The Bryants: Powerful & Proud

Aurelie stood there for a moment feeling oddly rebuffed, almost hurt. How ridiculous; all she’d been trying to do was annoy him. Besides, she’d suffered far worse insults than being dismissed. All she had to do was open a newspaper or click on one of the many celebrity gossip sites. Still, she couldn’t deny the needling sense of pain, like a splinter burrowing into her heart. Why did this irritating man affect her so much, or even at all?

She heard the buzz of conversation around her and tried to focus on what someone was saying. Tried to smile, to perform, yet somehow the motions wouldn’t come. She was failing herself, and in one abrupt movement she pivoted on her heel and walked out of the crowded lobby.

Luke watched Aurelie leave the lobby and felt an irritating mix of satisfaction and annoyance war within him. He didn’t particularly want the woman around, yet he hadn’t liked the look on her face, almost like hurt, when he’d gazed back at her. Why he cared, he had no idea. He didn’t care. He wanted her gone.

And yet he could remember the exact blue-grey shade of her eyes, saw in that moment how they had darkened with pain. And despite every intention to stay and socialise, he found himself walking upstairs, back to the break room where he figured Aurelie had gone.

He pushed open the now-broken door without knocking, stopping suddenly when he saw Aurelie inside, in the process of pulling her dress over her head.

‘Excuse me—’

‘No need to be shy, boss man.’ She turned around wearing nothing but a very skimpy push-up bra and thong, her hands on her hips, eyebrows raised, mouth twisted. ‘Now you can have the good look you’ve been wanting.’

He shook his head. ‘You’re really unbelievable.’

‘Why, that’s almost a compliment.’

And Luke knew he was having a good look. Again. He could not, to his shame, tear his gaze away from those high, firm breasts encased in a very little bit of white satin. Furious with himself, he reached for a gauzy purple top lying on the floor and tossed it to her. ‘Put something on.’

She glanced at the top and her mouth curled in a feline smile. ‘If you insist.’

She didn’t look any more decent in the see-through top. In fact, Luke decided, she looked worse. Or better, depending on your point of view. The diaphanous material still managed to highlight the slender curves that had been on such blatant display. She was too skinny, he told himself, yet once again he could not keep his gaze from roving over her body, taking in its taut perfection. He felt another stirring of arousal, much to his annoyance. Aurelie’s mouth curved in a knowing smile.

‘I came up here,’ he finally bit out, ‘to see if you were all right.’

She raised her eyebrows, and he sensed her sudden tension. ‘And why wouldn’t I be all right?’

‘Because—’ What could he say? Because I saw such sadness in your eyes. He was being ridiculous. About a completely ridiculous woman. ‘You seemed troubled,’ he finally answered, because he didn’t dissemble or downright lie. He wouldn’t, not since that moment twenty-five years ago when he’d put his heart and soul on the line and hadn’t been believed.

‘Troubled?’ Her voice rang out, incredulous, scornful. Yet he still saw those shadows in her eyes, felt the brittleness of her confident pose, hands on hips, chin—and breasts—thrust out. She cocked her head, lashes sweeping downwards. ‘Aren’t you Mr Sensitive,’ she murmured, her voice dropping into husky suggestion that had the hairs on the back of Luke’s neck prickling even as his libido stirred insistently. It had been far too long since he’d been in a relationship. Since he’d had sex. That had to be the only reason he was reacting to this woman at all.

She sashayed towards him, lifted her knowing gaze to his. Luke took an involuntary step backwards, and came up against the door. ‘I think you’re the troubled one, Mr Bossy,’ she said, and with a cynical little smile she reached down to skim the length of his burgeoning erection with her fingertips. Luke felt as if he’d been jolted with electricity. He stepped back, shook his head in disgust.

‘What is wrong with you?’

‘Obviously nothing, judging by your reaction.’

‘If I see a fairly attractive woman in her underwear, then yes, my body has a basic biological reaction. That’s all it is.’

‘Oh, so your little show of concern for my emotional state was just that?’ She stepped back, and her smile was now cold, her eyes hard.

‘You think I was coming on to you?’ He let out a short, hard laugh. ‘If anything, you’re the one who’s been coming on to me. I don’t even like you, lady.’

She lifted her chin, her eyes still hard. ‘Since when did like ever come into it?’

‘It does for me.’

