Christmas At The Tycoon's Command

She shook her head bemusedly. Slid off the bar stool, a half-finished glass of champagne in her hand. The world rocked ever so slightly beneath her feet. She’d never had much of a head for alcohol, but Eddie had insisted on that glass of champagne, and OMG, he’d just said yes. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined he would.

Untouchable, my foot.

She turned and headed for Lazzero to thank him. Pulled up short. Nico was standing beside his brother at the bar, the jacket of his dark suit discarded, a drink in his hand.

Her pulse went haywire. Why did that happen every time? And why did he look so good in a shirt and tie? The tie loosened, his hair ruffled, he looked younger, like he had when they’d first met. Devastating.

But that Nico didn’t exist, she reminded herself, heart thumping against her chest like a bass drum. And she’d do well to remember it.

She straightened her shoulders and walked the length of the bar to where the two men stood. Lazzero waved off her thanks and melted into the crowd to greet someone. Nico set that penetrating gray gaze of his on her.

“I told you to secure him. Meaning use the PR department. Not take on Hollywood yourself.”

She lifted a shoulder. “The PR department didn’t have access to him. Mireille said he was untouchable. So we asked Lazzero for help.”

He leaned back against the bar, his free hand crossed in the crook of his folded elbow. “What did he say?”

A victorious smile played at the corners of her mouth. It might have been her best moment ever. “He said yes.”

His eyes widened. “He did?”

“Yes. But,” she qualified, “it’s contingent on his agent’s approval.”

Nico’s gaze warmed with a glimmer of something that might have been admiration. “I’m impressed. How did you convince him?”

“I explained the campaign to him. Why he was the inspiration for Soar. He was flattered—said he liked the idea of having a fragrance created for him. It turns out,” she concluded thoughtfully, “that men are true to their biology. They like to have their egos stroked. It’s their Achilles’ heel.”

A hint of a smile played at his mouth. “That may be true,” he acknowledged. “But Carello is not to be played with. His reputation precedes him. Get his agent to sign off, then leave him the hell alone.”

“I know that.” Irritation burrowed a bumpy red path beneath her skin. “That’s why I told him I had a boyfriend. Honestly, Nico, do you think I’m a total neophyte?”

“Sometimes I do, yes.”

She made a sound at the back of her throat. “Well, you can go home now. The show’s over. Your babysitting duties are officially done for the night.”

He nodded toward her glass. “Finish that and I’ll drive you home.”

Oh, no. She was not having him shepherd her home like some stray sheep who’d wandered into the wrong field. She had conquered tonight, and she was leaving under her own steam. Because, truthfully, all she wanted was a hot shower and her bed now that the world had blissfully right-sided itself.

She lifted her chin. “I’m not ready to leave. It was so nice of Lazzero to invite me. It’s a great party. There’s dancing and everything. I think I’ll stay.”

He set his silvery gaze on hers. “Let’s go dance, then.”

Her heart tripped over itself. She knew how good it felt to be that close to all that muscle and masculinity. How exciting it was, because he’d subjected her to its full effects before he’d cast her aside and chosen another.

“I didn’t say I wanted to dance right now.” She held up her half-finished glass of champagne. “I still have this.”

“I think you’ve had enough.” He plucked the glass out of her fingers, captured her wrist in his hand and was leading her through the crowd toward the packed dance floor before she could voice an objection. She knew it for the bad idea it was before they’d even gotten there. Eddie had touched her bare thigh and hadn’t even caused a ripple. Nico’s fingers wrapped around her wrist were like a surge of electricity through her entire body. She felt it right to the tips of her toes.

But then they’d reached the mosaic-tiled dance floor with its elegant chandelier. With a smooth flick of his wrist, Nico tugged her to him. A little more pressure and she was firmly within the circle of his arms, shielded from the other dancers by his height and breadth.

