Christmas At The Tycoon's Command

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.