Her blood pounded in her veins. Suddenly she felt very, very light-headed. “Jared. I can’t—”
“You can. I’ve just told you the whole sordid story of my family. Now it’s your turn. I haven’t read it, Bailey. This is your chance.”
She watched with big eyes as he stood up, walked to the fire and threw the folder into the flames. It sparked and licked up the paper until it turned gray and curled in on itself. Just like her stomach.
He turned back to her and stuck his hands in his pockets.
“Who is Alexander Gagnon to you, Bailey? What does he have on you?”
The flames licking the folder engulfed the remainder in a fiery glow. His gesture wasn’t lost on her. He was giving her a chance to tell her side of the story. To trust him as he’d trusted her from the beginning.
A clamminess invaded her palms, a by-product of her racing heart and the adrenaline surging through her. A million thoughts filled her head. But in the end it came down to the truth.
“I met Alexander Gagnon when he came to my show at the Red Room in Las Vegas.”
“The Red Room? Isn’t that a strip joint?”
“That’s right.” She met his gaze. “I was a high-class stripper, Jared. I made oodles of money taking off my clothes for men.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as if he was going to say something. His lips pursed as words formed, then he stopped, stared at her and waved a hand. “Go on.”
She let her lashes drift down over her eyes. “When I was seventeen, I snuck into Tampa with a girlfriend of mine. We were hanging out in the big city, loitering on the street with pretty much nothing in our pockets, when a girl came up to me, a dancer from the hottest nightclub in the city. She told me I should apply for a job there. That I could make good money.”
She twisted her hands in her lap and stared down at them. “You have to understand we were dirt-poor, my family. My father was an alcoholic, was off the job more than he was on. My mother was doing all she could to make ends meet, but her hair salon wasn’t bringing in much. So when that girl—when she told me how much money I could make dancing, I was flabbergasted. I had dance training. It was one of the few things I was able to do because the local teacher let me study without paying because she thought I had potential.”
He blinked. “So you started stripping?”
She nodded. “I made more money in a week dancing than my mother made in a month cutting hair. I took it home, paid for things. But when my father found out what I was doing, he hit the roof.” Her mouth turned down. “They weren’t making ends meet. My sister had no clothes but my money was dirty money. So he kicked me out.”
A frown creased his forehead. “How old were you?”
“Seventeen. And believe me,” she said bitterly, “nothing was ever so good. My father was not a nice drunk.”
His gaze darkened. “God, Bailey, you were a baby. How were you even allowed to be in a bar?
“I lied. Got a fake ID.”
He sat down beside her, rested his elbows on his knees and pressed his hands to his temples. “So you move from Tampa to Vegas where you go to school? And you keep stripping?”
“I moved there to dance. To pay my way through school. The money is fantastic in Vegas if you know what you’re doing. I danced at a couple of different clubs, learned the industry, then I landed a slot at the Red Room. Every girl wanted to work there. It was very burlesque in the way we did the shows, they had the most beautiful women, and it was where all the high rollers hung out. I made a ton of money, easily paid for school every year.”
He scrunched his face up. “Didn’t it bother you the way men looked at you?”
“Like I belonged in the bedroom?” She threw his words back at him with a lift of her chin. “It was a job, Jared. Like any other occupation. I went to work, made a lot of money and got out when I could.”
“You took your clothes off in front of strangers. That is not a normal job.”
Heat rose up inside of her, headed for the surface. “My body was all I had. That was it. My sister, Annabelle, is still in Lakeland, working a ten-dollar-an-hour job and dealing with an alcoholic husband of her own.” She stared at him, her frustration bubbling over. “I had dreams, Jared. Just like you had. Except you had a brain and I had my body so I used it.”
His gaze darkened. “You also have an incredibly sharp brain. Why didn’t you use it?”
“I didn’t know that.” Frustration grabbed at her, tore at her composure. “As far as I was concerned, I was low-income trash from the swamp. And no one ever tried to convince me differently. Not my teachers, classmates, not the girls who wouldn’t let me into their cliques… I was the poor Williams girl who was never going to amount to anything. Well, dammit, I did.”
He rubbed his hands over his eyes. “St. John is not your real name?”
She shook her head. “I changed it when I left Vegas for California.”
“Is Bailey your real name?”
“Yes. My mother named me after her favorite drink.”
His eyes widened at that. He was silent for a long time, head in his hands. When he finally looked up at her, his expression was bleak. “When you say high-end stripper, what does that mean?”
Did she do favors for her clients on the side? Something inside her retracted. Curled up before it could be killed off. Before she showed him exactly how much that hurt.
