Bailey wanted to say no. She desperately wanted to throw the offer back in his face and walk out of there, dignity intact.

But two things stopped her. Jared Stone was offering her the one thing she’d sworn she’d never stop working for until she got it. And despite everything else that he was—impossible, arrogant and full of himself—he was brilliant. And everyone knew it. If she worked alongside him as his equal she could write her own ticket. Ensure she never went back to the life she’d vowed to leave behind forever.

Survival was stronger than her pride. It always had been. And men having all the power in her world wasn’t anything unusual. She knew how to play them. How to beat them. And she could beat Jared Stone too. She knew it.

She stared at him. At the haughty tilt of his chin. It was almost irresistible to show him how wrong he was. About her. About all women. This would be her gift to the female race …

“All right. On two conditions.”

His gaze narrowed.

“Double my salary and give me the title of CMO.”

“We don’t have a Chief Marketing Officer.”

“Now we do.”

“Fine.”

His curt agreement made her eyes widen, brought her swinging back around.

“You can have both.”

She knew then that Jared Stone was in a great deal of trouble. And she was in the driver’s seat. But her euphoria didn’t last long. There was no doubt she’d just made a deal with the devil. And when you did that you paid for it.

JENNIFER HAYWARD has been a fan of romance and adventure since filching her sister’s Harlequin Mills & Boon® novels to escape her teenaged angst.

Jennifer penned her first romance at nineteen. When it was rejected, she bristled at her mother’s suggestion that she needed more life experience. She went on to complete a journalism degree and intern as a sports broadcaster before settling into a career in public relations. Years of working alongside powerful, charismatic CEOs and traveling the world provided perfect fodder for the arrogant alpha males she loves to write about, and free research on the some of the world’s most glamorous locales.

A suitable amount of life experience under her belt, she sat down and conjured up the sexiest, most delicious Italian wine magnate she could imagine, had him make his biggest mistake and gave him a wife on the run. That story, THE DIVORCE PARTY, won her Harlequin’s So You Think You Can Write contest and a book contract. Turns out Mother knew best!

A native of Canada’s gorgeous east coast, Jennifer now lives in Toronto with her Viking husband and their young Viking-in-training. She considers her ten-year-old book club, comprising some of the most amazing women she’s ever met, a sacrosanct date in her calendar. And some day they will have their monthly meeting at her fantasy beach house, waves lapping at their feet, wine glasses in hand.

You can find Jennifer on Facebook and Twitter.

The Magnate’s Manifesto

Jennifer Hayward

www.millsandboon.co.uk

A big thanks to Rebecca Avalon of Strip and Grow Rich, the original stripper school, for taking me inside the life and mind of a dancer and helping me bring Bailey to life. I can’t thank you enough!

Contents

Cover

Introduction

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

THE DAY THAT Jared Stone’s manifesto sparked an incident of international female outrage happened to be, unfortunately for Stone, a slow news day. By 5:00 a.m. on Thursday, when the sexy Silicon Valley billionaire was reputed to be running the trails of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, as he did every morning in his connected-free beginning to the day, his manifesto was dinner conversation in Moscow. In London, as chicly dressed female office workers escaped brick and steel buildings to chase down lunch, his outrageous state of the union on twenty-first-century women was on the tip of every tongue, spoken in hushed, disbelieving tones on elevator trips down to ground level.

And in America, where the outrage was about to hit hardest, women who had spent their entire careers seeking out the C-suite only to find themselves blocked by a glass ceiling that seemed impossible to penetrate stared in disbelief at their smartphones. Maybe it was a joke, some said. Someone must have hacked into Stone’s email, said others. Doesn’t surprise me at all, interjected a final contingent, many of whom had dated Stone in an elusive quest to pin down the world’s most sought-after bachelor. He’s a cold bastard. I’m only surprised his true stripes didn’t appear sooner.

* * *

At her desk at 7:00 a.m. at the Stone Industries building in San Jose, Bailey St. John was oblivious to the firestorm her boss was creating. Intent on hacking her way through her own glass ceiling and armed with a steaming Americano with which to do so, she slid into her chair with as much grace as her pencil skirt would allow, harnessed a morning dose of optimism that today would be different, and flicked on her PC.

She stared sleepily at the screen as her computer booted up. Took a sip of the strong, acrid brew that inevitably kicked her brain into working order as she clicked on her mail program. Her girlfriend Aria’s email, titled “OMG,” made her lift a recently plucked and perfected brow.

She clicked it open. The hot sip of coffee she’d just taken lodged somewhere in her windpipe. Billionaire Playboy Ignites International Incident With His Manifesto on Women, blared the headline of the variety news site everyone in Silicon Valley frequented. Leaked Tongue-in-Cheek Manifesto to His Fellow Mates Makes Stone’s Views on Women in the Boardroom and Bedroom Blatantly Clear.

Bailey put down her coffee with a jerky movement and clicked through to the manifesto that had already generated two million views. The Truth About Women, which apparently had never been meant for anyone other than Jared Stone’s inner circle, was now the salacious entertainment of the entire male population. As she started reading what was unmistakably her boss’s bold, eloquent tone, she nearly fell off her chair.

Having dated and worked with a cross-section of women from around the globe, and having reached the age where I feel I can make a definitive opinion on the subject matter, I have come to a conclusion. Women lie.

* * *

They say they want to be equals in the boardroom, when in reality nothing has changed over the past fifty years. Despite all their pleas to the contrary, despite their outrage at the limits the “so-called” glass ceiling puts on them, they don’t really want to be hammering out a deal, and they don’t want to be orchestrating a merger. They want to be home in the house we provide, living the lifestyle to which they’ve become accustomed. They want a man who will take care of them, who gives them a hot night between the sheets and diamond jewelry at appropriate intervals. Who will prevent them from drifting aimlessly through life without a compass…

Drifting aimlessly through life without a compass? Bailey’s cheeks flamed. If there was any way in which her life couldn’t be described, it was that. She’d spent the last twelve years putting as much mileage between her and her depressing low-income roots as she could, doing the impossible and obtaining an MBA before working herself up the corporate ladder. First at a smaller Silicon Valley start-up, then for the last three years at Jared Stone’s industry darling of a consumer electronics company.

And that was where her rapid progression had stopped. As director of North American sales for Stone Industries, she’d spent the last eighteen months chasing a vice president position Stone seemed determined not to give her. She’d worked harder and more impressively than any of her male colleagues, and it was generally acknowledged the VP job should have been hers. Except Jared Stone didn’t seem to think so—he’d given the job to someone else. And that hurt coming from the man she’d been dying to work for—the resident genius of Silicon Valley.

Why didn’t he respect her as everyone else did?

Her blood heated to a furious level; bubbled and boiled and threatened to spill over into an expression of uncontrolled rage. Now she knew why. Because Jared Stone was a male chauvinist pig. The worst of a Silicon Valley breed.

He was…horrific.

She forced a sip of the excessively strong java into her mouth before she lost it completely and slammed the cup back down on her desk. Flicked her gaze back to her computer screen and the “rules” on women Jared had also gifted the male population with.

Rule Number 1—All women are crazy. And by that I mean they think in a completely foreign way from us that might as well come from another planet. You need to find the least crazy one you can live with. If you elect to settle down, which I’m not advocating, mind you.

Rule Number 2—Every woman wants a ring on her finger and the white picket fence. No matter what she says. Not a bad thing for the state of the nuclear family or for you if you’re already on that trajectory. But for God’s sake know what you’re getting yourself into.

