Читать книгу The Magnate's Manifesto - Дженнифер Хейворд - Страница 9
ОглавлениеBY 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.”