‘How quaint.’ She turned away and, reaching for a pair of jeans, pulled them on. ‘Well, you can breathe a sigh of relief. I’m fine.’

And even though he knew he should leave—hell, he should never have come up here in the first place—Luke didn’t move. She didn’t seem fine.

He stood there in frustration—sexual frustration now, too—as Aurelie piled all the clothes scattered around the room into a big canvas holdall. She glanced up at him, those stormy eyes veiled by long lashes, and for a second, no more, she looked young. Vulnerable. Then she smiled—he hated that cold, cynical smile—and said, ‘Still here, Bossy? Still hoping?’

‘I’m here,’ he said through gritted teeth, remembrance firing his fury, ‘because you’re a complete disaster and I can’t trust you to walk out of here on your own two feet. An hour ago you were passed out on the floor. The last thing I need is some awful exposé in a trashy tabloid about how pop princess Aurelie ODed in the break room.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, and here I was, starting to believe you were actually concerned about me. Don’t worry, I told you, I’m fine.’

Luke jerked his head into the semblance of a nod. ‘Then I’ll say goodbye and thank you to use the back door on your way out.’

‘I always do. Paparazzi, you know.’ She smiled, but he saw her chin tremble, just the tiniest bit, and with stinging certainty he knew that despite her go-to-hell attitude, he’d hurt her.

And even though he knew he shouldn’t care, not one iota, he knew he did. ‘Goodbye,’ he said, because the sooner he was rid of her, the better. She didn’t answer, just stared at him with those storm cloud eyes, her chin lifted defiantly—and still trembling. Swearing aloud this time, Luke turned and walked out of the room.

CHAPTER TWO

“‘BRYANT’S REOPENING HIT exactly the right note between self-deprecation and assurance,’” Jenna read from the newspaper as she came into Luke’s office, kicking the door closed behind her with one high-heeled foot. She glanced at him over the top of the paper, her eyes dancing. ‘It was a total hit!’

Luke gave a rather terse smile back. He didn’t want to kill Jenna’s buzz, but he hadn’t meant the reopening to be ‘self-deprecating’—whatever that was supposed to mean. A quick scan of the morning’s headlines had reassured him that the opening had been well received, if not exactly how he’d envisioned, and the till receipts at the end of the day had offered more proof. It was enough, Luke hoped, to continue the relaunch of Bryant Stores across the globe—if his brother Aaron agreed.

He felt the familiar pang of frustration at still having to clear any major decisions with his brother, even though he was thirty-eight years old and had been running Bryant Stores for over a decade. He’d surely earned a bit more of Aaron’s trust, but his brother never gave it. Their father had set up the running of Bryant Enterprises in his will, and it meant that Aaron could call all the shots. And that, Luke knew, was one thing Aaron loved to do.

‘Getting Aurelie really worked,’ Jenna said. ‘All the papers mention her.’

‘They usually do,’ Luke answered dryly. He spun around in his chair to face the rather uninspiring view of Manhattan’s midtown covered in a muggy midsummer haze. He did not want to think about that out-of-control pop princess, or the shaming reaction she’d stirred up in him.

‘Apparently it was a stroke of genius to have her sing,’ Jenna continued, her voice smug with self-satisfaction.

‘Hitting the right note between self-deprecation and assurance?’ Luke quoted. The newspaper had managed to ridicule Aurelie even as they lauded the opening. Even if Aurelie is too washed up to reinvent herself, Bryant’s obviously can. Briefly he closed his eyes. How did she stand it, all the time? Or did she just not care?

‘Maybe you should have her perform at all the openings,’ Jenna suggested and Luke opened his eyes.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Why not?’ Jenna persisted. ‘I know she’s a bit of a joke, but people still like her music. And the newspapers loved that we hired a has-been to perform … They thought it was an ironic nod to—’

‘Our own former celebrity. Yes, I read the papers, Jenna. I’m just not sure that was quite the angle we were going for.’ Luke turned around and gave his Head of PR a quelling look. He liked hiring young people with fresh ideas; he wanted change and innovation, unlike his brother. But he didn’t want Aurelie.

Actually, the problem is, you do.

‘Maybe not,’ Jenna persisted, ‘but it worked. And the truth is that nobody wants the old Bryant’s any more. You can only coast on a reputation for so long.’

‘Tell that to Aurelie,’ he said, meaning to close down the conversation, but Jenna let out a sharp little laugh.

