Pursued (The Diamond Tycoons 2) by Tracy Wolff

wrong. All Nic was doing was sitting here, feeling as if he was fighting with both hands tied behind his back.
    It wasn’t a good feeling.
    But then, how could it be when everything he’d worked for, everything Marc had worked for, could go up in smoke any minute? Simply because someone with a grudge had lied about them. Simply because some reporter had said so. It was infuriating.
    Nic and Ollie had put together a damn good plan for damage control over the past seventy-two hours, but Nic really hoped they’d never have to use it. Hollister had managed to get the article pushed back a few days, though not canceled, and now the only thing left to do was wait.
    Wait for Isa to certify their diamonds as conflict-free.
    Wait for the
Times
to decide what it would do about the article.
    Wait for security to comb through the company files and find out the identity of the source.
    Too bad he hated waiting with the passion of a thousand burning suns.
    Yet, it seemed as if it was all he’d been doing lately. Even before this whole thing started. Ever since Nic had met Desi, really. He’d texted her a few times right after they’d been together, but she’d never responded. He’d dropped down to once a week after that because he hadn’t wanted to harass her. He’d just wanted…her. If he hadn’t, he would have given up after the second day.
    But he hadn’t given up. Instead, he’d waited seven weeks for her to respond to him and she never had. Not one returned text, not one phone call, nothing but total and complete radio silence. Which was why he’d finally given up on her, why he’d gone so far as to erase her number from his phone. He liked her a lot, but if she didn’t feel the same way about him, he wasn’t going to spend the next year moping around about the one who’d gotten away. Not when they’d spent less than twelve hours together total.
    He’d thought if he shoved Desi out of his mind—and took her off his phone—he wouldn’t have to think about her again.
    Too bad it hadn’t worked.
    Determined to get her out of his mind once and for all, he grabbed his laptop. Started fiddling with the winter marketing plans. He’d had a great idea about them when he’d been wandering his empty house at three that morning. He should probably write it down before it disappeared.
    But he’d only just opened the advertising budget spreadsheet when the intercom on his desk buzzed with his brother’s voice. The sound cut through Nic’s not-so-pleasant thoughts, giving him the distraction he’d been looking for. “Come to my office, will you? I want to talk to you about something.”
    “Be right there,” Nic answered, glad beyond measure that he finally had something to do. Sure, he had his normal workload, but none of that interested him right now. Nothing did, except putting this story to rest once and for all.
    Grabbing his phone and his cup of coffee off his desk, he made his way to Marc’s office. As Nic walked down the long corridor that separated their corner offices, people called out hellos from every door that he passed.
    He returned the greetings as naturally as he could, but he could tell his staff knew something was wrong. There were a bunch of questioning looks, and even their greetings were more subdued than normal. Not that he blamed them. He hadn’t exactly been his normal exuberant self lately, either. It was pretty hard to act as if everything was all right when he and his brother might very well be captaining a sinking ship. They’d already been hit by the iceberg. Now they just had to wait to see if they’d somehow manage to stay afloat.
    “What’s up?” he asked as he let himself into Marc’s office.
    “I want to talk about the December ad campaign. I want to hit it harder, want to make sure we’re everywhere we need to be.”
    “We will be, I promise.”
    “Still, I want to put more money toward the campaign. Another fifty million or so—”
    “We don’t need another fifty