Christmas at the Tycoon's Command

by Jennifer Hayward

  Answering the final question, she sat down red-faced.

  * * *

  Nico held on to his temper by the threads it had been hanging from all evening as the last board member disappeared toward the elevators and home.

  “My office,” he murmured in Chloe’s ear. “Now.”

  Head tossed back, she stalked out of the room in front of him and down the hall toward his office. It would be difficult, he surmised, eyeing her curvaceous backside, for her to find it when she had no idea where it was.

  She came to a sliding halt in front of the sophisticated lounge that was a new addition to the executive floor, her gaze moving over the photos of the company’s cofounders gracing the walls.

  “What happened to my father’s office?” she demanded, spinning on her heel, dark eyes flashing. “Or couldn’t you even leave that alone?”

  “I didn’t think it was appropriate for me to assume it,” he murmured, directing her down the hall toward his office with a hand at her back. Something in him hadn’t been able to simply wipe his mentor from existence by redecorating a space that had always been quintessentially Martino’s. But he didn’t feel the need to explain his actions to Chloe at this particular moment. He was barely resisting the urge to strangle her for the ever-present recalcitrance that had pushed him one step too far this time.

  He closed the door to his office with a decisive click. Strode to the window and counted to ten because that was what Chloe did to him. Pushed buttons he didn’t even know he had. Elicited emotions he had always had to exert the most extreme self-control to silence. Because Chloe was the chink in his armor. The one weakness he couldn’t seem to kick. And wanting her had always been a swift trip to hell.

  “You were punishing me, weren’t you?” Her voice drifted over his shoulder, trembling with rage.

  He turned around and leaned against the sill. Studied the fury on her beautiful face. The way her delicate features had settled into an intriguing beauty that was impossible to ignore. The arms she had crossed over her firm, high breasts, the feet defiantly planted apart in her haute couture Parisian suit.

  She was a study in rebellion. It was insane the fire that rose up inside him, the desire to crush those lush lips into submission under his own, to shock her out of the self-protective state she’d descended into since her parents’ passing. To unearth some sign the passionate Chloe he knew still existed.

  But having her had never been an option for him. He had conditioned it out of himself a long time ago because he’d had to. Just like he’d eliminated every other undesirable need he’d had in a life that had never had any room for self-indulgence.

  He pointed at the chair in front of his desk. “Sit.”

  She crossed her arms tighter over her chest. “I’d prefer to stand.”

  “Bene.” He took a seat on the corner of his desk, eyes on her. “I hung you out to dry in there because you needed to learn a lesson.”

  “That you are the king of the castle,” she challenged, eyes flashing.

  “Yes,” he said evenly. “I am. And the sooner you realize it, the easier this is going to be on both of us. It was your father’s wish, Chloe, that I run this company. And while I don’t intend for one minute to deny you your place at the center of it—in fact, my intention is the opposite—you need to get that particular fact straight in your head.”

  Her mouth curled. “Giorgio should be the head of this company, not you.”

  “That’s why your father made me second in command a year ago?” he rebutted coolly. “Think rationally.”

  She flicked a wrist at him, ebony eyes snapping with heat. “Because you somehow brainwashed him into it. How else would his will have been so perfectly in order when he died? Because it was your master plan, of course.”

  A low curl of heat unfurled inside him. “Watch it,” he said softly. “You’re starting to sound like your very bitter, very deluded uncle. Martino put me in control of Evolution in the event something happened to him and Juliette because he knew Giorgio would drive the company into the ground with his big spending ways. Your uncle has neither the business brain nor the common sense to run Evolution.”

  “That’s a lie,” she breathed. “He is widely reputed to be one of the most brilliant marketers there is. And don’t forget,” she added, eyes darkening with old wounds, “I have firsthand knowledge of how ambitious you are, Nico. Success is the only thing that matters to you.”

  “And that,” he said, emphasizing the word, “is the problem between us, Chloe. I am grieving, too. We are all grieving. And yet you are fixated on ancient history when it has no place here. You need to grow up and move on.”

  Her eyes widened. “I am not bringing the personal into this.”

  “Aren’t you?” He slid his gaze over her fire-soaked cheeks. “That’s why you’ve spent the last six months hiding away in Paris instead of taking your place in this company? So I finally had to order you back? Because there’s nothing personal here?”

  A muscle pulled tight at the corner of her mouth. “You have such an overinflated ego. Vivre wasn’t ready.”

  “So you said,” he responded quietly. “My contacts in the lab say it was ready six months ago. That you have been stalling, perfecting imperfections that don’t exist.” He fixed his gaze on hers. “Hide from the world or hide from me, Chloe, both of them are ending now.”

  She glared at him. “I hate you.”

  “I know.” He’d decided a long time ago that was preferable in this relationship of theirs.

  She drew a visible breath that rippled through her slim body as she collected her composure. “Have you reviewed my launch plan, then? Since Vivre is so clearly ready?”

  “Yes,” he murmured, picking it up off his desk. “This is what I think of it.”

  Her eyes went as big as saucers as he tossed the sheaf of papers into the wastebasket. “What are you doing?”

