Emerging from a sex-induced haze what felt like hours later, he took her to bed and made love to her again. When he couldn’t sleep, his internal clock messed up from the travel, or perhaps from the intensity of the emotion chasing through him, he left Chloe curled up in bed, went into the living room and poured himself a glass of water.
He carried it into the living room. Sat staring at an always-on Manhattan spread out before him.
He’d told himself he was walking into this thing with Chloe to burn out the attraction between them, when in reality what he’d really wanted was her. A no-strings-attached affair had been a convenient excuse to avoid admitting how he really felt about her. That she’d always made him want more. Made him want to be more, and he wasn’t sure he could be that.
He cared about Chloe—deeply if he were to be honest. But even if he’d always suspected she might be the one, offering her the love she needed wasn’t a place he was ever going to let himself go. He’d severed that piece of himself the day his life as he’d known it had imploded. Had told himself he needed no one because he’d had to—it was the only way he’d known how to exist.
He took a sip of the water. Tipped his head back as the cool liquid slid down his throat. What would happen when Chloe began to hate him for what he couldn’t give her? Because it would happen eventually. People changed, emotions changed, and that was when it all fell apart. He knew it as surely as the sun would rise tomorrow.
Martino’s voice from that Fourth of July night floated through his head, his raspy Italian lilt as clear as if it had been yesterday.
You need to make a choice, Nico. Decide whether you can give her what she needs or walk away.
Hearing the words now, filtered through a decade’s worth of perspective, gave them a different cast. He had assumed Martino had been telling him to walk away, when what he realized now he’d been telling him was that he had a choice—he could decide he could be more, or he could remain the closed-off, hardened man he’d become.
Life was about choices.
How would he even know if he was capable of being what Chloe needed if he didn’t try? Would he forgive himself if he didn’t and let her go, only for some other man to offer her what he couldn’t? He didn’t think he would. Not now.
He sat there for a long time, his head too full to think. The only thing he was sure of was that Santo had been right. Either he committed to Chloe or he walked away. There was no in between.
* * *
Bright sunlight filtering through a crack in the blinds woke Chloe. She was alone in bed, the sound of water running in the en suite bathroom indicating Nico had risen before her. The man didn’t sleep, she marveled, sinking back into the pillows to recall the utterly perfect evening of the night before.
She’d had so much fun showing off Vivre to Hollywood. A custom perfume for an A-list actress. It was a coup worthy of her mother. Topped off by an utterly unforgettable, passionate night with Nico.
Her good mood persisted as she slid out of bed, intent on joining him in the shower because that was the way she liked best to wake up. She was almost across the room when her phone rang. Mireille, from the distinctive ringtone she reserved exclusively for her sister.
She frowned. Mireille was decidedly not a morning person. Maybe she’d seen all the social media coverage from last night and had called to congratulate her on a successful evening. Backtracking, she plucked the phone off the nightstand and took the call. “You’re up early.”
“Chloe.” Her sister’s voice was eerily calm. “You and Nico need to meet my team at the office as soon as you can get in.”
Her fingers tightened around the phone. “Why?”
“Eddie got into a fight with Camille last night. A big blowup at Gianni’s. Club security had to intervene. Also,” her sister added, a grim note to her voice, “he said some very derogatory things about women someone caught on video. It’s all over the internet.”
Nooo. Cold fingers clamped down on her spine. The entire Vivre campaign was built around the empowerment of women.
“How bad is it?”
“Bad, Chloe. You need to get in here.”
She sucked in air, her breath a sharp blade in her chest. Exhaled. Panic was not going to help. “We’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
Nico walked out of the bathroom, his brow furrowed. “What was that?”
She pushed a chunk of hair out of her face. Took another deep breath, but it seemed impossible to get the words out of her mouth. Because Nico had warned her about Eddie. He had wanted to cut him. And now, a week before Christmas, the most important sales week of the year, they had a disaster on their hands.
Nico tossed the shirt he was carrying on the bed, walked over to her and tipped her chin up with his fingers. “What’s going on?”
She swallowed past the tightness constricting her throat. “It’s Eddie. He went off the rails again last night. There was a fight with Camille at Gianni’s...club security had to intervene. He also,” she added, her gaze falling away from his, “said some awful things about women someone caught on video. It’s all over the internet.”
Nico uttered a filthy word she’d never heard him use before, his hands falling away from her face. Heart slamming against her ribs, she risked a look up at him, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was in full damage-control mode.
“Get dressed,” he said curtly. “Was that Mireille on the phone?”
“Yes.” Her voice steadied in the face of his fury. “They’re waiting for us at the office.”
“Good.” He ripped the towel off his hips and started to dress. She stood there, frozen.
“Nico, I’m sorry. This is—This was my fault.”
He spared her a quick glance. “It doesn’t matter whose fault it is. We need to fix it.”
* * *
Mireille and the PR team were waiting in Nico’s office when he and Chloe arrived thirty minutes later.
Mireille, always cool and composed, was ashen-faced. “I’m sorry. This was my call.”