Rule Number 3—Every woman wants a lion in the bedroom. She wants to be dominated. She wants you to be in complete control. She doesn’t want you to listen to her “needs.” So stop making that mistake. Be a man.

Rule Number 4—Every woman starts the day with an agenda. A cause, an item to strike off her list, the inescapable conclusion of a campaign she’s been running. It could be a diamond ring, more of your time, your acknowledgment that you will indeed agree to meet her mother… Whatever it is, take it from me, just say yes or say goodbye. And know that saying goodbye might be a whole hell of a lot cheaper in the long run.

Bailey stopped reading for the sake of her blood pressure. Here she’d been worrying that the personality conflict she and Jared shared, which admittedly was intense, was the problem. The thing that had been holding her back. Their desire to rip each other apart every time they stepped foot in a boardroom together was legendary within the company, but that hadn’t been it. No—in actual fact, he disrespected the entire female race.

She’d never even had a chance.

Three years, she fumed, scowling at her computer screen as she pulled up a blank document. Three years she’d worked for that egocentric jerk, racking up domestic sales of his wildly popular cell phones and computers… For what? It had all been a complete waste of time in a career in which the clock was ticking. A CEO by thirty-five, she’d vowed. Although that vision seemed to be fading fast….

She pressed her lips together and started typing. To whom it may concern: I can no longer work in an organization with that pig at the helm. It goes against every guiding principle I’ve ever had. She kept going, wrote the letter without holding back, until her blood had cooled and her rage was spent. Then she did a second version she could hand in to HR.

She wasn’t working for Jared Stone. For that beautiful, arrogant piece of work. Not one minute longer. No matter how brilliant he was.

* * *

Jared Stone was in a whistling kind of mood as he parked in the Stone Industries lot, collected his briefcase and made his way through the sparkling glass doors. A five-mile run through the park, a long hot shower, a power shake and a relatively smooth commute could do that for a man.

He hummed a bad version of a song he’d just heard on the radio as he strode toward the bank of elevators that ran up the center of the elegant, architecturally brilliant building. When life was this good, when he was on top of his game, about to land the contract that would silence all his critics, cement his control of his company, he felt impermeable, impenetrable, unbeatable, as if he could leap tall buildings in a single bound, solve all the world’s problems, bring about world peace even, if given the material to work with.

A gilded ray of brilliance for all to follow.

He stuck his hand between the closing elevator doors and gained himself admittance on a half-filled car. Greeted the half dozen employees inside with the megawatt smile the press loved to capture and made a mental note of who was putting in the extra effort coming in early. Gerald from finance flashed him a swaggering grin as if they shared an inside joke. Jennifer Thomas, PA to one of the vice presidents, who was normally a sucker for his charm, did a double take at his friendly “good morning” and muttered something unintelligible back. The woman from legal, what was her name, turned her back on him.

Strange.

The weird vibe only got worse as the doors opened on the executive floors and he made his way through the still-quiet space to his office. Another PA gave him the oddest look. He looked down. Did he have power shake on the front of his shirt? Toothpaste on his face?

Power shake stains ruled out, he frowned at his fifty-something PA, Mary, as she handed him his messages. “What is wrong with everyone today? The sun is shining, sales are up…”

Mary blinked. “You haven’t been online, have you?”

“You know my theory on that,” he returned patiently. “I spend the first couple hours of my day finding my center. Seven-thirty is soon enough to discover what craziness has befallen the world.”

“Right,” she muttered. “Well, you might want to leave your Buddhist sojourn by the wayside and plug in quickly before Sam Walters arrives. He’ll be here at eleven.”

Jared brought his brows together at the mention of the chairman of the Stone Industries board. “I have nothing scheduled with him.”

“You do now,” she said. “Jared—I—” She set down her pen and gave him a direct look. “Your document, your manifesto, was leaked on the internet last night.”

He felt the blood drain from his face. He’d only ever written two manifestos in his life. One when he’d started Stone Industries and put down his vision for the company, and the second, the private joke he’d shared with his closest friends last night after a particularly amusing guys’ night out on the town.

It had not been intended for public consumption.

From the look on Mary’s face, she was not talking about the Stone Industries manifesto.

“What do you mean leaked?” he asked slowly.

She cleared her throat. “The document…the whole document is all over the Net. My mother emailed it to me this morning. She asked what I was doing working for you.”

The thought crossed his mind that this was all impossible because his buddies would never do that to him. Not over a joke intended for their eyes only…. Had someone hacked into his email?

He looked down at the wad of messages in his hand, his chest tightening. “How bad is it?”

Her lips pursed. “It’s everywhere.”

Thinking he might finally have taken his penchant for stirring things up too far, he knew it for the truth when his mentor and adviser Sam Walters walked into his office three hours later, Jared’s legal and PR teams behind him. The sixty-five-year-old financial genius did not look amused.

Jared waved them into chairs and attempted a preemptive strike. “Sam, this is all a huge misunderstanding. We’ll put out a statement that it was a joke and it’ll be gone by tomorrow.”

His vice president of PR, Julie Walcott, lifted a brow. “We’re at two million hits and climbing, Jared. Women are threatening to boycott our products. This is not going away.”

He leaned back against his desk, the abdomen he’d worked to the breaking point this morning contracting at his appalling lack of judgment in ever putting those words on paper. But one thing he never did was show weakness. Particularly not now when the world wanted to eat him alive. “What do you suggest I do?” he drawled, with his usual swagger. “Beg women for their forgiveness? Get down on my knees and swear I didn’t mean it?”

“Yes.”

He gave her a disbelieving look. “It was a joke between friends. Addressing it gives it credence.”

“It’s now a joke between you and the entire planet,” Julie said matter-of-factly. “Addressing it is the only thing that’s going to save you right about now.”

The sick feeling in his stomach intensified. Sam crossed his arms over his chest. “This has legal implications, Jared. Human rights implications… And furthermore, as I don’t need to remind you, Davide Gagnon’s daughter is a charter member of a woman’s organization. She will not be amused.”

Jared’s hands tightened around the wooden lip of his desk. He was well aware of Micheline Gagnon’s board memberships. The daughter of the CEO of Europe’s largest consumer electronics retailer, Maison Electronique—with whom Stone Industries was pursuing a groundbreaking five-year deal to expand its global presence—was an active social commentator. She would not be amused. But really…it had been a joke.

He let out a long breath. “Tell me what we need to do.”

“We need to issue an apology,” Julie said. “Position it as a private joke that was in bad taste. Say that it has nothing to do with your real view of women, which is actually one of the utmost respect.”

“I do respect women,” he interjected. “I just don’t think they’re always honest with their feelings.”

Julie gave him a long look. “When’s the last time you put a woman on the executive committee?”

Never. He raked a hand through his hair. “Give me a woman who belongs on it and I’ll put her there.”

“What about Bailey St. John?” Sam lifted his bushy brows. “You seem to be the only one who thinks she hasn’t earned her spot as a VP.”

Jared scowled. “Bailey St. John is a special case. She isn’t ready. She thinks she was born ready, but she isn’t.”

“You need to make a gesture,” Sam underscored, his tone taking on a steely edge. “You are on thin ice right now, Jared.” In all aspects, his mentor’s deeply lined face seemed to suggest. “Give her the job. Get her ready.”

“It’s not the right choice,” Jared rejected harshly. “She still needs to mature. She’s only twenty-nine, for God’s sake. Making her a VP would be like setting a firecracker loose.”

Sam lifted his brows again as if to remind him how sparse his support on the board was right now. As if he needed reminding that his control of the company he’d built from a tiny start-up into a world player was in jeopardy. His company.

