She expected that. “I’m not just anyone. I’m Raine Wilkins with the Chicago Courier. I spent yesterday evening with Mr. North.”
“You and five hundred other people, Miss Wilkins,” Jørgen said.
The pretty elf-like woman tugged on his sleeve, just like she had with Niko.
“Not now, Falda,” Jørgen said.
“Oh,” Raine said with a smile, “you might want to listen to her. What she wants to tell you is that Mr. North left the event early. No one could find him for hours. I drove him downtown, where he bought a nice sweater and some jeans so he could look like a regular person.”
Jørgen’s eyes widened. The pretty elf-like woman was biting her lower lip.
“And,” Raine said, lifting her right leg, “he bought me these lovely boots.”
Jørgen looked alarmed. It took him a good ten seconds to regain control of his face.
“We don’t believe in tit-for-tat press coverage,” Jørgen said. “You don’t owe us anything. I’m sure you noticed that Niko doesn’t understand the rules—”
“What I noticed,” she said, “was how unhappy he was. He was talking about running away….”
Jørgen rolled his eyes. “Oh, great. Just great.”
Falda, the pretty elf-like woman, tugged his sleeve again and nodded toward Raine.
Jørgen glanced down at her and said, “Well, he won’t have that concern shortly.”
“What?” Raine asked.
Jørgen looked at her, as if surprised she was still standing there. Then he shook his head. “What do you want to discuss with him, Miss, that I can’t help you with?”
She hated the “Miss.” The first couple times she was willing to assume he had misspoken or mispronounced “Ms.” with that unusual accent of his. But now that he kept repeating it, she knew that he meant it. She felt more than a tad belittled.
Besides, she wasn’t sure how she could answer the question he asked. Part of the reason she wanted to see Niko was to discuss the ethical dilemma he had put her in. She wanted to apologize in advance for anything she did that might hurt him.
Her cheeks heated as she realized that was one of her underlying motives. She was about to say something when the Jørgen rolled his eyes again.
“Wonderful,” he said. “This just keeps getting better and better.”
He had clearly misunderstood her blush to mean that she had had some kind of intimate relationship with Niko.
She let the misunderstanding hang.
“Go get him, Falda,” Jørgen said to the pretty elf-like woman. “And tell him—oh, jingle bells, I don’t know—just tell him to get his rear out here.”
Jingle Bells? Rear? This company tried to present itself as squeaky clean, and that had even gotten into the language.
“You, young lady,” Jørgen said to Raine. “You have to understand I will be standing here as you speak to him, keeping track of every word. I will interrupted, and I will keep this interview on track—”
“No, you won’t, Jørgen.” Niko had come out of the back. His hair was mussed and he looked rumpled. “I’ll talk to her alone.”
“No,” Jørgen said. “Our rears are already in a sling because of this fiasco. I’m not going to have you make it worse.”
Niko sighed. “Raine,” he said quietly. “You didn’t tell me you were a reporter.”
“You didn’t tell me you were a mogul,” she said.
Niko gave her a half-smile, then nodded. He stepped down from the podium. He stopped a foot away from Raine. His clean scent seemed stronger than it had the night before. “You can leave us, Jørgen.”
Jørgen shook his head repeatedly, like a misbehaving child. “I can’t—”
“Look, it’s not going to matter.” Niko sounded tired. “I promise I won’t say anything untoward.”
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you,” Jørgen said. “You wouldn’t know ‘untoward’ if it bit you—”
“Jørgen,” Niko said. “Please. Give me a moment.”
Jørgen jabbed a finger at Raine.
“Young lady,” he said (and she wanted to smack him, she really did), “you will understand that everything Niko North says to you, and I mean everything, is off the record.”
“That’s not necessary,” Niko said. “Besides, there are some things I want to clarify.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Jørgen said. “You will not clarify. You will not add. Is that clear?”
“No,” Niko said. “It’s already—”
“How about this,” Raine said to Jørgen. “I’ll consider this interview off the record if I can use some of the information as deep background. If I believe that some of the information needs to be attributed to Niko, I will have you look at the quote. Provided you work within my deadlines.”
She stared at the Jørgen.
He stared back.
Niko was frowning. She wasn’t sure he understood anything she had just said to Jørgen. But Jørgen clearly understood her.
“I didn’t think the Chicago Courier let its subjects review quotes before they were printed,” Jørgen said.
“We don’t normally, but this isn’t a normal situation. Besides, I’m not planning to do anything controversial here,” Raine said. “I just want to talk to Niko. If that’s what it takes to have a conversation, then I’m willing to compromise.”
Jørgen shook his head. Then he brushed his hands together, as if he were clearing dirt off them.
“This is your mess, Niko,” Jørgen said. “I’m making some notes so that I don’t get fired.”
“Family doesn’t get fired, Jørgen,” Niko said.
“But they do get demoted,” Jørgen said, “and sometimes that’s worse.”
Raine frowned. They were related? They looked nothing like each other.
“If you screw this up even worse than you have,” Jørgen continued, “then you answer to your father, not me. And I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near headquarters when that conversation happens. He’s already upset—”
“He knows about the press conference?”
