Scandalizing the CEO

“I’m leaving. Are you going with me or not?”

“Of course I’m going with you. I can’t believe you are letting this get so out of control.”

“It’s not me,” he said. “It’s you and your magazine article. Prying into lives of people who don’t want to be pried into.”

“You are the one who wanted some compensation for letting us shoot in your store.”

“That’s right, I did. Just the heirs and our businesses. You had to drag family into it. Never thinking that Malcolm Devonshire only ever had one family and it was a corporate business unit.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that because then he missed out on three incredible sons,” she said. She brushed past him and climbed into the car.

Thirteen

After driving the entire way in silence, Steven dropped her off at her office and then drove away. She knew that she’d pushed too hard with him. But that hadn’t been her intent. She had no idea why things had gone south so quickly. There was one thing she knew and it was her job. When she was in her office, she was in control. It was the one place where she didn’t have to answer to anyone but herself.

Cathy was surprised to see her when she walked in. “I thought you were taking the day off.”

“I changed my mind. Maurice wants us to lock up the interview with Malcolm. I need you to find out who his attorney is and get me an appointment with him. Did you get the schedule of when we need answers for the article?”

“I did. I’m glad you’re here. I was just getting ready to call you. We had a minor emergency with the photo shoot for next month’s cover. The model we’re using is refusing to wear the outfit the creative director picked out.”

“This is the shoot we’re doing here in the building, right?”

“Yes. But she’s in your office with the creative director.”

Ainsley pushed open her office door and saw the creative director, the model and the photographer all sitting there. “What’s going on?”

“He vants me to wear this,” the model said, standing up and gesturing to her outfit.

“Do I know you?”

“No.”

“Then sit down. Tell me why I’m wasting money on another photo shoot,” she said.

“She just did a shoot for Cosmo and wore an outfit similar to this.”

“Really?” she asked the girl. “What’s your name?”

“Paulina.”

“We’re trying to find something different for her to wear,” the creative director said. “But everything I’ve pulled together isn’t working. I know you were in Milan…”

“Go back to the fashion closet and find something different. Here are the sketches I brought back from Milan. Let’s find something inspired by these. It’s different.”

“Agreed. Thanks, Ains. You’re a lifesaver.”

“And my head is on the chopping block if I screw up this magazine,” she muttered to herself after they left.

She walked over to her desk, but didn’t sit down. Instead she went into her private bathroom and washed her face. She didn’t look at herself in the mirror because she didn’t want to see the stranger looking back at her. Not again.

Before Steven, she had felt as if she were wearing a costume when she looked in the mirror—that the slim and pretty woman she saw wasn’t really her. But now she knew that she had started to accept who she was and if she looked in the mirror again she was going to see a woman who’d made a huge mistake.

A woman who’d trusted the wrong man and let herself get hurt. From the beginning she’d known that Steven held a part of himself back from anyone he got involved with. She might have mistaken his reactions for those of a man who was uncomfortable letting others see him. But the truth was she suspected that he didn’t feel anything at all, that he played at having emotions.

Just as he’d said to her that he couldn’t love. And she’d foolishly thought that he was just saying that. That he didn’t want her to build castles around him, and make him into something he wasn’t.

That wasn’t fair, she thought. She had no idea what kind of man he was; she kept expecting him to be one way and was surprised when he wasn’t. The truth was she’d allowed herself to be angry with him because she’d realized she’d overstepped her bounds.

She had taken his idea for an article about the business and the men of the Everest Group and turned it into an article about the women in Malcolm Devonshire’s life, which was what it had to be for FQ. Had she simply been looking for a salacious angle she could use to sell magazines?