“Give her the job, Jared.” Sam gave him an even look. “Smooth out her raw edges. Do not blow ten years of hard work on your penchant for self-ignition.”

Antagonism burned through him, singeing the tips of his ears. He’d stolen Bailey from a competitor three years ago for her incredibly sharp brain. For the potential he knew she had. And she hadn’t disappointed him. He had no doubt he’d one day make her into a VP, but right now, she was the rainbow-colored cookie in the pack. You never knew what you were going to bite into when she walked into a room. And he couldn’t have that around him. Not now.

Sam gave him a hard look. “Fine,” Jared rasped. He’d figure out a way to work the Bailey equation. “What else?”

“Cultural sensitivity training,” his head of legal interjected. “HR is going to set it up.”

“That,” Jared dismissed in a low voice, “is not happening. Next.”

Julie outlined her plan to rescue his reputation. It was solid, what he paid her for, and he agreed with it all, except for the cultural sensitivity training, and ended the meeting.

He had way bigger fish to fry. A board’s support to solidify. His own job to save.

He paced to the window as the door closed behind the group, attempting to digest how his perfect morning had turned into the day from hell. At the root of it all, the abrupt end to his “relationship” with his trustworthy 10:00 p.m. of late, Kimberly MacKenna. A logical accountant by trade, she’d sworn to him she wasn’t looking for anything permanent. So he’d let his guard down, let her in. Then last Saturday night, she’d plopped herself down on his sofa, declared he was breaking her heart and turned those baby blues on him in a look he’d have sworn he’d never see.

Get serious, Jared, they’d said. He had. By 10:00 a.m. on Monday she’d had his trademark diamond tennis bracelet on her arm and another one had bitten the dust.

He’d been sad and maybe a touch lonely when he’d written that manifesto. But those were the rules. No commitment. His mouth twisted as he pressed his palm against the glass. Maybe he should have given his PR team the official line on his parents’ marriage. How his mother had bled his father dry… How she’d turned him into half a man. It would have made him much more sympathetic.

Better yet, he thought, Julie could devote more of her time to controlling the industry media that wanted to lynch him before he’d even gotten his vision for Stone Industries’ next decade off the ground. When you’d parlayed a groundbreaking new personal computer created on your best friend’s dorm room floor into the most successful consumer electronics company in America, a NASDAQ gold mine, you didn’t expect the naysayers to start calling for the CEO’s head as soon as the waters got rough. You expected them to trust your vision, radically different though it might be from the rest of the industry, and assume you had a plan to revolutionize the connected home.

A harsh curse escaped his lips. They would rather tear him down than support him. They were carnivores waiting for the kill. Well, it wasn’t going to happen. He was going to go to France, tie up this exclusive partnership with Maison Electronique, cut his competitors off at the knees and deliver this deal signed and sealed to the board at his must-win executive committee meeting in two weeks.

All he had to do was present his marketing vision to Davide Gagnon and secure his buy-in, and it was a done deal.

Spinning away from the window, he stalked to the door and growled a command at Mary to get Bailey St. John in his office now. He would promote her all right. But he wasn’t a stupid man. He would leave himself a loophole so when she proved herself too inexperienced for the job, he could put things back where they belonged until she was ready.

His last call was to his head of IT. Whoever had hacked into his email was going to rue the day they’d crossed him. He promised them that.

* * *

Bailey had cooled her heels for fifteen minutes outside Jared Stone’s office, resignation in hand, when Mary finally motioned her in. Her ability to appear civil at an all-time low, she pushed the heavy wooden door open and moved into the intensely masculine space. Dominated by a massive marble-manteled fireplace and floor-to-ceiling windows, it was purposefully minimalistic; focused like its owner, who preferred to roam the hallways of Stone Industries and work alongside his engineers instead of sitting at a desk.

He turned as her heels tapped across the Italian marble, and as usual when she was within ten feet of him, her composure seemed to slide a notch or two. She might not pursue his assets like every other female in Silicon Valley, but that didn’t mean she could ignore them. The piercing blue gaze he turned on her now was legendary for divesting a woman of her clothes faster than she could say “only if you respect me in the morning.” And if that didn’t do it for you, then his superbly toned body in the exquisitely tailored suit and his razor-sharp brain would. He supplemented his daily running routine with martial arts, and there was a joke going around the Valley that it was no coincidence his name was Stone. As in All-Night Jared Stone.

Heat filled her cheeks as he waved her into a chair, his finely crafted gold cuff links glinting in the sunlight. She started to sink into the sofa, obeying him like his mindless disciples, before she checked herself and straightened. “I’m not here to socialize, Jared. I’m here to resign.”

“Resign?” His usual husky, raspy tone held an incredulous edge.

“Yes, resign.” She pushed her shoulders back and walked toward him, refusing to let the balance of power shift in his favor as it always did. When she was a few inches away from him, she stopped and lifted her chin, absorbing the impact of that penetrating blue gaze. “I’m tired of drifting aimlessly through this company with you lying to me about where I’m headed.”

His gaze darkened. “Oh, come on, Bailey. I would think you of all people could take a joke.”

She sank her hands into her hips. “You meant every word of that, Jared. And to think I thought it might be our personality conflict that’s been holding me back.”

The corner of his mouth lifted, the scar that sliced through his upper lip whitening as skin stretched over bone. “You mean the fact that every time we’re in a boardroom together we want to dismantle each other in a slow and painful manner?” His eyes took on a smoky, deadly hue. “That’s the kind of thing that gets me out of bed in the morning.”

The futility of it all sent her head into an exasperated shake. “I think I’ve always known what your opinion of women is, but stupid me, I thought you actually respected me.”

“I do respect you.”

“Then why has everything I’ve done over the past three years failed to impress you? I was a star at my last company, Jared. You recruited me because of it. Why give Tate Davidson the job I deserved?”

“You weren’t ready,” he stated matter-of-factly, as much in control as she was out of it.

“In what way?”

“Your maturity levels,” he elaborated, looking down his perfect nose at her. “Your knee-jerk reactions. Right now is a good example. You didn’t even think this through.”

Antagonism lanced through her, setting every limb of her body on fire. “Oh, I thought it through all right. I’ve had three years to think it through. And forgive me if I don’t take the maturity criticism too hard after your childish little stunt this morning. You wanted to make every male in California laugh and slap each other on the back? Well, you’ve succeeded. Good on you. Another ten steps backward for womankind.”

His hooded gaze narrowed. “I put women in the boardroom when they deserve it, Bailey. But I won’t do it for appearance’s sake. I think you’re immensely talented and if you’d get over this ever-present need to prove yourself, you’d go far.”

She refused to let the compliment derail her when he was never going to change. Pushing her hair out of her face, she glared at him. “I’ve outperformed every male in this company over the past couple of years, and that hasn’t been enough. I’m through trying to impress you, Jared. Apparently the only thing that would is if I was a D cup.”

His mouth tipped up on one side in that crooked smile women loved. “I don’t think there’s a man in Silicon Valley who would find you lacking in any department, Bailey. You just don’t take any of them up on it.”

The backhanded compliment made her draw in a breath. Sent a rush of color to her cheeks, heating her all over. She’d asked for it. She really had. And now she had to go.

“Here,” she said, shoving the letter at him. “Consider this my response to your manifesto. And believe me, this was draft two.”

He curled his long, elegant fingers around the paper and scanned it. Then deliberately, slowly, his eyes on hers, tore it in half. “I won’t accept it.”