“What part of ‘he sees you when…’ do you not understand, Niko? Sweet candy canes, man, you grew up with this.”
Sweet candy canes? Really? Did people say things like that? Raine frowned. And quoting old Christmas standards? Was that for her benefit? Did Claus & Company always maintain a fiction that the company was headed by the real Santa Claus?
Niko was shaking his head, looking even more frazzled than he had a moment ago.
“Well,” he said after a moment, “If he already knows, then I can’t make this worse, can I?”
“Normally, I would agree, Niko,” Jørgen said, “but this isn’t normal, and it’s you we’re talking about, not your siblings. You have a talent—”
“For making things worse, I know.” Niko ran a hand through his hair. “Is all of this off the record, or does the charming Ms. Wilkins get to use our fight in her newspaper as well as my quotes?”
Raine held up a hand, deflecting the worst of this. “I just want to talk to you.”
“Go for broke, Miss Wilkins,” Jørgen said. “Clearly I can’t protect young Niko from himself. But then again, I was warned. They said no one could, and they were right. Come on, Falda. We have some damage control to do.”
Raine watched them walk toward the back, the chubby man in the handsome suit and the tiny, pretty elf-like woman. The man put his hand on her shoulder, and she reached over and touched his fingers with her own.
“A press conference is just a press conference,” Raine said to Niko. She felt bad for him. She shouldn’t, but she did. She wanted to calm him a little. “This one was out of control and it’ll dominate today’s headlines unless some politician decides to leave his wife for his mistress or something dumb like that. But, even if nothing supplants this story, it won’t last beyond the twenty-four-hour news cycle. Something equally juicy will happen tomorrow, and next week, and the week after that. So it’s really not
important.”
“Not important.” Niko let out a bitter laugh. “You don’t understand. My family is all about press coverage and image. Some would say that’s all we are.”
She frowned at him. “Would you say that?”
He shrugged. Elegant, noncommittal, just like the night before. A don’t-ask-me shrug.
“We do amazing things,” Niko said, “but most of those never reach the media and probably should never reach the media. Claus & Company became an international business over a hundred years ago, and did it through clever marketing. I mean, we’d always had an international arm, but not an international money-making arm.”
He waved a hand as if dismissing his own words. She frowned, realizing she knew almost nothing about this company—and she thought she had researched it well the day before.
“It doesn’t matter. I get lost in the details and that’s probably the biggest problem of all.” Niko paused then peered at her as if focusing on her completely. “I’m sorry. You said you wanted to talk to me?”
He looked sad. She hadn’t expected it, the way the planes of his face flattened, the slight downturn to his mouth. His features looked odd in this position. Normally, they looked like they were made for smiles.
When she didn’t speak up right away, he said, “I didn’t mean to bribe you with the boots. That’s what Jørgen thinks I did. He thinks I’m just a screw-up. I really meant those as a gift. That’s what my family does best. We give gifts.”
He had told her that before. Her frown deepened, partly because she still felt an urge to soothe his feelings. She shouldn’t feel like that, particularly in the middle of an interview, even an off-the-record interview.
She gave in to the feeling and raised one foot. “They’re comfortable,” she said, looking down at the boot. “And I’m grateful.”
“They don’t leak?” he asked.
“They don’t leak,” she said.
He smiled, just a little. “Well, I did one thing right, then.”
She almost corrected him. It hadn’t been right; it hadn’t felt right; and now, because of the boots, her integrity was being called into question. And so was his.
Which brought up the reason she wanted to talk with him. She sighed softly.
“Look, Niko,” she said. “I had no idea who you were last night—”
“I know,” he said.
“And you clearly had no idea who I was,” she said.
He nodded.
“But we know now,” she said.
He froze in place, as if expecting another blow.
She continued, “Technically, because I was a part of the events last night and an eyewitness to everything, I can write about them. That’s perfectly legal in my profession.”
His expression hadn’t changed, but it had solidified as if he were afraid to move his facial muscles as well as the rest of his body.
“I’m…uncomfortable doing that,” she said. “Maybe because neither of us identified ourselves correctly, maybe because of the boots, or maybe because it felt like a moment out of time.”
His eyes followed her. Otherwise, he seemed like a statue.
“I…um…I like the idea of the Uplift Fund, and despite what I said about the press conference, this rollout might hurt it. I really don’t want to do more damage, but I’m obligated—”
“To pile on, right? Like those other reporters?” His face moved now. His cheeks were red, and his blue eyes snapping. He was furious.
She held up a hand to calm him. He stopped talking, at least.
“No,” she said. “I don’t specialize in gotcha journalism. Which is why I’m uncomfortable about last night. Something was going on with you, and I’m not going to ask you about it, not that you could answer on the record anyway—”
“I just knew it,” he said, as if he couldn’t stop himself. “I just knew it. I just knew I’d screw this all up, and everything would go wrong, and I wouldn’t pay for it, all those kids would. I just knew it, and they’re talking about sending me home, and that’s exactly what’s going to happen.”
His hand formed a fist and pounded the air as he turned away from her.
