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“Would you do that to a male colleague?” she asked once they were through the double doors of his home and in the spacious antechamber.
“Can’t say that I would. But you are not a man, so stop asking me to treat you like one.”
“I want to be treated like an equal.”
“Was that somehow not treating you like an equal?”
“I…well…you were treating me differently.”
“Different is unequal in some way?”
“Did you ask me here to debate gender politics or are you going to show me to your study and give me your spiel?”
“The latter.” He walked down the marble halls, appreciating the opulence of his home with each step he took. Appreciating that it was his.
He’d spent too many nights on cold cobblestone not to appreciate it. And too many other nights in soft beds that belonged to other people. And honestly, in the end, he wasn’t certain the cobblestone wasn’t the better option.
The hall opened up into another room with a broad arched doorway, one that reminded him of old buildings in Italy. Places that were far too grand to allow him admittance. So he’d built them for himself, now that he could afford them.
Antique furniture that cost more simply because it was old decorated the room, another possession he’d acquired simply because he could. Same with the marble busts and old vases. Things he’d bought because, before, they were things that museum docents and shopkeepers wouldn’t even let him look at.
Now he owned them. Now he owned whatever he wanted. The cost of it had been high enough that he felt entitled to reminders.
Julia sat in the biggest chair in the room, maroon and wingback. She crossed one slim, leather clad leg over the other and leaned back, tapping her patent black stiletto heel on the hard floor.
“Spill it, Calvaresi.”
“I want to partner with you and present our plan to Barrows. We can land the account together. And, I have it on good authority, we will easily remove Hamlin from the equation forever if we play our cards right.”
“What?”
“To which piece of the statement?”
“All of it. But start with Hamlin.”
“He’s on the downward slide. He’s in so much debt that the only thing that could possibly save Hamlin Tech at this point is a major new account. Barrows. If we don’t partner on it, odds are, he gets it. And the bigger picture here, Julia, is not so much you or I getting the account as it is being able to get rid of a key player in our industry.”
“That’s…well, it’s dastardly, is what it is.”
“I’d twirl my mustache if I had one,” he said, his tone dry.
“I’m serious, why bother to take Hamlin out?”
“Is it your goal to be more successful than him? To steal his customers and cut into his market share?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Well, it’s my goal, too. It’s my goal to do it to you, too, but I can put that on hold because I see an opportunity here. Frankly Hamlin is a bastard, and while I’m not the nicest guy I don’t have sweatshops throughout Asia, or harass my female employees.”
“So you’re just going to play like you’re swooping in and saving the world from Hamlin Tech and all the evil it commits?”
“No,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest, “but it’s another reason he’s an enticing target. The main reason is that I want to be the last man standing.”
“And why should I enable you to get one step closer to your goal?”
“Because it takes you one step closer, too.”
“So we charge in together, then when the enemy is destroyed we turn our weapons on to each other?” She uncrossed her legs and tilted her head to the side, finely groomed eyebrows arched.
“Exactly. Is that a problem?”
“I’m not sure.” She folded her hands on her lap and leaned forward, resting her chin on them. She was an interesting woman. All limbs and pale skin and hair, brimming with a kind of uncontainable energy that always seemed to vibrate beneath the surface.
“As long as we’re working together, we’re working together.”
She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth and Ferro felt a strange, answering jolt in his gut. She was a lovely thing. The sort who had no idea just how lovely. She would need a lot of flattering words, a lot of touch, nonsexual touch, in order to open up. In order to enjoy an encounter with a man.
He mentally castigated himself for the direction of his thoughts. This wasn’t the time. And assessing women like that, figuring out what they really wanted, how he might go about fulfilling that, wasn’t part of his life anymore.
He hadn’t looked at a woman like that in years and he wasn’t sure why he did it now. He wasn’t after a girlfriend, mistress or woman-for-hire which meant there was no point. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel attraction, simply that it registered in his body and nowhere else.
Maybe because she was a puzzle. Something about her didn’t fit. The energy, for one. She worked so hard to play it down, but she could hardly sit still. Then there was the don’t-touch-me black clothes. He imagined they were meant to make her look confident, but in his mind, it only betrayed the fact that she wasn’t. She was wearing armor that was far too easy to recognize as such.
But no matter how intriguing, he wasn’t going there with her. He would not revert to the man he’d been trained to be. He’d escaped that. He used it when it suited him, not when it didn’t. He wasn’t on a leash anymore.
“Meaning you won’t stab me in the back during this…caper?”
“I wouldn’t call it a caper. Although, it will require a bit of…finesse.”
“Meaning?”
This was the part she wouldn’t like. The part that would have been easy with another woman. But Julia wasn’t easy. She didn’t respond to his flirtation. Didn’t respond to his charm. Charm he knew was lethal in most cases.
But not in this one. Interesting. It made her so very interesting. It always had. No one else went toe-to-toe with him. No one, not even Scott Hamlin, would dare pull such public stunts the way she did. She’d pushed him to start doing the same. She’d forced him to act. So very interesting to meet someone who had that kind of power.
But it was in his control now.
“We’ll have to make it look like our…merging—”
“This is not a merger,” she bit out.
“For the project,” he said.
“Fine,” she said, barely civil. “Go on.”
“We’ll have to make our merging look organic.”
“And how do you propose we do that?”