“Be glad I’m not filing a human rights suit against you,” she bit out and turned on her heel. “HR has the other copy. I’m giving you two weeks.”

“I’m offering you the VP marketing job, Bailey.” His words stopped her in her tracks. “You’ve done a phenomenal job boosting domestic sales. You deserve the chance to spread your wings.”

Elation flashed through her, success after three long years of brutally hard work overwhelming her, followed almost immediately by the grounding notion of exactly what was happening here. She turned around slowly, pinning him to the spot with her gaze. “Which member of your team advised you to leverage me?”

If she’d blinked she would have missed the muscle that jumped in his jaw, but she didn’t, and it made the anger already coursing through her practically flammable. “You want me,” she stated slowly, “to be your poster child. Your token female executive you can throw in the spotlight to silence the furor.”

His jaw hardened, silencing the recalcitrant muscle. “I want you to become my vice president of marketing, Bailey. Full stop. You’ve earned the opportunity, now take it. Don’t be stupid. We’re due at Davide Gagnon’s house in the south of France the day after tomorrow to present our marketing plan, and I need you by my side.”

She wanted to say no. She desperately wanted to throw the offer back in his face and walk out of here, dignity intact. But two things stopped her. Jared Stone was offering her the one thing she’d sworn she’d never stop working for until she got it—the chance to sit on the executive committee of a Fortune 500 company. And despite everything that he was—an impossible, arrogant full-of-himself jerk—he was the most brilliant brain on the face of the planet. And everyone knew it. If she worked alongside him as his equal she could write her ticket. Ensure she never went back to the life she’d vowed to leave behind forever.

Survival was stronger than her pride. It always had been. And men having all the power in her world wasn’t anything unusual. She knew how to play them. How to beat them. And she could beat Jared Stone, too. She knew it.

She stared at him. At the haughty tilt of his chin. It was almost irresistible to show him how wrong he was. About her. About all women. This would be her gift to the female race…

“All right. On two conditions.”

His gaze narrowed.

“Double my salary and give me the title of CMO.”

“We don’t have a chief marketing officer.”

“Now we do.”

His eyes widened. Narrowed again. “Bailey…”

“We’re done then.” She turned away, every bit prepared to walk.

“Fine.” His curt agreement made her eyes widen, brought her swinging back around. “You can have both.”

She knew then that Jared Stone was in a great deal of trouble. And she was in the driver’s seat. But her euphoria didn’t last long as she nodded and made her way past Mary’s desk. There was no doubt she’d just made a deal with the devil. And when you did that, you paid for it.

CHAPTER TWO

BY THE TIME newly minted CMO Bailey threw herself into a cab twenty-four hours later, bound for San Jose Airport and a flight to France, the furor over Jared Stone’s manifesto had reached a fever pitch. Two feminist organizations had urged a full boycott of Stone Industries products in the wake of what they called his “irresponsible” and “repugnant” perspective on women. The female CEO of the largest clothing retailer in the country had commented on a national business news show, “It’s too bad Stone didn’t put this much thought into how he could balance out his board of directors, given that the valley is rife with female talent.”

In response, a leading men’s blog had declared Stone’s manifesto “genius,” calling the billionaire “a breath of fresh air for his honest assessment of this conflicted demographic.”

It was madness. Even now, the cabbie’s radio was blaring some inane talk show inviting men and women to call in with their opinions. She listened to one caller, a middle-aged male, praise Jared for his “balls” to take the bull by the horns and tell it like it was. Followed by a woman who called the previous caller “a caveman relic of bygone days.”

“Please,” Bailey begged, covering her eyes with the back of her hand, “turn it off. Turn the channel. Anything but him. I can’t take it anymore.”

The cabbie gave her an irritated glance through his grubby rearview mirror, as if he were fully on board with Jared’s perspective and she was the deluded one. But he switched the channel. Bailey fished her mobile out of her purse and dialed the only person she regularly informed of her whereabouts in case she was nabbed running through the park some night and became a statistic.

“Where are you?” her best friend and former Stanford roommate, Aria Kates, demanded. “I’ve been trying to get you ever since this Jared Stone thing broke.”

“On my way to the airport.” Bailey checked her lipstick with the mirror in her compact. “I’m going with him to France.”

“France? You didn’t quit? Bailey, that memo is outrageous.”

And designed for shock value. She shoved the mirror back in her purse, sat back against the worn, I’ve-seen-better-days seat, and pursed her lips. “He made me CMO.”

“I don’t care if he made you head of the Church of England…. He’s an ass!”

Bailey stared at the lineup of traffic in front of them. “I want this job, Aria. I know why he promoted me. I get that he wants me to be his female executive poster child. I, however, am going to take this and use it for what it’s worth. Get what I need, and get out.”

Just as she’d done her entire life: clawed on to whatever she could grasp and used her talent and raw determination to succeed. Even when people told her she’d never do it.

She heard Aria take a sip of what was undoubtedly a large, extra-hot latte with four sweeteners, then pause for effect. “They say he’s going to either conquer the world or take everyone down in a cloud of dust. You prepared for the ride?”

Bailey smiled her first real smile of the day. “Did I ever tell you why I came to work for him?’

“Because you’re infatuated with his brain, Bails. And, I suspect, not only his brain.”

Bailey frowned at the phone. “Exactly what does that mean?”

“I mean the night he hired you. He didn’t start talking to you because he detected brilliance in that smart head of yours. He saw your legs across the room, made a beeline for you, then you impressed him. You could almost see him turn off that part of his brain.” Her friend sighed. “He may drive you crazy, but I’ve seen the two of you together. It’s like watching someone stick the positive and negative ends of a battery together.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I can handle Jared Stone.”

“That statement makes me think you’re delusional…. Where in France, by the way?”

“Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat in the south.”

“Jealous. Okay, well, have fun and keep yourself out of trouble. If you can with him along…”

Doubtful, Bailey conceded, focusing on the twelve-hour flight ahead with the big bad wolf. Admittedly, she’d had a slight infatuation with Jared when she joined Stone Industries. But then he’d started acting like the arrogant jerk he was and begun holding her back at every turn, and after that it hadn’t taken much effort at all to put her attraction aside. Because she was only at Stone Industries for one thing: to plunder Jared Stone’s genius and move on.

The master plan hadn’t changed.

Traffic went relatively smoothly for a Friday afternoon. Bailey stepped out of the cab in front of the tiny terminal for private flights, ready to soak up the quiet luxury from here on in. Instead she was blindsided by a sea of light, crisscrossing her vision like dancing explosions of fire. Camera flashes, her brain registered. She was stumbling to find her balance, her pupils dilating against the white lights, when a strong hand gripped her arm. She looked up to see Jared’s impossibly handsome face set in grim lines.

“Good God,” she muttered, hanging on to him as his security detail forged a path through the scrum. “Do you regret your little joke now?”

“I regretted it the minute it was broadcast to the world,” he muttered, shielding her from a particularly zealous photographer. “But basking in regret isn’t my style.”

No, it wasn’t…although looking amazing in the face of adversity was. Because in the middle of the jostling reporters, acting like a human shield for her, he looked all-powerful and infinitely gorgeous. His fitted dark jeans molded lean, powerful legs, topped by a cobalt-blue sweater that made his piercing blue eyes glitter in the late afternoon sun. And then there was his slicked-back dark hair he looked like he’d raked his hands through a million times that gave him a rebellious look.

When you tossed in the pirate-like scar twisting his upper lip, you ended up with a photo that would undoubtedly make front page news.

