her. Clad in a sleek, dark gray Tom Ford suit, the white shirt and silver tie he wore beneath it making the most of his dark good looks and olive skin, he was faultlessly elegant. It was when she lifted her gaze to his that she realized just how much trouble she was in.

  His lips set in a flat line, jaw locked, smoky gray gaze full of thunderclouds, he was furious. Fingers of ice crept up her spine as he murmured something to the board member he was speaking with, then set his tall, impressive frame into motion, eating up the distance between them. Clara took one look at his face, muttered something about checking the AV equipment and disappeared.

  Chloe’s heart ricocheted in a hard drumbeat against her ribs as Nico came to a halt in front of her. She tipped her head back to look up at him, refusing to reveal how much he intimidated her. With his leonine dark head, cold, slate blue eyes and cheekbones at forty-five degrees, he couldn’t quite be called handsome in the traditional sense because he was far too hard for that.

  His wide, full mouth made up for that lack of softness, however—lush and almost pouty when he wanted to seduce a response out of the person in question. Which was not now.

  Her heart battered up against her chest in another wave of nerves at the dark fire in his eyes. At the realization that any hope she’d had that she’d developed an immunity to him after seven years in Europe had been utter self-delusion. That the man she’d once thought had been the one had hardened into a ruthless, sapphire-edged version of himself she couldn’t hope to know.

  She might hate him, she did hate him for teaching her the cruel lesson he had, but he was still the most potently gorgeous male she’d ever encountered.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured, forcing the words past a constricted throat. “I forgot it’s impossible to get a cab in Manhattan on a rainy day.”

  His stormy gaze darkened. “We’ll discuss it afterward,” he said quietly, so quietly it sent her pulse skittering into a dead run. “Take ten minutes to say hello and we’ll start.”

  She nodded. Forced herself through the round of small talk, latching gratefully on to her uncle Giorgio, Evolution’s flamboyant director of marketing, before Nico called the meeting to order.

  An undeniably compelling speaker, he outlined the big picture as Evolution headed into its first Christmas season without its cofounders. Investor confidence was shaky, he observed candidly—the company’s stock price in trouble—with the world worried the loss of Juliette Russo, the creative force of the company, would strike a death knell for Evolution.

  Chloe’s heart sank as he went on to detail the keys for a successful path forward. It wasn’t true that Evolution was a fading star. Her parents had built a company rich with talent. Vivre, the line of fragrances Chloe had spent three years developing with one of the most brilliant French perfumers, would be the hit Christmas product the company needed. But, she reminded herself, the world didn’t know that yet.

  Nico called her up last
in the parade of directors presenting their holiday season highlights, after the head of the skincare division had made a big splash with his luxurious, all-natural skincare line. She suspected Nico did it on purpose.

  She rose on legs the consistency of jelly, smoothed the pencil skirt of her still-damp suit and moved to the front of the room. Hands clammy, mouth full of sawdust, she clicked the remote to begin the presentation. Focusing on her passion for her work, she began. Too fast and clunky in her delivery at first, she gradually relaxed as she explained her vision for Vivre and the aspirational campaign that would accompany it. It will, she told those assembled, redefine how beauty is framed in a world that badly needs inspiration.

  Instead of salivating over her exciting launch plan that featured celebrities who would spread the inspirational message, the board members peppered her with questions.

  “Isn’t the perfume market oversaturated?”

  “Your mother could have sold this, but can you?”

  “What about all the workplaces that are going scent-free?”

  “Wouldn’t it be better to focus on the all-natural products that are dominating the market?”

  She took a deep breath and answered the questions the best she could. She had been working with her mother in the lab ever since she was a little girl, she told them. She knew where the magic was. She already had her own signature fragrances to back her up. And the celebrity endorsement she had planned for the Vivre campaign would help her create the buzz she needed.

  When she ran out of answers and needed big-picture help, she looked to Nico because she didn’t have that backup in her head. But instead of coming to her rescue, he sat back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest, and focused that glittering gray gaze of his on her.

  Her stomach swooped. He was punishing her. The bastard. She looked at the director of the skincare division, who stared blankly back at her, clearly not about to help either and diminish his own product line. A trickle of perspiration ran down her back.

  Finally, her uncle stepped in with a passionate rebuttal, reminding the board of the founding tenants Evolution was built on—luxury perfumes like Vivre that had taken the world by storm. But by then, her credibility was in tatters.