The Billionaire's Gentle Rescue (The Sisterhood) (4 page)

“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.

Zoe wasn’t too young this time. And he didn’t care if she was naïve. He wanted her and she would play. She’d play and he’d make sure that she enjoyed the entire game. It would take all of his concentration to make sure she didn’t run away from the table though.

“I don’t know what you mean. Everything is perfectly fine.”

“You know it’s not,” he countered softly. “Isn’t that what last night was all about?”

She turned away from him, loading the dishes into the dishwasher. “Of course not. Last night was just a girl’s night out.” She stumbled on the stool and laughed bitterly. “Or in, I guess.”

He stopped her as she started to pass, just by the expedient way of touching her shoulder softly. “What if I had a way out for you?”

“A way out of what?” she pretended ignorance.

“If I thought you didn’t already know the answer to that, I would walk out of here without another thought. But you do know. The first thing you need to do is ask for help. Right now, you’re not ready to ask me for help, but I’ll give you a while to try and find funding some other way. Go to your bank. Ask them for a loan to cover your costs plus the extra you’ll need to get through the next six months so you can build up your cushion once again. Or maybe you have other investors that you’d like to deal with. Go ahead and try them out, see if they’ll back you once again. And then, once they’ve turned you down, come to my office and we’ll talk.” He flicked a business card out of an expensive looking case from his jacket pocket and laid it onto the counter beside her. “I look forward to hearing from you again, Zoe,” he said as he bent to kiss her gently on the cheek.

Without another word, he walked out of her loft, the soft click of the huge metal door sounding like a death knoll.

With a shaky breath, she inhaled as she picked up his business card and glanced at the words. As the title and company sunk in, she was astounded that she’d been so blind. Marco DiAngelo was the CEO of Ocarm Enterprises? Impossible! Ocarm Enterprises was not just one of the sharks of the investment industries, it was The Great White!

Blindly, she moved over to her laptop and did a search on Marco DiAngelo. There wasn’t much there, but she found a few stories about the man’s father who was reputed to be one of the biggest mob bosses in the country. Marco had spurned the family business and moved into legitimate businesses, grown them into a massive empire that spanned the entire globe with industries all over the world covering so many products she couldn’t even read some of them, although others were hugely famous brands. There were very few articles about Marco himself, most talking about what a private person he was and how he’d turned his companies into a legitimate business empire, some articles detailing the struggle between the mafia, his current businesses and the law, and all times, Ocarm Enterprises came through the investigations completely clear of any mafia connections.

His sister, on the other hand, had courted the media, showing up at one nightclub after another, arriving alone but never leaving that way. She was known for selecting her escorts from the up and coming men of the world, appearing all over the globe, riding in fancy jets for one night of partying. It was mentioned that, when Darcy DiAngelo showed up at a nightclub, it was the stamp of approval, giving that nightclub the start any new business would need to get going.

Then a couple of months ago, she’d simply disappeared. There were rumors that she’d married a Russian billionaire, but nothing confirmed.

The pictures of his father were numerous, all of them with one woman or another, rarely with the same one twice. The women looked to be a fraction of his own age and upon his death, there was a fight between three twenty-something blond women as they all tried to cry over the casket.

Marco avoided the limelight as much as possible, rarely appearing in public although his name was associated with several women, many of whom were famous actresses or models, all very tall and extremely beautiful. Good grief! Zoe had even designed one of the dresses for one of his ex-girlfriends!

Snapping the laptop shut, she simmered with anger and something she absolutely would
not
define as jealousy. She hadn’t seen or heard from the man for ten years. She had no right to feel anything other than anger over his knowledge of her financial situation.

With disgust, she stood up and changed clothes. One thing he’d been right about. She needed to visit her bank and get additional funding. She’d been a good customer to them for years and had never defaulted on any payments, never bounced a check and was meticulous about her accounts. Surely they would front her the money to cover her expenses for the next few months. She considered herself to be a good risk, surely they would as well.

Considering her options, she looked into her closet, trying to figure out what one should wear to a bank. Conservative, successful….navy blue pin stripes, she told herself.

Looking into her wardrobe, she had nothing like that. Her designs consisted of bright colors with lots of zap and pizzazz, very feminine, very romantic and glamorous.

She pulled out a black jacket and a pair of black slacks, adding her most subdued silk shirt, which turned out to be a turquoise silk satin with a wrap waistline.

Looking at her appearance in the mirror, she thought she looked very professional and supremely successful. Adding small gold earrings, she made the call to her bank, asking for the woman she’d dealt with several times in the past.

Leaving her loft, she felt strong and powerful, confident that she could figure this out easily.

Three hours later, she was no longer confident. She’d been turned down by her bank almost as soon as she’d sat down in the manager’s office. Not only had the manager not been able to front the money, she’d also listed out several fees that Zoe now owed to the bank due to her negative bank balance and numerous checks that had bounced in the past two months.

Feeling like a leper, she left the bank with her head held high, but her stomach was twisting in knots. Marco had mentioned that there were other investors, but she had no idea how to go about finding people like that. She’d focused all her energy on her designs, forming client relationships, building the business. She’d taken for granted the other side of the issues. Financials had never been her strong point, which was why she’d hired an accountant.

And which was also why she was in this current situation.

The sun was bright as she walked down the street, but the sunshine and cool autumn day didn’t penetrate her mind as she pumped her mind to figure out how to get through this.

Investors! She needed investors. She had to have some sort of contacts, didn’t she? She wasn’t completely alone in this world. She had friends, she had a good reputation. She had clients that depended on her!

But if her clients found out that she was no longer solvent, what would they do? She’d always been reliable, gaining inroads into the stores that bought her clothes because she was dependable and always came through on time with every order. She made sure of it! If her clients found out that she’d messed up so completely, she’d lose that reputation. Would they stick with her because of her designs? Were her clothes enough to keep them coming back for the next line? The next spring? The next fall? Or would they start to believe she wasn’t going to be around for the next season’s designs? Would they immediately start looking for other sources?

She couldn’t risk it, she told herself. She’d felt horrible when she’d left the bank, but she wasn’t going to fall into the hole. She simply wouldn’t let her staff go unemployed. Everyone who worked for her had families, responsibilities. She simply had to figure out a way.