Jennifer Hayward - The Truth About De Campo

All creativity fled. A muscle jumped in his jaw, his teeth clenching down so tight he thought they might shatter. “I heard you the first time. It can’t happen. It won’t happen. And I’m getting a little pissed you’d think I’d even go there.”

Riccardo shrugged. “You’re a complete wild card lately, Matty. They could announce the next shuttle expedition to the moon and I wouldn’t be surprised to see your name on the list.”

His insides tightened. “You know what I was going through. Why that happened with Angelique...”

His brother’s gaze hardened into impenetrable steel. “It was a seven-million-dollar deal, Matty.”

And he had brought it down like a house of cards.

He gritted his teeth. “I will win this deal for De Campo. That’s all you need to be sure about.”

His brother nodded.

Matteo stalked to the door. Sure he was going to charm Quinn Davis. Riccardo wanted to win. How did he think he was going to win? But sleep with her? Did his brother really think he wanted another two years in purgatory?

Damn. He needed a cold beer.

* * *

His mood hadn’t improved by the time he was home at his new Meatpacking District loft, a bottle of said cold beer in his hand on the patio. Kicking back in a lounge chair, he devoured the file Riccardo’s PA had compiled. Paige had been her usual ridiculously thorough self. It contained everything he ever needed to know about the Davis family and more. And photos. It did not escape him why his brother had warned him off Quinn Davis. She wasn’t just beautiful, she was knock-your-socks-off stunning.

The photo Paige had included, taken at a charity event, hit him right where it would any libido-endowed male. Petite, curvy in a lush “take me to bed” kind of way, she had silky, thick, long dark brown hair and the most haunting green eyes he’d ever seen.

Gorgeous. And, apparently, a man-hater. His mouth curved. He could work with that.

He took a swig of his beer. Paige’s notes were a gold mine of cocktail party intelligence. Quinn Davis had worked at Warren Davis’s investment firm since graduating from Harvard and had earned progressively more responsibility at a pace that would have made most people’s heads spin. It was clear from the opinion pieces that although many would have liked to think nepotism had played a role in her success, she had done it on her own. One business columnist commented she had an “eerily sharp brain like her father.” Another that she was an “instant study.” But the description that captured his attention was the one that branded her a “gladiator in the boardroom.”

This was getting more interesting by the minute.

He flicked to a profile piece on her personal life. Or lack thereof. She either didn’t have one or she was the most ultraprivate person he’d ever encountered. Twenty-seven years old, resided in Chicago, divorced from Boston blue blood lawyer, Julian Edwards, after one year of marriage. One year? He lifted a brow. What in God’s name had happened there? And a graduate-level Krav Maga? The instructors he knew had attained that level but none of his buddies had gotten past an orange belt despite years of practice.

Interesting was not the word. Fascinating was more like it. His mouth quirked. No wonder her marriage had fallen apart. Quinn Davis had probably emasculated her husband within the first three months of marriage.

He scoured the file from top to bottom, then threw it on the concrete beside him. Resting his beer on his thigh he looked up at the lone star in the Manhattan sky that never seemed to get truly black. An image of all three De Campo brothers—Riccardo, Gabriele, Matteo—walking into the boardroom of the second largest airline in Europe flashed through his head. That day in Paris had been their chance to make their mark on a company ruled for forty years by their despotic father, Antonio. It was Riccardo’s first high-profile deal as CEO. They had been pumped, sky-high with adrenaline, the seven-million-dollar deal to supply the airline with its house wines firmly within their grasp.

They’d nailed the presentation. Had gone out to celebrate that night at a local bar. But after the adrenaline had worn off, Matteo’s recent all-encompassing grief over the loss of his best friend, Giancarlo, had stormed back. Nothing had been enough to contain it—to make the guilt and pain go away. The effort to keep up a happy face with his brothers had been excruciating, ending with him seeking solace in the arms of a beautiful woman. Except that woman had been the daughter of Georges Fontaine, the CEO of the airline. She worked for Fontaine, had been on the executive team they’d pitched to. She’d also been throwing herself at Matteo the entire time they’d been in that boardroom.

He had reasoned Angelique Fontaine was a grown woman capable of making her own decisions. But when he’d made it clear the next morning he wasn’t interested in anything long-term, Angelique had gone straight to her father. And De Campo’s chance to put its wine on over half a million flights a year had gone with her.

Angelique had branded him a callous son of a bitch. Georges Fontaine had been furious. It had been the worst mistake in judgment in Matteo’s thirty-two-year-old life.

He shifted on the chair, the memory of his brothers’ faces when Georges Fontaine had called the deal off physically painful to remember. Burned so indelibly into his mind it was like a mental scar that never healed. Shock. Disbelief. Disappointment.

The disappointment had been the worst.

He set his beer down on the concrete with a jerky movement. He had been in pain. But Riccardo was right. It shouldn’t have mattered.

Resting his head against the back of the chair, that lone star blinking at him like a beacon—like his path to redemption—he knew this was his chance to finally put his demons to rest. To move on. He would win this deal if it was with the last breath he had. Despite the odds that were stacked against him.

Unfortunately, the stakes had never been higher.

CHAPTER TWO

WARREN DAVIS’S REDBRICK Georgian Revival home in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago shone with a century-old elegance in the early evening light. It had been an unusually steamy summer day, climbing into the hundreds, the haze that had blanketed the city just starting to lift. Cooler night air whispered across the tops of the tall pine trees that stood like sentinels on either side of the mansion, wafting through the window of Quinn Davis’s room as she watched the heads of some of the world’s biggest spirit companies arrive for the cocktail meet and greet.

The air might be cooler now, but the focused, intent look on each megapowerful man’s face as he arrived promised a heated competition. Winning was all that mattered to men of this caliber. She’d lived with one her whole life—the most alpha of them all in Warren. And she couldn’t deny, she was their female equivalent. Except she had to be even tougher, stronger and more focused than all of them to survive. A female warrior in a male-dominated world.

She was fascinated to see how the men would play. How the testosterone party would unfold.

Every single one of them, as they arrived in everything from custom-made suits to cowboy hats, looked up at the American flag billowing from the porch, and undoubtedly, reminded himself again of its significance. Warren Davis was a national symbol of what made America great—a billionaire philanthropist who gave away more of his money than he kept. A patriot and financial genius who advised presidents on monetary policy and led social commentary. He was the man everyone wanted to know. The man people paid three and a half million to have lunch with at his charity auction date for the homeless, in the hopes they might pick up a miniscule amount of his brilliance.