by Maisey Yates
“My point is that you’ve had success easy and young.” She bit her lip, like she was holding back words she wanted desperately to speak. Words that would be designed to castrate him, of that he had no doubt. “Because of that success, you’ve never had to deal with the realities of setbacks. Of how business works. Of the nuances of it. You didn’t have to court the press, they came to you. You haven’t had to turn scandal around and make it work to your advantage. Haven’t had to twist lies around so that they’re close enough to the truth no one will examine it all too closely, but I have. I know what we’re dealing with here. I know the manner of man Scott Hamlin really is, and I won’t hesitate to take him out completely.”
“You say that like I don’t know that manner of man,” she said, her tone frosty. “I’m a woman in a man’s world. Tech is a boys’ club, Calvaresi. There’s practically a No Girls Allowed sign on the door. I’ve been dealing with men all my life who want to take from me, who think they can just take from women. I do know about men like Hamlin. And you’re right. He deserves nothing less than total professional destruction.”
“He would do nothing less to us. He’s tried to, or didn’t you know?”
“What?”
“You look shocked.”
“I am. He’s never tried to do anything to me.”
“You think not? Well, he’s the man who’s seventy percent responsible for my unauthorized bio, which you are familiar with. And he’s also responsible for the IRS rechecking all of your returns last year.”
“How did you know about that?”
“It’s getting tiresome but I’ll say it again. Corporate espionage.” He watched her expression change, watched her skin turn a deeper pink. He really had made her angry now.
“Who do you have in my company?”
“Who says I have anyone in there? Now.”
“Ferro…”
“I never confirm anything. I don’t deny it, either, so you might as well not waste your time trying to get either from me.”
“Fine. So you say he’s trying to take us down.”
“Yes. And if you were more scandalous he may have succeeded.”
She frowned. “Excuse me? You’re extremely scandalous and he didn’t succeed with you.”
Ferro shrugged. “Because I know how to play it.”
“Is this where ‘neither confirm nor deny’ comes in?”
“Absolutely. My point is, Julia, you need to play this my way. Because while I appreciate that you’re a tech wunderkind—”
“I’m twenty-five. I’m not that young.”
Nearly ten years his junior, and even younger when it came to life experience. Julia didn’t look tired yet. But she would. Life had a way of doing that to people. Especially people thrust into the spotlight.
Lucky for him, in many ways, he’d come in worn down and tired. And at least now he had a bed that belonged to him.
“You are young,” he said. “And the fact that you don’t realize it only highlights that fact. And while that is its own kind of amazing, its own achievement, it is not what I have. Maturity.”
“You? Ferro Calvaresi? You’re playing the maturity card? You just…hijacked my presentation like a…a…pillaging tech pirate and now you’re trying to tell me you’re mature?”
He gave her his most practiced smile, smooth, genuine, a smile no one could find fault with. A smile he never felt at all. “I show the world what I choose to show the world.”
“You think I don’t?”
“I think your armor is thin, cara.”
He expected her to make some sort of snitty denial. Say she didn’t wear armor. She didn’t, and that was to her credit.
“You tell me then,” she said, slowly crossing her arms beneath her breasts, her blue eyes never wavering from his, “what do you think we need to do?”
“We need to make the world believe that all of our hostility has melted away into an attraction, an attachment, that we can’t deny. We need to make them think we’ve fallen head over heels into, if not love, bed.”
“And you think that will work?” She was blushing. He couldn’t remember ever seeing a woman blush. Or anyone for that matter. Everyone he’d ever known had seemed born jaded.
He hadn’t been. He could remember a time when he’d been young. When he’d felt hope. Optimism. Passion.
He’d learned. He’d learned that there were no bonus points for getting through life without mud on your hands. Sometimes you had to get dirty climbing out of the gutter, but at least you were out, even if the filth clung to your skin for the rest of your life. Even if it made you hard and old before your time.
“I know it will.”
“How?”
“The press, the public, are predictable. We show up at a public event, we’ll make headlines around the world. The seed will be planted, when we pitch our design to Barrows, it all suddenly makes sense.”
She flicked her hair back over her shoulder and shifted her weight, one stiletto clad foot out in front of her. “But won’t Hamlin see it coming?”
“Not necessarily. I said it would make sense. I didn’t say it would be predictable. I’m banking on his own ignorance to be his downfall in this. He would never partner with a woman. He’ll assume I won’t, either.”
She chewed her bottom lip, another show of that insecurity she kept concealed by all her hard black clothing. If this were a seduction, he would touch her face now. Just her cheek. Tell her it would be all right. She would respond to that.
He gritted his teeth. “Well? You were quick to remind me you had limited time, Julia. I am a man with many commitments and I can’t stand around waiting for you to make a decision that should be a very easy one to make.”
She extended her hand and he gripped it. She was so petite, fine-boned, her fingers long, slender and clinging to his with a firmness that surprised him. She was indeed a businesswoman.
“You have yourself a deal, Calvaresi.”
“Gratified to hear it, Anderson.”