  “Putting it where it belongs.” He shook his head, his hands coming to rest on the edge of the desk. “You have no business case in that plan. All you have is fluffy, overinflated, feel-good market research that relies on your legacy to sell it. A fifty-million-dollar launch plan in which the linchpin for success turns on a celebrity endorsement program you don’t have a hope in hell of attaining.”

  Her chin lifted. “That is a brilliant launch plan, Nico. I have a master’s degree, in case you had forgotten. Maybe I should have been more detailed with the numbers—and I can be because I was focusing on the big picture—but the consumer testing has been off the charts for Vivre. One of the most important French perfumers in the industry thinks it’s inspired—as brilliant as anything my mother has done. This is the product that is going to prove Evolution is back this Christmas, not some generic all-natural skincare line you couldn’t distinguish from any of its competitors.”

  He surveyed her flushed, determined face. The passion that had been missing for months. “I am backing Emilio’s skincare line for the holiday push. I agree with the board.”

  Her jaw slackened. “That’s insane. This company was built on our signature perfumes. People are looking for an inspirational campaign from us. That’s what we do—we inspire.”

  “And you,” he pointed out, “delivered the product late. Even if I did approve the campaign, it’s the beginning of October. You’d never get it into market in time.”

  She faltered for the first time. Because he was right and she knew it. He was not, however, oblivious to the fact that Chloe was a genius. That she had her mother’s touch. That the success of Evolution rested on her shoulders as Juliette, her mother, had known it would. But sinking fifty million dollars into an impossible-to-execute holiday campaign would be foolhardy when the company desperately needed a Christmas hit.

  “Work with the sales and marketing team,” he said. “Show me the numbers. Lay the timeline out for me so I know it can work. And,” he qualified, “and this is a big but, the only way I’d ever green-light a launch plan like this is if you can s
upply the big-name celebrities you’ve earmarked up front. Which is very unlikely given the hit the brand has taken. So, consider a plan B.”

  “There is no plan B,” she said flatly. “I chose those celebrities because of their personal history. Because they embody the spirit of the perfumes. I created them with them in mind. If I can talk to them, if they can experience the fragrances, understand the message I’m trying to tell, I know I can convince them to do it.”

  He absorbed the energy that surrounded her. The unshakable belief in what she had created. And wondered if she realized the campaign was about her. About the battle she had always fought within herself to shine in the shadow of her charismatic mother and stunning sister.

  “Prove me wrong, then,” he challenged. “Give me what I’m asking for. But know this, Chloe. Your flashy degree is worth nothing in the real world until you prove you know how to use it. I can help you do that. Your father asked me to provide that mentorship to you. But I have better things to do than babysit you if you’re not willing to learn.”

  “Babysit?” The word dripped with scorn. “You’re not satisfied with ruling me financially? Now you need to master me professionally?”

  His mouth tightened. “That is exactly the kind of attitude I’m talking about. Every time I try to forge a working relationship between us, you shut me down. You’re mysteriously lost in the lab. You’re too busy to talk. That ends now.”

  “I don’t do that,” she rejected. “I’ve been extremely busy.”

  “Unfortunate for you tonight.” He rubbed a palm over his jaw. “Here’s how it’s going to work from here on out. I’ll give you the rest of the week to get settled in. To iron out your launch plan. You come back to me with the details and we decide how to move forward.

  “Second, we’ll start having regular morning meetings beginning next week. I can teach you the business end of things and we can check in with each other as needed. That’s what your father did with me. And,” he added, pausing for emphasis, “you will attempt to listen rather than fight with me at every turn.”

  A stony look back.

  “Finally,” he concluded, “we will begin building your profile with the press. The PR department is going to schedule a training session for you.”

  Her chin dipped. “I’m terrible with the media. I either clam up or say things I shouldn’t. Let Giorgio do it.”

  “Giorgio is not the future of this company. You are. You’ll learn to do better.”

  Resistance wrote itself in every line of her delicate body, her dark eyes shimmering with fire. “Are you done, then? With all your ground rules? Because I’m exhausted and I’d like to go home. The time difference is catching up with me.”

  “One more,” he said softly, eyes on hers. “I am your boss, Chloe. Hate me all you want in private, but in public you will show me the respect I’m due.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHLOE WAS STILL fuming over her encounter with Nico the next morning as she woke up to brilliant sunshine in her cozy townhouse on the Upper East Side. It was almost as if last night’s monsoon had never happened. Everything looking sparkly and brand-new on a crisp fall day that was perfection in Manhattan.

  A grimace twisted her mouth. Now if only she could say the same for her combative showdown with Nico.

  She slid out of bed, threw on a robe and made herself some coffee in an attempt to regain her equilibrium. Java in hand, she wandered to the French doors that looked out over the street and drank in the sleepy little neighborhood she now called home.

  A splendor of gold and rust, the vivid splash of color from the changing leaves of the stately old trees was the perfect contrast to the cream stuccoed townhouses that lined the street. She and Mireille had fallen in love with the neighborhood one Sunday afternoon on a walk through the village. Her father had bought them each a townhouse side by side, Chloe’s in anticipation of her return home to New York to take her place at Evolution, Mireille, while she studied public relations at school.