A photographer eluded Jared’s two bodyguards, stepped in front of them and stuck a microphone in Bailey’s face. “Kay Harris called you a figurehead this morning on her talk show. Any comment?”

One hundred percent true. Bailey gave the reporter an annoyed look as Jared started to push her forward. She leaned back against his arm, stood her ground and ignored his warning look. “I think,” she stated, speaking to the cameras that had swung to her, “Mr. Stone made an error in judgment he apologized for earlier today and that’s the end of the matter.” She waved her hand at the man at her side. “I work for a brilliant company that is on a trajectory to become the world’s top consumer electronics manufacturer. I couldn’t be prouder of what we’ve accomplished. And I,” she forced out, almost choking on the words, “have the utmost professional respect for Jared Stone. We have a great working relationship.”

The questions came at her fast and furious. She held up a hand, stated they had a flight to catch, and let Jared propel her forward, hand at her back.

“Since when did you become such a diplomat?” he muttered, ushering her through the glass doors into the terminal.

“Since you created that zoo out there.” She came to a halt inside the doors, took a deep breath and ran a hand over herself, straightening her clothing.

Jared did the same. Before the airline staff could spirit them off, he squared to face her. “Thank you. I owe you one.”

Her gaze flickered away from the intensity of his. Looking at Jared was like observing all the major forces of the world stuffed inside the human form—charging him with an energy, a polar pull that was impossible to ignore. She’d felt it that night he’d headed purposefully across that bar and ended up hiring her. But she didn’t need it now. Not when she’d gotten used to avoiding it. Not when she had to spend twelve hours crammed into a private jet with him absorbing it all.

“It was nothing,” she muttered. “Don’t make me regret saying it.”

“I’m sure you already do….” His taunting rejoinder brought her head up. The dark glint in his eyes reminded her that there was still a line in this détente of theirs. And she knew there was. She really did. She just couldn’t help it with him.

“After you,” he murmured, extending his arm toward the exit to the tarmac. She swished past him out the doors and up the stairs of the sleek ten-person Stone Industries jet. She’d been on it once before, the decor a study in dark male sophistication. An official boarded the plane for a cursory check of their passports, and Bailey settled into one of the sumptuously soft leather seats and buckled up.

They took off, the powerful little jet racing down the runway, leaving San Jose behind in a blur of bright lights. As soon as the seat belt lights were turned off, Jared unpacked a mountain of paperwork and suggested they rehearse the presentation. He wanted it perfect—was determined to rehearse until they’d nailed every last key message. Given that it was new material to her, it might be a long night.

It was. Their styles were completely opposite. She liked to wing it. Jared, emphatically not. Not to mention how intimidating he was when his passion for the subject took over. She could usually hold her own with the best of them, but he was too smart, too intense and too sure of himself to make it easy. So she resorted to her default mechanism of asking a million questions. Knowing the material inside out. What was the logic behind that statistic? Why were they making that particular point here? And wasn’t this information coming too soon? Shouldn’t they save it to drive the stake in at the end?

Four hours and four rounds of the presentation later, Jared flung himself into the chair opposite her and rubbed his hands over his eyes. “This isn’t working. You are the queen of going off script.”

“It makes it believable,” she countered, sinking down into her chair. “I’m playing off you, taking your lead. You’re the one who keeps losing the thread.”

He gave her a disbelieving look. “I’m following the slides.”

She blew out a breath as her head pounded like a jackhammer. “You are stuck on process. Try loosening up. It works beautifully. It’s even better when I have an audience.”

He dropped his head into his hands. “That idea scares me. Greatly.”

She looked longingly up at the flight attendant as she came to hover by them with an offer of predinner drinks. “I’m having a glass of wine. I’ve earned it.”

“Whiskey,” Jared muttered to the attendant, then sat back and watched her from beneath lowered lashes. The longest lowered lashes she’d ever encountered. Divine, really.

He opened them. “What is it about falling in line you have a problem with?”

Bailey widened her eyes. “I fall in line when I need to. Witness the press a few hours ago, for instance.”

“You are challenging everything I say,” he growled.

“I’m challenging everything that doesn’t make sense,” she countered. “I haven’t seen the material before. I’m an objective eye.”

“It’s perfect.”

“It would be perfect if everyone in the world thought exactly like you. Davide Gagnon has a creative streak. You need to appeal to that side of him.”

“An expert on him already?” he asked darkly.

“I did my homework.” She tore open the can of cashews she’d brought with her and shoved some in her mouth. “What value would I be adding if I fell into line like a trained seal?”

His expression inched darker. “A lot of value right now, given that this is the only rehearsal time we’re going to get. Davide is famous for his social lifestyle. You can bet he’ll have things lined up every night.”

She winced inwardly. Although her research had told her all about Davide Gagnon’s lavish lifestyle and love of a good party that tended to include the who’s who of Europe, and she’d packed accordingly, it was the type of lifestyle she abhorred. She’d seen too much of it when she’d danced in Vegas. The destructive things money and power could do. And although she’d been the girl who’d always gone home after the show rather than take advantage of the high rollers who’d wanted to lavish hefty doses of it on her, she’d seen—experienced—enough of it for a lifetime.

Focus on her studies, fast-track her business degree and get the hell out. That had been her mantra.

“Bailey?”

Jared was looking at her, an impatient look on his face. She blinked. “Sorry?”

“I was saying Davide has a fondness for blondes.” He folded one long leg over the other and popped a handful of the cashews into his mouth. “I consider you my secret weapon.”

Hostility flared through her, swift and sharp, spurred by a past she couldn’t quite banish. “If you’re suggesting I flirt with him, that’s not going to happen. And I can’t believe you would even say that considering that your reputation is hanging by a thread and I’m the only thing keeping it afloat.”

He gave her a long look as the attendant set their drinks on the table. “I was asking you to charm him, Bailey, not sleep with him.”

She gave him a black look. “Forgive me for misinterpreting. We women apparently don’t have a use beyond securing ourselves a rich man and keeping ourselves within the style to which we’ve become accustomed. So I just wanted to make the point.”

A muscle jumped in his jaw. “You were the one who just said I’d made my apology and bygones should be bygones. Perhaps you can walk the walk, no?”

“That was for public consumption.” She pulled the glass of deep ruby-red wine toward her. “Know that in my head, my respect for you personally is at an all-time low.”

His eyes darkened to a wintry, stormy blue. “As long as your professional respect is intact, I’m not worried about your personal opinion.”

And there it was. The man who cared about nothing but his driving need for success. He was legendary for it and she couldn’t fault it because she was his mirror image.

She took a sip of the rich, velvety red, her palate marking it a Cabernet/Merlot blend. “I am curious about one thing, though.”

He lifted a brow.

“What is your real opinion of women?”

His sexy, quirky mouth turned up on one side. “If you think I’m answering that, you consider me a stupider man than I am.”

‘No, really,” she insisted, waving her glass at him. “Utterly open conversation. I want to know.”

His long-lashed gaze held hers for a moment, then he shrugged. “I think the science of relationships goes back as far as time. As far as the cavemen… We men—we hunt, we gather. We provide. Women want us for what we can offer them. And as soon as we can’t, as soon as they get a better offer,” he drawled, “we are expendable.”

She was shocked into silence. Considering that her mother had been the only thing keeping her family afloat with her alcoholic father off work more than on, that seemed ludicrous. “You can’t really mean that,” she said after a moment. “It’s crazy to lump all women together like that.”

He lifted a shoulder. “I never say anything I don’t mean. You wonder who’s really in the power position, Bailey? Think about it.”