One of her hands in his, the other resting on his waist, it wasn’t a close hold. But this was Nico. Every inch of her skin heated as it came into whisper-soft contact with his tall, powerful body. And then the scent of him kicked in, filling her head and electrifying her senses.

Smoky and elusive, it was pure, understated sensuality. Vetiver, the warm Indian grass known for its earthy, hedonistic appeal her mother had highlighted in Voluttuoso, her final fragrance. Chloe had always thought it was sexy. On Nico, with his overt virility and intensely masculine scent, it was knee weakening.

One dance. She kept her gaze riveted to the knot of his elegant silver tie. Unfortunately for her, the song was a jazzy, sexy tune, in keeping with the über-cool vibe of the party. A smooth, instinctive dancer, Nico was an excellent lead, guiding her steps easily in the small space they had carved out with a light pressure on her palm.

It should have been simple to exercise the mind control her yoga instructor was always preaching. Instead, her thoughts flew back to that sultry Fourth of July night that changed everything.

Her in Nico’s arms...the illicit, forbidden passion that had burst into flames between them...how for the first time in her life, she’d felt truly, completely alive.

She lifted her gaze to his, searched for some indication that everything they’d shared hadn’t been the imaginings of her eighteen-year-old mind. That she’d meant something to him like she’d thought she had. But his cool gray gaze was focused on her with a calculating intensity that sent that irrational, naive hope plunging to the bottom of her heart.

“We started off on the wrong foot the other night,” he murmured. “We need to work as a team, Chloe, together, not apart, if we have any hope of preserving what your parents built. Full-out warfare is not going to work.”

She arched a brow at him. “Is that an apology?”

“If you like,” he said evenly. “Like it or not, we are in this together. We succeed or fail together. You decide which it is.”

Her lashes lowered. “I agree we need a better working relationship. But this is my company, Nico. You need to listen to me, too. You can’t just run roughshod over me with that insatiable need for control of yours. I know what’s going to make Evolution a success. There’s no doubt in my mind it’s Vivre.”

“Put the rest of the pieces of the plan in place and I might agree. And,” he said, inclining his head, “I promise to listen more. If you stop trying to bait me at every turn.”

Her mouth twisted. “A truce, then?”

A mocking glint filled his gaze. “A truce. We can celebrate by attending the Palm Beach fund-raiser together. It will present a very public united front.”

Her parents’ favorite fund-raiser. A glittering, star-studded musical event in Palm Beach every year in support of breast cancer—a disease her mother’s best friend had succumbed to. Her stomach did a nervous dip at the thought of attending it with Nico.

She tipped her head back to look up at him. “You mean you don’t have one of your hot dates lined up for it?”

Hot in the sense they never lasted with Nico. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him photographed with the same woman twice.

“I haven’t had a hot date in six months,” he drawled. “It will have to wait until Evolution isn’t in danger of falling through the cracks.”

A calculated insult intended to remind her of her irresponsibility and his immutable focus. “However will you survive?” she goaded, skin stinging.

“I will manage,” he murmured, eyes on hers. “Careful, Chloe, we’ve barely gotten this cease-fire of ours under way.”

She sank her teeth into her lip. At the erotic image that one word inserted into her head. It took very little of her imagination to wonder what he would look like in the shower satisfying that physical need, his beautiful body primed for release.

She closed her eyes. She hated him. This was insanity.

The song finished. She stepped hastily out of his arms, smoothing her dress down over her hips. Nico gave her a pointed look. “Ready to leave?”

The concrete set of his jaw said there was no point arguing. He wasn’t leaving her here. He would wait all night if he had to because this was Nico—relentless in everything he did. Patient like the most tenacious predator in achieving what he wanted.

“Yes,” she agreed with a helpless sigh.

He placed a palm to her back as they wound their way through the crowd to say good-night to Lazzero. The heat of it fizzled over her skin, warming her layers deep, a real-life chemical reaction she’d never been able to defuse.

