“Renaldi.”
He clenched his jaw. The Renaldi brand was one of their biggest competitors. His father had hated Giorgio Renaldi tremendously, had always accused him of being a dirty-handed liar and cheat. “You’re kidding.”
“I wish I was.” She turned to face him, her cheeks streaked with tears. “Imagine them wanting to all of a sudden launch a perfume when they’d never done so before? Sort of strange, don’t you think?”
“An odd coincidence,” Rhett said carefully.
“This is no coincidence,” she said bitterly. “He told them. My father went to Renaldi and told them about Worth and then offered his services for more money, I’m sure of it.”
His heart sank. Alex and Hunter would hit the roof when they heard this. “How do you know? Did your father tell you this?”
“He didn’t have to. I just know.” She pushed away from the ledge and started for the villa. “I don’t blame you if you hate me. My father double-crossed you, he double-crossed me. He duped all of us.”
Rhett grabbed her before she slipped inside the house, forcing her to turn around and face him. The tears were still there, accompanied by a look of such disgust, such absolute misery, it nearly broke his heart. “You’re overreacting. I don’t hate you,” he said. “I could never hate you. And you’re not your father’s keeper.”
“Yes, I am! I thought I could trust him. He betrayed me, Rhett. And in turn, he betrayed you.”
“How? He’s a perfumer, you’re a perfumer. If you both want to maintain successful careers, you’re going to each have to work at businesses that compete with each other.” He was acting way more nonchalant about this than he felt. “It’s bound to happen.”
She sucked in a deep breath. “I feel like he ran with this information straight to Renaldi.”
“Who’s to say someone from Renaldi didn’t contact him? You know, my father always hated Giorgio Renaldi.”
“Really?” She frowned.
“They were bitter rivals. I don’t remember much since I was so young, but according to Alex, my father always had a soft spot for the wife. Claudia Renaldi is a very beautiful woman.”
“Hmm.” She’d met the Renaldis once, long ago at some industry social event. She could hardly remember them, though she recalled the wife had worn plenty of jewelry, which she’d greatly admired as a girl.
How her father had contacted them and ended up with a job in Italy, she wasn’t quite sure. Could hardly wrap her head around it, really.
“What your father is doing and who he’s working for won’t interfere with our working relationship. I won’t let it.” Rhett wrapped his arm around her slender shoulders and pulled her close. “It’s easy for me to say, but don’t let it bother you. We need to concentrate on our project, not worry about what your father might be doing.”
She sighed, buried her face against his chest. The sensation of her warm breath through the thin fabric of his shirt made his body react like the horny bastard he was. “You’re right. I’ve been gathering notes, coming up with some formulas. I’m not sure if they’re what you’re looking for, but once we return to New York, I’ll send my formulas to the lab and see what we can come up with.”
“Is it enough, you think?” He tried his best to keep the worry from his tone but it proved difficult.
And this ultra-perceptive woman picked right up on it. “I don’t know.” She met his gaze, hers unwa
vering, her expression daring him to protest.
Well. He appreciated her honesty.
It also scared the hell out of him.
After reassuring Rhett she most certainly had everything under control, Ella had hidden away in her bedroom, telling him she needed to work. He’d tried to convince her to at least go out to the beach with him, where she could sit under an umbrella and pour over her newly created formulas.
But she wanted to do it alone. In private. She needed the quiet, the absolute stillness of the empty, silent room. The only sound the fan whirling slowly overhead, the faint murmuring buzz of the motor soothing her frazzled nerves.
Eventually she started to take notes, redoing formulas, trying to figure what fit best where. The scratching of her pen on the thick paper within her notebook seemed extra loud, as did the clicking of her fingers on the keyboard of her tiny laptop.
She hadn’t worked in such silence for so long, it felt odd.
When she wasn’t calculating formulas, she conducted research via the web. Even fired off a few emails, one to her mentor, a lovely woman who’d once worked with her father and now another to a former instructor at Givaudan. She offered them hints of her newly created scents, asking might she be on the proper track if she wanted to create an unusual but identifiable tropical scent.
Their lack of response scared her to death. What if she was completely wrong? What if she formulated all three juices, brought them as samples and the Worth executives hated every single one? She had no time to go back and recreate something from scratch. Rhett had already made that clear. She’d been under the gun from the moment she took the position.
And yet she’d fooled around during most of their time on the island. Too enamored with Rhett, too captivated by the way he smiled at her, kissed her, made love to her…