Moonlight Kisses

by Phyllis Bourne

  She wrapped her hands around the mug, absorbing its warmth. Maybe she should have confided in Cole earlier. He was certainly familiar with Force’s playbook. Perhaps he could have told her days ago that Sean’s warning was just an idle threat and put her mind at ease.

  “So he’s just trying to scare me, right?”

  “It wasn’t a threat, Sage,” he said. “It’s a promise.”

  “I turned down the offer. Force can’t make me sell my company to them.”

  “But they can make you wish you had,” Cole said. “For example, do you remember the organic brand Naturally Glamorous Cosmetics?”

  “You mean, Nature’s Glam, don’t you?”

  “Exactly,” Cole said. “Years ago, I made the owners of Naturally Glamorous Cosmetics an offer similar to the one Sean made you, which they turned down. Force started up Nature’s Glam, with branding and packaging similar to Naturally Glamorous, and they threw tons of money into it. A small company, Naturally Glamorous ended up going out of business.”

  “B-but they should have taken them to court.” Sage was outraged on the smaller company’s behalf, and at the same time, terrified about Force doing the same thing to her company. “I would have sued their asses off.”

  “They tried that,” Cole said. “Force’s legal department overwhelmed their lawyers with delays, hearings and other very expensive red tape. The company went belly-up fighting them while Force’s version of them is still going strong.”

  “It’s not fair,” Sage said, already knowing life wasn’t fair. However, Stiletto was the only thing in the world she could call hers. She couldn’t hand it over without a fight.

  She sighed. “You don’t think I can survive a battle with them, do you?”

  She searched Cole’s face for signs of hope. Instead, he gave her facts.

  “Force Cosmetics has twenty-five cosmetic and skin-care brands, including their own, and forty-two thousand employees worldwide. Last year, they had eleven billion dollars in sales,” he said.

  Sage hands trembled as the facts sank in, and Cole took the nearly empty mug from her hands and sat it on the night table. “Whether I sell to them or not, I’m screwed.”

  Then she recalled Cole was expecting a similar offer for his family’s business. She also remembered why his mother had started Espresso, and why it was so important for him to restore it to its former glory.

  She touched a hand to his shoulder, the one he’d told her she could rest her troubles upon. “What about Espresso?”

  He covered the hand she placed on his shoulder with his own. “My personal resources and familiarity with Force’s tactics puts Espresso in a better position to fend them off than Stiletto.” He shrugged. “But I don’t know for how long.”

  “Stiletto’s mine. I won’t let anyone take it from me. I won’t let them win,” Sage said, the words for herself as much as Cole.

  He took her hand in his. “The bottom line is I don’t think either of our companies going it alone can survive this.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  Cole looked down at their joined hands, before his gaze locked with hers. “I’m suggesting we merge Espresso and Stiletto.”

  Sage blinked, unable to believe what she was hearing. “I thought you understood that I don’t want to turn my company over to anyone.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying at all.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Hear me out,” Cole said.

  She nodded once, fighting off the trickle of ugly suspicion creeping into head.

  “I’m talking about bringing in Stiletto as a division of Espresso, like our Sanctuary spas. You’d continue to run it as you do now.”

  “Sounds a lot like Force’s offer,” Sage grunted. “Stiletto wouldn’t be mine anymore, and I’d be your employee.”

  “It’s nothing like Force’s offer. I’m not talking about bringing you in as an employee. I want you to be a partner in the Espresso empire with equal interest and voting power as my family and me. I’d have to get the approval of Victor and my sisters, but I’m positive they’d agree.”

  Sage’s journey to get her company where it was today unfolded in her head.

  The sacrifice.

  The struggle.

  Most of all, the fact that Stiletto Cosmetics was the only thing in the world that belonged to her and her alone.

  “But I’d have to give up Stiletto,” she whispered.

  “You’d have to share Stiletto, just like we’d be sharing Espresso with you.” Cole’s face looked hopeful as he squeezed her hand. “Share the responsibilities, share the problems as well as the successes because that’s what families do. The combined companies would be a family business. You’ll be family, Sage.”

  She listened as he continued.

  “Maybe it’s unrealistic to think we can take on Force,” he said. “But I think you’re the savviest, smartest, most innovative businesswomen I’ve ever met, and I believe together, there isn’t anything we can’t accomplish.”

  Realization dawned as he spoke, and Sage’s trickle of doubt became a flood, overwhelming even the heartfelt sincerity she heard in his voice. She didn’t like what she was thinking, but she couldn’t help suspecting him all the same. “You said earlier you’d been expecting something like this to happen since Milan. Is that why you asked me to marry you? So you could finally get your hands on Stiletto?”

  Cole flinched as if she’d slapped him across the face, and he dropped her hand. “Is that what you really believe?”

  She saw the pain in his eyes and averted hers.

  “Look at me.” His deep voice lacked the warmth it had held just seconds ago. “I asked you to marry me because I love you, and I thought you loved me, too.”

