Christmas at the Tycoon's Command

by Jennifer Hayward

  Where she’d been all long, slim limbs at eighteen, she had filled out in all the right places since. Not a teenager anymore. A beautiful, desirable woman he was sure some man had already discovered. If he’d been able to get past her mile-high walls. Why he hated that idea was frankly irrational.

  Irritated at his own weakness, he swept a towel across his face. Focused his anger on her instead as she wrapped a towel sarong-style around herself and sat opposite him on the marble bench.

  “You cost the company a thousand dollars today. You can’t just decide you’ve had enough and walk out. We made a deal, one you are going to stick to, or I swear I’ll pull the plug on your campaign.”

  She lifted her chin, eyes shimmering, dark pools of light. “I’m only one person, Nico. I’m spreading myself too thin. Something’s got to give.”

  “Stop micromanaging your team, then, and let them do their job.”

  “We wouldn’t have gotten Lashaunta’s spot filmed today without me.” She shifted on the bench, drawing his eye to a creamy stretch of undeniably luscious thigh.

  “I’m terrible at the media stuff,” she announced flatly. “I told you I would be. What’s the point?”

  He tore his gaze away from those delectable thighs. “You would be better at it if you knew your key messages. Have you even looked at them?”

  She stared at him, affronted. “Have they been giving you reports on me?”

  “I asked for one.”

  Hot color shaded her cheeks. “I fell asleep reading them last night.”

  “Because you were in the lab until ten o’clock.” He shook his head. “You are banned from the lab until you master this, Chloe. Not one step past that door.”

  A slight widening of her big brown eyes was her only reaction. She leaned her head back against the tile and eyed him. “John Chisolm told me this morning my father took a step back last year. That, in essence, you have been running Evolution ever since. What was he talking about?”

  Nico kept his face bland. “Your father decided it was time to enjoy life a bit more. He had me, so he could afford to do so.”

  “My father didn’t know the meaning of downtime,” Chloe countered. “Evolution was his passion. He always said he’d run it until either his mind or his body gave out.”

  Dannazione. He hated this. “Later life tends to give you perspective,” he murmured.

  Her gaze sharpened on him. “What is it you aren’t telling me?”

  “You’re reading too much into it,” he said flatly. He wiped another rivulet of sweat from his eyes. “What you might expend your energy on is convincing your uncle to put a muzzle on himself. All his smear campaign is doing is making him look like a fool while everyone who plays a role in the future of this company worries the internal politics will make us implode.”

  She was silent for a long moment. “Give me a reason to trust you,” she said quietly. “Because right now I feel like I am missing a piece of the puzzle and I don’t know what it is. If my father had you running the company, why didn’t he tell Giorgio that? Why not make it clear what the succession plan was? Why let it fester like this?”

  The thought that he should just tell her flashed through his head. Because what did it matter now? Martino was dead. Was keeping Chloe in the dark doing more harm than good? Except, he acknowledged, he’d given Martino his word not to say anything, and his word was his word. As for Giorgio? He’d soon hang himself on his own insurrection.

  He set his gaze on Chloe’s. “You know you can trust me. Have I ever broken a promise to you?”

  “Yes,” she whipped back, fire in her eyes. “The one where you promised to be there for me and then you weren’t.”

  * * *

  Oh, hell. Chloe bumped her head against the wall as if to knock some sense into herself. She’d sworn she wasn’t going there. Had promised herself she wasn’t going there. And then she had.

  Nico closed his eyes. Exhaled. “I have always been there for you,” he said finally, opening them again. “I started something I shouldn’t have that summer with you, Chloe. I was your father’s protégé, four years older than you, a lifetime at that age. We both knew it wasn’t going to end well. It was far too...complicated and you were far too vulnerable. You were looking for something I couldn’t give.”

  She blinked. Attempted to take in everything he’d just said. Everything she’d never been privy to because he’d never explained it to her.

  “I—I never asked you for anything,” she stammered. “I was eighteen, Nico. I just thought we had something good.”

  “You were infatuated with me,” he said matter-of-factly. “For me it was hormones. I wanted you, but I didn’t want the entanglements that came with it. You wanted everything—the moonlight, the candles, the romance. I couldn’t give you that. Better you go off and find a nice French boyfriend who could.”

  Instead, he’d kissed her to within an inch of her life, branded her with his touch as he’d made her come apart in his arms and then walked away, leaving that comparison to haunt her every time she’d kissed a man since. Because kissing Nico, experiencing the passion she had felt in his arms, had felt like a revelation.

  Her stomach twisted into a tight, hot knot. “So,” she said, eyes on his, “you slept with Angelique—why? Because you simply moved on?”

  “Because I thought it was the easiest way to drive home the point we were done.” He rubbed a palm against the stubble on his jaw. “Perhaps it wasn’t the right way to handle it, but I’m not sure anything else would have worked.”

  Because she’d pursued him afterward. Refused to take no for an answer.

  Humiliation flared through her, hot and deep. “You could have just explained it to me, Nico. I would have gotten it, I assure you. Because honestly,” she said with a shoulder shrug, pride driving her on, “I was simply looking to sample what you offer so freely to other women. That legendary expertise you’re known for. It would have been an excellent base to work from.”

