The Paris Connection

by Cerella Sechrist

  Julien scowled. “I am all for keeping abreast of the latest tactics, Solene, so long as they’re ethically sound.”

  She leaned forward, and Cole sensed they were about to wage a full-out verbal battle unless he intervened.

  “Ms. Thierry, I hardly think you came here to discuss recruiting techniques with your former employer. Why is it you asked to see me?”

  She smirked at him. “No wonder Emma is smitten. You really are quite handsome.”

  The mention of her name caused his heart to pound a little faster. “You’ve spoken to Emma?”

  The smirk quickly faded from her features. “That’s the reason I’m here.”

  Julien huffed. “If you’ve come to gloat, to tell me she’s been hired at Léon, you are wasting your breath. What Emma does now is none of my business.”

  “Quiet, Julien. You always think you know what someone is going to say, before they even say it. This is not about Emma working for Léon Professional.” She straightened and looked at the hands resting in her lap. “In fact, Emma has no plans to work with me again. She never did. I was the one who inquired about hiring her. I wanted us to be on the same team again, but she made it clear she didn’t want to leave you.” Her gaze rose and shot to Julien. “Even though I told her you would betray her, given enough time. You already sold out her promotion to the American here. It was only a matter of time until you turned your back on her again. I warned her, but she would not listen. Emma is utterly loyal. You should have known that.” She clicked her tongue once more. “You should have known she would have stood by your side through anything.” She sagged back in her seat. “Perhaps we both learned that lesson too late.”

  Cole’s eyes darted between the two of them, watching as Julien pulled out one of the conference room chairs and sank into it.

  “Lillian said Emma planned to resign, and go work for our rival.”

  “Lillian obviously didn’t know the full story,” Solene said. She looked to Cole now. “I came to tell you that Emma was innocent of any wrongdoing. The files may have come from her computer, but it wasn’t Emma who sold them to me. It was Henri.”

  “Henri?” Cole frowned, trying to place the name. After a moment, it dawned on him. “The janitor? He’s responsible for this mess?”

  Solene gave a short nod. “Henri remembered me from my time here at Aquitaine. He looked me up and asked if there would be any sort of monetary remuneration for information from this office. I told him there might be. Things progressed from there.”

  “Did Emma know?” Julien demanded.

  “Not at first. She asked me about the candidates and made me promise I wouldn’t use any more names from the list. Later, she caught Henri trying to get more names from her computer.”

  Cole felt a rush of anger. “Why?” he demanded. “Why did Henri do this? Was it simply greed?”

  Solene sighed. “He is in the midst of an ugly custody battle with his wife. The lawyer fees were mounting up, and he needed a way to pay for them. When Emma learned the truth about what had happened, she didn’t turn him in because she wanted to give him the chance he needed to maintain ties to his children. He said he would turn himself in after the custody hearing. She would have reported him at that point otherwise. And he made her a promise—we both did—that it would never happen again. But I...broke that vow.”

  Of course. It all made sense to Cole now. This was what Emma had kept from him, fearing what it would do to Henri’s custody case if she admitted what she knew. He wished she had confided in him, though he couldn’t really blame her for not telling him, especially after how they had argued. And now that Julien knew she hadn’t been involved and would have turned Henri in if he didn’t come forward on his own, maybe she could come back. Perhaps Lillian would let her return to her job.

  “Emma’s only crime is that she is unfailingly loyal. She does not betray others.” Solene looked to Julien. “Unlike you and me, I suppose.”

  “Why come here and tell us this?” Julien demanded. “Since I know you to be as disloyal as you say, why try to undo what’s happened?”

  It was then that Cole saw Solene for what she really was. Beneath the layers of makeup and careful styling, she looked far older than he had initially assumed her to be. She seemed weary as she rubbed the side of her temple with a manicured hand.

  “It was not easy for me to come here. You have to know that.”

  Julien’s tone was soft when he replied. “I do. That is why I want to know what you’re up to.”

  She sighed and dropped her hand back to her lap. “I have not had many friends in my life. I am a woman who collects only people she can use. I’m sure you will not argue with me, Julien, when I say that I do not know how to be a good friend. I know what I am. Ambitious. Selfish. Morally questionable, if you must know the truth.” She straightened in her seat and placed her hands on the conference table, folding them in front of her.

  “When I first befriended Emma, I had every intention of using her. She was brilliant, hardworking and perhaps had a touch of the romantic in her.”

  This observation caused Cole to stifle a smile. Emma the romantic. He had recognized that trait in her practically from the beginning.

  “But that girl.” She shook her head. “She liked me. She was nice to me. She got under my skin, and somehow, we became friends.” She turned her attention to Cole. “When Julien and I began to disagree about recruiting tactics, she concurred with him, but never once did she make me feel as though she had chosen sides. When I was dismissed from Aquitaine, she did not cut off all ties with me as I expected her to.”

