Christmas at the Castello(31)

She waited until he had gotten in and put the car into gear before she spoke.

"I was thinking about turning the job down. That's why I hadn't  responded to him. I knew you needed me more than I needed the job."

He pulled out of the driveway. "If you really believed that, you would have turned it down."

"It's more complicated than that, Coburn."

"It's not." He yanked the car over to the side of the road and put it  in park. "Goddammit, Diana, I thought we were getting somewhere. That we  were finally being honest with each other. That we had the partnership I  had always dreamed of. When all along you were keeping this from me."  His gaze pinned her to the seat. "When did he ask you?"         

     



 

Heat singed her cheeks. "A few weeks ago. But it wasn't the right timing to bring it up."

He threw his head back against the seat. "So you said nothing. You  allowed me to be blindsided tonight by Frank Moritz, who took great  pleasure in putting me on the spot. Who made me look like a complete  fool in front of a client by not knowing my wife had been offered a  prestigious fellowship."

"It's your fault. If you weren't so crazed about my job, I would have  told you and this never would have happened. As it was, I was doing  everything not to set you off like a powder keg."

"So now it's my fault?" He turned and rested his gaze on her. "It doesn't excuse the lack of honesty."

She bit her lip, trying to be the reasonable one here. "I should have  told you. But you can't unilaterally make decisions for me like that. I  won't have it."

"And I won't have you taking that job. It will consume you, Diana. There won't be any room left for me or our baby."

It was the ultimatum that did it. "I guess that revelation in the  Virgin Islands about the importance of my job was just talk. Do you have  any idea how amazing this opportunity is? Frank Moritz was short-listed  for a Nobel Prize. Working with him would put me on a world stage.  Cement my career as a pediatric surgeon."

"I'm not saying it isn't a great opportunity. I'm insanely proud of  you. I always have been. But this is not the right timing for us. It  will kill what we've built."

"What will kill what we've built," she countered, "is if I continue  this role I've been playing forever. I have spent the past three weeks  attending every boring benefit you've asked me to, lunching with Jack  Nieman's wife, who is a total piece of work just like him, by the way. I  have played the perfect CEO's partner to the hilt. And I have done it  willingly because I love you, Coburn. Because I know you need me right  now. But I will not have you treat me like this, no matter how stressed  you are."

His face tightened. "I'm sorry it's been such a chore supporting me."

"Take the ultimatum back," she said levelly, "and we can talk about this."

"No."

She tried to control the bitterness, the sadness that filled her at his  total lack of give in this relationship. But she couldn't manage it.  Not this time.

"You know what, Coburn? You don't want me. You want that mirage you  were talking about. A wife intelligent enough to turn you on, but not so  ambitious she might actually challenge your need for control. I hate to  burst your bubble, but she doesn't actually exist."

She reached for the door handle and yanked it open. Coburn curled his fingers around her arm. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Putting a halt to this before we implode." She shook off his hand and  slid out of the car. "This time I am saving us, Coburn. Let me know when  you're ready to start acting like a reasonable human being."

He got out of the car. "Goddamn you, Diana, do not walk out on me again. You do it this time and we're done."

She was too busy crossing the street to flag down a cab coming the other way.

Damn him. Just when she'd let hope take over. When she'd allowed her  heart to feel everything for him, he had to prove some things never  changed.





  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A SOBER GRAY suit will strike exactly the right note.

Coburn stood in front of the magnificent gold-accented steel structure  that was the Grant Industries skyscraper, a tight feeling in his chest  as he looked up at the building his father had built. He wasn't sure the  custom-tailored, charcoal-gray suit he had worn this morning per his  crisis communications expert's advice was going to be enough to convince  the world that the iconic Grant brand was still to be trusted after  producing the parts that had taken the lives of five people and injured  countless more.         

     



 

His father, who had made Grant into a symbol of the American dream,  would roll over in his grave if he knew what he was about to do. His  brother, one of the great business brains on the planet, would have  chosen another path. The board had fought him tooth and nail to take a  more conservative route. And yet through it all, his conviction about  doing what was right had remained. He hoped that by acting with honor,  transparency, his legacy would weather the storm he was about to  unleash.

What the hell do you think you're doing?

He could almost feel the bite of his father's voice, picture the sting  of his gray gaze as it lashed over him. Clifford Grant's blinding  ambition had come before everything. Before his family, before his own  mental well-being. And Coburn realized now he had been angry for a very  long time-at his father for the way he'd treated him, for taking the  coward's way out, at himself for letting it happen. But he was ready to  let it go now. He was poised to forge his own path. He was not going to  be the kind of man his father had been. He'd decided that a long time  ago.

His steps as he pushed through the heavy glass doors and strode across  the gleaming checkerboard marble floor toward the elevators were  purposeful, his mind resolute. Which left his marriage as the  outstanding crisis he needed to address. His asinine behavior Friday  evening had done nothing but prove his wife right. She hadn't told him  about the job because she'd known he'd react exactly as he had. Like the  first-class jackass he was when it came to her. Because he loved her  too much.

Waking up this morning without Diana for the third day in a row, faced  with losing the woman who meant everything to him for the second time,  he had been forced to take a good, hard look at himself. To question  where his need to control her really came from. It hadn't taken him long  to pinpoint the source. It stemmed from a childhood in which love had  been given, then taken away. From the void inside him that needed to be  the most important thing in Diana's life because he had never been  prioritized in his closest relationships.

For him to commit to a woman had been the ultimate act of  vulnerability. When Diana had walked out on him, she had confirmed  everything he had ever believed about himself. That he wasn't good  enough. That he wasn't deserving of love.

Her keeping that job from him had triggered all his old insecurities at  the worst moment. He needed complete honesty in his marriage. But it  didn't excuse his behavior. Nothing did.

He stepped onto the elevator and jabbed the button for the executive  floor. He didn't want Diana to take that job. Knew what it would do to  them. But he couldn't deny what an opportunity it was for her. It was a  once-in-a-lifetime offer that would lie between him and his brilliant  wife forever if she turned it down, eventually driving them apart.

A fist tightened around his heart. Losing Diana wasn't an option. He would make this right. Somehow.

If he hadn't lost her already.

Tracey, his director of PR, was waiting to do a final briefing with him before the press conference when he arrived.

"We have a problem. The victims' families just issued a statement to hijack our news."

She handed him her smartphone. He read the statement. Felt the color  drain from his face at the astronomical settlement figure the group was  putting forth. It would cripple Grant.

"It's a bargaining tactic," he told Tracey.

"So we treat it as one. We have thirty minutes to craft a response."

Harrison was campaigning in California. The future of Grant lay in what  he did next. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and exhaled.

"All right, then. Let's go."



The scale of the press gathered in the briefing room when Coburn  entered, flanked by his PR team, was breathtaking. Every major broadcast  outlet in the country was there, each of them clamoring to turn a  tragedy into prime-time news.

His rock-solid readiness of earlier that morning had been shattered by  the preemptive tactics of the class action suit, leaving him raw and  shaken. By attempting to do the right thing and win in the court of  public opinion, he had exposed Grant to a well-orchestrated, perfectly  timed opening salvo by the opposing counsel. One that could devastate  it.         

     



 

He scanned the room, his gaze moving over the far wall, where Jack  Nieman and a couple of other board members stood. The sight of the  stunning dark-haired woman standing to his right left his heart  suspended in midbeat as his gaze locked with his wife's.