  “You think so?” The low rumble in his voice should have been her first clue she’d crossed a line. Some invisible marker that tumbled them straight from a safe, combative place into entirely unknown territory. The incendiary glimmer in his eyes, glowing like the last banked embers of a fire, cemented it. “I think you have no idea what happens when you play with fire. Someone always gets burned, I can assure you. Which is why I walked away ten years ago. Because this is never happening between us.”

  Her heart felt as if it had fallen into a deep, dark pit with no bottom. Swallowing hard, she searched for air. Half of her wanted to know what it was like to walk into the fire—to get burned, because she’d never felt as alive as she’d felt in his arms that night. The other half wanted to run for safety—to retreat into the sheltered, familiar world she had always existed in.

  She felt shaky, unsure of everything in that moment. Nothing felt concrete anymore. Everything seemed to be mired in a gray haze she had no idea how to navigate.

  Not messing up this chance to prove herself Nico had given her seemed to be the only coherent thought she had.

  “Maybe your lesson in all this,” she said, fixing her gaze on his, “is that you don’t need to make decisions for me, Nico. I’m perfectly capable of making them myself. In fact,” she said quietly, “I wish I had.”

  She left then. Because it seemed the only rational thing to do.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  WHY HAD SHE agreed to this?

  Chloe paced her office twenty-four hours after her confrontation with Nico, the key messages she’d been attempting to inhale for her big interview circling her head like puzzle pieces that refused to form themselves into a coherent picture.

  The interview was tomorrow morning, looming like her worst nightmare. D-day. She knew how important it was. The feature piece for the fashion section of the most distinguished paper in the nation was an amazing opportunity to gain profile for Evolution at a time when the company desperately needed it. But if one more person atte
mpted to imprint that fact into her head, she was going to scream.

  She collapsed on her mother’s Louis XVI sofa and took a deep breath. She was being ridiculous. Of course she could do this. She just needed to get over the block in her head. She thought it might have something to do with the million things she wasn’t doing at the moment that needed to be done.

  Another thing she didn’t need appeared in the doorway of her office. Dressed in a dark gray suit, a lilac shirt and an eggplant tie that enhanced his swarthy coloring, Nico looked disgustingly energized at seven o’clock in the evening. As if he could take on another full day with one hand tied behind his back. A bit dazzling.

  She cursed her ever-present awareness of him. She’d been doing so well keeping their relationship on a business footing, but that confrontation in the spa had ignited something between them she couldn’t seem to turn off.

  “I’m studying,” she grumbled, waving the papers in front of her at him. “No need to lecture.”

  “You look exhausted,” he said bluntly. “I heard the session today didn’t go great.”

  “Nope. No surprises there.” She sat back against the sofa and exhaled a long sigh. “I have no idea why I’m so blocked. I can’t seem to articulate myself the way I want to.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “Then we’ll work through it together.”

  She sat up straight. Eyed him warily. Nico and his overbearing tactics were the last thing she needed right now.

  “I can handle this myself.”

  “You could,” he conceded. “But I can help. I’ve done a million of these interviews.”

  With effortless, supreme confidence, she assumed, watching helplessly as he shrugged off his jacket, slung it over the back of a chair and walked to the bar, where he pulled a bottle of wine from the rack and set out two glasses.

  “That is not going to help.”

  He ignored her and opened the wine. “You need to relax. You’re so far in your head right now you can’t see the forest from the trees.”

  Likely true. Although she wished she could attain some kind of clarity when it came to him. Figure out what he was keeping from her. She’d talked to Mireille about their father’s supposed step back. It might have been true, Mireille had conceded, that their father had taken a bit of a foot off the gas over the past year, but he had been sixty-two. Would it really have been so unexpected for him to want to take a break?

  No, but why, then, wouldn’t he have simply communicated that to Giorgio? She’d spoken to her uncle, who’d insisted his version of events was true. When she’d voiced her apprehension his campaign to discredit Nico would destabilize Evolution, it had been like talking to a brick wall. Which did worry her. She had no idea what he was up to—and that couldn’t be good.

  Another issue she couldn’t tackle right now. Nico carried the wine and glasses over to the sofa and sat down beside her. All of a sudden, the delicate piece of furniture seemed so much smaller with him in it. Long legs sprawled in front of him, wineglass in hand, his shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal corded, muscular forearms, he was impossible to ignore.

  She’d tried to convince herself that Gerald, the handsome Frenchman she’d dated for a few months, had been just as attractive. But that had been wishful thinking. Nico had a hint of the street in him beneath that outward elegance he’d cultivated. The rough set of cards life had dealt him, according to her father. It made him intimidating, fascinating, dangerous in a way Gerald could never hope to emulate.

  He eyed her. “So what exactly,” he asked, pointing his wineglass at her, “is it that you are struggling with?”

  “The big-picture questions. My creative vision... I have no idea how to explain it.” She waved a hand at him. “Everyone thinks it’s this mystical thing that involves divine inspiration, when in reality, it’s like a puzzle I have to solve. A painting I need to layer bit by bit. It’s different for each individual scent I develop depending on whom I’m creating it for.”

