Christmas at the Tycoon's Command

by Jennifer Hayward

  He shook his head. “Your father knew how badly Giorgio wanted to run Evolution. That it was going to be a blow that he hadn’t chosen him. He was going to tell him at the right time. Position it the right way.”

  “Instead, he died, leaving Giorgio furious with you and confused about why my father did what he did. A rogue element.”

  “Yes.”

  And he, because he was rock-solid Nico, impenetrable in a storm, had taken everything she and Giorgio had thrown at him because he was uncompromising when it came to his sense of honor to those he was indebted to. And he was indebted to her father. He had given Nico a second lease on life, and he would never forget it. Nor would he break his promises when it came to her.

  Once again, her choices were being taken away from her.

  She pressed her palms to her temples, her brain too full to think. Except for the one thing in her head that was crystal clear. “Can we just establish one point?” she murmured, echoing his words from the night before. “I am not too vulnerable to handle what happened between us last night. And I don’t need you taking care of me, so you can absolve yourself of that responsibility, too, along with your propensity to make decisions for me. I no longer require it.”

  “Chloe—”

  Numb, furious, she turned and headed for the stairs to the beach.

  “Where are you going?” he fired after her.

  “For a walk. I’m too angry with you right now to be in your presence.”

  She flew down the stairs. Kicked off her shoes and started walking, the sand still warm beneath her feet, the sun a kaleidoscope of shattered gold on the horizon.

  Anger flared inside her, hot and wild, as she walked, toes sinking into the sand. At her father for keeping the truth from her. For taking away her chance to spend that time with him and her mother. For taking away any chance she might have had with Nico. At Nico for not telling her the truth.

  Hot tears filled her eyes, blurred her vision. She sank down on the concrete break wall and covered her face with her hands. She wasn’t ever going to get a chance to say goodbye...to tell her parents how much they’d meant to her. That phone call in Paris on her way home from work, the one that had seemed far too surreal, far too unfair, far too sudden, had been it.

  A tear slipped down her cheek. Then another, until they were a steady stream of hot warmth, the salt staining her lips. And once started, she couldn’t stop, all of the emotion she’d had locked up inside her escaping on a wave of despair, until her sobs robbed her of her breath, shattered her from the inside out, the pain in her chest nothing compared with the one in her heart.

  * * *

  Nico told himself to leave Chloe alone. That this had been a long time coming. That the wise, rational course of action would be for him to give her the space she’d asked for—to allow her to get it all out without complicating things further with an even deeper emotional attachment to a woman he couldn’t have. But he couldn’t seem to do it, her raw sobs squeezing tight fingers around his heart.

  He took a seat beside her on the wall, picked her up and pulled her onto his lap, cradling her against his chest. She stiffened, as if she might resist, then another sob racked through her and she melted into him, her tears soaking his T-shirt.

  He smoothed a hand down her back and murmured words of comfort against her silky hair. Long minutes passed, until finally her sobs turned into hiccuping big breaths and she went quiet against him.

  The rhythmic sound of the rolling surf stretched between them, the sun a fiery, yellow ball as it sank into the sea.

  “I want them back,” she murmured against his chest. “I miss them every day.”

  A strange ache unearthed itself behind his rib cage. “I know,” he said softly, tucking a stray strand of her hair behind her ear. “I do, too. But you have to let them go. And when you do,” he promised, pressing a hand against her chest, “you’ll find they’re here.”

  She looked up at him, eyes twin glimmering mahogany pools. “Is your father there? For you?”

  He nodded. “The man he was. Not the man he became.”

  Her gaze darkened. “I’m glad.” She exhaled a long breath. Swiped the tears from her cheeks. “I guess it’s just frightening, you know? They were always there for me when life got bumpy. A phone call away. My safety net.”

  “You don’t need it,” he said softly, eyes on hers. “You’ve got this, Chloe. You’re proving it.”

  She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. Something unfurled beneath his skin. A need to comfort, to soothe, to touch. To protect her as had always been his urge. To take her amazing mouth with his and make everything better. But a stronger part of him knew it for the mistake it would be. That one more taste of her would be his undoing.

