Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (137 page)

“Well anyway,” her mother said, clearly
not satisfied with Nicole’s lackluster response, “Marcie Tilly does wedding
planning now.”

Nicole’s mouth went dry.
 
Oh no.
 
This was not a conversation she wanted
to have today.
 
“That’s nice,” she
said, already thinking of a way to get off the phone.

“And when we were talking the other day,”
she continued, “Marcie mentioned that she’d love to help you plan your
wedding.”
 

“Oh, that’s really sweet of her.”

“So what should I tell her?”

Nicole bit her nail.
 
“I don’t know, Mom.”

“What’s to know?
 
She’s a great resource, Nicole.”

“Let me think about it.
 
I’m not sure I even need someone like
that.
 
This is going to be a really
small affair.”

“Well it can’t be that small.
 
Your father has six siblings and you
have many cousins.
 
And what about
Red’s family?”

Nicole’s stomach suddenly felt as though
a lead ball had been dropped into it.
 
“We haven’t gotten into those kinds of details yet.
 
We’re just in the preliminary stages.”

“That’s exactly why Marcie could help,”
she said.
 
“It can’t hurt to have a
consultation with her, at least.”

Nicole sighed.
 
“Can I get back to you on that after I
talk to Red?”

“You need to talk to him about having a
consultation with someone?”

“Yes, Mom.
 
We discuss everything, we’re partners
now.”

“Partners, not Siamese twins.”

“This is what works for us.”

“Nicole…”

“I’ll get back to you tomorrow, okay?”

Her mother sighed heavily.
 
“Everything’s such a big deal with you
lately.
 
Okay, okay.
 
Get back to me when you can.
 
I’d love to tell Marcie that she can at
least chat with you, she’s such a great person.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Nicole got off the phone and wondered how
things with her mother always managed to turn so messy.
 
She felt aggravated and edgy.

Probably not the best time to go into the
media room and bother Red, but she couldn’t seem to stop her feet from carrying
her there.

He was sitting on one of the large movie
theatre style seats, with his feet up, eating popcorn like some teenager.
 
On screen, two bare chested men were
pummeling each other and blood and sweat was flying off their faces.
 
Nicole could barely stand to look at the
movie, so she just averted her gaze and went to where Red was sitting.

“Can we talk for a second?”

He looked at her.
 
“Can it wait until the movie’s over?”

“You’ve been watching it again and
again,” she said.
 
“It’s not like
you don’t know what happens next.”

“But I’m enjoying myself—it gets me
pumped up.”

“I think we should discuss the wedding,”
she said.

On screen, loud horns were blaring from
the soundtrack, a recognizable theme that was incredibly annoying just the
same.

“Rocky!
 
Rocky!” Chanted the crowd.
  

“There’s nothing we need to discuss,” Red
told her.
 
“I said you have carte
blanche when it comes to our wedding.”

“Still, we should probably talk about a
few things just in case.”

He turned to her, his expression one of
impatience.
 
“Okay, fine.”

“Could you at least pause the movie for
two seconds?”

He held up his remote and paused the
film.
 
It was stopped on an extreme
close-up of the man that Red had told her was “Mr. T.”
 
She hadn’t known anything about him,
which seemed to surprise Red to no end.

“Okay.
 
Movie paused.
 
But I don’t want to sit here and pick
over every nuance of this wedding stuff, Nicole.
 
That’s your job.”

“Relax, I never said you had to do that.”

“I’ve got a new company to build and
run.”

“Clearly,” she said, gesturing to the
screen, “you’re hard at work rebuilding.”

His eyes narrowed.
 
“I have my own process.”

“Listen, I don’t want to argue.
 
I’m just trying to figure out what we
want in terms of our guest list.”

“Like you said, fifty people sounds
good.”

“But I was just on the phone
with my mother—“

Red waved his hands.
 
“Oh, God.
 
Oh, no.
 
No.
 
No.”

“What?”

“I’m not going to get into a back and
forth with your mother over who we should invite to our wedding.
 
She’s not coming in here and running the
show, Nicole.
 
You need to stand up
to her.”

Nicole felt attacked.
 
She recoiled.
 
“Who said she’s running the show?
 
You haven’t even given me a chance to
explain.”

He looked at her but she could see he
wasn’t in the mood to listen.
 

“Fine, Red,” Nicole said.
 
“You want me to handle this?
 
I can make every decision on my own
without checking with you first?”

He locked eyes with her.
 
“I’ve already told you that I trust you
one hundred percent.”

“Except when it comes to standing up to
my mother, apparently.”

He didn’t smile.
 
“Pretty much.”

“I resent that you’re being so detached
about our wedding.
 
Don’t you even
care about any of it?”

“I care about making you happy, and I
care about being officially married to you.
 
I don’t particularly care who gets
invited and how much money we spend—and I trust that you won’t be turning
this into another royal wedding.
 
