Page 126 of Brutal Heir

This perfectly polite, strictly professional purgatory.

At least purgatory was endurable during the day.

The nights were a living hell.

I’d since learned which wall we shared between our bedrooms. I thought his bedroom was to the left, just beyond my fireplace, but it was worse.

Much worse.

Once, when I was certain Sebastian waited for me downstairs, I dared to sneak a peek into his bedroom.

It was imposing, to say the least, with a massive four-poster bed draped in deep red velvet that dominated the space. The intricate carvings on the headboard—vines and winged creatures—caught my eye, giving the room a heavy, almost menacing presence that made it impossible to look away.

But the worst part was the headboards of our beds shared a wall.

During the day, I stared at the wall between our offices, and then all night long, I got zero sleep as I stared at the wall between our beds.

At this point, I stood by the power of espresso and sugar alone.

I really needed to get out of this prison.

And it was a prison.

An achingly beautiful prison.

* * *

Florian and I were in his third-floor conference room reviewing the presentation mood boards I was putting together for the new lab-created diamond campaign.

He pointed to several of the outfits. “Who is the shoe designer?”

“Gia Borghini.”

“And the dress coat?”

“Blazé Milano.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Bold move, not going with one of the historic fashion houses of Italy.”

After laying one board down, I picked up another. “The House of Diamanti always partners with the usual suspects—Gucci, Valentino, Versace—when launching new jewelry lines or diamond marketing campaigns.”

His lips thinned. “And what is wrong with that? It is a time-honored tradition. All the fashion houses collaborate with one another for cross-marketing. We have for generations.”

I turned to face him. “That’s just my point. The lab-created diamonds are a whole new ball game.”

“A new what?”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s an American expression. My point is, why not keep the high-end luxury brands paired with the traditional natural diamonds and use up-and-coming Italian designers for the lab-created ones?”

He chewed on the temple tips of his eyeglasses as he studied the mood board.

Looking over the board at me, he asked, “And you cleared this with marketing?”

I nodded. “They love the idea. They were really impressed the designers I chose are all women, too.”

While marketing came up with the general campaign concept, it was my job as the fashion stylist to worry about the specific details of the magazine, catalog, and website photo shoots.

“What about the jewelry designers on the second floor?”