She frowned. “What about women who can provide for themselves? Women who bring equal billing to a relationship?”

“It doesn’t survive. There is always a balance of power in a relationship. And when a woman has that power, the relationship is never going to last. Women need us to dominate. To be the provider.”

She stared at him. “That’s ridiculous. You are impossible.”

His white smile glittered in the muted confines of the jet. “I’ve been called worse this week. Come on, admit it, Bailey. A strong woman like you must like a man to take control. Otherwise you’d walk all over him.”

A warning buzzed its way along her temple, signaling dangerous territory she wasn’t about to traverse. She lifted her chin, met his magnetic blue gaze head-on. “On the contrary. I like to be in control, just like you do, Jared. Always. Haven’t you figured that out already?”

His lashes lowered, studying, analyzing. “I’m not sure I have one-fifth of you figured out.”

The air between them suddenly felt too hot, too tight in the close confines of the jet that pulsed with the powerful throb of the engines. She took a jerky sip of her wine. “Should we get back to rehearsing?”

“After dinner.” He nodded toward her glass. “Enjoy your wine. Be social.”

She searched for something in the safe zone to talk about and when that didn’t materialize, pulled her purse toward her, searched for her lipstick and fished it out to reapply.

“Don’t.”

Her hand froze midway to her face. “Sorry?”

“Don’t reapply that war paint. You look perfect the way you are.”

Heat spread through her, confusing in its intensity. He’d probably used that line on a million women. Why it made her drop the lipstick back into her purse and reach for her lip balm instead was unclear to her.

Jared sat back in his chair, tumbler balanced on his knee, hand sliding over his dark-shadowed jaw. “There’s never a hair out of place, Bailey. Never a cuff that isn’t perfectly turned or posture that isn’t ramrod straight even after four hours of rehearsing.” He angled an inquisitive brow at her. “Why the facade? What are you afraid people might find out if you relax?”

She angled her chin at him. “I work in the male-dominated, testosterone-driven world of Silicon Valley. Men will walk all over me if I show weakness. You of all people should know that.”

“Perhaps,” he agreed. “Is that why you turn them all down? Let them crash and burn for all to see?”

She looked him straight in the eye. “That would be their stupidity if I wasn’t showing interest. And this would be my personal life. Which doesn’t have any part in this conversation.”

“Oh, but it does,” he said softly, his gaze holding hers. “We need to go into this presentation like a well-oiled machine. Know each other inside out, anticipate each other’s needs, move together seamlessly until we are a well-orchestrated symphony. Trust each other implicitly so no matter what they throw at us we’ve got it. But right now, we’re a disjointed mess. The trust is lacking, and I don’t feel like I know the first thing about you.”

A chill stole through her. No one knew her. Except perhaps Aria. They knew Bailey St. John, the composed, successful woman she’d created by sheer force of will. A female version of the Terminator…and not even bulldog Jared was going to uncover the real her.

Which necessitated an act. And a good one. She cradled her wineglass against her chest, leaned back in her seat and slid into the interview persona she’d perfected over the years. “Ask away, then. What do you want to know?”

* * *

Jared leaned back in his seat and took in Bailey’s deceptively relaxed pose. He had no doubt from her evasive answers that she was going to give him only half the story. But something was more than nothing, and their disastrous rehearsals necessitated some kind of synergy. They weren’t connecting on any level except to strike sparks off each other. Which might be fine, desirable even, in the bedroom, but it wasn’t helping here with the board breathing down his neck, the press all over him like a second skin and the most important presentation of his life looming.

If he and Bailey walked into that room right now and did the presentation, they would go down like the Titanic. Slowly and painfully. Davide Gagnon might have handpicked them as partner, but it didn’t mean they could afford to miss one detail about why he should work with them.

He took a long sip of his whiskey, considered her while it burned a comforting trail down his throat, then rested the glass on his thigh. “I was reviewing your résumé. Why the University of Nevada-Las Vegas for your undergrad? It seems an odd choice given your East Coast upbringing. Florida, right?”

She nodded.

“Did you win a scholarship?”

The closed-off look he’d watched her perfect over the years made a spectacular reappearance. “I’m from a small city outside Tampa called Lakeland. Population less than a hundred thousand. I wanted to go away to school, and UNLV had a good business program.”

“So you chose Sin City?”

“Seemed as good a place as any.”

“Did it have something to do with the fact that you aren’t close to your family?”

“Why would you say that?”

“You never go home for the holidays and you never talk about them. So I’m assuming that’s the case.”

Her cool-as-ice blue eyes glittered. “I’m not particularly close to them, no.”

Definitely a sore point. “After UNLV,” he continued, “you did your MBA at Stanford, my alma mater, then went straight to a start-up. Did you always want to work in the Valley?”

She nodded. “I loved technology. I would have been an engineer if I hadn’t gone into business.”

“They’re in high demand,” he acknowledged. “Where did the interest come from? A parent? School?”

She smiled. “School. Science was my favorite class. My teachers encouraged me in that direction.”

“And your parents,” he probed. “What do they do?”

If he hadn’t been watching her, studying her like a hawk, he would have missed the slight flinch that pulled her shoulders back. She lifted her chin. “My father is a traveling salesman and my mother is a hairdresser.”

His eyes widened. Her less-than-illustrious background didn’t faze him. The complete incompatibility with the woman in front of him did. He would have pegged her as an aristocrat. As coming from money. Because everything about Bailey was perfect. Classy. From the top of her glamorous platinum-haired head, to her finely boned striking features, to her long, lean thoroughbred limbs, she was all sophistication and impeccable taste.

“So no man, no family,” he recounted. “Who do you spend your time with when you’re not at work? Which is always…” he qualified.

“You should be happy I do that. It’s why your sales numbers are so impressive.”

“I like my employees to have a life,” he countered drily. “Maybe you have a man tucked away none of us know about?”

“I have friends,” she said stiffly.

“Pastimes? Hobbies?”

Silence. He watched her mind work, coming up with a suitable answer, not the real one. “I like to read.”

“Ah yes,” he nodded. “So home on a Friday night with a book in your hand? That sounds awfully dull.”

“Maybe I import my men,” she offered caustically. “Ship them in for a hot night, then send them home.”

His mouth twisted. “Lucky guys.”

“Jared…” She exhaled heavily. “Are you ever politically correct?”

“Hopefully this weekend, yes.”

She smiled at that. “Is that enough information so we can move on to your fascinating backstory?”

“It’ll do for now.” He poured her another glass of wine, intent on loosening her up.

She shifted, tucked her legs underneath her. He kept his eyes off her outstanding calves with difficulty. “Is it true,” she asked, running a finger around the rim of her glass, “that you got your love of electronics tinkering in the garage with your father?”

He nodded. “My father was an investment banker, but his true love was playing with a car’s engine until the sun came down. I would go out to the garage and work alongside him until my mother made me come in.”

She frowned. “You said was. Did your father pass?”

“No.” He felt his defenses sliding into place like a cell door at Alcatraz, but opening up was a two-way street, and he needed to give, too. “He embezzled money from the bank, from his personal circle of friends, got himself in way too deep and tried to win it all back in a high-stakes game in Vegas.”

Her eyes widened. “And they chewed him up?”

“Yes.”

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

His mouth twisted. “It’s not exactly in my bio. The bank did a good job of hushing it up, and only those close to it ever knew.”

Her gaze moved uncertainly over his. Wondering why he’d told her.