  “I do love you.”

  “Trust is a component of love, Sage. You can’t truly have one without the other. I trust you enough to offer you my heart, my last name and a piece of the only thing I have left of my parents, their legacy.”

  Cole placed his hands lightly on her arms. “Before we can take this relationship any further, I need the answer to this question,” he said. “Do you trust me?”

  The intensity in his dark brown eyes told her exactly what was at stake. However, he wanted something from her she couldn’t give up. To anyone.

  “I can’t,” Sage whispered.

  Cole dropped his hands from her arms. The raw hurt in his eyes made her turn away as he rose from the bed.

  “Then we don’t have anything.”

  Chapter 20

  Cole stared at the phone on his desk. Everything in him wanted to pick it up and call Sage, if only to hear her voice.

  A week had passed since she’d placed her engagement ring on the bedside table, left his town house and his life. A week of days he’d crammed with as much work as he could and nights he couldn’t sleep for thinking of her. Longing for her.

  He snatched up the cordless phone and got as far as punching in the first two numbers before replacing it on its base. She’d made herself clear during their last conversation. There was nothing left to say.

  She doesn’t trust you.

  The realization cut deep, even deeper than when he’d discovered his mother hadn’t trusted him. The two women who had meant the most to him, to whom he had only given his best, had both regarded him the same way.

  Untrustworthy.

  A brief knock sounded on his door, and Loretta walked in. The sparkle of the earrings and necklace, he’d selected for her at the Buccellati boutique in Milan, caught his eye. She’d worn them every day since she’d opened the box.

  “Sean Cox is here,” she said.

  “Send him in,” Cole said.

  The older woman hesitated. “Can I get you anything?” Her gravelly voice was fil
led with concern.

  Cole wanted to tell her to go back to being her annoying, cantankerous self. With everything else in his life turned upside down, he needed something to remain steady.

  “I’m good,” he said aloud.

  After an awkward greeting, Sean sat in the chair across from his desk. His former protégé was nervous.

  He was about to launch into his spiel, but Cole held up a hand to stop him. “I know what you’re going to say, because I taught you every word.”

  “Then I’ll get right down to the terms of our offer for Espresso,” Sean said.

  “Save it. Espresso Cosmetics isn’t for sale at any price, under any circumstances.”

  Sean eyed him across the desk. “You trained me, Cole, so I don’t have to tell you what comes next, but I will anyway as a reminder. If we can’t buy you, we’ll break you.”

  Cole had used the same line himself, while working at Force. However, he’d never had it turned on him.

  A phrase of Sage’s popped into his head. It felt like the perfect reply. Cole leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “Bring it,” he said.

  His chest tightened at the memories the phrase brought rushing to his head.

  Sean blinked. “That’s exactly what Sage Matthews told me when I was in her office.” He shook his head. “Wow, you two really are well matched.”

  Cole had thought so, too. Turned out he was wrong.

  “But even with your vast resources and wealth, Force is bigger and worth even more,” Sean said. “You can’t win.”

  Their conversation gave him a momentary flashback of another one. The one between him and Sage when he’d initially offered to buy Stiletto. He’d been even more condescending than Sean.

  First he and now Force had come after Stiletto. No wonder Sage was so defensive and protective of the company she’d built...and wary.

  For the first time since their breakup, Cole wondered if he’d misjudged her. He’d gone on and on about trust, but hadn’t given her the benefit of the doubt.

  The man Cole had mentored cleared his throat. “I guess that concludes our business.” He started to stand but hesitated and sat back down. “You know, I’m just doing my job here. It’s not personal—just business.”

  “I get that,” Cole said. “Still, I need you and Force to back off Sage and Stiletto.”

  “I can’t do that,” Sean said.

  Cole found himself issuing his own warning. One he didn’t know exactly how he’d back up, but he would. Even if it took every nickel he had in the bank.

  “Then expect a hell of a battle on your hands in Nashville.”

  * * *

  Sage watched Shelia retreat from her office and suppressed a twinge of guilt.

  Shaking if off, she returned her attention to her computer monitor. What did she have to feel guilty about anyway? Stiletto was her company, and she would run it the way she saw fit.

  Over a week had passed since her breakup with Cole and misery, along with her fears over Force Cosmetics, had resurrected her tendency to micromanage and control every aspect of her business. It had intensified to the point her employees were probably calling her worse names than General behind her back.

  Sage sighed. What choice did she have? Now that Stiletto was in Force Cosmetics’ crosshairs, she had to make sure everything was perfect, and the only way to ensure that was to handle it on her own.

  It didn’t have to be this way, a voice inside her whispered. You had the perfect partner, and you chose to go it alone.

  She glanced down at her hand. She’d only worn Cole’s ring for three blissful days. Still, she missed the solid weight of it on her finger. She missed having him in her life.

  Sage’s office door opened and Amelia stormed through it. “You’ve gone too far this time, General.” She planted her fists on her nonexistent hips. “I just got back from class to find Shelia in the bathroom in tears.”

