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Blowing a kiss to the crowd, she made her way back up the runway for her wardrobe change. Managed to somehow make it through the rest of the show under the force of that furious, cerulean-blue gaze that watched her unblinkingly from the front row. When someone passed her a message after the show that Cristiano Vitale wanted to see her, she wasn’t surprised, although that didn’t make her any less nervous. She felt a bit sick, actually.
She considered slipping out the back door and not dealing with it at all. But that would redefine the termcareer-limiting move. Could perhaps be acareer-endingmove.
Best to get it over with. She left her makeup on, because she felt less vulnerable with it, changed into the gauzy metallic olive-green dress the designer she was wearing tonight had chosen for her, and left her hair loose, falling down her back in a silken cloud. Surveying herself in the mirror, she cursed her unusual pallor before deciding it was the best she was going to do with Cristiano Vitale waiting. At least he couldn’t see inside to the knots that were tying her stomach into a ball.
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.
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 gaze 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 dark gray three-piece suit that bucked the trend of black in the room, the dove-white shirt he wore gleamed starkly against his swarthy skin, his silver-gray 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 handmade gold cuff links 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 her 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 semitransparent dress that revealed a daring amount of bare flesh. Her skin felt singed as he cataloged the deep vee of the provocative neckline and the clever cutouts 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. Richard Worthington is a friend of mine.” He took a sip of his drink, savoring 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 favorite 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 thirty-thousand-euro bar tab in Monaco on a wild night of partying in which hotel rooms were trashed? That was someone else and not younudein 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 color 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 that 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 behavior. 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 judgment,” 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 publicity is good publicity.”
“Not in this case,” he slung back, voice razor-sharp. “I was willing to overlook some of your usual antics, because I get that the buzz builds your influencer status and by default my own brand. But there is a line, Ms. Davis. Representatives of the FV branddo notdrink themselves under the table. They do not indulge in excessively public affairs with royalty, nor do theydebasenational 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.”
