The Paris Connection

* * *

DESPITE THE TEMPTATION to do exactly what he had warned against, Emma translated Cole’s words from English to French exactly as he spoke them. Most of the Aquitaine board and employees spoke both languages fluently, but for the few who only knew French, Julien insisted on a translator.

Emma wondered if Julien had known ahead of time how compelling a speaker Cole Dorset was. He stood before the Aquitaine staff with seemingly unshakable confidence, charming them with his greeting and then managing to seem both humble and self-assured as he related a story about his travel experience and a cultural faux pas he’d blundered into on the flight from JFK airport in New York to Charles de Gaulle in Paris. If she had met him in this meeting, as the others were doing, perhaps she could have liked him—or at the least, found him tolerable despite the fact that he’d stolen her promotion. But if first impressions were everything, then she and Cole had absolutely no foundation upon which to build their working relationship. She wondered if Julien would consider assigning someone else to be Cole Dorset’s babysitter. After all, she already had a child to care for.

One glance at Julien’s face provided the answer, however. He was watching her carefully, his gaze intent, and she knew he suspected that she and Cole’s first meeting had not gone as well as planned.

Well, she’d done her best to explain why she’d been late, and if he hadn’t been so intent on faulting her punctuality then maybe things would have progressed more positively. Her thoughts scattered as everyone in the room laughed, and she suddenly realized she had broken off translating several moments before. Cole waited for her to catch up, and the belated laughter of the French-speaking personnel served to highlight her distraction.

She glanced at Cole to indicate he should continue and found him frowning at her. He hesitated for only a moment before he began speaking once again.

For the rest of the presentation, she forced herself to pay attention, and each time her mind started to wander, she refocused it on Cole. By the end of his explanation of his new role and the benefits of this merger, she felt uncomfortably aware of the man’s presence, from his easy gestures to the smile that was quite alluring when it wasn’t marked by smugness.

She found herself depressed as Cole finished, and her coworkers erupted in enthusiastic applause. Traitors. Couldn’t they see how he was working them over? Were they so easily swayed by his handsome face and charming banter? She stood as employees rushed to the front of the room to converge on their new boss; but she remained in her corner, wondering if she could safely escape or whether Julien would chastise her if she bailed right now.

Her curiosity was quickly answered when Julien approached.

“What happened between you and Cole this morning?”

Julien knew her far too well to believe any sort of lie she might concoct. “I was late. He was rude.”

Julien sighed. “I know this is difficult for you, Emma, but for the sake of your job and for this company, you must try to embrace this merger.”

“Accept,” she corrected. “I will try to accept it, but I refuse to embrace it.” She folded her arms around her midsection and restarted the conversation she and Julien had been having for weeks. “We didn’t need them. We were doing fine on our own.”

Julien shook his head. “I’ve told you, the market has become too competitive. To ally with the Americans is to open up doors of opportunity for both of our companies. I should think you’d be glad to be joining with your countrymen. Lillian Reid is refreshingly frank about business. She is a remarkable woman, having built her firm from the ground up after her husband died. And all while raising a young daughter, too. You should appreciate that, given how hard you’ve worked to establish yourself while also being a mother to Avery.”

Emma suppressed a sigh. Yes, she should appreciate the similarities in her own life to Lillian Reid’s history. It was not the first time Julien had tried to sway her with this argument.

“I doubt Lillian Reid was ever promised a promotion and then had it taken away from her and given to another.” She glared in Cole’s direction as she said these words. She felt gratified when her rival seemed to sense her stare, raised his head and met her eyes, frowning at the dislike she hoped she was conveying.

Julien cleared his throat. “You go too far, Emma,” he warned, his voice harder than she had ever heard it. “You lost the promotion, yes, but be grateful you still have a job at all. Lillian and I negotiated fiercely to retain most of my staff rather than bring in her own people from New York. Cole Dorset’s placement as CEO was the only demand she would not release. She insists he is the best and brightest of her firm.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but Julien’s nearly imperceptible headshake forced her to swallow the words.

“You will learn to embrace this, or you will become a consummate actress and pretend that you do. You are liked and admired here, Emma—by everyone. You have risen in the company, and I treat you well—nearly like the daughter I never had, oui?”

She dipped her head in agreement, feeling ashamed for her ingratitude.

“The others will look to you for their cues on how to behave. And if you do not treat Cole as your superior, then neither will they. It is why I insisted you be his liaison within the branch. The two of you working together will strengthen this merger and cause Aquitaine to remain in the forefront of the executive recruiting field. Do I make myself clear?”

Emma’s gaze shifted to Cole, watching as he laughed with one of the more prickly members of the board. How had he managed to charm everyone in his few short hours here?

“Emma.”

Her attention jerked back to Julien.

“Do we have an understanding?”

She swallowed. “Of course, Julien,” she replied. “I’ll support the merger in any way I can.”

Julien relaxed. “Merci. Now, I would like you to show Cole to his new office as well as give him a tour of the building.”

“Certainly,” she managed to choke out. Julien turned to go.

