I phrased that poorly.’ The man forced a smile to his thin lips. ‘I have been sent to offer you assistance. May I come in so that we can speak privately?’
Nicole thought on it for a moment. It wasn’t as if she had a whole lot of other options. Perhaps at least he could organise some sort of protection for them. She stood back, unclipping the latch and motioning for him to come inside.
He moved through the doorway and took in the surroundings of her simple home with quick, disapproving efficiency. He looked back down at her. ‘Miss Duvalle, my team has already contained the area, as you can see.’ He gestured to the men standing guard at the gateway to her property. ‘We would prefer it if you had no more contact with the media until we have a chance to resolve the matter privately.’
‘That’s kind of difficult, considering they are camped out on my doorstep.’
‘Which is why I am here. A meeting has been arranged in Paris to address this...situation. If you choose to cooperate you will be offered every assistance.’
The way he called it that—a ‘situation’—made it sound like such a nuisance. A minor fender-bender in the Marchesi fashion empire’s shipshape working schedule. These people had no appreciation of the fact that her entire life had been upended for the second time in less than two years.
‘I have no control over this situation, Mr Santi, as you can see. So I doubt that I can help anyone to resolve it. All I need is to keep my daughter out of this mess.’
‘The media will not relent—you know this,’ he said gravely. ‘Surely you expected the attention?’
‘Why on earth would I expect this?’
The man shrugged and looked away, making it clear what he meant. Nicole felt cold shame wash over her. Just as she had on the last occasion this man had passed on a message from his employer. She shook her head in disgust. Of course Rigo would think that she had willingly pawned her child off to the tabloids. She was Goldie Duvalle’s daughter after all, wasn’t she?
Shaking off the hurt and anger, she forced herself to speak. ‘Just to be clear—if I decline to come with you will the police stay to protect my privacy?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
Well, there it was. She felt the skin on her arms prickle. It was clear she was being given an ultimatum. Get in the car and go and make a deal with the devil or stay put and be trapped in her home while the vultures circled.
Sure, she could always leave and find some new place. But with this much attention on them she and Anna would never live a normal life again. They hadn’t managed to get a clear photograph of her daughter yet, but they would. And with the scandal of her parentage she would become infamous.
She knew what that life was like. She had lived it. And she would never put her child under that kind of microscope. But now...would she be able to ensure Anna’s privacy with this scandal surrounding them both? She didn’t have the kind of financial power it took to control the media, to keep her daughter’s innocent face off the front pages.
Her chest tightened. Anna was too young to be aware of the drama unfolding around her. But Nicole knew better than anyone that awareness would come with age. Memories of her own childhood threatened to surface. She could almost feel the familiar stifling pressure to perform for the public.
She shook her head and paced to the window once more. The thought of those men outside, wrestling with each other to take photographs of her daughter to sell to the highest bidder... It stirred something deep and primal inside her. This was exactly why she had walked away from her old life in the first place.
She didn’t want Rigo’s help, but she wasn’t stubborn enough not to recognise that she was in desperate need of it. She was certain he would want this whole episode erased as soon as possible. He had made his stance on fatherhood abundantly clear once already, hadn’t he?
She would go to Paris. She would sacrifice her pride and ask him for help. The story would be silenced and they could all return to normality.
* * *
The European headquarters of the Marchesi Group was a gargantuan chrome-and-glass tower in the heart of Paris. It was a relatively new building, and its acquisition had been one of the first changes to his family’s historic fashion brand that Rigo Marchesi had made upon taking his seat as CEO five years previously.
There had been outrage when he had moved the company’s flagship building from Milan to Paris. But Rigo had a vision for the future of his company, and that vision required change.
Keeping his finger on the pulse of the modern business world was what made him a great leader, along with his razor-sharp negotiating skills and a clean-cut, dependable reputation. His unconventional choices had already seen profits skyrocket, and his family name restored after the steady downward decline of the business during the decade preceding his rise to CEO.
Great leaders were never caught by surprise. Rigo glowered at his computer screen as he stirred a spoonful of organic sweetener into his double espresso. Great leaders were not waylaid by a scandal that had apparently already been live on the internet for several hours. Above all, great leaders did not get publicly vilified by the world’s media mere weeks before the biggest deal of their company’s history was about to be completed.
Downing the hot coffee in one go, he stood up and paced across to the window.
Nicole Duvalle had been a blip. A moment of madness that had somehow bypassed his usually crystal-clear judgement. Rigo did not do mindless pleasure. He made sure that the women he took into his bed had their own careers to take up most of their time, just as he did. He was selective in his affairs and had no time for the kind of woman who was simply attracted to his net worth.
And yet when it had come to Nicole his logic had failed him. He’d got caught up in the blinding attraction between them and thought to hell with the consequences.
Well, the consequences were here now, and Miss Duvalle had no idea what she had just started.
Rigo turned as the glass door to his office opened and Alberto entered. His right-hand man looked rumpled and nothing like his usual pristine self.
‘I trust your day has gone to plan?’ Rigo raised a brow in question.
‘She walked out after less than five minutes.’ Alberto exhaled harshly. ‘They offered her the deal and she point-blank refused it.’
Rigo was silent for a moment, leaning back against the desk. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t expected this outcome. If Nicole was as money hungry as her mother she would hardly accept the first pay-off she was offered. He had only offered the money to get the story settled quickly, out of the courtroom.
The deal he was currently negotiating with French jewellery icon Fournier was time sensitive. The family-owned company had been initially reluctant to merge with such a large corporation, and it had already taken months to get to this point. Rigo gritted his teeth, feeling his jaw tighten with frustration. How could one interview cause this much mayhem?
Already he had been notified of shareholders jumping ship and rumbles amongst the board members. His late grandfather had left a black spot on the Marchesi name that had almost bankrupted their eighty-five-year-old brand. After his own father’s tireless work to put the business to rights, there was no way