“We work together on this project,” she said. “No touching that isn’t strictly necessary, no funny ideas about things heating up behind the scenes, and no espionage.”
The espionage happening in her company was well in place, information already being fed to him on a regular basis. And he was sure she’d done the same to him. Fair play during their normal operations.
This agreement changed things. But he imagined as long as he didn’t look at it during the duration of their agreement, it would count as him following the rules. Or maybe not. But he’d never been one for rules. “I think I can handle all of the above.”
“And when it’s over, it’s over. If I have a chance to get you in my crosshairs even thirty seconds after our work together is done, I’ll do it and I’ll pull the metaphorical trigger without hesitation.”
“Back at you,” he said, releasing his hold and dropping his hand back at his side, ignoring the slight burning sensation that skated over his skin.
“Until then, I suppose we have to play nice.”
Ferro smiled, and he watched the color in Julia’s cheeks darken again. “Now that, I can’t promise. I’m not all that nice.”
CHAPTER THREE
“ARE YOU BUSY tonight?”
Julia frowned as she heard the voice that was coming over her personal cell phone. “How did you get this—oh, never mind. Let me guess, you crawled through the ducting in the building and rappelled down over my desk and hunted until you found my phone, then you stole the number and went back the way you came.”
“No. What a waste of energy. I called and got it from your assistant.”
Julia glared daggers at Thad through the wall. “Why would he do that?”
“He assumed that a call from me would be important. And since I am now your lover—” the way he said the word made Julia’s skin feel prickly “—I will of course need to contact you day and night.”
She hated that he was right. She hated that she’d agreed to all
this in the first place, but she really, really wanted the Barrows deal and if she had to make a deal with the devil to get it, well, she was willing.
Not happily willing, but willing. Once the account was landed, Ferro wouldn’t be her problem. It wasn’t as though they’d be working closely together on the creation of the navigation system, not after the initial design phase.
She could survive him. She could deal. At least in this she had control. It wasn’t like being dressed up in the world’s most horrific prom dress and being sent off with a guy who was being paid to be your date. No, she had a stake in this. She had power. This was all about the big picture and, regardless of what he thought, she understood business.
“Right, right. And why did you need to know if I was busy?”
“I was wondering if you might like to go to a movie premiere with me.”
“A premiere? For what?”
“Cold Planet is coming out tonight, and I have an invitation for Ferro Calvaresi and Guest.”
For a second, she forgot to play cool. She forgot who she was talking to. “No way! That movie looks amazing.”
“You think?”
“It’s like every sci-fi dream from my childhood come to life on the big screen!” It was too late to pull back her overenthusiastic words. She was always doing things like this to herself, even now that she’d been coached on how to behave in public by professionals.
Normal people didn’t get so excited about movies. Geeks did. It made people uncomfortable, and no one else was really that interested. That was what her mother had told her. Daily. From the time she was a five-year-old girl who talked about how she wanted to make the navigation controls on a spaceship from a futuristic movie and put them into cars someday.
She’d been embarrassing for her parents. Rattling on about strange subjects constantly, no filter for her excitement and enthusiasm. Making her normal had been her mother’s lifelong goal. She’d wanted it enough that she’d bought Julia a prom date when she’d been sixteen.
That had been the end of it. The end of trying to be normal. But she’d learned something even more important that night. There was no protection in normal. But showing who you were? Making yourself vulnerable? That was the biggest mistake of all.
She’d come out of that night, that horrible night, stronger. And when she’d taken off that ridiculous pink dress, the one she’d spent hours choosing, she’d put armor on instead. Armor she’d been wearing ever since. On that, Ferro was right. She didn’t really like that Ferro was right.
Still, even with the armor she had some rough edges to smooth out. She tried hard not to wave that geek flag too high. Not anymore. She had a public face that was so much more socially acceptable, and it helped her get by in the media without having to take too many pot shots.
Which was fine with her. She’d had quite enough growing up.
Stupid bitch, I was doing you a favor. No other guy will ever touch you.
She shook off the memory. It didn’t matter. Those words, the touch of his hands, the way they seemed to linger, didn’t matter. She’d moved on. Moved forward. She’d kept her head down and worked hard, free from caring what anyone thought, not after all that.
It was why she’d succeeded. And with all her money, she’d hired her consultants, consultants who’d helped make her look like a kick-ass video game heroine, who’d helped her learn to speak with poise and confidence.
She wasn’t vulnerable now. And while Giddy Excited Julia was allowed to jump around inside of her over movies and games, she was not allowed out to play.
“Well,” he said, “I happened to have provided some of the software used for the highly sophisticated special effects, which landed me with the invite.”
She closed the door on her memories and focused on the presents. “Right, I was a little jealous about that.”
“But you don’t have the tech for this sort of thing.”
“No. I make technology for regular people,” she said, swiveling her chair in a circle. “Anyway, I really get to come?” She would go chained to Ferro’s leg if she had to. It was way too fun to pass up. She would go even if they weren’t partnering on the Barrows deal together.
“Yes. Formal dress. Though, it is a sci-fi film, if you wanted to do a gold bikini and a slave collar, I think that would be acceptable attire.”
