She shook her head, in full denial. “I don’t know him.” And that was true. She didn’t know anything about him. Except he was now the key player who would decide their fate in the biggest deal of her life. Of Jared’s life.
Jared stepped closer to her. “Then why are you white as a ghost? Why have you been off since the moment you saw him?”
Her brain swirled in a desperate attempt to make this go away. Heart thumping painfully hard against her chest, she looked up at him. “He is an obnoxious jerk who has mistaken me for someone else. I am not good with boats, Jared. Never have been. And I don’t want to make it an issue for Davide, who has been kind enough to take us on this lovely sail. So I think we should get back to the others before he worries.”
She brushed past him before he could stop her and headed back to the table where dessert was being served. Somehow she managed to spoon a few mouthfuls of the undoubtedly delicious chocolate mousse into her mouth. But she tasted nothing. How could she when the world felt as if it was unraveling around her?
Alexander’s cool, unruffled composure across the table was utterly unnerving. As if they’d been trading old war stories rather than him throwing her past in her face.
The night thankfully ended an hour later when Davide, she figured, took pity on her and suggested they do a final nightcap back at the villa. He insisted she rest rather than join them, and Bailey didn’t protest. She brushed off Jared’s intention to walk her to her room. “I’m fine.”
He came anyway, wearing a frown.
“I’ll be back to check on you,” he said when they’d reached her room, planting a hand against the wall and looking her over. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.” She pressed a hand to her pounding head, which was making her feel distinctly nauseous now. “Don’t bother. I’ll be asleep.”
He stared her down. “I’ll be back in half an hour.”
* * *
Bailey forced some painkillers down her throat with a glass of water and paced her beautiful, airy suite. The more she paced, the more her head pounded. The two lives she’d so carefully kept light-years apart for so long had just crashed together with debilitating consequences. And the chances she was going to be able to keep them apart any longer were slim. Alexander Gagnon had offered her fifty thousand dollars to sleep with him almost ten years ago. And now she had to face him, to pitch to him over a boardroom table?
What if she had to work with him afterward?
The trails of perspiration rolling down her nape made her feel hot, feverish. She had not spent years of her life building her reputation in the business world to let a man like Alexander Gagnon destroy it. To assume he knew what she was when she wasn’t anything like that.
I remember every curve, every dip of your mind-blowing body. How you seduced every man in that room and left them begging for more…
Alexander’s words, cutting, accusatory, washed over her. Suddenly she felt dirty, so dirty. Hands shaking, she ripped off her jeans and tops. Found her bathing suit, threw it on and took the back stairs to the beach. The sea was dark and strewn with moonlight. The surf was up, eating into the sand with swift currents. She ignored how the darkness made it look dangerous, walked into it and struck out to a place unknown. To a place where the past couldn’t find her.
* * *
Jared knocked on Bailey’s door forty-five minutes later. He’d nursed a final brandy with Davide and the others, fought the urge to put his fist through Alexander Gagnon’s face and ultimately restrained himself. He didn’t believe Bailey for a second when she’d said she didn’t know him. She’d had a violent reaction the minute she’d seen him. He’d felt it.
They don’t know, do they? You’ve moved on. Gone to a great deal of trouble to put your past behind you.
What had Gagnon been talking about?
He knocked again on the door, his mouth tightening. Nothing. He waited five more seconds, knocked again and turned the knob. The door was open, a table lamp flooding the drawing room with light. No Bailey. He strode across the room, pushed her bedroom door open and saw the bed hadn’t been touched. Her clothes were lying in a heap on the floor, which raised his antennae because Bailey was obsessively, compulsively neat.
He walked out onto the floodlit terrace and found it empty. Scanning the grounds, he searched for her. On the beach below a flash of white in the water caught his eye. Bailey’s pale skin in the moonlight. There. He stripped off his shoes and socks and went after her.