It rendered her silent on the trip home, the warm, luxurious interior of the car wrapping her in a sleek, dark cocoon as they slipped through quiet streets. She was so tired as Nico walked her to her door, she stumbled with the key as she tried to push it into the lock.

His fingers brushed against hers as he collected the keys from her hand and unlocked the door. Little pinpricks of heat exploded across her skin, a surge of warmth staining her cheeks as she looked up at him to thank him. Found herself all caught up in his smoky gaze that suddenly seemed to have a charge in it that stalled the breath in her throat.

“Go inside and go to bed, Chloe,” he said huskily. “And lock the door.”

His intention ever since he’d walked into that bar tonight, she reminded herself, past her spinning head. To prevent her from slipping into Eddie Carello’s hands.

She slicked her tongue across suddenly dry lips. Cocked her chin at a defiant angle. “Mission accomplished. I’ll be in bed by midnight. But then again, you always get what you want, don’t you, Nico?”

His gray gaze was heavy-lidded as it focused on her mouth for an infinitesimal pause. “Not always,” he said quietly.

Then he disappeared into the night.

CHAPTER THREE

IT HAD BEEN the champagne talking. Chloe convinced herself of that version of events as she walked to work the next morning. That cryptic comment from Nico on her doorstep, the chemistry that had seemed so palpable between them. Because not once in all the years since their summer flirtation had he ever looked at her like that.

She’d merely been a blip on his radar. A casual diversion he’d regretted when more sophisticated choices had come along. Thinking it had been any more than that would make her a fool where he was concerned and she’d stopped being that a long time ago.

Whatever misguided sense of duty he was displaying toward her, this power trip he was on, Nico’s ambition was the only thing he cared about, a fact she would do well to remember. She’d agreed to this truce of theirs only for the greater good of the company. Because saving Evolution was all that mattered.

She perfected her spiel for Eddie’s agent as she rode the elevator to her office, said good-morning to Clara, whom she’d decided was not only witty but astonishingly efficient, and took the messages her assistant handed her into her office.

Done in antiques, with a Louis XVI writing desk and chairs, ultra-feminine lace-edged, silk curtains and warm lamp lighting, the office that had once been her mother’s wrapped itself around her like a whisper-soft memory. But her mind was all business as she picked up the phone and called Eddie’s agent. A good thing, too, because when she reached him, he told her he was on his way out of town but could have lunch that day before he left.

Apprehensive Eddie would change his mind if it waited, Chloe jumped on the invitation. Unfortunately, his agent wasn’t immediately sold on the endorsement, but in the end he relented, only because Eddie seemed so keen on the project and the actor had a movie coming out at Christmas, just as the massive campaign for Soar would appear.

Chloe floated back to the office and announced her victory to Mireille, who was just as excited as she.

“I,” she informed Chloe, “have good news and bad news for you. The good news is that Lashaunta is interested. She loves the campaign. It really resonated with her.”

Chloe’s heart soared. Lashaunta was a megastar. “That’s amazing.”

“The bad news is that Carrie Taylor is a no. She’s about to represent a competing fragrance. Desdemona,” she concluded, “I’m still working on.”

Which meant they needed to secure their plan B supermodel, Estelle Markov, for Nico to give them the green light. He might approve the plan with only three of their four celebrities in place, but any less than that and Chloe knew she’d be out of luck.

While Mireille worked on Estelle, Chloe went off to put the final piece of her buzz campaign into effect, personally delivering samples of the Vivre fragrances to each and every Evolution employee’s desk, explaining the story behind the perfumes. A streak of the devil possessing her, she also had Clara courier samples of the fragrances to the board members, making sure she also sent one for their significant other.

She would win them over.

* * *

Hurricane Chloe had entered the building.

A wry smile tugged at Nico’s lips as he waved Chloe into his office late on Friday afternoon and motioned for her to take a seat as he finished up a conference call.

