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.
“You have an absolutely magnificent home,” he murmured appreciatively, when Davide finally deigned to let go of Bailey’s hand and offer him his. “Thank you for the invitation to join you.”
“It only increased the desirability of my guest list,” the distinguished Frenchman said in a wry tone. “Like you or hate you, they all want to meet you.”
Jared caught the disapproval the Frenchman lobbed him loud and clear. “It was a personal joke that should never have been made public,” he asserted.
“But it was,” Davide drawled. “And now you’ve alienated fifty percent of the population.”
Tension tightened his jaw. “It will blow over.”
Gagnon’s eyes glinted. “That’s what Richard Braydon thought when his comments about the French were broadcast on YouTube.” His gaze was deliberate. “It destroyed his business.”
A fist reached in and wrapped itself around his heart. Gagnon could not have missed the business stories depicting him teetering on a high-wire when it came to retaining control of his company. His radical push in a direction few dared to go. The Frenchman’s deal would push him over the edge one way or another, and Davide knew it.
“It will blow over,” Jared reiterated harshly. “And when you see what we have in our marketing plan, you will not have any doubts, I promise you.”
The other man inclined his head. “I expect brilliance from you, Stone. It’s the wild cards you throw my way I’m not so sure about.”
Jared gritted his teeth as Gagnon blew off the conversation and turned to introduce them around. Turned to introduce Bailey around, if he were to be accurate. With himself in Davide’s bad books, she apparently was a more enticing draw.
He spent the rest of the cocktail hour deflecting conversation of his manifesto, which truly seemed to have struck a global note. Heartily sick of it and inordinately annoyed with himself, he was then seated next to Gagnon’s daughter, Micheline, for dinner. Whether a joke or penance on Davide’s part, Jared thought he’d died and gone to hell by the main course. Micheline had not let up over the soup and appetizers about how damaging his effort “to be cute” was to women. How much it denigrated everything she’d worked for.
By the time the Cornish hens came, he would have laid down on the floor and allowed her to stick needles in every part of him if she would have stopped. Just stopped.
Bailey, of course, had been placed beside Davide. She spent the evening chatting away to him in that perfect French he didn’t understand so he couldn’t follow their conversation. Apparently, she had lost her nerves.
Micheline glanced over at her father and Bailey, her thin mouth curving in a cynical smile. “She was a brilliant stroke of strategy on your part, Jared, no doubt about it. You know Daddy can’t resist a beautiful blonde.”
“She’s extremely smart,” Jared muttered. And annoying. He needed to be in on that conversation. But it didn’t happen. Dessert stretched into liqueurs and no one moved. Finally, the French singer took the stage on the terrace, the band backing her up, and Jared seized the opportunity to grab his CMO.
“Care for a dance?” he requested on a slightly belligerent note, holding out his hand.
She nodded and excused herself from Davide’s side. Jared’s long strides ate up the distance to the dance floor set up on a corner of the balcony. He slid an arm around Bailey’s waist, laced his fingers through hers and pulled her to him.
“When were you planning on including me in your little party?”
She absorbed that, absorbed his frustration, then sighed. “You told me to work him, Jared. That’s what I’m doing.”
“Awfully well.”
She sealed her bottom lip over her top.
“When were you going to tell me you spoke French?”
“That was also on my résumé,” she said pointedly. “Along with the fact that I speak Spanish and Italian.”
“I have a feeling that résumé of yours isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on,” he said darkly, inhaling that trademark floral scent of hers. Trying to ignore what she’d look like stripped of that dress, what his psyche had been working on all evening. “What other tricks do you have up your sleeve? Just so I have a heads-up.”
Her perfectly arched brows came together. “I know it must be disconcerting that Davide’s being a bit cool with you, but you can’t blame me for that.”
“I’m not blaming you, I’m wondering who you are. You whip out this perfect French I didn’t know you speak then you’re off talking about Plato over dinner.”
