Chapter 50
Caroline
Nobody was answering their phones, and it was pissing me off.
I guess I couldn’t blame them. There was a lot going on right now. But I was going to lose my mind if I didn’t speak to Harrison or Rafael soon.
Eventually, I couldn’t sit in my apartment any longer.
It had been a while since I’d taken the subway. I used to take it every single day, but since working with Harrison I had grown used to taking taxis around the city. Or allowing his personal driver to take me where I needed to go. Had the subway always been this smelly? This dirty?
I chuckled to myself while exiting the car with the rest of the crowd. I really had been living a life of luxury for too long. Maybe I needed to get back to my roots. To return to the life of a normal New Yorker who wasn’t chauffeured around like royalty.
If Harrison is stepping down, maybe I won’t have any choice.
“Hey Bruce,” I said to the doorman at the building where Harrison lived. “I’m heading up.”
But rather than open the door for me, he held his arm out. “Sorry, Caroline. I can’t let you go up.”
“You know me,” I protested. “I’m here almost every day.”
“Only when Mr. Blackstone is home,” he said gently. “He’s not back from the office, yet.”
“Oh.”
“You can wait in the lobby,” he offered, opening the door and guiding me inside. “Can I get you a tea?”
“That’s okay, I’m fine,” I said, taking a seat in one of the chairs. “Thanks, Bruce.”
“Of course.” Rather than return to his spot outside, he lingered in front of me. “It’s, uh, not my place to butt into peoples’ business…”
“But you’re going to anyway?” I said with a smile. “Just teasing. Ask away.”
“Is Mr. Blackstone really stepping down? I got the news alert on my phone. He’s always been friendly to me, much nicer than all the other tenants, though I’m not supposed to say so.”
“I honestly don’t know,” I answered. “That’s what I’m here to find out.”
I watched Bruce go outside and stand guard at the door, hands clasped in front of him.
Someone once told me that you could learn a lot about a person by the way they treated their server at a restaurant.
It occurred to me that the same might apply to a doorman.
Someone who was required to serve you for their job.
I had been waiting for half an hour, and was considering going home, when Harrison came striding into the lobby with Rafael right behind him. He did a double-take when he saw me.
“You let this riff-raff inside?” he said to Bruce with a grin.
“Couldn’t let her stand outside in the cold, like a sad puppy,” Bruce replied.
“I guess you made the right call.” He jerked his head for me to follow him. “Come on. I bet you have a lot of questions.”
“Understatement of the century,” I muttered. “You’ve been ignoring your phone. Both of you.”
Rafael grimaced. “Full media blackout since the press conference. It’s been a hectic couple of hours.”
“Now that’s the understatement of the century,” Harrison said.
When we got to the penthouse floor, Harrison immediately pulled a bottle of red wine from the rack in the foyer. “Been saving this one for a special occasion. Seems appropriate today.”
“Is that what this is? A special occasion?”
“Sure,” Harrison said, deftly opening the wine with a corkscrew. “It’s not every day a man voluntarily steps down from a position of power.”
“Let’s pump the brakes before you start calling yourself Cincinnatus,” Rafael teased while grabbing three stemless wine glasses.
“Who?”
“Don’t tell me you don’t know who Cincinnatus was,” I said.
Harrison smirked and handed us glasses of wine. “Of course I know. I’m just in a joking mood today.” He grinned widely. “I didn’t realize how much pressure was on my shoulders as CEO. Now that I’ve stepped down, I feel so much lighter!”
“So it’s true?” I asked. “You’re really resigning?”
“Not resigning. Temporarily stepping down,” he clarified.
“I was on auto-pilot, Caroline. When the scandal broke, my first instinct was to do what we always do: protect the firm. Circle the wagons, release a statement, wait for it to all blow over while downplaying our involvement. But when I took a moment to actually think about what we were doing, I realized it was wrong.”
“I know it came from a good place,” I offered. “You were protecting Parker, too. You could have thrown her under the bus, but you didn’t.”
He shrugged, and actually looked embarrassed for a moment.
“We try to foster loyalty at the firm. I couldn’t let her take the fall for an honest mistake.
For something that wasn’t really her fault.
I’m the CEO. I had the emails with the information.