  Her gaze swiveled back in Julien’s direction. “She was the only person from this company to offer me condolences for the loss of my job. Did you know that? She came to see me in the weeks afterward. She asked if I had enough money to get by. When my savings ran out, she offered for me to sleep on her couch. She would take me to the Rue Cler, pretending she wanted company while shopping, and fill up a basket with a week’s worth of groceries, paying for them, and then insisting she had changed her mind and didn’t want anything she’d purchased so that I would take the food home with me.”

  Solene swallowed. “She has been the best, perhaps the only real friend I’ve ever had, and I vowed I would one day return the favor of her kindness to me. That is why I tried to get her an interview at Léon. I wanted to give her something back for all the tiny things she has given me over the years. But in my selfishness, I still forged ahead with my own plans, rather than considering how they might affect her.” She squared her shoulders. “And because of that, I fear I have lost her friendship forever.”

  Cole felt a swell of shame as Solene related all this. Why hadn’t he taken Emma at her word? Did he really have to know all the details in order to believe her? Or should it have been enough to know her? To know that she was dedicated to Aquitaine, that she loved her job, that she loved...him.

  “Julien.” She faced her former boss once more. “You and I have certainly had our differences, but there was one thing we always seemed to agree on, and that was Emma. We both knew she was something special, that she had the skills to go far in this company. I still disagree with your decision to give her promotion to him—” she inclined her head in Cole’s direction “—but I think we can agree that Emma has been a valuable part of Aquitaine for a very long time.

  “I am not the president of a company. Perhaps you have had the experience of knowing many employees like Emma, and therefore, her loss is not significant to you. But I can tell you that as a friend, I feel qualified to let you know she is priceless.” Solene pushed back and got to her feet.

  “If I have lost her friendship forever, then I have no one to blame but myself. And I’m here not for you, Julien, because I don’t feel I owe you anything. But I do owe her something, and it’s to tell you this. Emma did not betray you. She would
n’t, not if she was offered the entire Palace of Versailles. You would be a fool to make the same mistake that I did and not see her true worth.”

  She moved away from the table and toward the door but not before stopping before Cole.

  “And you.”

  He waited.

  “You would be wise to take that advice, also.”

  She left them then, and Cole moved around the table to take the seat she had vacated. Julien stared at the floor, lost in thought. Silence permeated the room for several long minutes before Cole cleared his throat.

  “You know, I think that deep down, she likes you more than she lets on.”

  This statement caused Julien’s fixed stare to falter, and he jerked his head up. When he saw Cole’s smile, he seemed to be unable to resist a small one of his own.

  “I doubt it,” he replied, “but for once, she makes a good point.”

  “Yes, she does,” Cole agreed. “Perhaps Lillian acted too hastily.”

  Julien didn’t respond, and Cole feared he would not take Solene’s words to heart.

  “Bring her back, Julien. We need her. She makes this company better.”

  She makes me better.

  “I’ll consider it.”

  Cole shook his head. “Don’t consider it. Do it. Solene was right. You never should have let Lillian demand for me to have this position. Emma earned it, and it was promised to her. It was wrong of you to let me take it.”

  Julien blinked, as though stunned by this declaration.

  “She could have gone to Léon at any time. It sounds as though Solene was practically begging her to. And she stayed right here. For you, most likely.”

  “Yes. Perhaps...perhaps you’re right.”

  “Convince Lillian to bring her back. If you don’t, then you’ll lose me, too. I can’t work for someone who doesn’t know the value of loyalty.”

  Julien nodded. “I will consult with Lillian and see what she has to say.”

  “Why don’t I go with you?”

  Julien appeared skeptical. “Are you sure you want a piece of that battle?”

  “You may not realize it, but I know Lillian pretty well. I think the two of us against the one of her might even the odds a bit.”

  Despite the challenge still facing them, Julien laughed at that.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  LILLIAN COULDN’T UNDERSTAND what had gotten into Cole. She had always admired how reasonable he could be. It didn’t usually take any great effort to convince him to see her point of view. But since Emma’s dismissal, he had become far more stubborn than she liked. And now, after this Solene person had stopped by the office, both he and Julien were suddenly determined to absolve Emma Brooks of any wrongdoing. It took more than a friend’s heartfelt plea to change Lillian’s mind, however. Emma had likely put the other woman up to it, trying to play on their male sympathies. She suppressed a sigh.

  “If this was such an eye-opening exchange, I’d like to know why I was left out of it,” she remarked.

  These words brought the two men up short.

  “It wasn’t consciously done,” Cole finally said. “Solene took us by surprise. We certainly didn’t intend for you not to be there.”

  Lillian looked to Julien, who frowned apologetically. “Solene came to speak with Cole, and I just happened to be there when she arrived. It was not an intentional exclusion, I assure you.”

  “Even so, it must have been quite a performance. I’m sorry to have missed it.” She turned her attention to Julien’s desk. She didn’t have her own office in Paris yet but, rather, shared one with Julien while she was in town. She sensed the two men exchanging glances while she looked away, and when she quickly lifted her head, their guilty expressions confirmed it.

  “Emma Brooks no longer works for this company,” she declared.