“I studied that in college. He’s Davide’s favorite philosopher.”
“Of course he is. He’s also clearly besotted with you.”
Her calm look hardened until she was matching him stare for stare. “I am using my brain, Jared. Something the women you consort with likely don’t do. I can understand why you would find that hard to appreciate.”
“I appreciate your brain.”
“Right.” She echoed his skepticism. “He’s revealing a lot. I’m getting some good insight into how his brain works. I’ve run some ideas by him and—”
“You’ve run some ideas by him?” Fury twisted his insides. “I don’t want you running ideas by him, I want you sticking to the script.”
Her lips pressed together. “He liked them. Loved them, in fact.”
He kept a leash on himself as the urge to explode like an overdue volcano rolled over him. “Which ideas are we talking about? The ones in our presentation or your rogue thoughts?”
Hot color dusted her cheeks. “One of mine—the one about the kiosks in the yoga studios…”
He uttered a curse. “That is not in our plan. It is nowhere in our plan, nor is it going to be. You need to put a leash on yourself.”
She lifted her chin, her blue eyes a stormy gray. “He loved the idea, Jared. He said it was exactly where his head was at. So maybe you need to open your mind. Use your imagination.”
“I am using my imagination,” he came back shortly, his gaze sliding over the dress, the curves every man in the room hadn’t been able to take his eyes off of all night. “And I don’t like where it’s taking me.”
She swallowed, a visible big gulp. “Do not do that. We are negotiating a business deal here, remember? Focus.”
“I am focusing,” he countered silkily. “Like every other male at this party, you have my complete attention in that dress. Now what are you going to do with it?”
Her eyes widened. Fire arced between them, swift and strong. It made his blood tattoo through his veins in a triumphant march. Sent heat lancing through his body. Bailey stared back at him like a deer caught in the headlights for a long moment. Then she blinked and stepped out of his arms.
“Walk away,” she said softly. “You know the magazines are right about you, Jared. You’re the one who needs a leash. You are out of control. You have lost your focus. You might think about getting it back. Think about what’s actually going to win this rather than your own ego.”
He stood there, hands clenched by his sides with the need to strangle her. She started off, then turned back with a final, parting shot.
“Green is only a peripheral strategy for Davide. He recognizes the importance to consumers, but he also knows they aren’t willing to pay a premium for it. It’s the price of entry.”
She left before he could say anything. Wound her way back through the crowd. And he wondered if she was right. Was he out of control? Had he lost the thread? Because all he’d ever wanted to do was build a company that created great products. That made the impossible possible. But now that he’d done that, now that he was close to the pinnacl
e of success, he was doing everything but. He was glad-handing politicians, massaging a board’s ego, weighing in on a marketing strategy he shouldn’t have to worry about. About as far from the business of inspiration as you could get.
It was making him crazy.
He acknowledged one more thing before he bit out a curse and followed Bailey through the crowd. The yoga kiosk idea was brilliant. He’d thought that when she’d mentioned it, but final rehearsals weren’t any time to be going off script.
Hell. He’d told Sam this would happen. He should have listened to his instincts.
* * *
Bailey spent the rest of the evening trying to manage the thundercloud that was Jared. She had the distinct feeling Davide Gagnon was administering a slap on the hand to her boss by giving him the cold shoulder, because there was no doubt that he respected Jared immensely.
She felt as if she was doing damage control on all sides. She also felt that she was the missing piece of the puzzle. The link between Jared’s brilliance and Davide’s creative side. Davide loved her ideas. He thought they were grassroots, buzz-inducing genius. And it made her feel just this side of cocky as she stood at the two men’s sides for a last brandy as the crowd dwindled on the star-strewn terrace.
She felt empowered.
“My son, Alexander, has been delayed until tomorrow night,” Davide updated them, pointing his glass at Jared. “Since he will be assuming the mantle at Maison upon my retirement next year, I want him to take the lead on this partnership decision. Why don’t you enjoy the day tomorrow, meet Alexander at dinner and we can hear the presentation on Sunday?”
