“I’ve been up since about five this morning. I didn’t think you’d had enough time to sleep off the wine by that time so I let you sleep a bit more.”
Zoe hated the cool confidence that surrounded him. He didn’t move with a lot of fussiness. Everything he did as he took down two plates and filled them with scrambled eggs and bacon was with minimal movement, cool, efficient, precise.
He took her coffee cup and refilled it, then handed her a glass of orange juice, placing the cup beside her plate. “You need a bit of sugar to get yourself going this morning,” he explained as she looked longingly at her coffee cup.
Not having much experience with hangovers since she rarely drank, Zoe accepted his word that the orange juice would help.
“What are you doing here?”
“How are you Zoe?” he asked instead of answering her question. He looked at her as he sat down and started eating his own plate of food.
The idea of sitting next to him was making her stomach clench with a feeling she didn’t understand so she took her plate over to the sofa and curled her legs underneath her, diving into the food but at a distance from him.
The eggs weren’t just fluffy, they were cheesy and incredibly delicious. “Wow! This is wonderful. How did you make these?”
“It’s just good cheese. The fat content will help you get over last night as well.’’
Zoe didn’t care why, she just loved the eggs. “You’re a great cook!”
They ate in silence for several minutes, Zoe enjoying the food more than she would admit to him, even though her enthusiastic devouring of the meal was obvious enough.
When she’d eaten about half of the food, she was completely full, and put her plate on the coffee table and took her coffee cup, cradling it in her hands.
Looking up, she realized that he had already finished his meal and was now watching her. “So,” she said as an opening to some sort of conversation. “What are you doing here?”
“Debbie’s husband works for me. We were working late last night so when your friend called to let him know that she needed to be picked up, he told me about your company.”
Those words brought back all the horror of the previous day and she dropped her eyes, staring at her coffee cup. “That’s nice for him,” she said politely, not sure what else to say under the circumstances. He probably had a whole slew of accountants on his staff and wouldn’t ever let himself be in the situation she now found herself.
“So how’s your company doing? I’ve heard of your designs before, but I never made the connection that you were the artist behind the dresses.”
Hearing him describe her as an artist warmed her heart. If only she’d been a good business woman as well, she might be able to continue to do the work she loved. “Thank you,” she said sadly.
“How is the business?” he asked in the tense silence.
“Fine,” she replied with a falsely bright smile. “We have a full line now and are about to ship out our fall line to clients in over forty states by the end of this week. The business has grown more than almost seven percent each year since I opened up my shop about four years ago, so it’s going…fine.” The ending sounded lame, so she brightened her smile to cover up the fact that she was about to go out of business.
“That’s odd,” he replied, watching her carefully.
Zoe was stung by his comment so she jumped up from the sofa and picked up her plate. Grabbing his plate, she busied herself so he couldn’t see her panicked reaction. “I’m not sure why you would consider my company odd, but suit yourself.”
“I think you’re business is great. I just think it’s odd when an owner describes her business as fine when she’s several million dollars in debt, not counting the issues about to be encountered in trying to obtain credit in order to make payroll and delivery costs.”
The words hung in the air, suspended like a sword about to rip through that last thread of Zoe’s control. Not even the clock tick sounded for that long moment when her heart stopped and her breath froze in her throat. Painful, sudden humiliation lay on the next breath and she knew she didn’t have the courage to face it so she simply stood there, suspended, not breathing, afraid that if she moved, if she spoke, if she did anything besides blinking, her world would come tumbling down around her.
But she couldn’t hold her breath forever. When the suspension became too painful, she inhaled sharply, almost dizzy with both the need for oxygen as well as the humiliation of this man finding her on this particular day and apparently knowing everything about her current financial situation.
It was too much. The crying and drinking last night hadn’t helped and now she had to face up to the issues, but not with this man.
Pasting a bright smile on her face, she spun around from the sink and faced him. “Oh, you know how those things go. Money comes into accounts and money goes out. That’s the way business is supposed to run otherwise our entire economy would simply crumble.”
Marco watched her, his eyes gauging her expression and he understood this kind of desperation. Hell, he’d put many other companies into this position. Not by embezzling, but by buying them out, breaking them apart and selling them off for a profit. If the company wasn’t worth anything, selling things off was the only way to proceed logically. Of course, if the company was still viable, he put an expert management team in place, moved people around and revitalized the operation. Anyone could sell off parts of a company and make money. The real fun was beating the odds and fixing a company that was in dire straits.
Zoe’s company was worth only a fraction of the revenue most of his other acquisitions were normally worth. She had built up a good client base, had a solid reputation and her product was excellent. Her business model was shockingly bad though. If he could turn things around, he could fix the company, show her the way and make her company viable once again, he could get her to trust him again. He’d hurt her ten years ago. He knew it would take a lot to get her to trust him after the stunt he’d pulled. He could do it though. He had to.
If he played his cards right, he’d get Zoe in the bargain.
And he always won when he played.
This transaction might be a bit more delicate than normal though. He wanted her and he sensed an instant attraction back, just like there had been so many years ago. Back then, she’d been a little firebrand and he’d wanted her painfully, but she’d been too young and too naïve. And his father had interfered. Only one of those factors was in play now.