The buck stops with me. Ultimately, it was my fault the trade went through, in spite of the rumors about the gold mines. ”
“Then a toast,” I said, raising my glass. “To Harrison Blackstone, for realizing that he was making a mistake.”
“I didn’t realize it on my own, though,” he said. His gaze was fixed intensely on me. “You’re the one who got through to me, Caroline.”
“Me? How did I…” I lowered my glass. “Was it my resignation email? I thought I didn’t send it!”
“Resignation email?” Rafael sputtered.
“I… I was going to resign from my position,” I admitted, feeling guilty all of a sudden. “I couldn’t do what you asked me. I wouldn’t lie to protect Blackstone and Moreau. I’m sorry.”
He touched my arm. “Don’t you dare apologize, Caroline. I shouldn’t have asked you to.”
“But if you didn’t know I was resigning, how did I change your mind?”
“Lucien came to me. Told me that I was going to lose you. It was the wake-up call I needed.”
Lucien. Of course. After I had vented to him, he must have gone straight to Harrison.
Harrison’s phone rang. “Yes. Send him up.” He lowered the phone. “Speak of the French devil…”
“I’ll get a fourth glass,” Rafael said.
Lucien stepped out of the elevator a minute later. As soon as he saw me, a disapproving scowl filled his handsome face. “Are you trying to pressure this woman into doing your bidding? I will not allow it. Caroline, you must not sacrifice—”
“It’s not that,” I interrupted. “Everything’s good.”
He frowned at Harrison, then me. When Rafael handed him a glass of wine, he took it, but still looked suspicious. “I do not understand.”
“She’s the one who convinced me to do the right thing,” Harrison explained to Lucien. “And you’re the one who delivered the message. It was what I needed to hear.”
“So it is true? You are stepping down?” Lucien asked.
“Temporarily,” Harrison clarified with a smirk.
“I’m stepping aside while the SEC conducts an investigation into the Namibian gold mining company.
We’re cooperating, so we’ll hopefully get a slap on the wrist and a fine.
We should have done better due diligence before making that investment, but otherwise we’re not culpable for anything that happened.
But to make things right, we’ll be donating a sizable amount of this quarter’s profits to an international Human Rights organization. ”
“Because it’s the right thing to do?” I asked. “Or because it will make the firm look good?”
Harrison cocked his head. “Can’t it be both?”
Lucien swirled wine around in his glass. “You are stepping down. And who will fill that position until you return?”
“I’m glad you asked!” Harrison said cheerfully.
But he didn’t answer the question. He just stared at Lucien. Rafael was staring at the French billionaire, too.
Lucien muttered something in French. “I feel as though I have walked into a trap.”
“I didn’t invite you here. If this is a trap, you walked right into it voluntarily,” Harrison pointed out.
“It’s kind of perfect,” I said. “The firm shares his name, too.”
Harrison was nodding emphatically. “You’ve taken a hands-off approach since we had our falling out years ago. It would be good to rope you back in. Get you more involved. And then, when the dust settles, I’ll return.”
“And who says I will step aside?” A sly smile spread across Lucien’s lips. “Perhaps I will enjoy this taste of power and decide I wish to remain there permanently?”
“Then I’ll have Rafael kill you,” Harrison replied.
“Finally.” Rafael took a long sip of his wine. “It’s been a while since I’ve gotten to do something fun.”
All of us laughed, except for Lucien, who was gazing around at us suspiciously. Harrison stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Thank you for coming to me. For telling me that I was going to lose Caroline. I needed to hear that. You could have kept it to yourself, allowed all of this to blow up, and then swept in to steal Caroline away.”
“I am thinking that perhaps I should have.”
Now it was Lucien’s turn to laugh. The two men embraced, sloshing wine onto the priceless rug beneath their feet, but not caring at all. The hug went on for a long while, the two of them sharing a moment that felt too private for me to be watching.
“Does this mean we are friends again?” Lucien asked when they finally stepped apart.
“Are you going to keep making investments without checking to see if it conflicts with what our firm is doing?” Harrison shot back at him.
Lucien glanced at me, then grimaced. “I must apologize for occasionally being… chaotic, as you are fond of calling me. I am an impulsive man. This is something that, perhaps, I could work on.”
“Then yes,” Harrison grinned. “We’re friends again.”
“Good. Then as your friend, I must inform you that this wine should have been decanted before being served. The tannins have not had time to breathe.” He winked at me.