  He wasn’t hiding from his feelings for her—he simply knew his capabilities. He didn’t have the capacity to take on another person’s happiness, had had enough of that for a lifetime.

  “Nico—” She reached up and smoothed her fingers over his jaw, her brown eyes luminous.

  He caught her fingers in his. “Dinner’s ready,” he murmured. “I think we should go up.”

  Her mouth firmed, eyes cooling. Sliding off his lap, she brushed the sand from her dress. Set off up the stairs to the house, without looking back at him, her spine ramrod straight.

  Bene. They were back to her hating him. Him knowing it was the better way. At least it was a status quo he knew and understood.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHLOE SPENT THE week back at work doing her best to focus on the frantic preparations for the Vivre launch rather than her roller-coaster weekend in Palm Beach with Nico. But she found it almost impossible to do so.

  Knowing why her father had done what he had done had made everything seem more confusing rather than less, because that meant Nico was the honorable man she’d always thought him to be. It meant she’d been wrong about everything when it came to him, not helpful when he’d taken any chance of them happening off the table.

  She couldn’t change the fact that she’d been wrong about so many things, nor could she do anything about Nico’s overinflated sense of honor she loved and hated at the same time. About the fact that he had distanced himself from her ever since Palm Beach. What she could do was make sure Vivre took the world by storm, to fly as her father had wanted her to do.

  With her campaign set to go live in just a couple of weeks on November 15, everything was falling into dizzying place. She’d travel to Europe to meet with the regional teams next week to put the final pieces in place for the launches in London and Paris. Then she’d come back to New York to launch the campaign at the Evolution Christmas party, with Be on sale to the public the day after, in a splashy launch with Lashaunta.

  They were operating on the razor’s edge, but they were pulling it off.

  She gave her phone a cursory glance as she waited in line for her midmorning latte. Almost dropped her purse at the photo that came up in her news feed.

  Juggling her bag and phone in one hand, she scrambled for money with the other, found some dollar bills and shoved them at the barista. Stepping to the side to wait, she scanned the cutline of the photo of Eddie Carello and his current girlfriend emblazoned across the front page of a popular gossip site.

  Eddie Carello Enjoys

  Wild Night in the Bahamas!

  Things got a bit out of hand on the weekend at a luxury hotel in Nassau, where Hollywood heartthrob Eddie Carello was enjoying a wild post-concert party.

  A hotel suite was allegedly trashed during the incident, which apparently caught Carello in flagrante delicto amid a supposed ménage à trois with girlfriend Camille Hayes and a waitress from the hotel.

  The ruckus began when guests complained about the noise levels in the hotel and staff were dispersed to handle the complaint.

  When asked about the incident, Carello’s spokesperson replied that “the whole thing has been overblown and people shouldn’t believe everything they hear.”

  Meanw
hile, Hollywood’s hottest star seems to have upped his outrageous antics in advance of his new movie, Score, giving everyone something to talk about around the water cooler this morning.

  Nooo.

  Chloe clutched her phone in one hand, latte in the other and hoofed it back to work. She was out of breath by the time she reached Mireille’s office. Her sister, who was on the phone, gestured her into the seat opposite her. Chloe threw her phone on Mireille’s desk and collapsed into the chair, attempting not to panic.

  Her sister finished the call. Picked up Chloe’s phone and scanned the story. Started to laugh. “Well, you knew,” she drawled, “he wasn’t lily-white. But that was the attraction, right? He’s a rebel—the new James Dean. A perfect fit for Soar.”

  “Yes, but—” Chloe gestured at the phone “—isn’t this bad PR?”

  “PR is rarely bad.” Mireille sat back in her chair and crossed one elegant leg over the other. “If anything, this is going to make him a hotter property. I wouldn’t be surprised if they manufactured this for the buzz. Although,” she conceded, “he doesn’t need it.”

  “I don’t want him doing things like this,” Chloe said worriedly. “He was fine the way he was.”