She was so far out in the waves, he almost dived in fully clothed. But her pace was steady and her strokes sure, so he waited her out instead, his heels sinking into the sand. When she reached shore, she headed toward her towel, not fifteen feet from him, but she didn’t notice him at all.
He allowed himself to enjoy the view while she toweled off. He’d had his fair share of women in his life. Some would say gone through them much more carelessly than a man should. But he’d never seen a woman look so utterly…goddess-like in a bathing suit.
The spotlights on the beach rendered those never-ending legs of hers a work of art. The product of gently rolling hips, they were slim enough to look delicate, curved enough to be irresistible. His hungry gaze moved upward, over her slim waist and more than ample chest, the perfection of which made his mouth go dry. She might not be a D cup, but she was exquisite.
She reached up and pulled her hair back into a ponytail, squeezing the water from it. It threw her delicate, unforgettable beauty into perfect spotlight. She looked untouchable…haunted.
It reminded him why he was here. He started toward her. She bent over to dry her calves. Her mouthwatering backside was not something to be missed. The round, dark mark on the curve of her buttock wasn’t either. He froze. It was unmistakably a mole. A mole Alexander Gagnon knew intimately enough to call out.
He was across the sand and in her face so fast it made his own head spin. Bailey looked up, her pale face catching the moonlight. Her hands slapped the towel around her hips but he was faster, spinning her around and pointing at the mark.
“You lied to me,” he snarled. “You don’t know him but he knows about intimate marks on your body? What exactly is going on?”
She tried to twist out of his hold, but he was stronger, his fingers digging into her upper arms. Her eyes flashed dark, almost gray in the moonlight, contrasting with her chalk-white cheeks. “Get your hands off me, Jared. Or are you no better than him?’
He let her go then, fury singeing his nerve endings. “We are negotiating a deal worth tens of millions of dollars a year, Bailey. I want the truth and I want it now.”
She took a step back. Wrapped her arms around herself. “I told you the truth. I don’t know him. I met him once when I lived in Vegas. He came on to me, I turned him down. That’s it.”
“That’s it?” He slapped his palms against his temples, biting out a curse. Seconds passed, three, maybe four. Then he pinned his gaze on her face. “How did he know about the mole if you turned him down?”
She went even paler. “There’s nothing further you need to know that has anything to do with this deal.” Her chin came up. “That’s all I’m answering and this conversation is done.”
His blood fired. Raced in his veins. And he realized his fury had nothing to do with the deal. He wanted to know why that snake had an intimate knowledge of Bailey’s behind. “I don’t think so.” He took a step closer, and this time she didn’t back up. She stood her ground, eyes flashing. “You turn every man in Silicon Valley down. You act like you are untouchable…and yet that arrogant jerk, known for his womanizing, has had his hands on you… I don’t get it.”
She stepped up to him, her heat fusing with his until they were in danger of a spontaneous combustion. “What’s the matter, Jared? You can’t stand that it wasn’t you? That Mr. Manifesto has met his match?”
He raked his gaze over her. “You know what, Bailey? You’re right. I can’t. Because if it had been me, you wouldn’t have walked away
.”
She opened those luscious lips of hers to say something not very nice. He kissed her before she made it there. And by God, she was the sweetest female he’d ever tasted. Hot, honeyed perfection he savored for about two seconds before she raised her hand to slap him. He caught it in his and slid his other behind her nape, tangling it in her wet hair. Changed the kiss into a persuasive, seductive assault on her senses. The kind that always, without fail, worked.
* * *
Bailey wanted to fight but somewhere along the way, somewhere along the edges of the soul-destroying assault Jared was laying on her, she found escape. Needed it.
When he cupped the back of her head and angled her to take the kiss deeper, she let him. Moaned her approval when he brought his tongue into play and stroked her deeply. He smelled insanely good and he tasted better. Of cognac and expensive cigars. And she wanted more of him. A lot more.