Nico waved the apology off. “It was a collective decision. I could have cut him.” Pouring himself a cup of coffee, he took a seat at the conference table, a move Chloe mimicked. “What’s the game plan?”
Cara Cioni, Mireille’s boss, who had two decades of experience managing crises for a major auto manufacturer, got up and went to the whiteboard. “First,” she said, “we cut Eddie loose. Void the contract using the morality clause. But,” she added, a frown pulling at her brow, “we have to be very careful with this. He’s the most powerful man in Hollywood. It needs to be finessed.”
“Bene,” said Nico. “How do we communicate this?”
“A short statement to the press within the next twenty-four hours announcing the split. Reinforcing Evolution’s historic commitment to women. I would say today, ideally, for the statement, but that may be unrealistic. Legal will want to go through it with a fine-toothed comb. Tomorrow morning, latest.”
Nico nodded. “What about the ad campaign? We’re going to need to pull it.”
Giorgio, who looked remarkably unruffled, spoke up. “Online is no problem—we can cut it immediately. TV is the issue. It will take forty-eight hours to get the ad off the air.”
During which time Evolution and Eddie would be inextricably linked in consumers’ minds. Tension knotted Nico’s stomach as he realized this wasn’t going to be as simple as distancing the company from the actor with a quick statement. It was going to be far messier than that.
“Give me the names of the presidents of the networks if you have to,” he bit out, fixing the older man with a stare. “I’ll call them myself. I want that ad off the air, Giorgio. Now.”
“That will distance us from Eddie,” Chloe broke in, “which we clearly want to do because the entire Vivre campaign is all about empowerment, and since three of our spokespeople are women, it’s more about female empowerment than anything.”
“Yes,” said Cara. “Exactly. Soar might be in trouble, but we wa
nt to protect the other three fragrances and the investment we’ve made in them. The brand.”
A look of dismay crossed Chloe’s face. Nico knew what she was thinking. Soar was her baby. Yet it was now synonymous with Eddie because she’d said publicly the actor had been the inspiration for it, a strategy that might cost her the fragrance.
He pushed on because sacrifices would have to be made. “What about Evolution’s reputation when it comes to women?” he asked Cara. “How do we reinforce that?”
“We need to make a gesture of some sort. Underscore the commitment we’ve always had. But it can’t be self-serving—it has to be genuine.”
Nico raked a hand through his hair. “What about a philanthropic program for women? I’d been thinking we should build something off Vivre—use Lashaunta or Desdemona to kick it off.”
“That’s a great idea,” Cara acknowledged, “if they aren’t poised to drop us. It’s a real possibility they could. Which is our next point of consideration,” she said, eyeing Chloe and Mireille. “We need to get on the phone to them now. Reinforce everything we stand for. Make sure they don’t jump ship.”
They both nodded. “We can run the philanthropic idea past them while we do it,” said Chloe.
Cara turned to Nico. “This would not be cheap. We’re talking millions. Are you prepared to invest in a program like this on a yearly basis?”
Nico looked grim. “We’ve staked the future of the company on Vivre. There’s no turning back now.”
* * *
Nico spent the day doing damage control with the PR team to prevent Evolution from being caught up in the public outcry that ensued over Eddie’s vitriolic outburst about women that had been carried to every home in America via the amateur video it had been taken on.
Not only had the actor labeled his girlfriend, Camille, a pointless piece of trash, he’d dubbed women in general an inferior species that are more trouble than they’re worth. Not to mention the punch he had allegedly thrown at his girlfriend, which, thankfully, in his drunken state, had missed.
With Evolution’s public statement about the incident in legal review for distribution to the press first thing the next morning, Nico inhaled the key messages the PR team had developed for him in preparation for the press interviews that would come. But by early evening, a Boycott Evolution hashtag had appeared on Twitter, social media was ablaze with ironic amateur videos of Eddie’s commercial spot edited to include his inflammatory comments about women and Nico was fighting the biggest crisis of his career.
By the time he made it back to the office after a dinner he’d been scheduled to attend, he was annihilated. Throwing his jacket over the back of a chair, he went to the bar to pour himself a drink. Froze with his fingers on the cap of the bottle of Scotch. Alcohol, thank goodness, had never been a problem for him like it had been for his father. But that had been before he’d drunk a good portion of a bottle of whiskey and given in to his craving for Chloe and put this disaster into motion. Because wasn’t that exactly what had happened?
Pulling a bottle of spring water out of the fridge, he grimly poured himself a glass. He had known he should cut Eddie. But he had bet the bank on Chloe and her Vivre launch—on a suicidally risky campaign that would either revive the company or sink it, and he’d needed Eddie as the cornerstone of it.
The problem was, he wasn’t impartial to Chloe. Never had been. While he’d been making fifty-million-dollar decisions that affected the fate of the company, he’d been imagining what it would be like to bed her. Last night, when all hell had been breaking loose, he’d been buried inside her—putting the promises he’d made—Evolution itself—in jeopardy. Because his head hadn’t been in the game, it had been on her.
He swore under his breath. Braced his palms on the bar. Clearly he was his father’s son after all, because it was apparent he couldn’t juggle his personal and professional life any better than his father had. Over what? Over a relationship he had a questionable ability to fulfill?
