Picking up her clutch, she descended the stairs to the magnificent old crypts located directly beneath the Great Hall, where the after party was being held. Dating back to Edward the Confessor, they were the largest surviving medieval Crypts in London, featuring stunning exposed brickwork set off by the formidably thick stone walls, and more of the spectacular stained-glass windows, the space bathed in a golden glow that gave it an intimate, evocative atmosphere, the perfect mood for the festive after party and elegant crowd.

 Usually, this would be the time where she could relax and kick off the stress of the high-intensity evening, but tonight she couldn’t seem to do it, her eyes scanning the crowd for a glimpse of Cristiano Vitale.

 It didn’t take long. If her eyes hadn’t been drawn to him, she might simply have followed every other set of female eyes in the room to the man standing leaning against one of the thick pillars that swept up into a series of graceful arches that adorned the room. Dressed in a three-piece dark grey suit that bucked the trend of black in the room, the dove-white shirt he wore gleamed stark against his swarthy skin, his silver-grey tie the epitome of elegant, European style.

Which didn’t end with the suit. It was there in the perfectly cut, raven-dark hair slicked back from the hard lines of his face. In the hand-made gold cufflinks at his wrists. The relaxed, indolent posture that screamed power from its very restraint. Hands thrust into his pockets, the fine material of his suit pulled taut across powerful muscle, he was the most virile, arresting man she’d ever encountered. Smoking hot in a way few women could resist.

Okay, she admitted shakily, so Millie had been right. He was outrageously good looking. The only explanation for the mind block she’d been suffering, was that she’d blanked it all out at the shoot, because it had been the only way she could maintain her concentration in the face of his extremely distracting presence.

She forced herself to move toward him on legs that suddenly didn’t seem to want to work, stopping when she was a mere few inches from him. “Cristiano,” she greeted him.

“Jensen,” he acknowledged with a dip of his head, the light rasp of his accent working its way under the layers of her skin. He bent his head to brush his mouth against her cheek in a typically Italian caress. Which didn’t feel in any way typical to her. It felt nerve jarring and unsettling, in a way she’d never experienced before. She sucked in a breath as he did the same with the other cheek and stepped back. His sapphire gaze fixed on hers, penetrating and unyielding.

He moved it over her from head to foot, taking in the sexy, semi-transparent dress that revealed a daring amount of bare skin. Her skin felt singed as he catalogued the deep vee of the provocative neckline and the clever cut outs designed to show off her curves, an involuntary sizzle rippling through her as he returned his gaze to her face, a dark glitter in his eyes. For a split second, she could almost imagine the fury she’d absorbed from him onstage was tinged with another emotion entirely—a pure, unadulterated chemistry that zigzagged between them—so potent it shook her to her toes as it reverberated through her.

Which she must have imagined, she thought shakily, as his long, dark lashes swept down to veil his blue gaze, because she was sure anger was his predominant emotion. Which made her wish desperately the designer had chosen something a little more sedate for the evening. Less vamp and more…sophisticated, so she didn’t feel so exposed. But it was too late for that now.

She straightened her shoulders and tipped her head back to look up at him, refusing to be intimidated. “I—I had no idea you would be here,” she stammered, annoyed at herself for the nervous tip of her hand. “That anyone from FV would be here.”

“I was in town on business for the day. Daniel Worthington is a friend of mine.” He took a sip of his drink, savouring the spirit before he leaned back against the wall, his eyes on her. “I also thought that, given the string of headlines you’ve managed to generate over the past few weeks, it might be a good idea if we chatted.”

The ball of nerves in her stomach knotted itself tighter. There it was, the displeasure she’d known was coming. He wasn’t wasting time getting to the point, but then again, he didn’t strike her as the type of man who would. He was all business, all the time, from what she’d heard. And then, there was that air of combustive energy that seemed to surround him like a glove.

She swallowed past the sudden constriction in her throat. “The media like to blow things up into something they’re not. I, unfortunately, seem to be one of their favourite targets.”

“Because you make yourself one. You’ve built a career out of it.”