  “But that’s the point,” Cole said. “She was unjustly dismissed. We need to get her back.”

  “We need to?” Lillian tried to temper her tone, but Cole was becoming almost obsessive on this tiring point. “I hardly think we need Ms. Brooks to help run this company.”

  Cole fell silent, but he turned his gaze to Julien, who leaned forward, drawing her attention.

  “Lillian, Emma has been invaluable to me the past few years. It was foolish of me to so hastily dismiss her without delving further into matters.”

  “All the evidence pointed to her,” Lillian reminded him. She couldn’t believe she was having this discussion. The two of them had been privy to the same information she had, proof enough that Emma was responsible for the leaked files that had threatened the company’s credibility.

  “She didn’t do it.”

  Lillian’s head swiveled back toward Cole. His face was hard with determination, and she couldn’t remember ever seeing such an expression on him before.

  “She didn’t do it, Lillian,” he repeated. “At most, she’s culpable for finding the cause of the theft, Henri, and then not bringing it to my attention immediately. Nothing else was her fault.”

  “And how do you suppose we can trust her after that, after keeping such crucial information to herself?”

  He leaned forward in his seat. “Because I trust her,” he said. “She has been instrumental in assisting my transition to this office. She may not have approved of the merger initially, but she has committed herself to its success. She has worked as tirelessly as you would have to be sure the Reid and Aquitaine name is the first on everyone’s lips when it comes to executive recruiting. And if she can place so much faith in us, even after her promotion was taken away, and she had her doubts about this move, then can’t we afford to place just a little bit more in her?”

  Lillian stared. She had never seen this side of him before. What had caused such passionate eloquence? What had the loss of Ophelia done to him? It was almost as if he... She leaned back.

  It was almost as if he were in love with this Emma. Her eyes narrowed.

  “Cole, you wouldn’t be letting any personal affection you might have for this woman color your decision, would you?”

  “I would,” he fired back without hesitation. “It’s because of those affections that I know her better than you do. If you let her go, Lillian, you’ll be making a mistake. You asked me— No, you insisted I take over this company in your name, that I become your CEO in Paris. If you trusted me in that, you’re going to have to trust me in this. You want Emma on your team.”

  “Because you want her,” Lillian replied, rankled that he was defending the woman so zealously.

  “Because I want what’s best for this company.”

  She scoffed. When had her best employee become so blinded by emotion?

  Julien cleared his throat. “Cole, perhaps you could give Lillian and me a moment alone?”

  Cole hesitated and then slowly nodded, getting to his feet and leaving the room. Julien stood and held out his hand. She resisted him; she was in no mood to be wooed at the moment, but he insisted. She placed her hand in his and allowed him to lead her to the small leather couch in a corner of the room.

  “It is difficult, is it not? After a time, you begin to feel responsible for them, as though their feelings and choices are something you can control.”

  “Julien, I don’t have a single idea what you mean by that.”

  He enveloped her hands in his larger ones, and she allowed herself to look at him. He wasn’t a very handsome man. His face was too fleshy, his stomach too wide. But he had a presence that couldn’t be denied. She had noted it from the moment she met him, how he exuded an air of capability. Perhaps that was what had initially attracted her. Maybe, despite all her beliefs to the contrary, she really did want someone who would take charge, or at least, share the burden. She wondered if that was why this merger had held so much appeal—she wanted a pa
rtner, both in business and now, it seemed, in life. She had come to rely on him, on his steadiness, and though she couldn’t remember feeling such things in a long time, she suspected she might be very much in love with this man.

  “Lillian, when will you learn to trust the people you’ve chosen?”

  She shifted, trying to remove her fingers from his embrace. “Trust is one thing, naïveté is another.”

  “Why would taking Cole’s advice make you naive? You placed him in this position because you believed he would make the choices you would want him to make. If he feels Emma should be given her job back—”

  “He’s speaking from infatuation. Can’t you see he’s in love with her?”

  “And what is so wrong with that?” Julien pressed, his fingers still holding hers. “I am in love with you, after all.”

  She went still and stared at him. He had never said those words before. Out of dozens of conversations, during hours of being in each other’s company the past few weeks, he had never spoken them out loud. She suddenly realized how much she’d longed to hear them.

  “Are you?”

  “Oui. Madly in love with you.”

  Her heart fluttered in a way she hadn’t experienced since she was much younger. “And if our roles were reversed, and I was in Cole’s position and you were in Emma’s, I would fight with everything I had to keep you in this company. It is because I love you that I know you, that I see what the rest do not always see.”

  “And what do you see?” she asked, feeling just a little breathless.

  “I see an extraordinary woman, dedicated to her job and her company, but perhaps a bit vulnerable, as well.”

  She shifted uncomfortably. “I’m hardly vulnerable.”

  “But you are, chérie. You are proud and vulnerable. It is, somehow, an intriguing combination.”

  She couldn’t understand how he made such traits sound like something he cherished.

  “Do you really believe she’s innocent in all this?” she asked him. “Even if we brought her back, how do we know she wouldn’t betray us, just out of spite?”