Jared, who had been raring to get the presentation nailed and over with, nodded congenially as if that were the greatest idea in the world.
“You’re planning on stepping back over the next few months and transitioning, then?”
Davide nodded. “But I will still be very involved. My son is nothing if not ambitious and aggressive, but he’ll need guidance.” He shot Jared an amused look. “You’ll like him. He likes to win as much as you do.”
Jared smiled. “Not a bad trait.” But his eyes were blazing with a plan. Four or five more hours of endless rehearsal? She almost groaned out loud at the thought. She might kill him first.
“I should say goodbye to a guest,” Davide observed, “then I think I’m going to turn in. I’ll see you in the morning for breakfast.”
Bailey couldn’t imagine anything better than bed. It was 2:30 a.m., her feet were killing her from the heels, she was jet-lagged, and the mental exhaustion of maintaining such a perfect facade all night, of using the French she hadn’t practiced in years, had fried her brain. And then there was Jared, who moved silently beside her into the house like a quiet, lethal animal ready to strike.
She stayed quiet because taunting the animal was never a good strategy. And she’d slipped during that dance. Had gotten caught up in him for a split second before she’d walked away.
She didn’t think that was helping their harmony.
The hallway stretched long and silent ahead of them. Jared stopped in front of her door, turned the handle and pushed it open. She came to a halt beside him, tension raking over her as she risked a look up at him. Latent, unresolved antagonism stretched like a live wire between them, Jared’s penetrating stare making her shift her weight to the other foot. Away from him.
She pulled in a breath. “I shouldn’t have said wh—”
Her heart sped into overdrive as he leaned forward and braced a hand against the wall behind her, his intent, purposeful look stopping the breath in her chest.
“Add the yoga idea to the deck, Bailey. Blow it out big and make it sing. And don’t ever, ever run a strategy by a client without my approval first. Or you’ll have the shortest tenure an executive at Stone Industries has ever seen.”
He had removed his hand from the wall, stepped back and slammed his way into his room before her breath started moving again. She stood there, frozen for about five good seconds, then closed the door behind her. She backed up against the wood frame and finally let a triumphant smile curve her lips.
She had won. She had forced Jared Stone to acknowledge her ideas had merit. Not only had merit—they were going to present them to Davide Gagnon.
The smile faded from her lips, adrenaline pounding through her, licking at her nerve endings. Just now, outside that door, for a split second, she’d been convinced Jared was going to kiss her. Worse, for a fraction of that second, she had been unbearably excited by the idea.
Pulling in a breath, she wiped the back of her hand against her mouth. Since when had she become a fan of Russian roulette? Because surely that’s what tonight had been.
With her own career at stake.
She might want to start thinking up alternative strategies.
CHAPTER FOUR
BAILEY WOKE UP full of “piss and vinegar” as her mother would have said, ready to attack the presentation, slot in her yoga idea and rehearse it until it sparkled. She pulled on shorts and a knit top, her mouth curving at the thought of her colorful mother. She may have limited her exposure to the family who’d turned her out when she’d started dancing, stripping as her father had bitingly referred to it, but it didn’t mean she didn’t have some good memories of her childhood.
She’d often spent Saturdays sitting on one of the worn, ripped leather chairs in her mother’s hair salon rather than face the uncertain mood of her father—who could be even-keeled if he hadn’t drunk too much that day, or downright mean if he had. She’d finish her homework, then sit fascinated as her mother’s less-than-polished clientele talked about men, other women in an often catty fashion and anything else on their mind they felt needed to be aired. Eye-opening and illuminating conversation for a ten-year-old, to be certain. She’d made sure she didn’t miss one juicy detail.