‘But that’s all she has. Do you know she actually wanted to sing something new—some soppy folk ballad.’ Jenna rolled her eyes, and Luke stilled.

‘A folk ballad? She’s a pop star.’

‘I know, ridiculous, right? I don’t know what she was thinking. She wanted to wear jeans, for heaven’s sake, and play her guitar. Like we hired her for that.’

Luke didn’t answer, just let the words sink in. ‘What did you say to her?’ he asked after a moment.

‘I told her we’d hired her to be Aurelie, not Joan Baez.’

He rolled a silver-plated pen between his fingers, his gaze resting once more on the hazy skyline. ‘What did she say?’

Jenna shrugged. ‘Not much. We’re the ones who hired her. What could she do, after all?’

Nothing, Luke supposed. Nothing except lash out at anyone who assumed she was just that, only that—Aurelie, the shallow pop princess. An uncomfortable uncertainty stole through him at the thought.

Who was Aurelie, really?

‘That will be all, Jenna,’ he said and, looking faintly miffed since he’d always encouraged a spirit of camaraderie in the office, she left. Luke sank back into his chair and rubbed his hands over his face.

He didn’t want to think about Aurelie. He didn’t want to wonder if there was more to her than he’d ever expected, or worry about what she must have been feeling. He didn’t want to think about her at all.

Sighing, he dropped his hands to stare moodily out of the window. Jenna’s suggestion was ridiculous, of course. There was absolutely no way he was hiring Aurelie to open so much as a sugar packet for him. He never wanted to see her again.

Then why can’t you get her eyes out of your mind?

Her eyes. When he closed his own, he saw hers, stormy and sad and brave. He was being ridiculous, romantic, and about a woman whose whole lifestyle—values, actions, everything—he despised. She might have written some soppy new song, but it didn’t change who she was: a washed-up, over-the-top diva.

Yet her eyes.

He let out a groan of frustration and swivelled back to face his computer. He didn’t need this. The reopening of the New York flagship store might have been a success, but he still had a mountain of work to do. Bryant Enterprises had over a hundred stores across the world and Luke intended to overhaul every single one.

Without the help of Aurelie.

Aurelie bit her lip in concentration as she played the four notes again. Did it sound too melancholy? She had to get the bridge right or—

Or what?

She glanced up from the piano to stare unseeingly around the room she’d converted into a work space. Nobody wanted her music any more. She might be good for rehashing a few of her hit singles, but nobody wanted to hear soulful piano and acoustic guitar ballads. She’d got that loud and clear.

When she’d stupidly mentioned such an idea to her agent, he’d laughed. Laughed. ‘Stick with what you’re good at, babe,’ he’d said. ‘Not that it’s all that much.’

She’d fired him. Not that it mattered. He’d been about to let her go anyway.

Sighing, she rose from the piano bench and went to the kitchen. She’d been working all morning and it was time for a coffee break. She hated indulging in self-pity; she knew there was no point. She’d made her bed and she’d spend the rest of her life lying in it. No one was going to let her change. And, really, she didn’t need to change. At least not publicly. She could spend the rest of her life living quietly in Vermont. She didn’t need a comeback, despite her pathetic attempt at one.

Just the memory of the Bryant’s booking made her cringe. The only reason she’d accepted it was to have a kind of test run, to see how people responded to a new and different Aurelie. And it had failed at the very first gate. The Head of PR who had booked her had been appalled by her suggestion she do something different. People are coming to see the Aurelie they know and love, not some wannabe folk singer. We only want one thing from you.

Sighing again, she poured herself a coffee and added milk, stirring moodily. She’d given them the old Aurelie, just as that woman had wanted. She’d given it to them in spades. Briefly she thought of bossy Luke Bryant, and how she’d baited him. Even now she felt a flicker of embarrassment, even shame. All right, yes, she’d seen the desire flaring in his eyes, but instead of ignoring it she’d wound him up on purpose. She’d just been, as always, reacting. Reacting to the assumptions and sneers and suggestions. When she was in the moment it was so incredibly hard to rise above it.

The doorbell rang, a rusty croak of a sound, surprising her. She didn’t get visitors. The paparazzi didn’t know about this house and the townspeople left her alone. Then she remembered she’d ordered a new capo, and went to answer it.