“Well…yes,” She sank her teeth into her lip, caught off guard by the scythe-sharp assessment. “That might be true of the past, but not so much of the present.”

He arched a dark brow at her. “So you and your entourage didn’t rack up a 30 thousand-Euro bar tab in Monaco on a wild night of partying in which hotel rooms were trashed? That was someone else and not you nude in the middle of the Trevi fountain at midnight…. A body double perhaps? And clearly, the drink throwing incident with the princess was simply a fabric of the press’s imagination?”

Hot colour doused her cheeks. The bar tab had been her mother’s, but that wasn’t something she could share, because her mother’s drinking and gambling problem was a deep, dark Davis family secret she and her sisters had concealed for over a decade. Nor could she reveal the fountain stunt had been a product of her mother’s desperation, because the fact remained she’d done it. She had no excuse for her behaviour. Nor could she deny the drink the princess had thrown at her, though it was hardly the catfight the press had reported it as. It had been more along the lines of Juliana hysterically shouting at her that she’d ruined her life and losing her entire rationality, before she’d thrown the cocktail at her. Which wasn’t an impressive explanation either without the accompanying backstory.

Which left an apology her only viable option. “It was an error in judgement,” she said quietly. “The past few weeks. You can expect nothing but professionalism from me from now on.” Once the firestorm faded.

Cristiano Vitale gave her a long look. “I think we’ve gotten to the point where I’m not willing to take your word for it, Ms. Davis. In case you weren’t aware of it, I am in the middle of a massive transformation of the FV brand. A transformation which relies on the sanctity and reputation of FV’s legacy—a legacy you are currently dragging through the mud.”

Jensen blanched. “I wouldn’t put it quite like that. Some would say any PR is good PR.”

“Not in this case,” he slung back, voice razor sharp. “I was willing to overlook some of your usual antics, because I get that buzz builds your influencer status and by default my own brand. But there is a line, Ms. Davis. Representatives of the FV brand do not drink themselves under the table. They do not indulge in excessively public affairs with royalty, nor do they debase national monuments in the country in which Francesco Vitale was founded.”

Now he was the one embellishing the narrative. No one had drunk themselves under the table in Monaco, though she was fairly sure her mother had been a mere drink or two away from it. Why she’d felt compelled to drop everything and swoop in and clean up. Nor was she having an affair with Alexandre. In fact, right now she’d rather strangle him. But she was fairly certain, taking in Cristiano Vitale’s glittering blue gaze, that providing explanations or arguing the point was likely to have little effect.

“Like I said,” she said quietly, “it won’t happen again.”

 “And then,” he forged on, as if she hadn’t spoken at all, “there are the FV responsibilities you have blown off over the past few weeks. Responsibilities that are written into your contract.”

She frowned, confused. “I’m sorry… what responsibilities?”

“The American Music Awards after party for one. An extremely important brand partnership for FV you’ve now damaged. Antonio was mortified. Then, you blew off Pascal’s fittings for the new collection. Which should have been your number one priority.”

She bit her lip. That felt like a slap in the face, given how hard she’d worked for FV over the past year, killing herself to ensure its success. All the times she’d gone above and beyond her mandate to ensure a campaign received the visibility it needed to catch fire. But right now, she needed to choose her words carefully. “I was so exhausted the night of the AMA party I could barely stand up. I had to be in Tokyo for a show the next day. I skipped the party, yes, but I did the awards as per my contract, a photo of which made it to the front page of the New York Times. As for Pascal’s fittings,” she concluded, “we only pushed them a few days.”

“Days we do not have with a print and television campaign waiting in the wings. The most expensive in the company’s history… In the industry’s history. There is no room for error here, Ms. Davis, something you don’t seem to understand.”

 She absorbed his impenetrable expression. How immovable he was. “I have other priorities I need to meet, Cristiano. We all need to be flexible here.”

His expression darkened into combustible blue fire. “We are three weeks away from the launch of Pascal’s collection—a collection the world will be watching. The campaign for which has not yet been finished.  You are the face of the FV brand—a job I am paying you 20-million-dollars a year for. The largest contract of its kind in the business right now. There are no other priorities.”