He muttered something under his breath. Slid his hard thigh between her wet, shaking ones and brought her closer. So close his heart pounded beneath her palm. His hand at her back dragged her against his chest, urged her softness against his hardness. Her cool, air-tightened nipples brushed against him through the fine material of his shirt, and the heat that flooded her core came hot and hard. Like nothing she’d ever felt before.
He cursed again and dragged his mouth down the column of her throat, pressing openmouthed kisses against her damp skin. “Bailey,” he breathed. “Who is he to you?”
Reality hit her like the hard slap of the night waves to her face. He wasn’t kissing her because he wanted her. He was kissing her because he wanted to possess her. Just like all the others.
She sank a palm into his chest and pushed. Caught off guard, he stumbled backward. His gaze flew to hers. “What the—?”
“You are all dogs,” she hissed, legs spread wide, feet planted in the sand. “Fighting over what you want. What you think is yours.”
He gave her wild-eyed look a wary glance. “You were as into that kiss as I was.”
Her elegant blond brows came together. “And now I’m walking away. Again. You were wrong, Jared. You aren’t any different than the rest of them. You’re all the same.”
She left him standing there, staring after her, his jaw practically on the ground. Why was she always thinking Jared was different when he so categorically wasn’t? Maybe she was the one losing her sense of judgment.
CHAPTER FIVE
JARED HAD RUN the path around the rocky beaches of the Cap for fifty minutes before he gave up trying to figure out what had happened last night and pulled up into a walk, sweat dripping from his chin. Given the lack of information coming from Bailey, the only thing that was clear was that Alexander Gagnon, Davide’s heir apparent and the man who would own the decision as to whether to link Stone Industries and Maison Electronique in a five-year strategic partnership, knew his CMO intimately enough to call out a mole on her behind.
The thought had his already-pumping blood charging through his veins. He scowled and swiped his T-shirt over his face. Bailey had said she’d met Gagnon once, he’d propositioned her, and she’d turned him down. So how would he know about the mole? And why, in God’s name, was that a more pressing question for him than what he was going to do about the changing dynamics of this deal and the impact on his future?
He let out a colorful curse and raked his T-shirt over his face again. Why wouldn’t Bailey tell him the truth? What could be so horrible about her past that she couldn’t tell him? That Alexander would call her on? He’d seen that look before, the one on Bailey’s face last night. It was the exact same one his father had worn when the hounds had closed in. When his inability to escape had become inevitable—when all of his carefully constructed lies had started to unravel.
His chest tightened. He did not tolerate secrets. What he should do was march up there and tell Bailey she either came clean or she was out. There was too much riding on this pitch…this deal, not to have complete transparency. But the fact was, she was his ace in the hole. Davide loved her and her ideas. So eliminating her from the pitch was a nonstarter.
A massive bird of prey flew in from the sea, its wingspan at least eight or nine feet across. His gaze followed it as it arced and headed inland. A vulture? It reminded him of Alexander the way he’d tracked Bailey with his eyes last night. It had been beyond the look men had when they coveted something. It had been something else entirely…
He turned toward the house, his mouth twisting in a grimace. He’d been right from the beginning. The mystery that was Bailey had a history. A history that could blow the lid off this deal if he didn’t find out what it was and defuse it. Now.
He made his way up the stairs toward their rooms, refusing to let himself address the other lethal ingredient flavoring the situation: the heat that had exploded between them last night. It was one thing to acknowledge an attraction. Another thing entirely to act on it. Because when the cat was out of the bag, it was all too easy to do it again.
Out of the question.
He let himself into his room, picked up his cell phone and dialed the PI he used to track his father, just to make sure he was alive, every now and again.
Danny Garrison picked up after almost seven rings with a sleepy, “’Lo?”
“I need you to dig up everything you can on my CMO, Bailey St. John.”
There was a rustling sound in the background. “You do realize at some point I do go off the clock?”
He looked at his watch on the bedside table. Eight a.m. He hadn’t even thought about the time difference. “Sorry. But I need this yesterday.”
