In the meantime, Nic would meet with Ollie and scour the article that should be in his inbox by now. If the worst case happened and this thing actually went to print, he wanted to be ready with the best damage control the industry had ever seen.
Seven
The next few days were excruciatingly slow as Nic waited for Isa’s findings. He was sure Marc felt the same torture, but at least his brother was out in the world, actively working to save their company. He’d taken Isabella to Canada and now he was here, in the building with her, checking out their diamonds. Proving, unequivocally, once and for all, that whoever had given the Times its information had been wrong. All Nic was doing was sitting here, feeling as if he was fighting with both hands tied behind his back.
It wasn’t a good feeling.
But then, how could it be when everything he’d worked for, everything Marc had worked for, could go up in smoke any minute? Simply because someone with a grudge had lied about them. Simply because some reporter had said so. It was infuriating.
Nic and Ollie had put together a damn good plan for damage control over the past seventy-two hours, but Nic really hoped they’d never have to use it. Hollister had managed to get the article pushed back a few days, though not canceled, and now the only thing left to do was wait.
Wait for Isa to certify their diamonds as conflict-free.
Wait for the Times to decide what it would do about the article.
Wait for security to comb through the company files and find out the identity of the source.
Too bad he hated waiting with the passion of a thousand burning suns.
Yet, it seemed as if it was all he’d been doing lately. Even before this whole thing started. Ever since Nic had met Desi, really. He’d texted her a few times right after they’d been together, but she’d never responded. He’d dropped down to once a week after that because he hadn’t wanted to harass her. He’d just wanted…her. If he hadn’t, he would have given up after the second day.
But he hadn’t given up. Instead, he’d waited seven weeks for her to respond to him and she never had. Not one returned text, not one phone call, nothing but total and complete radio silence. Which was why he’d finally given up on her, why he’d gone so far as to erase her number from his phone. He liked her a lot, but if she didn’t feel the same way about him, he wasn’t going to spend the next year moping around about the one who’d gotten away. Not when they’d spent less than twelve hours together total.
He’d thought if he shoved Desi out of his mind—and took her off his phone—he wouldn’t have to think about her again.
Too bad it hadn’t worked.
Determined to get her out of his mind once and for all, he grabbed his laptop. Started fiddling with the winter marketing plans. He’d had a great idea about them when he’d been wandering his empty house at three that morning. He should probably write it down before it disappeared.
But he’d only just opened the advertising budget spreadsheet when the intercom on his desk buzzed with his brother’s voice. The sound cut through Nic’s not-so-pleasant thoughts, giving him the distraction he’d been looking for. “Come to my office, will you? I want to talk to you about something.”
“Be right there,” Nic answered, glad beyond measure that he finally had something to do. Sure, he had his normal workload, but none of that interested him right now. Nothing did, except putting this story to rest once and for all.
Grabbing his phone and his cup of coffee off his desk, he made his way to Marc’s office. As Nic walked down the long corridor that separated their corner offices, people called out hellos from every door that he passed.
He returned the greetings as naturally as he could, but he could tell his staff knew something was wrong. There were a bunch of questioning looks, and even their greetings were more subdued than normal. Not that he blamed them. He hadn’t exactly been his normal exuberant self lately, either. It was pretty hard to act as if everything was all right when he and his brother might very well be captaining a sinking ship. They’d already been hit by the iceberg. Now they just had to wait to see if they’d somehow manage to stay afloat.
“What’s up?” he asked as he let himself into Marc’s office.
“I want to talk about the December ad campaign. I want to hit it harder, want to make sure we’re everywhere we need to be.”
“We will be, I promise.”
“Still, I want to put more money toward the campaign. Another fifty million or so—”
“We don’t need another fifty million—”
“You don’t know that. You don’t know what we’ll need if—”
“I do know. And that’s why we’re retooling part of the campaign. There will still be the ads that focus on giving her diamonds, etc. But we’ll also have ads about making the world a better place, bringing holiday cheer to those who have none—it’ll have Bijoux’s name on it, but there will be no mention of buying anything, no mention of gifts. Instead we’ll focus on children in developing nations, with a particular emphasis on conflict diamonds and those who are forced to mine them.”
“That’s really smart, actually. I’m impressed.”
“Don’t sound so surprised. I do, occasionally, know what I’m doing, you know.”
Marc snorted. “Well, let’s not get all crazy now.”
“Yeah, ’cause I’m the crazy one in the room.”
“Excuse me? I will have you know that I am exceptionally sane.”
“Yeah, that’s what they all say, bro, right before they chop off an ear. Or some other more important body part.”
“I assure you,” Marc told him, completely deadpan, “I have no intention of chopping off my ear or anyone else’s.”
“Hey, don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. Insanity might look good on you.”
“But it already looks so good on you.”
“I think you’re confused. This isn’t insanity, man. This is confidence.”
Marc studied him for a second before shaking his head. “Nah. It’s insanity.”