She absorbed the fury coming off of him. She got it—she did. She hadn’t been prioritizing her FV work of late as much as she should have been. But what could she do? She’d been fighting the impossibility of her schedule for months, a schedule Tatiana had jam packed, because her agent had made it clear she needed to make hay while the sun shone. Who knew how long she’d be on top? And quite frankly, she needed the money if her mother was to keep her house in Beverly Hills. But, she conceded, the impossibility of it all weighting her limbs, she also needed to keep Francesco Vitale—her marquee client—happy.

“I will talk to Tatiana,” she offered in her most conciliatory voice. “We’ll come up with a plan.”

“Actually, I already have a plan,” he dismissed, “one which will extricate us from this mess you’ve landed us in.” He tipped his glass at her, the dark amber liquid glinting in the light. “My PR department has developed a strategy to rehabilitate your image. To do damage control. A couple of FV-sponsored charitable events over the next couple of weeks with a global reach that will cast you in a better light. Something for the press to feast on rather than their current diet.”

“That’s not going to knock them off course,” Jensen protested. “It would be naïve to think so. It would be better to let this die out like it undoubtedly will.” Eventually. “And, besides,” she tacked on, “I really don’t think I can pack anything more into the next three weeks. I have multiple assignments to do before I fly to Milan, then a shoot in Cannes the—”

He waved a hand at her, cutting her off. “Your agent is going to cancel those so you can focus on FV.”

Her jaw dropped. What? Tatiana was doing what? She couldn’t possibly cancel those assignments. One of them was a show she was headlining in Shanghai for one of her favourite lingerie clients. Not to mention key assignments in Berlin and Cannes—one of them for an up-and-coming swimsuit brand she’d just signed on with. Business she needed to keep.

 “That isn’t possible,” she said in as calm a voice as she could manufacture. “My clients are depending on me. They can’t possibly replace me this late in the game.”

“Clearly they will have to. You are the one blowing off the assignments, not me.” He forged on, as if he hadn’t just thrown a grenade at her. “The rest of the plan,” he expanded, “is that you will travel back to Milan with me tonight. You will stay on my Lake Como estate where we are shooting the collection, out of the media eye, a level of discretion my security team will ensure. There will not be one more photograph, one more stunt, one more indiscretion before this launch, or I will personally cancel your contract so fast it will make your head spin.”

Her stomach plunged to the floor. She couldn’t believe he was doing this. Her rational brain told her he couldn’t do it—that he would never do it given everything he’d invested in her. She was the FV brand right now. But another part of her was afraid he would. That challenging Cristiano Vitale in this moment would be a bad idea given the ruthless, business focused decisions he’d been making of late. Another of those career-limiting moves she didn’t want to consider.

She set her gaze on his, eyes beseeching. “This isn’t necessary. The headlines will stop, Cristiano, I promise. I can make it all work.”

“It’s already done.” His gaze glinted, hard like polished sapphire. “This is the deal, Ms. Davis. Take it or leave it. I would advise,” he suggested, a warning note in his voice, “you think very carefully before you reply. Because if you imagine I am bluffing, I can assure you that I am not. You are at the heart of my campaign. At the heart of the FV brand. I will do whatever I need to do to make sure you are in some kind of reasonable shape to deliver on everything you’ve promised. Trust me on this.”

She stared at him, dismay sinking through her. He had just thrown the one thing at her she couldn’t afford to lose—her marquee FV contract she’d worked her entire career for. Not to mention the knock to her reputation she would suffer if she did lose it, a stain on her track record she could never erase. And then, there was the fact that her powerful New York agent had apparently already weighed in—a decision she wished desperately she’d consulted her on. Which left her with no options.

“I clearly have no choice,” she said evenly, meeting Cristiano Vitale’s vibrant blue gaze.

“No,” he said matter-of-factly, “you don’t. We leave in an hour. Do what you need to do.”

© Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.