‘Hey …’ The word died off to nothing as she stared at the man standing on the weathered front porch of her grandma’s house. It wasn’t the postman. It was Luke Bryant.

Luke watched the colour drain from Aurelie’s face as she stared at him, obviously shocked. As shocked as he had been when he’d found this place, for an old farmhouse in a sleepy town in Vermont was not what he’d expected at all. He’d supposed it was a pretty good cover for someone like her, but it had only taken about ten seconds standing on her front porch to realise this wasn’t a bolt-hole. It was home.

‘What …’ She cleared her throat, staring at him with wide, dazed eyes. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Looking for you.’

‘Why?’ She sounded so bewildered he almost smiled. Gone was any kind of innuendo, any flirt. Gone, in fact, was so much as a remnant of the Aurelie he’d encountered back in New York. He looked at her properly for the first time, and knew he wouldn’t have even recognised her if not for the colour of her eyes. He’d remembered those straight off. The woman in front of him was dressed in faded jeans and a lavender T-shirt, her silky hair tossed over one shoulder in a single braid. She wore no make-up, no jewellery. She was the essence of simplicity and, despite the slight gauntness of her face and frame, Luke thought she looked better now than he’d ever seen her in person or on an album cover.

‘May I come in?’

‘I …’ She glanced behind her shoulder, and Luke wondered what she was hiding. Suspicion hardened inside him. All right, the house might be quaint in a countrified kind of way, and her clothes were … well, normal, but could he really doubt that this woman was still the outrageous, unstable pop star he’d met before?

Well, yes, he could.

He’d been doubting it, aggravatingly, ever since Jenna had suggested he book her for a string of openings and he’d refused. Refused point-blank even as he couldn’t get her out of his mind. Those eyes. That sense of both sadness and courage. And how she must have come to Bryant’s wanting to be different.

That was what had finally made him decide to talk to her. What a coup it would be to have Bryant’s orchestrate a comeback for a has-been pop star that no one believed could change.

Although if he were honest—which he was determined always to be—it wasn’t the success of the store that had brought him to Vermont. It was something deeper, something instinctive. He understood all too well about wanting to change, trying to be different. He’d been trying with the store for nearly a decade. And as for himself … Well, he’d had his own obstacles to overcome. Clearly Aurelie had hers.

Which had brought him here, five weeks later, to her doorstep.

‘May I come in?’ he asked again, politely, and she chewed her lip, clearly reluctant.

‘Fine,’ she finally said, and moved aside so he could enter.

He stepped across the threshold, taking in the overflowing umbrella stand and coat rack, the framed samplers on the walls, the braided rug. Very quaint. And so not what he’d expected.

She closed the door and kept him there in the hall, her arms folded. ‘How did you find me?’

‘It was a challenge, I admit.’ Aurelie had been off the map. No known address besides a rented-out beach house in Beverly Hills, no known contacts since her agent and manager had both been fired. Jenna had contacted her directly through her website, which had since closed down.

‘Well?’ Her eyes sparked.

‘I’m pretty adept with a computer,’ Luke answered. ‘I found a mention of the sale of this house from a Julia Schmidt to you in the town property records.’ She shook her head, coldly incredulous, and he tried a smile. ‘Aurelie Schmidt. I wondered what your last name was.’

‘Nice going, Sherlock.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I still don’t know why you’re here.’

‘I’d like to talk to you.’

She arched an eyebrow, smiled unpleasantly. ‘Oh? That wasn’t the message you were sending me back in New York.’

‘That’s true. I’m sorry if I appeared rude.’

‘Appeared? Well, I appeared like I was strung out on drugs, so what does it really matter?’ She pivoted on her heel and walked down a dark, narrow hall, the faded wallpaper cluttered with photographs Luke found he longed to look at, to the kitchen.

‘Appeared?’ he repeated as he stood in the doorway, sunlight spilling into the room from a bay window that overlooked a tangled back garden. Aurelie had picked up a mug of coffee and took a sip. She didn’t offer him any.

‘I told you, it doesn’t matter.’

‘Actually, it does. If you have a substance abuse problem, I need to know about it now.’ That was the one thing that had almost kept him from coming at all. He would not work with someone who was unstable, who might overdose. He would never put himself in that position again.

‘You need to know?’ she mocked. She held her coffee mug in front of her as if it was some kind of shield, or perhaps a weapon. Luke stayed by the door. He didn’t want its contents thrown in his face. ‘What else do you need, Luke Bryant?’