She walked to the window instead, vibrating with the perpetual energy she’d been displaying all week in her very effective campaign to prove him wrong. Her slender body encased in a soft, off-white sweater, dark jeans tucked into knee-high boots and a fawn-colored jacket topping it off, she wore her hair in a high ponytail, her flawless skin bare of makeup.

The hard kick she administered to his solar plexus wasn’t unexpected. He’d been fighting his attraction to Chloe ever since the first moment he’d set foot in the Russo household and eyes on Martino and Juliette’s eldest daughter.

Twenty to Chloe’s sixteen, he’d been hard and bitter from his experiences. But something about the quiet, passionate Chloe had penetrated his close-packed outer shell. Perhaps he had recognized a piece of himself in her—the need they had both had to bury themselves behind their layers to protect themselves against the world. Perhaps it had been how she had sold her subtle beauty short when he’d always found her far more attractive than her stunning sister.

He’d told himself he couldn’t have her. That he would never put his position as Martino’s protégé in jeopardy—the career that had meant everything to him as he’d finally built a solid footing under his feet. Until unintended and explosive, the attraction between him and Chloe had slipped his reins at the Russo’s annual Fourth of July party.

Martino, who’d witnessed the kiss, had brought him up short, asking his intentions when it came to his daughter. Pursue Chloe seriously or leave her alone, he had said, knowing what Nico was—a man who would never trust, never commit to a woman because of the scars his early life had left behind.

So he’d walked away. Done it the hard way so it would be a clean break. So he wouldn’t be tempted with what he couldn’t have. Because Martino had been right—he would have broken Chloe’s heart far worse than he had in the end.

Martino might not be alive, he conceded, studying the delicate length of her spine, and Chloe wasn’t a teenager anymore, but he had a new responsibility now. To protect her, not bed her. To nurture her as Martino had asked of him. It was a promise he would not break.

His call with the West Coast team over, he pushed out of his chair and walked to where she stood at the window. She turned, her face expectant. “Did you look at the plan?”

“Yes.” He glanced at his watch. “I have time to go through it before my dinner plans if you’d like.”

When she answered in the affirmative, he strode out to reception, sent his PA, Simone, home, then returned to pour himself a Scotch. When Chloe refused his offer of a drink, he joined her in the lounge, where she stood at the windows, enjoying the view.

Designed to work and entertain with its Italian glass chandeliers, dining room for ten and magnificent vista of a night-lit Central Park, the view was Nico’s favorite thing about the space he spent far too much time in.

Chloe turned around. “So what did you think?”

“I think you’ve made a very persuasive case for Vivre being the Christmas focus. The plan is excellent.” A wry smile touched his mouth. “It was also impossible,” he conceded drily, “to miss your blitz campaign. Very clever. I couldn’t walk the halls without hearing about it. Simone can’t stop raving about Be. Jerry Schumacher called me this morning to beg for an early production bottle for his wife.”

A tiny smile curved her mouth at the mention of Evolution’s most senior board member. “I did say I would win them over. But more important,” she added, excitement filling her voice, “the media is raving about Vivre, Nico. The editor of the most influential fashion magazine in America is crazy about Soar. She wants to feature it as her must-have product for Christmas. I think it’s going to be a huge hit.”

He held up a hand before she got too carried away. “I saw that. I do, however, still have real concerns about the timing. It seems inordinately tight. I want more than Giorgio’s rose-colored glasses making this decision.”

“It is a tight timeline,” she admitted. “I may not sleep. But we can do it. The advertising space is booked, and all four of our celebrities have the time in their schedule to film the spots.”

He addressed the one glaring hole in the plan. “I don’t see Carrie Taylor in there. What happened to her?”

She sank her teeth into her lip. “She’s representing a competing fragrance. But Mireille has a verbal commitment from Estelle Markov, who’s making it big in Europe. I think she’ll be perfect to target that audience.”

“I’ve never heard of her.” He frowned. “She doesn’t have Carrie Taylor’s cachet, Chloe. Nor is the European market anywhere near the size of the North American one.”