Nic couldn’t help it. He burst out laughing. It felt good to share a little banter with his brother, especially when things had been so tense lately. As he sank into a chair on the visitor’s side of his brother’s desk, he told himself it was a sign that things were looking up.
Harrison, one of the attorneys working their end of the situation and one of his closest friends at the company, walked in a couple of minutes later. He’d barely sat down before the door opened again and this time it was Isa who walked in, carrying a thick manila folder in her hand.
She grinned at all of them before perching on the corner of Marc’s desk and sliding the folder across the dark cherrywood.
Mark looked at her inquisitively, at least until he opened it and saw what was written there. Then he broke out in a huge smile as he asked, “We got it?”
“You absolutely got it,” Isa told him. “I didn’t find one irregularity.”
Adrenaline raced through Nic at the confirmation and he jumped out of his chair, pumped a fist in the air. “I knew it, baby!” he all but shouted. “I knew that reporter had a bad source.” He gave Marc a second to look over the documentation she’d provided, then ripped the folder out of his hands and headed for the door.
“Hey, where are you going?” his brother called after him.
“To make a copy of this file. And then I’m going to go down to the Los Angeles Times myself and force-feed every single page of this to that jackal of a reporter. I hope she chokes on it.”
“I feel obliged to warn you of the illegality of such actions.” Harrison somehow managed to keep a straight face as he said it.
Nic flipped him off on his way out of the office. And though he wanted to celebrate with Marc and Isa and everyone else who had helped clear Bijoux of any wrongdoing,
his job wasn’t done yet. He needed to make sure the Los Angeles Times—and one particular reporter—got this information. And while he could, and would, have it emailed over, there was no way he was leaving this to the whims of someone’s email habits. He was hand delivering this baby himself.
Besides, he really wanted to see D. E. Maddox’s face when he plopped the report on her desk.
Since it was midmorning, the drive from their offices in north Carlsbad to the headquarters of the Los Angeles Times was less than an hour and a half. On the way, he plotted what he would say to Maddox and her managing editor. About a million expletives came to mind, but since he was a gentleman and not in the habit of cursing at women—even women who had nearly destroyed his family’s business—he worked out a little speech instead. Short, pithy, to the point and—yes, he admitted it—more than a little smug. He might be a gentleman, but that didn’t mean he shouldn’t gloat a little. Especially about something like this.
He pulled into the parking lot exactly one hour and fourteen minutes after he left his office in Carlsbad—okay, maybe he’d sped a little, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t anxious to get this whole thing over with and behind him. Behind Bijoux.
He figured he’d have to talk his way around a few security guards, maybe a receptionist or two, before he’d be able to get to either Maddox or Bloomburg. But it turned out that the huge compound that had once belonged exclusively to the Los Angeles Times now housed some kind of call center and a few other businesses that had nothing to do with the news. Which meant Nic waltzed right through the central lobby, where he checked the building’s directory and got onto an elevator that took him straight to the newspaper’s main floor.
He stepped off the elevator into a huge newsroom packed with desks. It was almost empty, which wasn’t a surprise considering he’d arrived in the middle of the lunch hour. Except for a couple of stragglers, the few people who were there were huddled around a table at the front of the room, talking animatedly—probably about how to ruin the reputations of other businesses in the area. Which, okay, might be an unfair assessment, but he wasn’t exactly feeling kindly toward the paper at the moment, or anyone who worked there.
There was still no receptionist to check in with, nobody to even give his name to. And while he knew security at Bijoux was over the top because of the nature of their business—and because they housed diamonds in their state-of-the-art vault—he admitted to being a little shocked at just how laissez-faire this place was about security.
Still, it worked in his favor, so he wasn’t complaining. The paper had certainly had the element of surprise when it had contacted him less than a week ago. Now he was returning the favor. Neither Maddox nor Bloomburg would ever expect him to show up here. He’d find Maddox’s desk and be waiting for her when she got back from lunch.
A big guy with a camera hanging around his neck finally stopped him when he was halfway through the room. But when Nic told him he had something to deliver to D. E. Maddox, the guy waved him toward a desk in the back corner. It was, surprisingly, one of only three desks in the cavernous space that actually had someone sitting at it.
Which was even more perfect. He’d prefer to confront Maddox and get this over with as quickly as possible.
As he approached, she had her back to him, which gave him a perfect view of what looked like miles of platinum blond hair. The sight tugged something inside of him, making him think of Desi and the night he’d spent with her hair fanned out on his pillow. He shoved the memory down—the last thing he needed right now was to be distracted by thoughts of her—but for some reason she just wouldn’t leave his head. It was only when he got closer to the woman that he understood why that was.
As he approached her at an angle, he could see her profile clearly. Could see her high cheekbones and lush full lips. Could see her sun-kissed skin and the dimple low on her right cheek. Suddenly it didn’t seem so far-fetched that she reminded him of the woman he had spent the past eighteen weeks trying to forget.
