“WHAT THE FUCK?” Tom said when he saw the photo and copy for the ad campaign they would be launching. It was the first time that a campaign had been pushed through without him seeing it. And when he saw this one, he was livid.
It featured a nearly nude woman, on a bed, covered with a white sheet. Her dark hair was long and wavy, and she bore a striking resemblance to how Gemma had looked in the Men’s Lifestyle spread that had debuted the week before. Gemma’s feature had made a splash. She’d always been Gemma Rexford when she was hauling barrels in bulky coveralls, but in a short amount of time, she’d become a sex symbol in the rum community.
He seethed at the Cain ads he saw on his computer. The ad copy was the worst part, however: “We don’t need sex to sell fine rum... But it doesn’t hurt.” The marketing department must have worked overtime to find a way to degrade Gemma and her accomplishments and get this out in such a short amount of time.
He picked up his phone and called Bill Edwards, the head of marketing. When the man answered, Tom didn’t waste time with pleasantries. “Where did that ad come from?”
“Did you like it?”
“Does it fucking sound like I liked it?”
Bill was silent.
“I know it isn’t your style,” Tom said. “Who did it?”
“Your father.”
“What?”
“It came from him—he suggested it.”
“Pull the ads,” he ordered.
“Why?”
“I appreciate that your team did them, but they aren’t Cain Rum. They’re a cheap shot at Gemma Rexford, and it’s obvious. That’s not how we promote ourselves.”
“But your father—”
“It doesn’t matter. Do what you have to do. Just pull it.”
“Okay,” Bill said.
Tom hung up without saying goodbye. He had someone else to talk to. He walked down the hall to his father’s office. He knocked on the door.
“Yes?” his father called from the other side.
Tom stalked into his father’s office. “What did you do?”
His father narrowed his eyes at him, but his face otherwise remained impassive. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The new ad campaign. Don’t pretend that woman isn’t based on Gemma Rexford.”
“That woman you’re sleeping with? Don’t think I don’t know about your weekly trips to Miami.”
“How do you know about that?” he asked.
“I saw the magazine with her on the cover on your desk. All those trips to Miami—I connected the dots.”
“You went in my office?”
He shrugged. “I went to find you, and you weren’t there. I saw the magazine.”
“You had no right to go into my office.”
He shook his head. “You know, son, I never thought you’d betray the family and the business with a competitor. Especially a Rexford.” Now his father was starting to sound like Reid and Quin.
“What I do in my personal life is none of your business,” he said. “And it in no way affects what happens here.”
“It’s my business when you’re seen with our competitor,” his father told him. “You’ve never gone against the family like this before. I believe that woman is a bad influence on you.”
“A bad influence?” Tom asked. “I’m not a goddamn teenager.” He was so angry he almost forgot the reason he’d gone in there. “What are you doing running ad campaigns, anyway? You’re not in marketing. You’ve never had any input into it at all.”
“I still run this company, and that means I still make the decisions. When Carolina showed me those pictures of her online—”
Tom caught his father’s slipup. “Carolina showed you? I knew she was behind this. You did this to embarrass Gemma and slander her name in the industry. Typical—we can’t beat her product, so you do something shady like this.”
Since his father had married that woman, Tom hadn’t taken the opportunity to get to know her. He didn’t trust her. All he knew about her was that she had been capable of betraying the Rexfords by stealing their recipes. There’s no way he could trust someone who could do that, and he didn’t understand how his father could, as well.
“That’s besides the point. You’re threatening the future of the company with Gemma Rexford. How do we know you aren’t trading corporate secrets? A little pillow talk.”
“Why would I try to ruin the company that’s been in our family for generations? I’m the only one who’s trying to save this business.”
“Son, you have a choice to make. You want to run Cain Rum, right?”
“Yes. I always have.”
“You can’t run this company if you’re seeing Gemma Rexford.”
Tom had been expecting the words. He’d often thought them as well during those nights he’d spent with his arms wrapped around her body. He’d heard them clearly as he said them to himself. Deep down, Tom had always known he would have to make a choice, and as he stood in front of his father, his anger rising, he knew which choice he wanted to make. He wanted to storm the fuck out of there and never return. But he knew it wasn’t that simple. He couldn’t walk away from the business, not like that. No matter how he felt about his father, the business was his birthright, and was something he’d always striven for. It had been his goal for as long as he remembered.