  Mireille lifted a shoulder. “Not much you can do about it. If you had a major sponsorship that he was riding on, you might have something to say about it. But in your case, he’s doing you a favor. Sit tight,” she advised, “let it burn itself out. The news will be on to something else by the weekend.”

  Since Mireille was the expert, and she knew nothing about these things, Chloe took a deep breath and sat back in her chair. “Okay.”

  Mireille fixed her with a speculative look. “Any reason Nico bit your head off in the meeting this morning?”

  Chloe, who’d planned on keeping her mouth shut about the whole thing, found her cheeks heating. “I kissed him.”

  Mireille sat up in her chair, eyes wide. “I’m sorry. Can you repeat that?”

  She bit her lip. “I kissed Nico...in Palm Beach.”

  Her sister stared at her. “Forgive me. I’m still stuck at the part where you just said you kissed your boss.”

  Chloe scowled. “You are not being helpful.”

  Mireille smiled. “Oh, come on, Chloe, it’s about time. In fact, I’m not sure how it hasn’t happened sooner. You two have had a thing for each other as long as I can remember. Santo and I always joke about it.”

  Chloe gave her a horrified look. “You and Santo joke about it?”

  Mireille waved a hand at her. “Why the long face, then? What happened?”

  Her lashes lowered. “He told me it was a mistake. That it never should have happened.”

  “Because you are his responsibility. Because he’s Nico.” Her sister shrugged. “Nico was never going to be a forever kind of guy, you knew that. He’s a night-to-remember guy. If you’re suicidal enough to want that after everything he did to you, seduce him again and do it right this time. Or find someone else to get over him with.”

  She didn’t want anyone else. That was her problem. She never had.

  The passion she and Nico had shared that night flickered through her head—an intoxicating, irresistible memory that refused to be extinguished. A surge of determination coursed through her. Maybe she was done letting everyone else make her decisions for her. Maybe it was time for her to convince Nico this was her decision to make.

  * * *

  Nico waited until he and Jerry Schumacher, the most senior member of Evolution’s board, had finished an excellent dinner at Jerry’s favorite Manhattan steakhouse, including a superior bottle of amarone, before he broached the subject of the current thorn in his side.

  “Giorgio Russo,” he said bluntly. “How big of a problem is he?”

  Jerry sat back in his leather chair and swirled the dark red wine in his glass. “There are a few board members who have always been sympathetic to him. Maybe he’s picked up another couple of late with his campaign. But your support is solid, Nico. Deliver a good Christmas and you’ll silence him.”

  He slid a file across the table to Nico. “The names you asked for.”

  Nico slid the folder into his briefcase. “Grazie. I owe you one.” He took a deep sip of his wine. Contemplated Jerry as he set the glass down. “Christmas will be good. We are going big with Vivre—a fifty-million-dollar launch with the A-list celebrities Chloe presented at the meeting. It’s going to put Evolution back on the map.”

  A smile twisted Jerry’s mouth. “You never were the faint-hearted type, were you? A chip off the old block.”

  Nico inclined his head. Refused to reveal how the comparison burrowed under his skin. Jerry had known his father during his Wall Street days when Leone Di Fiore had been known for his big, risky deals—suicidal, some had liked to call them. But he’d always pulled them off. Until he hadn’t with the most important one of them all—the one he’d gambled his life savings on.

  “The signature fragrances are what the company was built around,” Nico pointed out. “They’re what’s going to bring the company back to life.”

  A rueful look painted itself across Jerry’s face. “My wife sure as hell is a zealot. She’s mad about that damn perfume. What is it...Live?”

  “Be,” Nico corrected.

  “Be, right.” Jerry frowned, his bushy, white brows drawing together. “Wasn’t one of Chloe’s celebrities that Eddie character? The Hollywood guy?”

  Nico’s lips curved. “Yes. He has a big movie coming out in December. Perfect for the launch.”

  Jerry reached down and scavenged around in his briefcase. Pulled out a newspaper. A tabloid, Nico noted as Jerry handed it to him.

