LITMIR.BIZ

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trendy glasses pounced on her as she emerged into the elegant cream marble reception area. “Clara Jones, your new PA,” the blonde introduced herself, relieving Chloe of her dripping raincoat in the same breath. “You’re the last to arrive. Nico is—well, you know...” she said, giving Chloe a meaningful look. “He likes to start on time.”

      Her heart crawled into her throat. “I couldn’t get a cab.”

      “It is awful out there.”

      Clara led Chloe down the hall toward the large, plush conference room with its expansive view of a wintry, lamp-lit Central Park. “Nico gave me your presentation. It’s ready to go.”

      Now if only she was. Memories deluged her as she stood surveying the crowded, warmly lit room full of Evolution board members and directors enjoying a glass of wine and hors d’oeuvres before the meeting began. Of her father manning the seat at the head of the table that Nico now would as the chairman of the board. Of her mother swanning around, captivating the executives with her sparkling wit and charm.

      Her stomach swam with nerves. She was a scientist. Her mother had been a self-made genius with a larger-than-life personality who’d created a multibillion-dollar empire out of a tiny bath products company she’d founded to serve her husband’s financial clientele. Chloe was far more comfortable in the lab creating beautiful things than presenting to a stiff-suited board like her mother had been. But this was her job now. A necessary evil.

      Any nerves about her presentation, however, faded to the background as Nico spotted her. Clad in a sleek, dark gray Tom Ford suit, the white shirt and silver tie he wore beneath it making the most of his dark good looks and olive skin, he was faultlessly elegant. It was when she lifted her gaze to his that she realized just how much trouble she was in.

      His lips set in a flat line, jaw locked, smoky gray gaze full of thunderclouds, he was furious. Fingers of ice crept up her spine as he murmured something to the board member he was speaking with, then set his tall, impressive frame into motion, eating up the distance between them. Clara took one look at his face, muttered something about checking the AV equipment and disappeared.

      Chloe’s heart ricocheted in a hard drumbeat against her ribs as Nico came to a halt in front of her. She tipped her head back to look up at him, refusing to reveal how much he intimidated her. With his leonine dark head, cold, slate blue eyes and cheekbones at forty-five degrees, he couldn’t quite be called handsome in the traditional sense because he was far too hard for that.

      His wide, full mouth made up for that lack of softness, however—lush and almost pouty when he wanted to seduce a response out of the person in question. Which was not now.

      Her heart battered up against her chest in another wave of nerves at the dark fire in his eyes. At the realization that any hope she’d had that she’d developed an immunity to him after seven years in Europe had been utter self-delusion. That the man she’d once thought had been the one had hardened into a ruthless, sapphire-edged version of himself she couldn’t hope to know.

      She might hate him, she did hate him for teaching her the cruel lesson he had, but he was still the most potently gorgeous male she’d ever encountered.

      “I’m sorry,” she murmured, forcing the words past a constricted throat. “I forgot it’s impossible to get a cab in Manhattan on a rainy day.”

      His stormy gaze darkened. “We’ll discuss it afterward,” he said quietly, so quietly it sent her pulse skittering into a dead run. “Take ten minutes to say hello and we’ll start.”

      She nodded. Forced herself through the round of small talk, latching gratefully on to her uncle Giorgio, Evolution’s flamboyant director of marketing, before Nico called the meeting to order.

      An undeniably compelling speaker, he outlined the big picture as Evolution headed into its first Christmas season without its cofounders. Investor confidence was shaky, he observed candidly—the company’s stock price in trouble—with the world worried the loss of Juliette Russo, the creative force of the company, would strike a death knell for Evolution.

      Chloe’s heart sank as he went on to detail the keys for a successful path forward. It wasn’t true that Evolution was a fading star. Her parents had built a company rich with talent. Vivre, the line of fragrances Chloe had spent three years developing with one of the most brilliant French perfumers, would be the hit Christmas product the company needed. But, she reminded herself, the world didn’t know that yet.

      Nico called her up last in the parade of directors presenting their holiday season highlights, after the head of the skincare division had made a big splash with his luxurious, all-natural skincare line. She suspected Nico did it on purpose.

      She rose on legs the consistency of jelly, smoothed the pencil skirt of her still-damp suit and moved to the front of the room. Hands clammy, mouth full of sawdust, she clicked the remote to begin the presentation. Focusing on her passion for her work, she began. Too fast and clunky in her delivery at first, she gradually relaxed as she explained her vision for Vivre and the aspirational campaign that would accompany it. It will, she told those assembled, redefine how beauty is framed in a world that badly needs inspiration.

      Instead of salivating over her exciting launch plan that featured celebrities who would spread the inspirational message, the board members peppered her with questions.

      “Isn’t the perfume market oversaturated?”

      “Your mother could have sold this, but can you?”

      “What about all the workplaces that are going scent-free?”

      “Wouldn’t it be better to focus on the all-natural products that are dominating the market?”

      She took a deep breath and answered the questions the best she could. She had been working with her mother in the lab ever since she was a little girl, she told them. She knew where the magic was. She already had her own signature fragrances to back her up. And the celebrity endorsement she had planned for the Vivre campaign would help her create the buzz she needed.

      When she ran out of answers and needed big-picture help, she looked to Nico because she didn’t have that backup in her head. But instead of coming to her rescue, he sat back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest, and focused that glittering gray gaze of his on her.

      Her stomach swooped. He was punishing her. The bastard. She looked at the director of the skincare division, who stared blankly back at her, clearly not about to help either and diminish his own product line. A trickle of perspiration ran down her back.

      Finally, her uncle stepped in with a passionate rebuttal, reminding the board of the founding tenants Evolution was built on—luxury perfumes like Vivre that had taken the world by storm. But by then, her credibility was in tatters.

      Answering the final question, she sat down red-faced.

      * * *

      Nico held on to his temper by the threads it had been hanging from all evening as the last board member disappeared toward the elevators and home.

      “My office,” he murmured in Chloe’s ear. “Now.”

      Head tossed back, she stalked out of the room in front of him and down the hall toward his office. It would be difficult, he surmised, eyeing her curvaceous backside, for her to find it when she had no idea where it was.

      She came to a sliding halt in front of the sophisticated lounge that was a new addition to the executive floor, her gaze moving over the photos of the company’s cofounders gracing the walls.

      “What happened to my father’s office?” she demanded, spinning on her heel, dark eyes flashing. “Or couldn’t you even leave that alone?”

      “I didn’t think it was appropriate for me to assume it,” he murmured, directing her down the hall toward his office with a hand at her back. Something in him hadn’t been able to simply wipe his mentor from existence by redecorating a space that had always been quintessentially Martino’s. But he didn’t feel the need to explain his actions to Chloe at this particular moment.

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