  “You mean the Shelia who called me names behind my back and locked me in a closet?” Sage replied.

  “I thought that was ancient history, and you and I both know she’s a hard worker who cares about this company. We all do, despite your making it extremely difficult lately. Ever since you and Cole broke up, you’ve been acting like a big...”

  Sage held up a warning hand. “Watch it, Amelia,” she said in the firmest tone she’d ever used with the young woman. “This has nothing to do with Cole. You know better than anyone the kind of pressure I’m under now that Force Cosmetics is looking to come after this company.”

  Her assistant sighed heavily. Her hands dropped to her sides. She walked over to Sage’s desk. “You can’t do this alone. You don’t have to do this alone,” she said. “That’s why we’re all here.”

  “But ultimately this company is my responsibility,” Sage said.

  “When you began learning to trust the team you put together to do their jobs, did they ever once let you down?”

  Sage didn’t have to answer. They both knew they hadn’t.

  “Also, did you know there was an error made last week on a packaging order from China?” Amelia asked. “We nearly ended up with a million eye shadow pans instead of a hundred thousand. I don’t have to tell you how much that would have cost Stiletto.”

  A small fortune, Sage thought.

  She was on the verge of demanding to see the employee responsible when she remembered handling that particular order herself. She’d stayed at the office until midnight that night because she hadn’t wanted to go home and face an empty house without Cole.

  The look on her assistant’s face confirmed that Amelia was well aware who had made the error.

  “But how...”

  “Shelia discovered it,” Amelia said. “She noticed how exhausted you were from the long hours you’ve been putting in here and took the initiative to double-check the order. She didn’t want me to mention it to you because she knew you were going through a rough time.”

  Sage closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them she couldn’t quite meet her assistant’s gaze. Shelia had not only done her own job, she’d stepped in and done hers, too. “And I just took her head off over something insignificant,” she said to herself more than Amelia.

  Sage thought briefly of Cole and how much she respected him for making a special trip to her office that day to admit he was wrong. That was the day she’d fallen for him.

  She rounded her desk and walked past Amelia.

  “Where are you going?” her assistant asked.

  “To apologize to Shelia for underestimating her and to try to make amends,” Sage called over her shoulder as she left her office for the ladies’ room.

  Shelia wasn’t the only one Sage had treated badly and needed to make amends to. She just hoped it wasn’t too late.

  Chapter 21

  “You look like hell, son.”

  Cole didn’t doubt Victor’s word when he ran into him in the lobby of the Espresso building the next morning. After tossing and turning most of the night, he’d finally fallen into a fitful sleep only to be awakened by his alarm clock an hour later.

  He’d been dreaming of Sage, all decked out in red with sky-high heels and hair as wild and untamable as the woman herself.

  “Why don’t you come stay at the house for a while to get your mind off things,” Victor suggested. By things, Cole knew he meant his broken engagement. “There’s plenty of room, and it would be good to have you at home again.”

  Cole appreciated the offer, but he was too old to go running home to his stepdad. “I’ll be okay, Vic,” he said. “How about I come out there for dinner one day his week.”

  His stepfather’s eyes lit up. “I’d like that. It’s been pretty lonely rattling around in that big house all these years without your mother and you kids.”
The older man shrugged. “I’ve even been thinking about dating again, which I know sounds ridiculous at my age.”

  At the bank of elevators, Cole jabbed the button with the arrow pointing up. Again, only one of the three was working. With Force Cosmetics targeting Espresso, the building issue would have to remain on the back burner for now.

  “So what do you think?” Victor asked.

  “About what?” Cole said absently as they boarded the elevator car.

  “Your old man dating again.”

  “I think it’s way overdue. You should have gotten back into circulation years ago.”

  His stepfather shrugged. “But I don’t even know where to start.”

  With his own love life in a shambles and the woman he loved no longer sharing his bed, Cole was in no position to offer advice. However, all the older man was really looking for was encouragement.

  The elevator dinged and the doors opened on the eleventh floor.

  “Next time you see a woman you’re attracted to, ask her out,” Cole said. “It’s that simple.”

  “Thanks. I’m going to do just that.”

  Cole nodded as he pushed open the door to the executive level’s outer office. Victor’s problem was easy to solve. Now he had to figure out a solution to his own relationship, not that he even had one anymore.

  “Morning.” Loretta was already at her post. She inclined her head toward the waiting area. “Someone here to see you.”

  A tall, honey-skinned blonde, reminiscent of Beyoncé, sat in a chair flipping through a magazine. Familiar eyes lit up as she spotted them, but Cole couldn’t place them.

  Victor cleared his throat. “Well, well, well. I think it’s time your old dad got himself back into circulation.”

  “Hold up a sec, Vic,” Cole said. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but something about this woman didn’t sit right.

  “Step aside, son,” his stepfather said. “She may be a little young for me, but I’ve waited long enough.”