Her eyes flashed and he tensed. He hated innuendo, especially when he knew it held a shaming grain of truth.

‘I have a proposition to put to you,’ he said evenly. ‘But first I need to know. Do you have a substance abuse problem, of any kind?’

‘Would you believe me if I told you?’

‘Yes—’

‘Ri-ight.’ She shook her head. ‘Why are you really here?’

‘I told you, I have a proposition to put to you. A business proposition.’

‘It’s always business, isn’t it?’

Luke bit down on his irritation. Already he was regretting the insane impulse to come here. ‘Enough. Either you listen to me or you don’t. If you’re interested in making a comeback—’

He saw her knuckles whiten around her coffee mug. ‘Who said I was interested in that?’

‘Why else accept the Bryant’s booking?’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘Boredom?’

Luke stared at her, saw the dangerous glitter in her eyes, the thin line of her mouth. The quivering chin. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said quietly.

‘Why are you interested in me making a comeback?’ she challenged. ‘Because you certainly weren’t in New York.’

‘I changed my mind.’

‘Oh, really?’

‘Look, I’ll tell you all about it if you think we can have a civil conversation, but first just answer the question. Do you have a substance—’

‘Abuse problem,’ she finished wearily. ‘No.’

‘Have you ever?’

‘No.’

‘Then why were you passed out in New York?’

Her expression was blank, her voice flat. ‘I hadn’t eaten anything. Low blood sugar.’ Luke hesitated. It hadn’t seemed like just low blood sugar. She eyed him cynically. ‘Clearly you believe me, just like you said you would.’

‘I admit, I’m sceptical.’

‘So honest of you.’

‘I won’t have anything to do with drugs.’

‘That makes two of us. Amazing,’ she drawled, ‘we have something in common.’

He thought of the tabloids detailing her forays into rehab. The pictures of her at parties. He really should turn around and walk right out of here. Aurelie watched his face, her mouth curling into a cold smile he didn’t like. ‘That doesn’t mean I’ve been a Girl Scout,’ she told him. ‘I never pretended I was.’

‘I know that.’

‘So what do you want?’

What did he want? The question felt loaded, the answer more complicated than he wanted it to be. ‘I want you to sing. At the reopening of four of my stores.’

He felt her shock even though her expression—that cold, cynical smile—didn’t change. ‘Why?’ she finally asked. ‘You certainly didn’t seem thrilled I was singing at your New York store.’

‘No, I didn’t,’ he agreed evenly. ‘Bryant Stores is important to me and I didn’t particularly like the idea of endorsing a washed-up pop star as its mascot.’

‘Thanks for spelling it out.’

‘I’ve changed my mind.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Well, that’s a relief.’

‘The opening was well received—’

‘Oh, yes, the papers loved the irony of a store trying to reinvent itself hiring a pop star who can’t. I got that.’ Bitterness spiked her words, and Luke felt a rush of something like satisfaction. She was trying to change.

‘People still wanted to see you.’

‘The most exciting part was when I almost tripped. People want to see me fail, Bryant. That’s why they come.’ She turned away and he gazed at her thoughtfully, saw the way the sunlight gilded the sharp angles of her profile in gold.

‘I don’t want to see you fail.’

‘What?’ She turned back to him, surprise wiping the cynicism from her face. She looked young, clear-eyed, even innocent. The truth of her revealed, and it gave him purpose. Certainty.

‘I don’t want to see you fail. Give yourself a second chance, Aurelie, and listen to what I have to say.’

Aurelie stared at him, wishing she hadn’t revealed so much. People want to see me fail. Why had she told him the truth? Even if he already knew it, he hadn’t known that she knew it. And, worse, that it hurt her. Yet she was pretty sure he knew now, and she hated the thought.

She hated that he was here. She couldn’t act like Aurelie the go-to-hell pop princess here, in her grandma’s house. Her home, the only place she’d ever been able to be herself. Be safe.

She felt a tightness in her chest, like something trying to claw its way out, finally break free. ‘I want you to leave,’ she said, and thankfully her voice came out flat. Strong. ‘I’m not interested in anything you have to say, or any job you might have for me, so please, please leave.’ Her voice wasn’t strong then. It trembled and choked and she had to blink hard, which made her all the more furious.