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. He was barely resisting the urge to strangle her for the ever-present recalcitrance that had pushed him one step too far this time.
He closed the door to his office with a decisive click. Strode to the window and counted to ten because that was what Chloe did to him. Pushed buttons he didn’t even know he had. Elicited emotions he had always had to exert the most extreme self-control to silence. Because Chloe was the chink in his armor. The one weakness he couldn’t seem to kick. And wanting her had always been a swift trip to hell.
“You were punishing me, weren’t you?” Her voice drifted over his shoulder, trembling with rage.
He turned around and leaned against the sill. Studied the fury on her beautiful face. The way her delicate features had settled into an intriguing beauty that was impossible to ignore. The arms she had crossed over her firm, high breasts, the feet defiantly planted apart in her haute couture Parisian suit.
She was a study in rebellion. It was insane the fire that rose up inside him, the desire to crush those lush lips into submission under his own, to shock her out of the self-protective state she’d descended into since her parents’ passing. To unearth some sign the passionate Chloe he knew still existed.
But having her had never been an option for him. He had conditioned it out of himself a long time ago because he’d had to. Just like he’d eliminated every other undesirable need he’d had in a life that had never had any room for self-indulgence.
He pointed at the chair in front of his desk. “Sit.”
She crossed her arms tighter over her chest. “I’d prefer to stand.”
“Bene.” He took a seat on the corner of his desk, eyes on her. “I hung you out to dry in there because you needed to learn a lesson.”
“That you are the king of the castle,” she challenged, eyes flashing.
“Yes,” he said evenly. “I am. And the sooner you realize it, the easier this is going to be on both of us. It was your father’s wish, Chloe, that I run this company. And while I don’t intend for one minute to deny you your place at the center of it—in fact, my intention is the opposite—you need to get that particular fact straight in your head.”
Her mouth curled. “Giorgio should be the head of this company, not you.”
“That’s why your father made me second in command a year ago?” he rebutted coolly. “Think rationally.”
She flicked a wrist at him, ebony eyes snapping with heat. “Because you somehow brainwashed him into it. How else would his will have been so perfectly in order when he died? Because it was your master plan, of course.”
A low curl of heat unfurled inside him. “Watch it,” he said softly. “You’re starting to sound like your very bitter, very deluded uncle. Martino put me in control of Evolution in the event something happened to him and Juliette because he knew Giorgio would drive the company into the ground with his big spending ways. Your uncle has neither the business brain nor the common sense to run Evolution.”
“That’s a lie,” she breathed. “He is widely reputed to be one of the most brilliant marketers there is. And don’t forget,” she added, eyes darkening with old wounds, “I have firsthand knowledge of how ambitious you are, Nico. Success is the only thing that matters to you.”
“And that,” he said, emphasizing the word, “is the problem between us, Chloe. I am grieving, too. We are all grieving. And yet you are fixated on ancient history when it has no place here. You need to grow up and move on.”
Her eyes widened. “I am not bringing the personal into this.”
“Aren’t you?” He slid his gaze over her fire-soaked cheeks. “That’s why you’ve spent the last six months hiding away in Paris instead of taking your place in this company? So I finally had to order you back? Because there’s nothing personal here?”
A muscle pulled tight at the corner of her mouth. “You have such an overinflated ego. Vivre wasn’t ready.”
“So you said,” he responded quietly. “My contacts in the lab say it was ready six months ago. That you have been stalling, perfecting imperfections that don’t exist.” He fixed his gaze on hers. “Hide from the world or hide from me, Chloe, both of them are ending now.”
She glared at him. “I hate you.”
“I know.” He’d decided a long time ago that was preferable in this relationship of theirs.
She drew a visible breath that rippled through her slim body as she collected her composure. “Have you reviewed my launch plan, then? Since Vivre is so clearly ready?”
“Yes,” he murmured, picking it up off his desk. “This is what I think of it.”
Her eyes went as big as saucers as he tossed the sheaf of papers into the wastebasket. “What are you doing?”
“Putting it where it belongs.” He shook his head, his hands coming to rest on the edge of the desk. “You have no business case in that plan. All you have is fluffy, overinflated, feel-good market research that relies on your legacy to sell it. A fifty-million-dollar launch plan in which the linchpin for success turns on a celebrity endorsement program you don’t have a hope in hell of attaining.”
Her chin lifted. “That is a brilliant launch plan, Nico. I have a master’s degree, in case you had forgotten. Maybe I should have been more detailed with the numbers—and I can be because I was focusing on the big picture—but the consumer testing has been off the charts for Vivre. One of the most important French perfumers in the industry thinks it’s inspired—as brilliant as anything my mother has done. This is the product that is going to prove Evolution is back this Christmas, not some generic all-natural skincare line you couldn’t distinguish from any of its competitors.”
He surveyed her flushed,
