Chapter 2

• Talia McKenna stood on the airport tarmac next to the driver, her arms wrapped tightly around her shivering body. Her mouth opened with a long loud yawn. She couldn’t smother that one, unlike the hundred others that came before, she’d been able to hold in. Who would arrive in the dead of the early morning night and expect a greeting party? A DeLuca of course. And not just any DeLuca, the DeLuca.
• Talia was still having a hard time believing that she’d been appointed as a glorified tour guide to Rafael DeLuca II. Nobody called him junior and, from what she’d heard, it was akin to calling a shark cute and cuddly. Unlike his father, Rafael DeLuca Senior, who was cold and ruthless and with questionable business ethics, baby shark here was on the up and up and sadly for everyone else, not easy to read nor predict.
• He had come out of nowhere, surpassing his father in a blink of an eye and with a company that had been long declared and widely considered dead for almost a decade. A blow to Senior’s ego, Talia was sure. It would explain why he was loudly and very publicly handing over the reins. Talia was no shrink, but the way he kept throwing lavish parties to announce that he had set everything up for his son to continue his accomplishments said a lot. It didn’t help much that his son doubled profits within a year of taking over every company his father ‘handed over’. The DeLuca Empire had ten billion dollar companies with branches in numerous countries, hers being one of them, and tens more investments all over the world just as lucrative. With that kind of reputation, she reluctantly admitted he deserved a welcome party in the middle of the night. She just wished it wasn’t her doing the welcoming.
• Talia rubbed her hands together and blew into them before placing them back around her in a tighter hug. They said it was an assistant position, but she knew better. The man travelled with a posse; he didn’t need an assistant. What the suits really wanted her to do was spy on him. Apparently, this visit was sudden and clearly unexpected since she was hired—she snorted, forcefully appointed was more like it—that very evening.
• The fact that she spoke Italian made her the perfect candidate. She could have said no, but a green light for her project and the promotion that came with it were at stake. But, she came to realize, it was also a very good opportunity. If she got the great DeLuca to say yes to her project, she could stop kissing those old fat asses and get to work. As she stood in the freezing night cold, she was going to let that thought warm her up.
• Talia was looking to start a global internship program that would allow disadvantaged young women from anywhere in the world to intern at all the DeLuca International offices, their holdings and companies they invested in, located all the world. It would allow them to expand their horizons, learn new languages, afford them equalized opportunities and travel to places they could only dream of all on the company’s dime. The program would serve the giant global company well too. A PR golden goose, as far as Talia was concerned.
• Talia looked at her wrist watch then up at the sky. “What’s taking them so long?” Her teeth chattered together as her body shivered to shake off the cold.
• “He’s here,” Joe, the company driver, spoke next to her, pointing up.
• Talia looked at him before following his white gloved finger’s direction. He didn’t look the least bit cold. The dude was tall and packed with muscle, or fat, she wasn’t sure which one. The long cotton wool coat that made up his chauffeur uniform covered a lot. She understood chivalry must be numb in this cold but at least he could have offered her those gloves.
• She looked at those white cotton, warmed thanks to his body heat gloves with an envious sigh, her hands tucked under her armpits. She could kill for those gloves. She looked him over again. What would be her chances if she were to tackle him and snatch them off him?
• “He’ll be landing any minute now,” Joe added, pulling her attention to what mattered.
• Talia watched the dot of light grow larger and heard the sound that began as a whisper grow louder as the object of their attention drew nearer and lower. How had Joe spotted that? She could easily have mistaken it for a star. But who cares? She was finally going to get out of this damn cold.
• “Finally!” she cheered, jumping up and down to get her blood pumping. She couldn’t meet the DeLuca as a popsicle.
• In less than three minutes the plane touched down on the runway and made its way to the tarmac they stood at.
• “Did you know that’s his plane?” Joe asked. The awe in his voice told her he was more telling her than asking her.
• “You mean the company plane?”
• He shook his head and turned to look at her for a second before his eyes moved back to the taxing plane. There was actually a twinkle in his eye as he stared wide eyed at the aircraft.
• “Nope. That’s his!” he announced proudly like only a fan would. “That’s an Embraer Lineage 1000, custom fitted and designed for him. Just like his yacht and car collections. They say he is the only one who owns the entire Absolute Nevatta collection. And he doesn’t drive anything but Ferrari, a different one each week. All stored in a hundred thousand square foot warehouse with security that rivals a bank vault.”
• Talia snorted, she wouldn’t expect anything less. That one warehouse probably held over a billion dollars in machinery. As ridiculous as it seemed to own that much in cars and yachts, oh and planes, and probably a helicopter—with all that he owned she wouldn’t put it past him to have a helicopter—she couldn’t help but smile at Joe’s enthusiasm. He was no fan, he was a groupie. They called them sesangs in South Korea—obsessive fans.
• “What’s an Absolute Nevatta?”
• The look Joe gave her was similar to the one parents get when they ask their children what K-Pop is.
• “Yachts,” he responded shortly.
• The only thing left for him to do was say ‘OMG’ and flip his hair over his shoulder as he turned away from her, his snobby chin up in the air.