In some ways, the fact that she wasn’t going to like his suggestion made it even more perfect. Anything he could do to tip the balance of power further to his favor was only good. And the more flustered she was, the more control he would have. “It would be completely expected for a couple to discuss a project and come to the conclusion that collaboration would be the best for all involved.”
Her blue eyes glittered. “Are you suggesting that we…that we feign some kind of personal involvement?”
“You’re sanitizing it,” he said, smiling. “I’m suggesting we pretend we’re heavily involved in a scorching affair.”
Julia exploded from the chair and started pacing the room. “That’s insane. As if I would ever…As if you would…As if…As if!”
“You find the idea so offensive?” He crossed the room and sat in the chair she’d just been occupying.
“I find it unbelievable. After the stunt you pulled today do you really think anyone would believe that you and I…”
“There’s a fine line between hate and lust, cara mia.”
“Maybe if you have a disconnect between your brain and your nether regions.”
“And many people do.”
She looked down, then back up, hands planted on her hips. “That’s crazy.”
“Do you have a better idea? Why should Barrows have any confidence in our ability to work together if we present a proposal out of the blue?”
She flung her hands wide. “Because we’re awesome!”
“Awesome doesn’t score points in business, Julia, and this is where being like me has an advantage over being like you.”
“Like me as in young, extremely smart, creative and—”
“Green. Untried. Untrained.”
“And what about you, Ferro Calvaresi, graduate of the school of hard knocks?”
No, she wasn’t a woman to win over with seduction. But when she was challenged? She couldn’t resist fighting back. “Hard knocks? Have you been reading my unauthorized bio?”
Color stained her cheeks, crimson against the pale white of her skin. “No. It’s a common expression.”
“And it’s also in the front jacket of the book. My rise to success from the seedy underbelly of Rome. Fantastic reading. If you like a fairy tale.”
It was almost amusing that she, along with the rest of the world, had jumped at the chance to read about his sordid past. And it was sordid, no mistake, no denying. A good thing for him, the book only scratched the surface. Sure there were whispers, whispers that were close to the truth, but no one really knew.
“I have no idea what book you’re talking about.”
“I think you do, but you can have your lie.”
She was all but bouncing in place now, her knee flexing in time with something in her head. Probably the horrible names she was silently calling him. “Fine. I read it. Know your enemy and all. The Art of War. See? I’m on top of stuff.”
“It’s like your mommy and daddy got you a CEO boxed set for Christmas. Did you also get a world’s best boss mug and a zen garden?”
“Make your point, or I walk,” she bit out.
“My point is that you’ve had success easy and young.” She bit her lip, like she was holding back words she wanted desperately to speak. Words that would be designed to castrate him, of that he had no doubt. “Because of that success, you’ve never had to deal with the realities of setbacks. Of how business works. Of the nuances of it. You didn’t have to court the press, they came to you. You haven’t had to turn scandal around and make it work to your advantage. Haven’t had to twist lies around so that they’re close enough to the truth no one will examine it all too closely, but I have. I know what we’re dealing with here. I know the manner of man Scott Hamlin really is, and I won’t hesitate to take him out completely.”
“You say that like I don’t know that manner of man,” she said, her tone frosty. “I’m a woman in a man’s world. Tech is a boys’ club, Calvaresi. There’s practically a No Girls Allowed sign on the door. I’ve been dealing with men all my life who want to take from me, who think they can just take from women. I do know about men like Hamlin. And you’re right. He deserves nothing less than total professional destruction.”
“He would do nothing less to us. He’s tried to, or didn’t you know?”
“What?”
“You look shocked.”
“I am. He’s never tried to do anything to me.”
“You think not? Well, he’s the man who’s seventy percent responsible for my unauthorized bio, which you are familiar with. And he’s also responsible for the IRS rechecking all of your returns last year.”
“How did you know about that?”
“It’s getting tiresome but I’ll say it again. Corporate espionage.” He watched her expression change, watched her skin turn a deeper pink. He really had made her angry now.
“Who do you have in my company?”
“Who says I have anyone in there? Now.”
“Ferro…”
“I never confirm anything. I don’t deny it, either, so you might as well not waste your time trying to get either from me.”
“Fine. So you say he’s trying to take us down.”
“Yes. And if you were more scandalous he may have succeeded.”
She frowned. “Excuse me? You’re extremely scandalous and he didn’t succeed with you.”
Ferro shrugged. “Because I know how to play it.”
“Is this where ‘neither confirm nor deny’ comes in?”
“Absolutely. My point is, Julia, you need to play this my way. Because while I appreciate that you’re a tech wunderkind—”
“I’m twenty-five. I’m not that young.”
Nearly ten years his junior, and even younger when it came to life experience. Julia didn’t look tired yet. But she would. Life had a way of doing that to people. Especially people thrust into the spotlight.
Lucky for him, in many ways, he’d come in worn down and tired. And at least now he had a bed that belonged to him.
“You are young,” he said. “And the fact that you don’t realize it only highlights that fact. And while that is its own kind of amazing, its own achievement, it is not what I have. Maturity.”
“You? Ferro Calvaresi? You’re playing the maturity card? You just…hijacked my presentation like a…a…pillaging tech pirate and now you’re trying to tell me you’re mature?”
He gave her his most practiced smile, smooth, genuine, a smile no one could find fault with. A smile he never felt at all. “I show the world what I choose to show the world.”