“Desi?” He hadn’t meant to say her name out loud, hadn’t meant to attract her attention until he’d had a second to deal with the shock of finding out that D. E. Maddox, hated reporter and company annihilator, was none other than the woman he’d taken home for one unforgettable night.
But she turned toward him as soon as he said her name, her eyes widening as she realized who it was standing only a few feet from her desk. He expected her to look guilty, or at the very least, apologetic. Instead, her eyes burned with a fury that made the anger in his own gut look like nothing.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded as she pushed to her feet. “Slumming it?”
Slumming it? He couldn’t even figure out what she meant, let alone how he was supposed to respond to the bizarre accusation. How could he understand when he was still reeling from the realization that Desi had been investigating him for weeks? That she’d been right under his nose for the past few days and he hadn’t had a clue?
“Well?” she asked, and it was the impatience in her voice that finally kick-started his brain into gear.
“I’m here to deliver this to D. E. Maddox,” he said, brandishing the folder like the weapon it was. “But I have to admit I’m a little surprised to see you sitting at her desk.”
“I don’t know why you would be.” She had the audacity to shrug. “It’s not like you know anything about me.”
“So you’re really going to do this?” he demanded as the fury inside him kindled into ugly rage. “Pretend that nothing happened between us.”
“Nothing did happen between us,” she answered coolly. “At least, nothing important.”
“So that night was what? A setup for this, then? A way for you to get to know your assignment before you ruined his business and his life?”
“I didn’t ruin your life or your business. You did that all on your own when you decided to trade in conflict diamonds.”
“I told your managing editor the other day and now I’m telling you. Bijoux does not deal in conflict diamonds.” He dropped the folder on her desk. “I’ve got the proof that we don’t right here.”
She didn’t even bother to glance down at the file. “And I have proof that you do.”
“So show it to me.”
“I’m not going to do that.”
“Of course not. Who cares if you run a fake story as long as you get the attention you need, right?”
“I don’t fake evidence,” she said as she stood up and started around the desk. “And I didn’t fake this story.”
“Well, someone sure as hell faked evidence. Maybe it wasn’t you. Maybe you’re not inherently dishonest. Maybe you’re just a sloppy reporter.”
“Who do you think you are?” she demanded as she went toe-to-toe with him.
For a second—just a second—he was distracted by her flashing eyes and flushed skin. By her honeysuckle-and-vanilla scent. By her warmth. But then her words sank in and he found his temper flashing from dangerous to boiling point in the space of one breath and the next.
“Who do I think I am?” he repeated. “I don’t think anything, sweetheart. I know exactly who I am. I’m the man whose career—and hundred-year-old family business—you set out to ruin on a whim. I’m the man you have accused of the vilest crimes and human rights violations imaginable. I’m the man you slept with to get a story and then dropped the moment you realized I wouldn’t be useful to you.”
“I didn’t accuse you of anything you haven’t done. And I didn’t drop you. You dropped me.”
He stared at her, speechless. For a moment, he honestly feared his head would explode. “Is that how you do it?” he wondered aloud. “Is that how you justify the lives you ruin? You just rewrite history to fit whatever version you need it to fit? You need a big story to break your career wide open? No problem. It’s easy to manufacture evidence. You w
ant to forget that you slept with me to get a story? That’s easy. Just pretend I didn’t text you for weeks trying to get you to talk to me.” He threw his arms wide. “You’ve missed your calling, Desi. Oops, I mean D.E. You shouldn’t be a journalist. You should be a fiction writer. You’d probably top the charts with your very first book.”
She didn’t answer him for long seconds. Instead she just stared at him with her jaw locked and her eyes as cold and blue as the Pacific in the middle of a midwinter temper tantrum.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she finally said.
“You know, you’re going to call me a liar one time too many and then…”
“And then what?”
He was too stunned by her brazenness and her sheer lack of remorse to answer.
“That’s what I thought,” she sneered. “You’ve got nothing.”
Rage exploded within him, mixed with disbelief and confusion and more attraction than he wanted to admit to, and Nic finally snapped. Taking a step forward, he crowded her against her desk before closing the last inches between them. But the second his body brushed against hers, he knew he’d made a mistake. Because with that first touch, the low-grade attraction that had hummed between them from the moment he’d said her name exploded into a conflagration of fiery want and desperate need.
He wasn’t the only one affected. He could see Desi’s awareness in her flushed skin. Could hear it in her ragged breathing and feel it in the not-quite-steady hands she pressed against his chest.
“What are you doing?” she whispered as he pressed even closer.
“I don’t have a clue,” he admitted.
“Then maybe you should stop.”
“Maybe I should. But if you want me to do that, you probably shouldn’t hold me quite so tightly.” He glanced down to where she had tangled her fingers in his dress shirt.
She gasped then, started to pull back. But he didn’t let her. Instead, he held her in place with one hand on her hip and the other between her shoulder blades.