You don’t seem like you’re the type of woman who tries to emulate Kate
Middleton.”

“No, but there’s a lot involved.”

“Just try and keep your mother out of
it.”

“She’s my mother, Red.
 
And she’s finally being supportive of
us.”

He shrugged.
 
“See?
 
What do I know?”

“Don’t be sarcastic.”

“Listen, if you want some help, I know a
fantastic wedding planner that’s worked with all of the A-list Hollywood
celebrities.
 
She comes highly
recommended.
 
We used to do a lot of
advertising for her at Jameson International.”

“That’s exactly why you and I need to
talk.
 
Do you think I need a wedding
planner?”

He shook his head.
 
“I don’t know.
 
I’m just saying that you could use her
if you want.
 
She’s very pricey but
she’s incredibly dependable and she can be trusted.”

Nicole put her head in her hands.
 
“I wish you’d just sit down with me and
go over some of the details of what you want for this, too.
 
I don’t even know how many people from
your family should be invited.”

“I’ll give you my contacts and you can
make a list.”

“You just want as little to do with this
as humanly possible,” she said.

“Exactly.
 
I’ve got a company to run, I need to
have the eye of the tiger.”

Red hit the remote control and the movie
started up again.
 
Meeting
adjourned, Nicole thought, leaving the room and pulling out her cell in a fit
of pique.
 

A moment later, her mother answered.
 
“Hi, again.”

“Tell Marcie I’ll meet with her for a
consultation.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful to hear,” her
mother said, and Nicole had to smile.
 
It was so hard to please her, after all.
 

“Give her my number and tell her to call
me to set something up.”

“You won’t regret it.”

Nicole laughed, but inside she wondered
if that was true.

***

The next day, Red invited seven of their
new employees to the house for an informal brainstorming session.
 
It was basically an all-day meeting, but
Red liked to pretend they were just a bunch of cool people hanging out and
shooting the breeze, having fun.

Nicole didn’t think it was all that
fun.
 
He’d asked her to take notes
and she hadn’t particularly wanted to do so, even though it was probably the
one thing she was most qualified for at this point.

After all, she’d taken so many notes for
Edward when she worked for Jameson International—she’d finally gotten
good at it.
 

But she found that she couldn’t keep her
mind on the meeting.
 
Red was
talking about branding, positioning themselves in the marketplace, and everyone
was shooting out so many ideas that Nicole kept having to ask them to repeat
themselves so she could take her notes.
 

She felt like the lame chick at the keg
party trying to collect everyone’s keys to keep them from driving drunk.

 
The other employees were a lot like the
people she’d worked with at Jameson International—hip, attractive, some
had tattoos, cool haircuts and weird clothing choices.
 
All of them were confident and funny and
she should have enjoyed being around their energy, but all Nicole could think
about was her wedding.

What she wanted to be doing right now was
planning her wedding, she realized.

Unfortunately, Red needed her help with
this new venture and she’d committed to it already.

When they went on break to relax for a
few minutes before dinner (which would be followed by a “night session” of even
more work discussion), Red pulled Nicole aside.
 

The seven employees drifted out of the
large conference room and toward the kitchen/verandah area, where everyone
tended to congregate on breaks.

“Nicole, what’s up with you today?” Red
asked her.
 
He was fully in work
mode now, she thought.
 
Dressed in
his best Armani, his hair perfectly styled, his presence magnetic and
commanding—like a different person than the man she’d come to feel so
close to after the miscarriage.

“What’s up with me?” she asked, feeling
offended even though she knew she wasn’t at her best.
 
“I’m just taking notes like you asked me
to.”

Red put his hands on his hips and kept
his voice low, but firm.
 
“You look
bored.”

She bit her bottom lip.
 
“Is it bad if I’m actually kind of bored
today?”

“Yeah.
 
It’s really bad.
 
Your attitude is blatantly obvious and I
don’t want the staff to pick up on that.
 
You’re supposed to be my partner in this thing, and I kind of get the
feeling lately that you couldn’t possibly care less about it.”

She shook her head.
 
“Of course I care.”

“But?”

“But I’m a little distracted with the
wedding stuff.
 
I really want to get
to planning but I have no time with these day and night meetings.”

Red sighed, exasperated.
 
“The wedding stuff shouldn’t be that
complicated.
 
It’s going to be
small, right?”

Nicole looked around as if there were
someone behind her who might be able to better answer the question.
 
“I can’t tell you what it’s going to be
until I take some time to actually figure out who we should invite and where I
want to have the ceremony and reception.”

“Listen, I need you to be present with
me,” he said.
 
“If you can’t do
that, then maybe we need to find someone who can.”

She stared at him and he stared back at
her.
 
It felt as though they had
come to an impasse.
 
“Can I just
take some time off here and there so I can start planning our wedding?
 
It’s only two months away and I haven’t
done a thing.”

He crossed his arms.
 
“How much time do you need?”