“Considering it is yesterday for me,, no problem.” Sarcasm dripped from his PI’s voice.
“Focus on her time in Vegas. She went to school there.”
“Am I looking for anything in particular?”
Jared stared out at the cerulean-blue sky. At the vulture that had looped back over the seashore looking for breakfast.
“Something she’d want to hide.”
* * *
Bailey shrugged out of an orchid-pink silk shirt, her third choice thus far, and tossed it on the bed. Nothing, nothing felt right about this presentation happening in thirty minutes. Nothing had since she’d laid eyes on Alexander Gagnon and realized it was him.
She snatched the pewter-gray version of the same shirt off a hanger and tugged it on. She needed to walk into that room today and nail the presentation. Forget the past and focus on the future. But her churning stomach wasn’t cooperating.
Her hands fumbled as she pulled the shirt closed and did up the tiny pearl buttons. Would Alexander play nice? And if he didn’t was she now playing Russian roulette with Jared’s future? With this deal? Could she afford to do that? Should she just pull herself out now and accept the fact that her past had caught up with her? Do the right thing?
Her fingers tripped over the buttons, making her curse and focus her concentration. Surely Alexander had better things to do than focus on a bruised ego. He had a major directional partnership to consider for Maison. A company to take the helm of. He would be all business.
The knot in her stomach said differently.
Maybe Jared would fire her first for the inexcusable things she’d said and get it over with.
She shoved the last button through the slippery material with a vicious movement. How could she have kissed him? How could she have done that of all things? She didn’t feel lust like that for men. Didn’t let them close enough to even inspire it because her father had taught her that men were dangerous, unpredictable. Better avoided.
The arrival of their once-a-month welfare check had sent her father on his infamous benders like clockwork, typically ending with him trashing their house and whichever one of them had particularly annoyed him that day. Her mother had shielded them from him when she could, taking the punishment and sending her girls to the neighbors, but that had only made them feel worse when they’d arrived home the next day to a fresh set of bruises on their mother’
s face.
Add to that her experience as a dancer, and complete abstinence had been her solution.
A sharp knock on the connecting door brought her head around. She tucked a stray hair back in her chignon, turned and walked over to open it. Storm cloud Jared was in attendance today, his blue eyes crackling with electricity. All business.
“You ready?”
She nodded. “Let me get my notes.”
Her prep stuff was in a pile on the desk. She’d left the notes on top, ready to grab, but last night in her agitation she’d thrown another pile on there and they didn’t seem to be anywhere as she riffled through them, flicking pages upside down.
“Bailey.” She hadn’t realized he’d moved until he was beside her, his hand closing over hers. She looked up at him, teeth tugging at her bottom lip.
“They’re right here, I just can’t—”
“Bailey.” He took the papers out of her hands and put them down on the desk. “Tell me what’s bothering you. Who is Alexander Gagnon to you? We are partners in this. I need to know what’s wrong so we can handle it together.”
She brought her back teeth together before she blew this entirely and pulled her hand free to continue searching for the notes. “He is nothing to me. I told you that.”
“Then why are you a total disaster?”
“I am not a disaster.” She rounded on him fiercely, eyes flashing. “This is personal, Jared, and I won’t have it brought into this.”
His mouth twisted. “Were you there last night? Because I was. Alexander is now the deciding voice in this deal. He did not take his eyes off you all night and then he followed you to the washroom where he was extremely confrontational. So don’t tell me it’s nothing, Bailey. He is an issue. And I won’t have it affecting this deal.”
She sank her hands into her hips. “Then pull me out.”
“I can’t pull you out. Davide adores you. He loves your thinking.”
She pressed her lips together mutinously. She would rather die than tell Jared she’d been a stripper. A man who thought so little of women he’d written a manifesto about their place being in the bedroom. She could only imagine how derogatory he’d be. It made her stomach curl. As did the thought that he wouldn’t want her anywhere near this deal.
The Magnate's Manifesto Page 7