  We know you’re too independent to come home and live with us, her father had teased. But we want you close.

  A wave of bitter loneliness settled over her. She wrapped her arms around herself, coffee cup cradled against her chest. Usually she managed to keep the hollow emptiness at bay—burying herself in her lab until she crawled into bed at night. But this morning it seemed to throb from the inside out, scraping her raw.

  She missed her parents. So desperately much she had no idea how to even verbalize it. How to release the emotion that had been stuck inside her so long lest it swamp her so completely when she did, she would never emerge whole. Because her parents had been her glue, her innocence, the force that had shielded her from the world. And now that they were gone, she didn’t know how to restore the status quo. Didn’t know how to reset herself. Didn’t know how to feel anymore.

  She was scared to feel.

  Her mother had been her best friend. A bright, vivid star that bathed you in its warmth—their shared passion bonding them from their earliest days. Her father, the wisest, smartest man she’d ever known, with a heart so big it had seemed limitless. He would be furious if he saw her like this, because Nico was right—she had been hiding, from the world and from herself.

  She hugged her arms tighter around her chest as she watched the neighborhood stir to life. She needed to move on. Nico had also been right in that. Paris was no longer her life. New York was now. Assuming the role her mother had groomed her for, even if the thought of doing so without her was one she couldn’t even contemplate.

  Jagged glass lined her throat. Baby steps, she told herself, swallowing hard. She could do this. She just needed to take baby steps. And guard against her feelings for Nico while she did it because her instinctive response to him last night had revealed too much.

  She wasn’t a teenager anymore in the throes of a wicked crush, overwhelmed by a sexual attraction she’d had no hope of fighting. The connection she and Nico had shared hadn’t been special as she’d thought it had been. He’d killed any romantic illusions she’d had about him dead the night he’d slept with another woman and made it clear they were over.

  That she still found him compelling was an indication of her weakness when it came to him, one she needed to stamp out dead now that she was back in New York.

  Because like it or not, he was her boss. The man who could green-light or kill her dream. Either she could keep fighting that fact, fighting him as she had been for the past six months, or she could prove him wrong. And since launching Vivre in time for Christmas, preserving her legacy, was all that mattered, her decision was clear.

  Her first step was to dust herself off after her disastrous performance last night and make her first day back in New York a success.

  A determined fire lighting her blood, she dressed in her most stylish cherry-colored suit, walked to work amid the crisp autumn glory and spent the morning meeting with Giorgio about Vivre.

  She was excited to discover the splashy Christmas launch in Times Square she had planned was doable, but the tight deadlines to complete the advertising campaign made her head spin. It meant she would have to have her celebrities secured within the next week, their advertising spots filmed shortly thereafter, which might actually be impossible given how slow those things worked.

  But it was doable. She focused on that as she spent the rest of the day nailing down the details Nico had requested so he would have nothing to question when she presented him with the revised plan. Then she took Mireille out for dinner at Tempesta Di Fuoco, Stefan Bianco’s hot spot in Chelsea, as she turned her attention to her most pressing issue.

  Celebrities were her sister’s world. Socially connected in a way Chloe had never been with her sparkling, extroverted personality and undeniable beauty that mirrored their mother’s icy blonde looks, there were few people Mireille didn’t know in Manhattan.

  Her sister refused to talk business until they had exotic martinis sitting in front of them. “All right,” she said,
sitting back with her drink in hand. “Tell me about the campaign.”

  Chloe cradled her glass between her fingers. “It’s about an authentic beauty, as you know. About expressing your true colors. But we’re approaching it from a different point of view with each perfume. One, for example, is about moving past your physical limitations. Another about incorporating a difficult past as part of what makes you unique. Irreplaceable.”

  “I love it,” said Mireille, looking intrigued. “It’s brilliant. Give me your list.”

  Chloe took a deep breath. “Number one. Carrie Taylor.” The supermodel had made it big as a plus-size model and was gracing the cover of every magazine on the newsstands.

  Mireille cocked a brow. “You aren’t reaching high, are you?”

  “I told you I was. Second is Lashaunta.” A pop singer who had recently had a string of chart-topping records, she had forged a successful career despite a prominent scar on her face. Or perhaps because of it, as it gave her such a distinctive look.

  “Next?”

  “Desdemona Parker.” A world-class athlete, she’d made it to the top of her sport despite the inherited disease that had nearly ended her career. “And finally,” Chloe concluded, “Eddie Carello for our men’s fragrance.”

  Mireille blinked. “You’re kidding.”

  “He’s a survivor,” Chloe said quietly. “He grew up in the projects. He perfectly embodies the spirit of Soar.”

  Mireille let out a husky laugh. “I can see why Nico cut you down to size. He’s not wrong about the brand taking a hit. It isn’t going to be an easy sell. Do you have backups?”

  Chloe listed them. “But I need my A list. It’s Nico’s nonnegotiable.”

  Her sister pursed her lips. “I can help with Lashaunta and Carrie. You’re out of luck with Desdemona and Eddie, however. Eddie is near untouchable, he’s too hot right now. Desdemona, I have no connections to, and neither does anyone in our PR department. We’re not big in sports.”