“How about we preserve this renewed friendship by changing the subject?” Rafael suggested.
“Good idea.” Harrison turned to me. “I heard Rafa told you that he loves you.”
“Okay, great,” Rafael said, walking out of the foyer and into the living room. “If anyone needs me, I’m going to be throwing myself out the window.”
“Did you need to bring that up?” I hissed at Harrison.
“I think it’s something we should discuss, now that we’re all here.”
“You don’t have more important things to worry about right now?” I asked while following him into the next room.
“Babe, I’m kind of unemployed right now. Our relationship with you has suddenly become my top priority.”
Rafael was standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows, staring out at the city. “Jumping is sounding more and more tempting with every second.”
“You are not allowed to do this,” Lucien told him. “As the new CEO of the firm, I require your expertise as head of security.”
Rafael smirked as he turned away from the window. “That was fast.”
Harrison took me by the hand and led me to the couch. “I’m not ready to drop any L-bombs. But I know that I’m falling for you, Caroline. I love the weird relationship we’ve built. I don’t want to see it end any time soon. And not just because you still have to finish my book.”
I hadn’t realized how much I needed to hear something like that from Harrison Blackstone, but once the words were out there, it filled me with a warmth that made me smile. “I feel the same way. Which is crazy, because a few months ago I hated your guts.”
“He is a very hateable man,” Lucien agreed.
“Hey!”
“I am simply giving you another hard truth! Is that not what you have just thanked me for?”
“You’re not hateable.” I took Harrison’s hand and squeezed it. “The idea of you was something I thought I hated. But now that I know you, the real you? I only hate you a little bit.”
“I’ll take it,” he said, leaning in to kiss me.
“We make a good team,” I said, smiling over at Rafael to let him know I meant him, too. “I’m also not ready to drop any L-bombs, but I feel an immense, deep fondness for both of you. I care about you more than I’ve ever cared about anyone else. And I want to see where this goes. With both of you.”
Rafael’s cheeks reddened, and he looked down at his wine. He looked like he was going to tear up. Which, of course, made my own eyes water.
Lucien cleared his throat. “I am quite happy for the three of you. I will graciously bow out. I do not want to get in the way of something that is clearly special.” He flashed a smile. “I think I will go redecorate my new office. You have far too much lacquer for my taste.”
He dipped his head, then started walking away.
“You have feelings for her, too,” Harrison said.
Lucien paused, but didn’t turn around. His shoulders rose and fell as he took a deep breath. “You do not know how I feel.”
“I think I do,” Harrison insisted. “I’ve seen the way you look at her.”
Lucien turned around now. “And how do you know what I am feeling when I look at her?”
“Because,” Harrison replied, “it’s easy to recognize when it’s the exact same thing I feel for her.”
Lucien stiffened, then glanced at me. His eyes swirled with a thousand thoughts and emotions, all of them unreadable.
“Yes,” he finally said to Harrison. It was hardly more than a whisper, but his voice gained strength with every word. “I have feelings for this woman. Feelings which I cannot put into words, because I cannot comprehend them myself, let alone explain them out loud.”
He turned to me. “I have been infatuated with you since Harrison first brought you to Paris. I have never spent months thinking this much about a single woman. And yet you have become the only thing that is important to me. Not my investments, or my wealth, or anything else in this world. You have crept into the corners of my mind and heart, Caroline, and I am terrified you will never leave.”
The room was silent as the words took hold.
“You have crept into my mind and heart, too,” I admitted. “I know this is insane to say, especially after I just told Rafael and Harrison how I feel, but I can’t deny it. And I can’t lie to myself or any of you, not while we’re all telling each other hard truths.”
“Well then,” Harrison said. “This is quite the pickle.”
“Pickle?” Lucien frowned.
“It’s a figure of speech. It means a predicament.”
“Then why do you not say predicament?” Lucien complained.
Rafael cleared his throat. “I think I may have an idea.”
“Let’s hear it,” I said. “Because I’m at a loss of what we should do.”
“You’ve agreed to be the interim CEO,” Rafael said. “And once we announce it publicly, you’ll need to spend more time here. In New York City.”
Lucien smiled. “I believe I see where you are going with this.”
It took me a moment longer to get it.
But once I did, I smiled, too.