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“I’m not that old,” Nick says.
“So then who?”
He hesitates and then grinds his jaw at his inability to come up with a name. “I’m not that into music,” he finally admits.
“Well Kara Kon is a DJ based in New York who’s the next hottest thing,” I say. “And because I actually have some contacts in the music industry, I might be able to get her to play the Seafarer’s maiden voyage.”
Nick snorts. “Kara Kon? What is she, a Mortal Kombat character?”
“And those are the relevant references that will endear you to the trendy demographic,” I say sarcastically.
Nick scoffs. It’s almost a laugh. I risk a teasing smirk. He has to see that I’m right. Nick Madison might be a billionaire jerk with a gold coin where his heart should be, but he’s not stupid.
I raise my eyebrow as he taps his foot, thinking. “Come on,” I prompt, flashing what I hope is a charming smile. “Just give me a chance. What do you have to lose?”
Nick glances at me sharply. I can’t read his expression, but I have a good feeling about it. I’ve just started to feel elation rising in my heart when he suddenly shakes his head and stands, turning away from me.
“No. No, I’m sorry, but it’s not going to work,” he says.
My heart drops ten stories. The whiplash threatens to send me reeling. But I manage to keep my indignation under control this time and say with an almost eerie calm, “Can you give me one good reason why not?”
Nick meets my gaze. “You,” he says. “I don’t think we’d work well together.”
“So it’s not my age. It’s my personality?” I ask, barely believing what I’m hearing.
Nick looks like he’s second-guessing his choice of words, but then fully commits. “Pretty much,” he says.
My mouth drops open. Instantly I’m back in my old apartment, staring in all-consuming shock at Brent as he tells me that it’s not him, it’s me. There’s just something about me. I’d cried then.
But now?
Now I glare right into Nick Madison’s eyes and say, “Fuck you.”
Then, without another word, I storm back down that long red carpet and out of his office, desperate to escape his glass kingdom before the tears come.
CHAPTER THREE
NICK
My apartment differs very little from my office. Both are high-ceilinged, completely open spaces. Both are surrounded by dramatic views of the city. Both are decorated with dark and industrial furnishing.
This is on purpose, a reminder for myself that my work is never really done. That just because I’m uptown in my penthouse doesn’t mean that I can relax or get caught up in foolish distraction.
Unfortunately, though I sit at my desk, though I’ve followed my daily routine to a tee, I can’t focus at all on the quarterly reports I need to finish.
My mind has been uncharacteristically preoccupied as of late. Normally I’m single-mindedly focused on whatever project I’m currently working on. It’s a trait I’d honed in my youth, an almost supernatural ability to compartmentalize. It was born out of a childhood that hosted innumerable distractions. While my peers finished homework at the peace of a kitchen table or bedroom desk, I had to study at a high top, feet away from a rowdy bar. My father’s dive in Hoboken was frequented by bikers, prostitutes, and car thieves, a delightful stew of personalities that inevitably saw the evening ending with someone’s teeth scattering across the beer-drenched floor. And I was always able to tune it all out.
But this month, this unusually warm April, two major disasters, one professional, the other personal, have been gnawing at my brain like a dog on a bone.
Of course, the imminent failure of the Seafarer is hardly a new concern. Everything about the project has been a disaster since day one. Unreliable contractors had pushed the build time from twelve months to eighteen. Public enthusiasm, never significant, had waned considerably since the initial announcement; when it had launched from the dry dock, the crowd had been half the size my advertising team had expected.
That team had been the first firm I’d fired. Not because the launch went poorly, but because they’d tried to convince me that it had all been part of their master plan.
I may be new to the cruise ship industry, but I am not an idiot. A low turnout is only ideal in a house fire.
The Seafarer’s issues would normally be more than enough to keep me occupied, but apparently some cruel god has decided that I can handle just a little bit more.
On the personal side of things, the problem that’s been diverting much needed attention away from the ship is my younger brother, Jack.
