Tell Me You're Mine (The British Billionaires #1) - J. S. Scott Page 0,11

time for you to feel comfortable. Why did you leave corporate law?”

Nicole was obviously intelligent and highly educated. She’d just stepped into a world she knew nothing about after her mother’s death. I had to respect the balls it took to take that leap. Dylan and I had had the benefit of being groomed to step into my father’s shoes one day.

I had to admire this woman’s strength and determination. She’d dropped everything in a world where she was comfortable to enter an entirely different universe. My question would be…was she happy where she was right now?

She started to speak before I could ask. “I suppose I just didn’t want to let go of ACM because it was so successful, and I was there to see her fight for that success. I wanted to keep it going because she…couldn’t. I couldn’t sell something that was that important to her.”

Nicole had wanted to keep some part of her mother alive, even after her parent was gone. I understood that. “Did she ask you to do it?”

She shook her head slowly. “No. She knew I was happy as a corporate attorney. My mother wasn’t like that. All she ever wanted was for me to be happy. She expected me to sell, but I couldn’t do it. So I moved from New York back to California permanently after she died to see if I could make a go at ACM.”

I really fucking hated the crushed look on her face. I wanted to say the right words to make it go away, but I wasn’t Dylan. The right words weren’t always there for me, and I wasn’t really good at blowing sunshine up anyone’s ass, but in Nicole’s case, I wanted to try. “It’s just one botched presentation. You’ll get another chance.”

What I definitely couldn’t tell Nicole was that I should have been at her presentation. The meeting had been on my schedule. I’d had to bail out of that commitment because I’d wanted to drive to Surrey to see Mum after I’d seen the tabloids with Dylan’s bare-naked ass exposed to the entire country.

Nicole’s voice sounded desperate as she told me, “You don’t understand, Damian. It wasn’t about getting another deal. It was about accomplishing something my mom always wanted. I got the opportunity that she didn’t, and I fucked it up.”

Ahhh…so it wasn’t about the money for her at all. It wasn’t financial; it was personal.

I hated the fact that I hadn’t been at that meeting, and she’d left Lancaster International headquarters feeling like she’d failed.

For some strange reason, I wanted to reach out my hand and turn her face to me so I could see her expression, but I didn’t.

Number one…I wasn’t sure that seeing an injured look in her gorgeous blue eyes wouldn’t be akin to a swift kick in the gut for me.

And number two…I didn’t want to invade her space again. Okay, maybe I did want to invade her space, but I didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable. I’d probably already done enough to make her wary, and the last thing I wanted to do was shut her down for the rest of the flight.

I wanted her to keep talking to me, which meant I needed to stop doing impulsive shit that was so contrary to my normal personality.

Hell, just wanting somebody to talk to me was highly abnormal.

What in the fuck can I do to make her understand that what happened at Lancaster isn’t the end of the world?

Maybe she just needed some kind of…do-over. “Then tell me right now, Nicole. Tell me what you could have done for Lancaster. What would you say if you got the chance to do that meeting all over again?”

She didn’t hesitate to answer. “I’d tell them that what the CEO is doing will probably catch up with them if they don’t try to fix this right now, and put a kibosh on anything else similar happening in the future. I’d say that they’ll eventually see a decrease in their business if it continues because people don’t always buy with their wallets. Sometimes, they buy with their instincts and their heart. At some point, if the owner of the corporation doesn’t stop the bullshit, Lancaster is going to become a company with an ‘ick factor.’ Some people will be turned off, and buy the product right next to their product, one that doesn’t sport the Lancaster name.”

I had no desire to defend my brother, but I did feel the need to