She was startled by the outburst. “Claus & Company is shutting down the fund?”
He pressed the fist against his face.
“Oh, not really,” he said around the fist. “What they’re saying already is that they’re going to see how the donations go. But they’re not going to push it, and the pilot program will fail before it ever gets off the ground, and it’s because of my ego. I thought I could handle the press conference. I wanted to do something different, so the press conference wouldn’t be standard, so it would get the media’s attention, and damn—I mean, dang—I mean, zowie—I did that, didn’t I? I got the media’s attention.”
She was stuck on the correction. Damn, dang, zowie? What was with this company, this family?
“Yeah,” she said softly. “You did. And not the way you wanted.”
“You think I don’t know that?” he snapped. “Je—Fu—Fudge.”
He sighed and shook his head, his hand still in a fist.
She was frowning, going over what he had just said.
“I’m sorry,” she said, relying on the Midwestern apology as a transition. “You said they’re going to pull the plug?”
“Not officially,” he said, head down. “I mean, we just announced the roll-out.”
“But the support is gone now?” She was trying to understand that. It didn’t make sense to her. “That seems awfully fast, doesn’t it? Shouldn’t they give a new project more than a press conference?”
His smile was bitter. “‘Awfully fast.’ Oh, Ms. Wilkins, you don’t know my family, and the things they can accomplish faster than anyone else in the world.”
Her frown deepened. “What do you mean?”
He shook his head. “My family never bides its time on anything. We do what we need to do when we need to do it, or so my father says. And while they understand that building takes time, they also understand that execution has to happen quickly.”
She wasn’t sure if he was making a pun. “Execution?”
“Making whatever they’re building happen. The goal, the end game.” He snorted. “No one wanted me on this project. No one wanted this project, period. I was going to prove myself, and I did. I proved just what a screw-up I am.”
“Surely, that’s not the case,” she said, not sounding like a journalist at all.
“Oh, let me introduce myself again, Ms. Wilkins.” He extended his hand. She took it, and felt a sizzle of electricity. “I’m Niko North, the baby of the North family. Coddled and beloved until someone decided I needed to grow up, and then it became clear that all that coddling had made me incompetent. I need to start on the bottom rung, no matter what my mother argued—or at least the bottom rung for my family, which means the toy factory, which means assembly, which means more screw-ups because I can’t use my hands like that at all. I’m all brain, dense and screwed-up brain, but brain nonetheless, so I’ll be stuck in the factory forever if I go home, subject to the wrath of my father, and then, when he retires, the mercy of my siblings, whoever takes over the company, and my future is set. Oh, joy.”
He hadn’t let go of her hand, and she wasn’t letting go of his. They felt connected by more than just skin.
“Based on one press conference?” she asked.
“And a lifetime of negative expectations.” He sighed, then looked down at their joined hands. “You know, you’re the first woman I’ve met in the Greater World outside of planned events?”
“The Greater World?” she asked.
“Oh, now I’ve slipped and given you the mindset of my family. There’s our world and your world, which is called the Greater World. Ours is tiny but important, a little fiefdom in the middle of a vast fairy tale, that everyone seems to believe in but me.”
He had used the word fiefdom in the press conference.
“What do you mean?” she asked.<
br />
He let her hand go. She felt the separation like a personal loss. It took two seconds too long to pull her hand back and let it fall to her side.
“I’m not supposed to tell you. I’m not supposed to say half the things I’ve just said, none of which probably makes sense outside of the context of my family or the company, but oh, well. It’s off the record anyway.”
He took a deep breath and smiled. The smile was sad, but real, not like some of his earlier smiles.
“What I was going to say,” he said, “before I tripped again, and mentioned the Greater World, was that I enjoyed spending time with you yesterday, even if you found it weird, and I only acted the way I did because I liked you, and did you know that when you’re cold, the tip of your nose turns red? I think that’s charming. I think you’re charming, and I didn’t mean to put you in an awkward position. I know you want to talk to me about that position, and about reporting what happened, and about how strange it all was, and how I was running away, and all I want to say is, go ahead. You can’t hurt me, Ms. Wilkins. I’ve managed to do that all by myself.”
He nodded at her, then turned and walked away, just like he had done in the coffee bar.
“Wait, Niko,” she said. “I want to—”
He waved a hand behind him, then turned around, still walking away, backing away, actually. “We probably won’t see each other again. They’re going to send me home. That’s what they do with screw-ups. So let me say this, thanks for trying, and for caring enough to talk at least, and thanks for those few hours yesterday when I didn’t have to think about—”
He waved his hand at the room, as if indicating it. But she knew what he meant. He meant the press conference, his family, and the big to-do.
“Thank you, Raine Wilkins,” he said. “It’s been my pleasure to know you.”
And then he turned and left the room.
She was alone among the chairs and the Christmas trees and the leftover equipment, some folders scattered on the floor. She couldn’t see him anymore.
His pleasure? He had meant that. And they had had a strange encounter the night before. It wasn’t one of the best times she’d ever had, but it was one of the most memorable.
Santa Series: Three Stories of Magical Holiday Romance Page 23