  He considered that for a moment. “Maybe you need to use some of your mother’s techniques.”

  “Like what?”

  “She would use the interviewer as an example, for instance. Pretend she was creating a scent for him or her. It was a brilliant technique—got the journalist very involved in the process. They were fascinated by it.”

  “Which is fine if you can think on the spot like my mother could.” Chloe pursed her lips. “It takes me months, years, to come up with a fragrance.”

  “But you must have some sense when you meet someone what will suit them. What do you do when you design custom fragrances?”

  She thought about it for a moment. “I do an interview of sorts, a history taking if you like, to get a sense of who the person is. Their past, present, what they like, dislike. It would give me an initial idea of what kinds of scents they would prefer, but it wouldn’t direct me, if you know what I mean. Someone can say to me they like beachy, breezy fragrances, but that might not be what suits them at all. Or what they’re really asking for.”

  He took a sip of his wine. Swirled the ruby-red liquid in his glass. “Try it with me, then. You’ve never designed a fragrance for me. I would be the perfect test case.”

  She gave him a wary look. “Right now?”

  “Why not?” His eyes held the spark of a challenge. “It would be the perfect test run. I know you can do this, Chloe. Stop censoring yourself and let your instincts take over.”

  She thought censoring herself was exactly what she should be doing when it came to him. But she had never been one to back down from a challenge.

  “Fine,” she agreed. “But I need a prop.”

  * * *

  Nico eyed Chloe as she sat down on the sofa with a testing tray in her hands. He was capable of keeping his hands off her, that he knew, but her putting her hands on him? That might be a different story. That had been where all their issues had begun in the first place.

  He lifted a brow. “Are you planning on putting those on me?”

  “No.” She observed the skeptical note in his voice. “That would be counterproductive. Everything would blend into one another. I’ll put them on scent strips and have you give your impression. It won’t be the full test I’d do if I was creating a perfume for someone, but it will give you an idea of the process.”

  “Bene.” He settled back against the sofa, wineglass in hand. She plucked the glass from his fingers and set it on the table.

  “The red wine will throw your sense of smell off.”

  “Right.” He studied the focus on her intent, serious face. Found it more than a bit sexy. “Do we start with the interview, then?”

  “I’m going to skip it because I know you. We’ll start with the scent test instead. I can fill the rest in myself.”

  He opened his hands wide. “I’m all yours.”

  A flush stained her olive cheeks at the unintended innuendo. He stared at it, fascinated. When was the last time he’d seen a woman do that? Chloe had an innocence, a transparency about her that had always amazed him—as if she had been poured straight from the source, uncontaminated by life. Which, he conceded, was pretty much the case.

  Was that what had always drawn him to her? Because it was exotic to him, compelling? Because it seemed to rub off on everyone who came into contact with her, reminding them of an innocence, a goodness, that still existed in the world? Or was it just because he’d always wanted what he couldn’t have?

  She dabbed two feather-shaped scent strips with a unique essence from the glass bottles. “Think of it as a blind taste test,” she instructed, handing them to him. “Except you’re smelling instead. This is you picking your favorite scents in a process of elimination that will help me choose the top, middle and base notes of the fragrance.”

  “So you’re not going to tell me what they are?”

  “No. Take one in either hand,” she directed. “When you smell the one on your left, it’s going to be clean and woodsy, with a hint of warmth to it. When you
switch to the other, you will smell something deeper, less clean. Tobacco and spice dominate. Now you come back to the initial scent, it’s crisp and clean, airy, not as warm as it was before. Then you go back to the second. There’s tobacco and spice, a boldness, a complexity to it. A sensuality.”

  He brought the first scent strip to his nose, fascinated to find the experience exactly as she had described—the first light and less complex, the second rich and seductive.

  “Close your eyes,” Chloe encouraged. “Give yourself over to it. Let yourself be hedonistic, fully aware of your senses. Scent is intimate,” she murmured. “Intensely personal. React to it. Let it tell you where you want to go.”

  Nico closed his eyes. Listened to her talk him through each pair. Found himself utterly distracted by the passion with which she approached her calling. How sensual an experience it actually was.

  On they went, bouncing back and forth. Him choosing his favorite and giving his gut reaction, Chloe making notes.

  The slide of her fingertips against his, the sensual lilt to her voice, the accidental brush of the soft curve of her breast against his arm were the most potent aphrodisiacs he’d ever encountered. It turned him hard as stone.

  Not his brightest idea.

  “And these two?” she prompted.

  “The one on the left,” he murmured, “reminds me of the cottage we used to go to in Maine as kids. The ocean.”

  She nodded. “That’s called a scent imprint. A memory associated with a scent. We all have them. They’re very specific to us personally. Good. And the other?”

  “Warmer. Intense, illusive. It smells like—” Her. Like the fragrance she’d always worn. Except on Chloe it was exotic and intoxicating, the way it came off the heat of her skin. “Summer,” he finished lamely.

  She handed him two more strips. “And these?”

  “Tropical,” he said of the first one. “Sweet. Rich.”

  “And the next?”