Maybe he needed some space from Gemma, just a little time on his own to figure out what it was he wanted. He knew what he wanted, but what was for the best was a different matter altogether. But first, he had to make sure that the ad featuring the Gemma lookalike didn’t see the light of day.
His father, always astute, was watching him carefully and must have seen the indecision on his face. “Let me know what you decide,” he said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”
Gemma was in front of her makeup table, getting ready to go out with Celia and Lila, when her cell phone rang. She’d had plans to go out for dinner and drinks with the girls. Well, drinks with Lila, she realized, and smiled, remembering that Celia was pregnant. But either way, Gemma was looking forward to dressing up and having a good time. She paused in applying a steady black line to her upper eyelid and frowned, because she knew she would never be able to complete it so flawlessly again. She looked at the screen and, seeing it was Tom calling for a video chat, she smiled and accepted the call. “Hey babe, what’s up?”
He sighed. “I’m still at the office.” He looked tired, and she wished she was there with him. “Are you going out?”
“Cocktails and tapas with the girls,” she told him. “It’s been crazy at the distillery lately.” Especially with the plans for the aggressive summer launch that will target Cain Rum, she thought, but left it unsaid. They had been working hard for the launch, and even though she was seeing Tom, her brothers didn’t care. They were moving ahead with it. “Is everything okay?” she asked.
“Oh, you know, just the typical frustrations that come along with a family business.”
“Oh, I know what that’s like.”
“I know you do.”
“But at least it’s almost the weekend,” she said with a smile. “You know what that means.”
His sigh caught her attention, and she frowned. “Listen, Gemma, I don’t think I’ll be able to come down this weekend.”
“Oh, really?” she asked. Since they’d started their relationship, they’d managed to spend every weekend together. Gemma hated how desperate she sounded.
“Yeah, sorry,” he said. “Something came up, and I can’t get away.” His lack of an actual response was startling.
“Something came up? Anything you want to talk about?”
“No, not really,” he said.
For the first time, she could feel the distance between them, and it wasn’t just physical. “I hope everything is okay.”
“Yeah, it will be.”
She frowned. “Work?” A black pit formed in her stomach. Gemma had a bad feeling about the conversation. She was worried for him, sad that he didn’t confide in her, annoyed that he was being so dismissive. This was why she didn’t deal with serious relationships.
He sighed. “It’s nothing I want to talk about right now.”
His tone made herself feel like she was being dismissed. “Okay. Well, that’s too bad.” She shrugged, trying to not let him know how much it did bother her.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m great,” she told him. “We’ll probably see each other next weekend.”
“Probably?” he asked. “Are you still coming up here?”
“Yeah, sure thing,” she said, noncommittal.
“Gemma, are you okay?”
“Me? I’m fine.” She wasn’t sure why she was being so confrontational, or why him not making the trip down this week bothered her so much. She was annoyed by herself. For even letting it affect her. “I’m going to go now so I can finish getting ready.”
He frowned. “Okay. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Sure thing.”
“I love you.”
She looked away from the phone and nodded at her own reflection. “I love you, too,” she said before disconnecting the call. She’d said the words; she’d meant them. But as she thought about the conversation, and the confusion she felt at his lack of information, feeling it tore her heart out.
Picking up her liquid eyeliner, she attempted to continue the line she’d started on her eyelid. But her hand was shaky, so she threw down the wand in frustration and wiped at the mess she’d made.
She was frustrated with herself for behaving that way. She’d never let herself feel that way about a guy. So what if he couldn’t make it this weekend? It wasn’t the end of the world. She could get by for one weekend without him. He told her something had come up, and that should be enough for her. She had no claim on him. She trusted him, but she was left with the impression that there was something he wasn’t telling her.
Tom stared at his phone screen for probably a minute after it turned black. Gemma obviously hadn’t been happy by the way the conversation had turned out, but hell, neither was he. He’d had every intention of going to Miami tomorrow. But since he’d seen the new ad campaign, he knew he had to work to cover it up before it debuted. But not only that. He’d made the right decision for himself. He had some feelings he still had to sort out. And he couldn’t do either of those things from her bed in Miami.
His phone rang again. He hoped it was Gemma, but instead, it was Bill from marketing. He answered. “Any news?”