“Har, har, Calvaresi. Anyway, that’s Star Wars. Cold Planet is an entirely different mythology. It’s based off of this first-person shooter game and…” She clamped her mouth shut. She was doing it again. “And I’m hardly going to a public event in a costume.”
“You’ll have to tell me more about mythologies at the premiere.”
She was sure he was making fun of her. She basically deserved it at this point. It was one thing to get in front of a room full of people and make a scripted speech, but still, even still, social interaction had the potential to be painfully awkward. She was out of practice. If she’d ever been in-practice.
“Sure,” she said. “What time?”
“I’ll pick you up at five. We have to walk the carpet, then we get to view the movie.”
“Wow.” So a lot more social interaction on the docket. Goody. “Neat.”
“You sound thrilled.”
“About the movie, yes.”
“Great, see you at five.” He hung up and she leaned back in her chair. Then she scrambled forward and hit the intercom on her phone. “Thad.”
“Yes?” Her assistant’s voice came through the speaker.
“I need a dress. A hot one. Get Ally on it, please. And I need to get my hair done.”
“Formal? And by when?”
“Yes, and I need to be waiting out front of the building at four-fifty.”
Thad sighed heavily. She knew she was asking the next-to impossible, but she also knew if anyone could get it arranged, it was him. “As you wish.”
“Great. Thank you. You rock. I have to go.” She pushed the off button and rested her chin on her desk, her hands on her lap. Then She took a breath and straightened. She was going to be fine. She wasn’t going to think about how ill-equipped she was to show up at a Hollywood premiere on the arm of a man like Ferro. She wasn’t going to think about how likely it was that she would drop a shrimp cocktail into her cleavage during the party.
No. She was going to sit back and let the professionals she hired to make her camera-ready do what they did best. If nothing else, she would look good. She would look strong.
Money might not buy happiness, but it bought an image that made it possible for her to go out in public.
And yes, she was Ferro’s date. But it wasn’t a date-date. Thank God. The last time she’d had a date it had been an unmitigated disaster. And that guy hadn’t been Ferro sex-on-a-cracker Calvaresi.
Not that she was all that familiar with sex. On a cracker or otherwise. But Ferro was. Her face got hot when she thought of some of the more revealing parts of Ferro’s unauthorized bio. Yes, she’d read it. And it made it hard to look the man in the eye.
He wasn’t just hot. He was the kind of man who made women lose their minds. Who inspired respectable members of society to throw off the bonds of convention and flaunt him at social gatherings. He’d been the much-younger stud of a few women back in his home country, setting off scandalous headlines and dissolving marriages.
Of course, that was assuming that version of his life was true. And that was assuming a lot. And as Ferro had said, he never confirmed or denied.
She took another fortifying breath. Great. Fine. She could do this. Tonight, she was going to be yet another rumor to add to Ferro’s list. And she wouldn’t confirm or deny.
When Ferro’s limo pulled up to the curb in front of Julia’s high-rise, he was genuinely stunned by her appearance. She was utterly captivating in a long black dress—the woman didn’t seem to own another color—that skimmed the gray sidewalk. The sleeves were long and full, like a kimono, and the neck high, revealing very little of her pale skin.
/> Her blond hair was pulled back in a low, messy bun, her makeup done all in shades of pale pink and gold. Her lips were painted the lightest rose, and it created the strangest curiosity in him. A fascination with what they might look like darker, flushed with arousal. Strange because he never felt curious about those things. He knew all about sex. There was no mystery left.
He’d opened the door and let her into the limo, and then both of them had spent the drive down the interstate on their mobile devices, finishing up the day’s interrupted work.
When they pulled up to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, the streets were already blocked off. Ferro’s limo was given immediate access, and they were let out near the end of the red carpet. This sort of thing had never been his favorite aspect of fame. The fortune was his biggest draw. These events did very little for him. Giving fake smiles to even faker people ranked low on his list of things he’d like to do with his Friday night.
Julia had the most purposeful look of boredom on her face he’d ever seen. Like she was forcing her lips to stay pulled together, forcing herself not to smile. She was stiff, walking with her head held high, her posture overly straight.
But beneath all of that, she was vibrating under the surface. Energy was pouring from her in waves, though he knew no one standing far away from her would ever be able to tell. But he could feel her shaking.
She seemed to like a spectacle, her presentations were so ostentatious it was unreal, but then, she was in control of them. The press played by her rules in those situations. Perhaps that was the cause of her unease now. It wasn’t her security keeping the fans at bay. The press weren’t being held to her guidelines.
He pulled her to him, lacing his fingers through hers. “We’re ready to walk the carpet.” He could feel her fingers trembling in his. “Relax,” he said. “We aren’t the A list. We won’t be mobbed.”
“I’ve seen pictures snapped of you while you were getting coffee at Roasted. You’re mobbed frequently.”
“Yes, but not when there are movie stars around. Come on. Anyway, if we are mobbed, our purposes will be served even better.” He tugged her along and when they stepped onto the carpet, he turned his smile on full.
