Christmas At The Tycoon's Command. Jennifer Hayward
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has an endorsement deal with Supersonic. She might be there, too.”
Chloe chewed on her lip. Her father had been godfather to all the Di Fiore brothers when his good friend Leone had died, including Nico’s middle brother, Lazzero, and youngest, Santo. But only Nico had ended up at Evolution after her father had taken him on as his protégé. Lazzero and Santo had put themselves through school on sports scholarships, going on to found one of the hottest sportswear companies on the planet in Supersonic, with an investment from Martino to help them along.
Chloe’s lashes lowered. “I wanted to do this by myself. To prove to Nico I can.”
“Lazzero is not cheating. Lazzero is being resourceful.”
Chloe tapped her fingernails on the table. “Do you think he’d let us attend the party?”
“There’s only one way to find out.” Mireille picked up her phone and made the call.
“Lazzero, darling,” she purred. “I need you.”
Whatever was said on the other end of the phone made her laugh. “I do so call you just to chat. But right now, Chloe and I need a favor. We need an invite to your party tomorrow night to chat up Eddie Carello and Desdemona Parker for an influencer deal.”
Mireille frowned at Lazzero’s response. “Oh, she isn’t? That’s too bad. Eddie is, though, right?”
Chloe’s stomach dropped. No Desdemona.
Mireille nodded at whatever Lazzero said in response. “It won’t be me, I have plans. It will be Chloe. And I will pass the message on. You are, as usual, a doll.”
Chloe eyed her as she signed off. “What did he say?”
“Desdemona is out of town, but he’s emailing me and her agent and making the introduction. As for the party, it’s a yes. He’ll leave your name at the door.” A wicked smile curved her sister’s lips. “He said to wear a short dress. Eddie likes legs.”
* * *
And so that was how Chloe found herself the following night passing her credentials to the big lug in a dark suit at the door of Di Fiore’s, the upscale bar in midtown Manhattan Lazzero and Santo ran as part of their sports conglomerate.
Clad in the very short, rose-gold dress Mireille had lent her and surrounded by the trendy crowd, Chloe felt hopelessly out of place.
“You can come this way,” said the lug, plucking Chloe out of the lineup and ushering her through a side door and into the party that was already in full swing. There he handed her over to a hostess who led her through a crush of people to where Lazzero held court at the bar. He was supremely sophisticated all in black. Chloe had always found his hawk-like profile and dark eyes highly intimidating. Unlike Nico, who had intrigued her from the very beginning with his quiet, serious demeanor—as if the weight of the world had been placed on his shoulders.
Lazzero, however, made an effort to put her at ease, handing her a glass of wine and chatting idly with her about what she and Mireille were up to. Having not had time to eat, Chloe felt the wine go straight to her head, making the crowd seem much less unapproachable.
After a few minutes, Lazzero nodded toward the end of the bar. “Eddie at three o’clock.”
Her pulse gave a flutter as she turned to find the famous bad-boy actor lounging his lean, rangy, jean-clad body against the bar while a group of rather exquisite women attempted to capture his attention. Her stomach fell. How was she supposed to compete with that?
She turned back to Lazzero. Ran a self-conscious hand over her hair. She wasn’t going to get another opportunity like this. She just had to do it. “Do I look okay?”
His dark eyes glittered with amusement. “Affirmative. Ten minutes, Chloe. That’s all you’ve got. I have a rule at my parties—no one hassles you. It makes them want to come back.”
She moistened her lips. “Got it.”
He eyed her. “Are you sure you want to do this? He’s a bit of a piece of work.”
“Yes.”
He pressed another glass of wine into her hand. “Go.”
Chloe took a sip of the wine, sucked in a deep breath and started walking, forcing herself to trace a straight line toward the actor before she chickened out. The girls around him looked down their noses at her as she approached. Used to this treatment when she was with Mireille, Chloe ignored them, walked right up to Eddie and stuck out her hand. “Eddie, I’m Chloe Russo. My family and I own Evolution. I’d like to talk to you about a fragrance I’ve developed with you in mind.”
The actor swept his gaze over her dismissively, before he got to her legs, where he lingered. “Who did you say you are?” he queried absentmindedly.
Chloe repeated her spiel, refusing to give in to the knots tying themselves in her stomach.
Eddie lifted his slumberous dark gaze to hers. Flicked the girl off the stool beside him. “Have a seat.”
* * *
Nico pointed his car home, a brutally hard day of meetings behind him. A beer and the hot tub at his penthouse beckoned, but so did a phone call with his brothers at the end of the day. Old habits died hard, and checking in with Lazzero and Santo to make sure their world was upright was one of them.
It had been that way ever since their father’s company had imploded when Nico was a teenager, his father and his marriage along with it, leaving Nico as the last line of defense between his family and the street when his mother had walked out. When life as you’d known it had dissolved once beneath your feet, you made sure it never happened again.
He punched Lazzero’s cell into his hands-free. It rang five times before his brother picked up, the sound of music pulsing in the background.
“Sorry.” The music faded as Lazzero moved to a quieter spot. “It’s our Blaze launch tonight.”
Nico rubbed a palm against his temple. “Mi dispiace. I just walked out of my last meeting minutes ago.”
“No worries.” An amused note flavored his brother’s lazy drawl. “You didn’t tell me you were sending your little bird my way.”
“My little bird?”
“Chloe. She’s here chatting up Eddie Carello for some sponsorship deal.”
Nico blinked at the bright headlights of an oncoming car. “Chloe is there chatting up Eddie Carello?”
“And doing a pretty good job of it I might say. Must be the dress. I told her he likes legs.”
Nico brought his back teeth together. “Shut it down, Lazzero. You know better than that. She’s no match for him.”
More of that patented male amusement in his brother’s voice. “She looks like a match for him to me. She has his undivided attention at the moment.”
“Lazzero,” Nico growled. “Shut it down.”
“Gotta go,” his brother apologized. “A client just arrived. You should drop by.”
Nico swore a blue streak, yanked the steering wheel around and did an overtly illegal U-turn. Approaching celebrities was the PR department’s job. He was already feeling guilty about the board meeting and the necessarily harsh lesson he’d administered to Chloe. She was so vulnerable despite that sharp mouth of hers. But it had seemed to do the trick of jolting her out of that frozen state she’d been in, and for that, he’d considered it a success.
She did, however, need to be treated with kid gloves at the moment. She was the key to Evolution’s success. She had to believe she could take her mother’s place. But the question mark with Chloe had always been her confidence. Her belief in herself.
It didn’t seem to be lacking, however, as Nico strode into Di Fiore’s to find Lazzero romancing a tall blonde at the bar and Chloe