“Trust,” he said softly. “You shared with me. I need to share with you. I meant what I said, Bailey. This is the most important presentation of Stone Industries’ history. There are no second chances. We have to nail it. We have to trust each other completely walking into that room or we don’t do it at all.”

She chewed ferociously on her lower lip. He kept his gaze on hers. “You have to be all-in, Bailey.”

She nodded. “I’m in.”

His shoulders settled back into place, his relief palpable. “Good. Let’s try to streamline that second section so it sings…”

She leaned forward to grab her notebook. “Ouch.”

“What?”

She pressed her fingers to her neck. “I slept the wrong way last night. I’ve got the worst kind of kink.”

She’d been struggling with it throughout their rehearsals, he realized. He’d thought her funny faces had been grimaces about the material but instead, she’d been in pain.

“Come here.”

She looked blankly at him.

He held up his hands. “These are magic. Let me work it out so you can concentrate.”

She shook her head. “It’ll work itself out. Let’s just figure that p—”

He got to his feet and pointed at the chair. “We need to nail this and you obviously can’t concentrate. Five minutes.”

She came then, taking the chair he’d vacated, as if she knew further resistance was futile. “Here,” she told him, pointing to the spot. He sat down on the side of the chair, ran his fingers over her skin lightly, then with increasing pressure.

“Here?”

“Yes,” she groaned. “Be careful. It’s killing me.”

“Trust, remember?” He set about working the immobilized muscles, on the outer edges first, loosening them up so he could find his way to the source of the pain. He felt her relax, let him in. But only so much. And he wondered how often, if ever, this woman allowed herself to be vulnerable?

I like to be in control, just like you do, Jared. Always.

Kink worked fully, he brought his hands down to her shoulders and started to work out the knots from where she’d held herself stiff from the pain. He expected her to protest. Say that was fine. But she didn’t. And why the hell did he still have his hands on her?

The scent of her perfume filled his nostrils, light but heady. Like her… It made a fist coil tight in his chest. The air thickened around them, his hands slowing as he finished the job. She must have felt it too, this undeniable connection between them, because her breathing changed, quickened, a flush stained her alabaster skin, and she was completely pliable beneath his hands.

She wanted him.

Bailey St. John—queen of the brush-off—wanted him.

The vaguely shattering discovery took him to a place it wasn’t wise to go. The woman every man in Silicon Valley coveted was not impenetrable. No pun intended. She was far from asexual as some had suggested jokingly, and perhaps bitterly. And it struck him that maybe he’d been avoiding working with her, promoting her, because he’d been afraid of this. Because they’d have to work hand in hand. Because he’d wanted to unravel the mystery that was Bailey St. John from the first day she’d walked into his office.

Correction. From the night he’d hired her…

His body tightened with an almighty surge of testosterone. Not particularly admirable, but there it was. And how had he not realized it sooner? Hadn’t he learned this in grade school? You only fought with the girls you liked. And on a much more adult level, he realized he wanted Bailey in his bed. Under him as he peeled back layer upon layer.

He would not be the one to crash and burn…

“Bailey?”

“Mm?” Her husky, pleasure-soaked tone rocked him to the core.

“I think I’ve figured out our issue.”

“Our issue?”

“Mmm.” He slid his fingers to the racing pulse at the base of her neck. “This.”

CHAPTER THREE

BAILEY YANKED HERSELF out from under Jared’s hands so fast she pretty much redid all the damage he’d just undone. Her hazy brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders as she met her boss’s glittering blue gaze, focused and intent, containing the same heated sexual awareness that had been fueling her unspeakable fantasy.

Hot and uncensored, it had been outrageously good…

“We— I—” She started to talk. Anything to deny what was happening.

Jared held up a hand. “There’s only one thing that’s called, Bailey: pure, unadulterated sexual attraction.”

Her pulse racing, hectic color firing her cheeks, it was really pointless to deny it. But it would be insanity not to. “There goes your out-of-control ego again, Jared,” she taunted, raising her chin. “You antagonize me, you drive me crazy, but you do not attract me.”

His jaw hardened. The glitter in his eyes morphed into a spark of pure challenge as his I am man, chest-beating need to prove his masculinity roared to life. Her breath stopped in her lungs, her irrational desire to see what would happen if he did lose it mixing with her common sense to create a complete state of inertia. Then his dark lashes came down to shield his eyes, that superior control he exerted over himself sliding back into place. “I think,” he said softly, “this is a case of semantics. Antagonize… Attract… Whatever you want to call it—it’s an issue. And we need to figure it out if we’re going to make this presentation work. If we’re going to make this partnership work.”

She pulled in a silent breath, using the reprieve to steady herself. To regain her equilibrium. He was right. She needed to figure this antagonism/attraction thing out before she made a complete fool of herself. Before she destroyed this opportunity she’d been handed.

“How about,” she offered, with as cool a gaze as she could muster, “you try to be a little looser, go with the flow, and I’ll pay more attention to the script? I’m sure even we can meet somewhere in the middle.”

His mouth tilted up on one side. “It’s worth a shot.”

They dined on a delicious meal of filet mignon and salad, Bailey severely curtailing her consumption of the delicious wine so her head was clear. She’d made a serious mistake in ever thinking she could let her defenses down in front of Jared. In tipping her hand and revealing an attraction she hadn’t even fully admitted to herself. But she’d learned her lesson. And she wasn’t about to do it again.

Their final rehearsal wasn’t perfect, but it was a heck of a lot better than their earlier attempts. She toned it down, made a concerted effort to follow Jared’s lead, and they made it through in a fairly civilized way. Jared, being the generous soul that he was, gave her a couple of hours’ sleep before they landed in the sparkling, glittering South of France.

* * *

Just how luxurious their trip was going to be was apparent when upon their arrival in the Nice airport, they were not met by a car, but a shiny silver helicopter flown by Davide Gagnon’s personal pilot. He jumped down under the slowing, still-whirling helicopter blades, greeted them, stowed their luggage in the back of the aircraft, and took them on their way.

Their trip across the sun-kissed Côte d’Azur to the legendary Peninsula of Billionaires, in between Nice and Monaco, featured some of the most exclusive properties on the French Riviera. Bailey, who’d done the South of France on a budget in her backpacking days with Aria, was googly-eyed. Luxurious villas sat in secluded coves behind high cliffs that sheltered them from the wind. And the colors were glorious, brilliant fuchsia and purple-soaked gardens bordering the sparkling turquoise sea.

Jared gave her an amused look as she chatted with the pilot, extending her twenty-question strategy to him. It was presently a balmy twenty-one degrees Celsius, the pilot told them as he set the chopper down on the Gagnon property’s private landing pad, expected to get much hotter over the weekend, just in time for film festival season in the South of France.

They were met outside the low, cream-colored sprawling villa that sat directly on the bay by Davide Gagnon’s head housekeeper, who informed them their host was en route home from a business meeting and would greet them that night at the party. Until then, they were free to explore the grounds and beach and enjoy some lunch. Bailey forced some salad into her jet-lagged body, took one look at her oceanfront suite—situated directly beside Jared’s at one end of a wing—and elected for a face-plant into the three-hundred-count Egyptian cotton sheets and an afternoon nap.

When she woke, the brilliant afternoon sun had faded into early evening, and a sensual pink-orange sunset was streaking its way across the sky. She yawned, padded to her terrace and watched as it deepened into a hot-pink fire laced with smoky gray-blue. She would have done just about anything to be able to sit there and enjoy the magnificent view with a glass of the wine on ice in her suite, but it was already close to six. She needed to shower, dress and face the jeweled, exquisitely coutured guests of Davide Gagnon in a half hour. And hope she had learned enough over the years to fake it so her lowbrow, uncouth roots didn’t show through like an ugly weed in a sea of mimosa and lavender.