“Julien.” She called him back. “I’m sorry.”

“It is forgiven. But do not do anything that will make you have to utter those words again.”

CHAPTER TWO

EMMA SPENT THE rest of the morning showing Cole around the Aquitaine offices. By unspoken agreement, they said as little as possible to one another outside of topics related to work. The questions he asked were good ones—about the day-to-day operations, their strongest recruiters, their largest clients and competitive markets. Despite her dislike of him, she had to admit that Cole Dorset seemed well versed in the area of executive recruiting. She supposed she could see why Lillian Reid had called him her “best and brightest,” but she still harbored serious reservations on whether Cole could do the job as effectively as she would have.

During the latter part of the morning, Cole asked for a few minutes with each of the top-level recruiters, so Emma began the rounds of the senior offices with him. Before they approached each one, she gave him a brief summary of that particular recruiter’s special skills, fields of expertise and any personal interests.

Once again, she was forced to grudgingly admit how Cole used her words to his benefit. He was a sponge when it came to the information she fed him, retaining facts and using them to establish camaraderie with his team.

At Marc Benoit’s door, he commented on the skiing hobby Emma had mentioned before they entered the room and then spent nearly twenty minutes listening to Marc enthusiastically describe his winter vacation to the Swiss Alps.

He greeted Aurora Fontenot with a grin and handshake, noting the framed canvas hanging on her wall and acting shocked when she blushingly confessed she had painted it herself.

Standing outside Louis Terrell’s office, he congratulated the senior recruiter on his placement record and remembered all three names of the man’s children along with his wife’s charity efforts.

She hesitated on the threshold at Giselle Bisset’s office. Giselle was her friend, but the woman was an unbelievable flirt. She wasn’t sure how to warn Cole about Giselle’s never-ending quest for dates. She opted instead to share Giselle’s passion for French fashion and her specialty of media relations, and was duly impressed when Cole easily deflected Giselle’s attempts at flirtation by repeatedly steering the conversation back to her niche.

Though she was loath to admit it, Cole’s people skills were undeniable, and Emma could see why Lillian Reid must have found him valuable, both as a recruiter and now as a leader. Seeing his talents up close, however, only served to remind her of what she had lost—the promotion and the opportunity to be standing in Cole’s place at this very moment. Fortunately, after a morning filled with introductions and a catered lunch for the whole floor, he’d asked to spend the afternoon alone in his office to review some files pertaining to the merger. She suspected he also had to update Lillian Reid on how things were progressing, but she was more than happy to leave him to it. She spent the rest of the day in her own office, catching up on her work. When the day was over, she wanted nothing more than to erase her memories of the past twelve hours, eat some dinner, take a hot bath and curl up on the couch with Avery for the evening.

She arrived home to her apartment and hung her bag on the coatrack as she announced her presence. “I’m home!”

Entering the living area, she sighed at the sight of toys scattered across the floor and cushions pulled off the couch. A makeshift fort of pillows and blankets—and was that her favorite shawl?—blocked her entrance to the hallway. She tore down the obstruction and continued toward the bedrooms, calling for her daughter and Melanie, the au pair who had come to live with them two months before.

Though Emma had chosen to remain in France after her divorce from Brice, she didn’t want Avery to forget the American side of her heritage. The au pair system was the perfect way to balance Avery’s cultural experiences. After all, it was how Emma herself had first come to Paris and fallen in love, by signing up as an au pair straight out of college. She had merely been young and looking to see some of the world before settling into a career, but her time in the city had stolen her heart, as had Brice, and by her twenty-third birthday, she had found herself married and living as an expat in this country.

Emma wanted her daughter to be bilingual, so she insisted Avery speak only English when at home. Having an American nanny only reinforced this. Plus, Emma got to share her enthusiasm for her adopted city with a new au pair each year. The au pair system set a maximum amount of hours caregivers could work each week, leaving them free to explore the city and make friends in their free time. During the summer, Melanie watched over Avery through the day, and Emma got to spend time with her daughter in the evening and on weekends. Once nursery school started in another couple of weeks, Melanie’s duties would shift to getting Avery ready for school and then watching her in the afternoons until Emma got home from work; the au pair would also watch Avery all day on Wednesdays, since schools had off that day in France. Melanie would still have most evenings and weekends free to spend the time as she wished.

“Avery? Melanie?” Emma called as she picked a pillow up off the floor.

“We’re in here!” Melanie called from down the hall.

Emma entered her daughter’s bedroom to more chaos—scarves looped around the bedposts, their ends trailing down to the mattress, where the sheets had been stripped from the bed and a picnic blanket spread out instead, along with Avery’s tea party set.

To her credit, Melanie looked up with an apologetic smile. “Sorry about the mess. Avery said she’d never made a pillow fort before.”

Emma waved this apology away. Avery was five years old and extremely well-mannered—at times, frighteningly so—but children were children, and playtime should be a happy mix of wonder and chaos.

“We’ll get it cleaned up before dinner,” Emma said. “Now...where is my daughter?”

A tiny, dark head could be glimpsed from the other side of the bed.