“But she’s amazing.” Her eyes shimmered with fire. “When was the last time you were a twentysomething fashionista with breasts?”

A dry look back. “Point taken.”

“Not to mention the fact that Eddie and Lashaunta could carry this campaign on their own if they had to,” she plunged on. “Carrie is not a make-or-break for us.”

He took a sip of his Scotch. Considered his options. The skincare line he had favored was, in truth, not going to set the world on fire. It would, however, provide very solid profits. Vivre might be that superstar product line Evolution so desperately needed, but was he insane to bet the company on it?

“This is a fifty-million-dollar campaign,” he said, fixing his gaze on Chloe’s. “We’ve never done anything of this magnitude before. It needs to be executed flawlessly—right down to the last detail. Needs to put Evolution on everyone’s lips again. Are you sure you can get it into market in time?”

“Yes.” Her head bobbed up and down. “Trust me, Nico. I can do this.”

He gave her a long look. “Okay,” he said finally, pointing his glass at her. “Let’s do it, then.”

* * *

The world tilted beneath Chloe’s feet. “Did you just say yes?”

He smiled. “Si.”

“Why?”

“Because I believe in you,” he said quietly. “You’re a brilliant scientist, Chloe. Juliette said you have even better instincts than she had at this age. That you have the magic in you. I just wasn’t sure you or Vivre was ready.”

Hot tears prickled beneath her eyelids. A knot she hadn’t been conscious of unraveled in her chest. Three years of blood, sweat and tears. Six months of praying she had created something that would do her mother proud. To be so close to watching her dream reach fruition almost undid her.

But there was also fear. Her stomach clenched hard at the responsibility that now lay on her shoulders, icy tentacles of apprehension sinking into her skin. What if she failed? What if she’d been overly optimistic and couldn’t get the campaign into market in time? What if she was wrong about Vivre? What if it wasn’t going to be the smash hit she thought it would be?

She inhaled a deep breath. Steadied herself. She wasn’t wrong. She knew it in her heart. She just wished her mother was here to tell her that. To be the second half of her she had always been. Instead, she had to do this herself.

“I know this is the right path for Evolution,” she said huskily. “I can feel it in my bones.”

Nico nodded. “Then let me give you a few additional thoughts I have.”

They sat at the table in the dining room and worked through the plan. Released one by one in limited-edition launches in the weeks leading up to Christmas, the campaign for Vivre was all about buzz building and creating a sense of exclusivity for the perfumes.

Vivre’s four celebrity ambassadors would do exclusive appearances at the Times Square pop-up retail location in conjunction with the massive promotional campaign that would blanket the globe, intensifying the buzz.

Nico frowned as he looked at the timeline. “When does Eddie’s movie come out?”

“The second week of December.” Chloe pointed to the date on the timeline. “That’s why we’re launching Soar that week.”

“What are you doing on his side of things to cross-promote?”

She pursed her lips. “I hadn’t gotten that far yet.”

“You should do something with the theaters. Hand samples out. Put the fragrance in the gift bags at the premieres. Run the campaign on theater screens.”

So smart. She tapped her coffee mug against her chin. “I don’t know if we have time.”

He lifted a brow.

“We’ll make it happen,” she corrected hastily. “No problem.”

He offered a half dozen more brilliant ideas before they were done, Chloe frantically scribbling notes. She had to reluctantly admit by the time they were finished that while she and her uncle had created an inspired plan, Nico had taken it to a whole other level with his innate sense of timing and brilliant business instincts.

Which had never been in question, she brooded as he got up from the table to shrug on an elegant black dinner jacket. Her father would never have taken him on as his protégé if he hadn’t possessed Leone Di Fiore’s uncanny sense of financial wizardry. What she couldn’t forgive was how Nico had taken advantage of the trust her father had placed in him with what Giorgio had described as a systematic campaign to gain power.

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