Put her in a boardroom matched against the world’s nastiest deal-maker, and she was rock solid. Put her in a social situation like tonight, and she needed all her acting skills to survive. Etiquette training had only taught her which fork to use. Which wine to drink with what. It didn’t make her one of them. And it never would.

She gazed out at the explosion of color in the sky and reminded herself parties like this were about working a room. If there was anything she’d learned as a dancer, it was that. How to get what she wanted out of the men who’d come to watch her so she could make a different life for herself. And tonight was no different. She needed to focus on the prize, Davide Gagnon. Use what she’d learned about him, what she knew of men like him, to convince him a Stone Industries partnership was his ticket to European sales domination.

Show Jared he’d been overlooking a valuable asset for a very long time.

Once she got over her nerves…

She reluctantly abandoned the gorgeous view and stepped inside. She might not be able to enjoy the sunset, but she could indulge in a glass of wine to ease the tension. Pouring herself a glass, she took it into the stunning marble bathroom, stepped under a hot shower, and systematically washed away the old Bailey and installed the new one in her place.

Wrapping herself in the thick, soft robe that hung on the door, she padded into the dressing area and ran her fingers over the whisper-soft silks and taffetas she’d hung in the wardrobe. But there was never any question as to which she’d pick. She pulled the just-above-the knee beaded champagne-colored cocktail dress from the hanger and slipped it on. The dress was the softest silk, hugging every curve with just the right amount of propriety. Sexy but conservative at the same time.

She surveyed herself in the floor-length mirror. There was nothing cheap about the woman who looked back at her. This was not the twenty-dollar designer knockoff dress that had once been the only thing she could afford. And it showed.

Working her hair into a smooth, shimmering mass of curls with a round brush and a dryer, she topped it with minimal eye makeup and gloss. Enough to highlight her features. She had just added a dash of perfume to her pulse points when a knock sounded at the connecting door. Jared.

She moved across the room, undid the bolt and opened the door. The sight of her boss in an exquisitely tailored black tux might have been more intimidating than the prospect of the evening ahead. From the tip of his slicked-back dark hair to his freshly shaven jaw and long-limbed masculinity, he was devastating.

* * *

Jared followed Bailey into her suite, her barefoot, wine-in-her-hand invitation to come in doing something strange to his insides. Her dress—what would you call it, champagne-colored?—hugged every curve as if it had been sewn onto her. Curves that could burn themselves into your memory if you let them. Her hair fell in smooth gold waves to her shoulders, one side pushed back with a diamond butterfly clasp. Her exquisite face held only the faintest trace of war paint. But she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever stepped foot into a room with. That he knew.

He attempted to divert his wayward thoughts with a thoughtful look down at the floor tapestry, and instead treated himself to a perfect view of her long golden legs, ruby-tipped toes sinking into the carpet. And felt himself lose the plot completely. If she’d been a woman he was dating, he would have skipped the cocktails entirely. Insisted she share her wine while they watched the sunset together, taken the dress off her with his teeth and made her come at least twice before they joined the others.

And that didn’t take into account what he would have done to her after the night was over.

He would have had her until sunrise.

“Jared?”

He coughed and lifted his gaze to hers. “Sorry?”

A pink stain stole over her cheeks. “The gold or champagne shoes?”

He looked at the two pairs of sky-high heels dangling by her fingertips and decided either of them would make every man in the room tonight want to bed her.

“Gold,” he muttered. “It’ll contrast with the dress.”

“Right.” She tossed the other pair on the carpet, braced her hand against the wall and slipped the stilettos on. As his hormone-clouded brain cleared, he noticed the tight set of her face. The way her ramrod straight posture seemed to have pulled up another centimeter. How she picked up the glass of wine and downed the remainder with a jerky movement reminiscent of his father on the nights he’d had to attend the bank functions he’d never been comfortable with, except his drink had been scotch.

The chink in her armor confounded him. “Are you nervous? You know the plan. We find out Maison’s strategy when it comes to the environment and we’re all set. It’s the last missing piece.”

A stillness slipped across her fine-boned face. Indecipherable. “I’ve got the plan down, Jared. I’m fine.”

He didn’t buy it for a second. Her revelations on the plane had illuminated one thing about Bailey. She hadn’t been born into this lifestyle. She did a good job making it look as though she had, but she hadn’t.

He stepped closer, something about her vulnerability touching him deep down inside. “Don’t you know?” he said softly, looking down at her. “You’re always the most beautiful woman in the room, Bailey. And the smartest.”

A small smile twisted her lips before she wrinkled her nose at him. “I’ll bet that line works wonders for you.”

“You have no idea.” His answering grin was self-effacing. “But I’ve never meant it more than I do now. So be yourself tonight, and you’ll knock them dead.”

She studied him for a moment. Nodded. “We should go.”

For what reason he didn’t know, he braved her prickly exterior and wrapped his fingers around her delicate hand instead of offering his arm.

“Ready?” he asked roughly.

“Ready.”

* * *

They emerged on the buzzing wraparound terrace of the villa, ablaze with light and laughter on the warm Mediterranean night, where perhaps close to fifty people had already gathered, cocktails in hand. As Jared cased the crowd, he noticed an Academy Award-winning producer to his left, a high-profile A-list Hollywood couple to his right, and wasn’t that Roberto Something-or-other, the Italian film director known for his sprawling epics, straight ahead? The big personalities had, apparently, all made it into town.

He grabbed a couple of glasses of champagne from a passing waiter’s tray and handed one to Bailey. Gagnon had spared no expense: a quartet playing in a corner of the large, floodlit deck, black-jacketed staff circulating like an efficient swarm of bees, and from what he’d heard, a well-known French singer slated to play later in the evening, purportedly a mistress to one of the French cabinet ministers. But Jared had only one goal in mind. To corner Davide Gagnon and get the information he needed to develop that final, crucial piece of strategy.

He did not miss the attention every man at the party paid to the woman by his side as he picked out Gagnon, placed a palm to Bailey’s back and led her through the crowd. There were a lot of beautiful, stunning even, women at the party. Bailey outshone them all, glittering like a glamorous Hollywood icon brought forward to the present, outclassing even the real Hollywood A-listers in attendance if you were to ask his opinion. But in true Bailey style, she ignored them all and focused on their target.

Davide Gagnon detached himself from the group he was standing with and came toward them, his sun-lined, handsome, younger-looking-than-he-was face breaking into a wide smile as he took Bailey’s hand and brought it to his mouth. “My pilot told me you were lovely,” he murmured gallantly. “I think he erred on the conservative side.”

Bailey gave their host a warm smile and returned his greeting. In French. In perfectly accented, lilting Parisian French that sounded so sexy Jared’s jaw dropped open.

“I think I’m in love,” Davide murmured, hanging on to her hand. “What are you doing with the most controversial man in the room, ma chère?”

“And the most brilliant,” Bailey returned smoothly as she drew back, an amused sparkle lighting her blue eyes. “I’m with him for his brain.”

Jared’s gaze tangled with hers. She appreciated a lot more than his brain, he was sure of it. And he suddenly had the burning urge to make her admit it. Maybe it was the look of pure male appreciation on Davide’s face. Maybe it had been the scene with the shoes. Regardless, it was out of the question. He had to be a good boy. He was on a very short leash with no room for error.

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