Unfortunately the glow hadn’t lasted. As she’d gotten older, it was her mother’s quietness she’d noticed. How she would listen but not talk much. Smile but not really. And she’d wondered if her mother knew what she knew. That her husband was not only a violent drunk who couldn’t get over the loss of his high school football glory, but he’d also been unfaithful to her while on the road selling vacuum cleaners across the state. Bailey had answered one too many phone calls at home while her mother was working from a supposed “customer” named Janine not to put two and two together when her father subsequently ordered her out of the room and a hushed conversation ensued.
As a teenager, the glow had disappeared completely. What did it matter if her mother treated her to hot rollers on Saturday, if on Monday the clothes you wore to school were falling apart? When no one wanted to hang out with you because you were the epitome of poor uncool?
The memories floated in the window of her beautiful Cap-Ferrat suite, in blinding contrast to her current circumstances. She pressed her lips together, secured her hair in an elegant pile on top of her head, a hairstyle her mother would have called “hoity-toity,” then made her way downstairs to join Davide and Jared in the breakfast room. The two men were discussing a trip into Nice to visit an art gallery. Davide stood, brushed a kiss across both of her cheeks and held a chair out for her. “Would you like to come with us, ma chère? The Chagalls are phenomenal.”
“It’s tempting,” she responded, taking a seat. “But no thank you, I have work to do.”
Jared murmured a greeting. She slid him a wary glance as she reached for the coffeepot. He was freshly shaven and annoyingly edible in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt that hugged his muscular chest and shoulders in all the right places. And more relaxed this morning if the softer edges of his face were anything to go by. She poured herself a full cup of the strong French brew. He’d probably been up at five doing his Buddhist meditation thing. Rumor had it he’d spent three months as a college dropout in India studying with a Zen master, and practiced it regularly. She’d even heard some of the engineers moan that Jared was on another tangent with his simplicity-inspired principles a
nd they might never leave the lab with an end product if he didn’t back off.
She removed her gaze from all that drool-inducing masculinity and focused on buttering a croissant. Rule number one when it came to her new strategy of handling Jared. No drooling. At all. Ignore him completely.
He and Davide took off to Nice in one of the Frenchman’s vintage sports cars. Seduced by the spray of the waves and the chance to be outdoors, Bailey settled herself on one of the terraces overlooking the ocean, slid on some sunscreen and set to work building her slides.
By early afternoon, she had fleshed out her ideas into a compelling global strategy to catch consumers where they spent their free time. The kiosks to sell Stone Industries’ wearable technologies—pulse monitors, odometers, fitness watches—onsite at yoga studios was only the first niche she was proposing. She added in examples of other health and fitness environments it could replicated in, reviewed the slides, then called it done with a satisfied nod.
This was her chance to shine. She’d forced Jared’s hand in allowing her to include her ideas, now she had to make them worthy.
Turning her face up to the sun, she allowed herself a bit of downtime until the men came back.
* * *
Jared returned from Nice in his best mood of the week. He had bonded with Davide over their mutual love of art and managed to convince him that no, he was not dangling over the side of a cliff at Stone Industries with the board ready to cut him loose. He had also gone a long way to convincing him that there was little danger of long-term fallout from his manifesto with female consumers. People had short memories. Stone Industries would come out with its next big product and women would flock to it for its cool factor as they always did. And all of this would be a blip on the radar of a soon-to-be successful partnership.
The only thing that was messing with his superior mood was the email he’d gotten from his head of IT earlier this morning about the leak of his manifesto. It had literally stopped him in his tracks to discover after a cyber-chase of epic proportions, the email hack had been traced to the servers of Craig International. Which could only mean that Michael Craig, one of his most vocal critics on the Stone Industries board, was behind it. Had meant to bury him at a time of weakness. And for that, he decided, mouth set, stomach hard, as he went outside in search of Bailey, he would pay richly. He had never liked or trusted Michael Craig, had never felt they were playing on the same team. He would use this opportunity to get rid of him.
The Magnate's Manifesto Page 5