He’d seen the look in Chloe’s eyes last night. She was in love with him. He had chosen to ignore it because as strongly as he felt about her, he wasn’t there. He might never be there.
A cold knot tightened in his gut, the pressure that had been building in his head all day throbbing at his temples until he felt as if his head might explode. Had he not watched his father unravel himself over a woman, putting all he’d built into jeopardy? What the hell was he doing playing at something with Chloe he could never follow through on?
A part of him wanted to be that man. To be everything for her. But in reality, he knew how to do only one thing, and that was how to keep the boat afloat. To make this company prosper. And right now, he wasn’t even doing a good job of that.
How the hell was he supposed to pull this out of the fire?
* * *
Chloe stood in the doorway of Nico’s office, her stomach churning. It had been that way ever since she’d gotten the phone call from Mireille, but now it was worse because Nico had been freezing her out every time she’d been in the same room with him, and now she had to deliver more damaging news.
She took a deep breath and crossed to the window where he stood. He turned, as if sensing her presence, the look on his face as remote as it had ever been.
“I have an update on our celebrities.”
He inclined his head for her to go on.
“Lashaunta,” she said, “thankfully, seems unfazed. Which is a huge relief, because she can carry this for us. And she loves the philanthropy program. She’s in, if it fits with her recording schedule.
“Desdemona,” she continued, “worries me. She was very edgy on the phone, but when I explained the women’s initiative to her, she said she’d consider it if we get the Eddie situation under control.”
“That’s positive.”
“Yes.” She bit her lip. Forced herself to deliver the bad news. “Estelle is out. Her agent wants nothing to do with it.”
He looked remarkably calm. “If one jumps ship,” he observed, “another could follow suit when they get wind of it. We need to work fast, ensure that doesn’t happen.”
“I told Lashaunta and Desdemona we’d get them details on the philanthropy program by the end of the week.”
He nodded. “You and Cara can spearhead it together. Let me know what I need to know.”
She inclined her head. “How was your dinner? Did you get any questions?”
“A few, but Cara had me prepped.” His gaze slid over her face. “Have you eaten anything today? You look pale.”
“No—I’m not hungry.” Needing his reassurance, his comfort right now, she lifted a hand to brush her fingers across his jaw. “I know you’re angry with me and I understand why, but you can’t freeze me out like this.”
He caught her hand in his and brought it down to her side. “I’m not angry, Chloe. I’m focused. Go home, get some sleep. I’m going to stay here tonight and monitor things with the team.”
Hurt lanced her insides, confusion enveloping her. “Nico, what’s going on? Why do you look like that?”
That utterly inscrutable look remained painted across his face. “I don’t think now is the right time for us to be having this discussion.”
Her stomach turned to stone. “Why not?”
“Because we are in the middle of a crisis, Chloe. We need to be focused on fixing it.”
That lit a fire inside her. “I am focused on fixing it,” she bit out. “I’ve been killing myself all day to that end. We are going to fix this together, Nico, because your idea for the philanthropy program is brilliant. Because that’s what a partnership is all about. But right now, I want to know what’s going on with you. Why you’re being like this.”
“Don’t push me,” he said quietly. “You know better.”
“Why not?” she demanded, ignoring the warning glint in his eyes, because her insecurities were ruling her now.
“Because instead of having my head on my shoulders,” he bit out, “I’ve
had it buried between your legs for weeks, that’s why. Because I can’t think when you are in my head, Chloe.”
Her jaw dropped. “You cannot possibly be blaming this on us.”
“No,” he said evenly, “I’m saying it was a mistake. We are a mistake. I need to be focused on running this company.”
She recoiled as if he’d struck her. “You’re ending this?”
Not a flicker of emotion in those remote gray eyes. “I’m saying we need to cool it off.”
Her heart contracted. He was ending it. He didn’t have to say it. She could see it in his eyes. “Be honest, Nico.”
He shrugged. “I told you from the beginning what my capabilities are. We were both clear on what this is.”
Her heart kicked against her ribs. She’d thought it had been love. She’d thought he had been falling in love with her. Had been so sure of it, she’d let down every last barrier for him so all he’d had to do was just admit it. Walk right into it. But seeing the impassive expression on his face, how easily he’d delivered that cutting blow, she realized he’d never really given them a chance. That she’d been the one who had been hopelessly deluded—at least when it came to his ability to evolve.
Because hadn’t he done this to her twice? How many times did she need him to slap her in the face before she got it?
Except she knew where this was coming from. Knew his personal history was at play here. She knew him now.
“This is about your need for control,” she said quietly. “You aren’t in control of this situation. You aren’t in control of us, so you’d rather choose to walk away than confront what we have. You’d rather use this as the perfect excuse to end it, when, in actual fact, we did exactly as you counseled, Nico. We made sound decisions. We listened to the experts, and they made the call. No one,” she said, waving a hand at him, “could have predicted Eddie was going to go off the deep end. We all thought it was movie publicity.”
“I did,” he countered flatly. “And I should have listened to my instincts.”
She had no response for that because he was right. He had.
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