“We’re not pulling the ad.”
“Why not? It can’t be too late.”
“If we wanted to pull it, it would take a matter of minutes to write a few emails.”
“Then what is it?”
“Tom.” Bill sighed into the phone. “I don’t know what kind of family drama you and John have going on, but I don’t want to be in the middle of it.”
“What is it?”
“Your father and his wife came to visit my office about an hour ago.”
Tom frowned. “Yeah?”
“They told me that under no circumstances are we to stop it. No matter what you said.”
Tom formed a fist with one hand, and he could have crushed his phone with the other. Every day he entered the building and worked with the other employees, never once bringing his father’s name into his business. But now his father had gone around him and brought him up to an employee in a disagreement. No, that wasn’t appropriate at all. He thought about asking Bill if there was another way, but he’d already made the man’s day hard enough.
“Okay, thanks, Bill,” he conceded. “I’m sorry about the awkward position we’ve put you in. It shouldn’t have happened.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that.”
“Have a good night.”
He’d once looked up to his father, had once respected him. His opinion of his father’s actions of the past several years had lowered his opinion of him, but this time? This time he’d gone too far. The old bastard had found out about his relationship with Gemma. His goal was to embarrass them both and drive them apart.
Tom had no idea how to make it right with Gemma. He already knew that she would be pissed about it. He would have to tell her—get ahead of it—before it was plastered on billboards, magazines, posters and internet banner ads. He picked up his phone again and called her. It went straight to voice mail.
“What the hell?” He said the words aloud in his empty office, completely shocked that she hadn’t taken his call. He pushed redial. Again, it rang only once and then went to her voice mail.
“Hi, this is Gemma. I’m not around, or I’m screening, so leave a message.”
“Hi, Gem. Sorry I missed you.” He started rolling his eyes, annoyed that she hadn’t answered, knowing that she was ignoring his call. “Um, I’m not entirely happy with how our last phone call went. And I’ve got something important I need to talk to you about. So please call me back. I don’t care when. Even if it’s late. I love you.”
He’d done what he could. He couldn’t stop them, but he needed to warn her before the ads mocking her went public. He’d skipped his Miami trip to deal with this and try to wrap his head around what he wanted for his future—the company or Gemma. But now going down there was his only option. He’d have to tell her face-to-face.
The campaign would be live by morning. Hopefully she wouldn’t see it until he saw her.
Two hours later Gemma was seated at a high-top table drinking sangria with Lila, Celia opted for water. Her mood had improved considerably, and she had managed to forget the disappointment she’d felt earlier—at Tom, at herself.
“Are you okay?” Celia asked her.
It was the second time she’d been asked that. Maybe she hadn’t done quite as good a job at hiding her feelings as she’d thought. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Liar,” Lila told her. “What’s going on?”
She sighed. “It’s stupid,” she said rolling her eyes. “Tom was supposed to visit this weekend, but he isn’t going to make it.”
“Is there something else?”
“No. That’s what he said. But he didn’t really explain. Just said he didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Wait, he said that?”
“Yeah, and I think that’s what’s bothering me the most. Like, we don’t have to spend every weekend together, but I feel like I deserve a little more information than I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Yeah, that’s definitely weird.”
“But the weirdest thing is that isn’t what I’m upset about.”
“So what is it?”
“I hate that somehow I’ve become this woman who cares what this guy is doing. I shouldn’t care that he doesn’t want to get a flight to another state. It’s not even a big deal. I’m going to New York next weekend.” Gemma dramatically put her head on the table. When she looked up again, she saw that Lila and Celia were watching her, both of them looked amused by her current predicament. “What?”
“That’s what happens when you’re in love.” Lila said. “You’re supposed to care. You’re supposed to be irritated when he flakes.”
“I don’t know,” Celia added. “It sounds like he was being shady—not telling you why he couldn’t make it.”
“Exactly,” Gemma agreed. “I just don’t know what’s up. I feel bad if he’s going through some heavy personal thing, and doesn’t want to share, but we’ve already shared so much. He knows he can be honest with me. No matter what it is.” She drained her glass of every drop of sangria. The way she felt, she could use another pitcher of the stuff. “This is ridiculous,” she muttered to herself. She waved to the waiter and ordered more sangria. “I’m just going to forget him for tonight. If he doesn’t want to be here, that’s his loss.”