  “You buy this stuff?”

  The retired CEO gave him a sheepish look. “My wife. She made me promise to bring it home. Apparently, it was all over the radio this morning.”

  Nico scanned the story on Eddie Carello and his wild threesome in Nassau. He would have been amused by the actor’s exploits if he wasn’t the cornerstone of his fifty-million-dollar Vivre ad campaign. It was a sensational piece, no doubt about it. Who knew how much of it was true? But he’d seen enough Hollywood stars implode under their own egos that it worried him.

  “It will sell lots of perfume,” he said to Jerry.

  He headed back to the office after he’d dropped Jerry at home. Sought out Giorgio, who was still working. The older man greeted him with his usual lazily satisfied attitude until Nico flipped open the file Jerry had given him and listed off the names of the board members Giorgio had been courting. When Giorgio sputtered and attempted to defend himself, Nico closed the folder and slid it back into his briefcase.

  “Food for thought,” he told the arrogant, egocentric fool, “while you consider your future within the company. Because one more errant move on your part and you’ll be out of a job.”

  Leaving him to scramble in a web of his own making, Nico sought out his second, perhaps bigger problem.

  Chloe wasn’t in the lab when he checked there, the one other person who was telling him she was up in the lounge, screening her promotional spots.

  He found her curled up on the sofa in the lounge, watching Eddie’s commercial, a pizza box and an assortment of soda cans in front of her. Dressed in black leggings and a figure-hugging sweater, the high boots she’d been wearing kicked off, her hair loose around her shoulders, she looked sexy and takeable.

  His inability to forget that hot encounter by the pool appeared to be his third problem.

  She eyed him. Sat up straight, picked up the remote control and put the video on pause.

  “I just informed your uncle I will fire him if he doesn’t cease his smear campaign.”

  Her eyes widened. “You can’t fire him. He owns part of the company.”

  “Your father gave me the green light to do so.”

  She was silent for a moment, eyes on his. “He loves Evolution, Nico. Tell him the truth.”

  “He’ll find another reason to perpetuate his antics. He
has a choice. He can make it.” He threw the tabloid he’d purchased on the coffee table. “That discussion is closed. This one, however, is a problem.”

  She glanced at the tabloid. Back at him. “I talked to Mireille. She says there’s no reason to panic. That, if anything, this will amplify the buzz around Eddie. Make him even more popular.”

  “Maybe so,” he agreed. “But this is a fifty-million-dollar ad campaign, Chloe. We have staked the future of the company on it. Eddie Carello is a loose cannon...a wild card. What if his behavior amplifies instead of de-escalates?”

  “It will die down,” she insisted. “Mireille thinks it’s even possible his handlers manufactured this as movie publicity.”

  “Not something I want to gamble the Evolution brand on.” He blew out a breath. Shoved his hands in his pockets. “I think we should cut him. The other three can carry the campaign.”

  Chloe gaped at him. Rolled to her feet and came to stand in front of him. “We can’t throw Eddie away. He’s the anchor of the campaign, Nico—marketing gold. He is going to make the Evolution brand relevant again.”

  “He’s too much of a risk,” he countered flatly. “Remember when I said not one thing can go wrong with this campaign? I meant not one thing, Chloe. This is asking for trouble.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re overreacting.”

  “I am not overreacting. There are no second chances with this. This campaign goes south, so does the company. It’s that simple.”

  “I know that.” Fire flared in her eyes. “I had the same reaction as you when I walked in today. Then Mireille set me straight. You are the one who has been telling me I need to listen to the experts. To lean on my team when I need to. To learn from them. Well, I have, and Mireille is telling me it’s fine, so it’s fine.”

  He closed his eyes. She pressed the advantage. “The others can’t carry Soar. It’s a men’s fragrance. Eddie needs to. He is Soar.”

  He bit back the response that came to his lips. To order her to cut Eddie, because that was what he would have done. He had counseled her to consult the experts. Which she had, and Mireille, whom he trusted, had weighed in. So how could he turn around and veto them both?