“You want to know if I slept with the men I danced for?”
“Yes,” he answered harshly.
“Would it make any difference if I said yes?” Would it make the stigma of what she’d been worse?
“Goddammit, Bailey, answer the question.”
“I danced,” she said stonily, “and then I went home and studied. Nothing more. Ever.”
He let out a long breath. “Where does Alexander Gagnon fit in all this?”
She laced her hands together and stared into the hissing, sparking fire. “Every week at the Red Room, the owner would have his favorite dancer do a special number at the end of the night. You were the star attraction, wore fancy red lingerie, got tons of tips for it. That week, he chose me.” She registered the speculative look on Jared’s face and chose to ignore it. “Alexander came to the Red Room for the first time on a Tuesday night. He gave me a huge tip and asked me to have a drink with him. For some reason, I refused. He was well-dressed, had this aura about him you couldn’t ignore, but there was something I didn’t trust. And in that business it was all about instinct.
“He didn’t want any of the other girls. He came back two other nights after that, always tipping heavily and asking me to have a drink with him. On the third night, I said no, went to my dressing room and started taking off my makeup. I was the last girl to leave. The others were all in a rush to go out that night and I was just going home to study so I took my time. At one point, I had this feeling I wasn’t alone and I turned around and there he was—Alexander,” she qualified. “Just standing there.”
His gaze narrowed. “How did he get past the bouncers?”
She grimaced. “I found out later he’d bribed Bruno, my manager, to make them look the other way. I don’t know what Alexander had on Bruno to make him do that—Bruno was a big gambler, he owed people a lot of money so maybe that was it. Anyway,” she said, waving a hand, “I was shocked, totally thrown. I told him to get out. He completely ignored me.”
“Then what?” Jared growled.
“He propositioned me.”
“What do you mean propositioned you?”
“He offered me fifty thousand dollars to sleep with him.”
A dangerous glimmer entered his eyes. “For one night?”
“Yes.”
“What happened when you turned him down?”
Her fingers tightened around her glass. “He told me everyone has a price. To name mine. I told him to get the hell out again and this time he did.”
“And that was it?”
“He came back two more nights to see if I’d changed my
mind. I never saw him after that.”
“Jesus—Bailey—” He stood up and paced to the fire. Raked his hands through his hair. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you?” She gave him a disbelieving look. “You, the man who just wrote a manifesto about how women belong in the bedroom, not the boardroom? You have to be joking.”
“Oh for God’s sake, you know that doesn’t apply to you.” He gave his head a shake. “What did he say to you on the yacht? You looked shaken.”
“He realized that nobody knows. That I’ve hidden my past.”
“And?”
She shook her head. “You interrupted us then.”
His gaze sharpened on her face. “You can’t run away from the past forever. It always catches up with you.”
Her mouth twisted. “So I should just tell everyone I was a stripper? Get it out of the way? I have worked my entire life to put my past behind me, Jared. I’m not ashamed of what I did. But others will judge me. ‘Jared Stone’s chief marketing officer—former stripper.’ How do you think that will go over?”
He was silent. Because she was right.
“He still wants you,” he muttered after a long moment. “He wants to win. That much is clear.”
Bailey felt her past close like a noose around her neck. Finally it had caught up with her. She’d always thought it might. But did it have to be now? Right at the moment she’d thought she just might rise above it?
Tears of frustration singed the back of her eyes. She drained the rest of her wine and set the glass on the ground. “I am now a liability,” she said quietly. “You need to take me out of this presentation, Jared. Eliminate me from the equation. You know it and I know it.”
Blue eyes tangled with darker blue. The flicker in his was almost indiscernible, but she didn’t miss it. The acknowledgment that she was right.
“Pull me out,” she repeated dully, getting to her feet. “It’s the right thing to do.”
And then she walked away before she bawled her eyes out.
* * *
Jared watched Bailey go, so dumbstruck by what she’d just told him he was actually incapable of pursuing. She’d been a high-end stripper in Vegas. She had taken her clothes off for total strangers every night, pocketed scads of money and put herself through school with it.
The idea of Bailey putting herself on display like that, letting men drool over her like that, was so far-fetched it was almost laughable. He would have laughed if he wasn’t so appalled. Here he’d been picturing her selling shoes at the local mall to put herself through school. Making cappuccinos at the local café…instead she’d been balling up the cash men shoved in her G-string to survive and sacrificing her innocence along with it.
Dear God. And then there was the image of Bailey dancing in expensive lingerie on a stage that wouldn’t leave his head…how many men had gotten off seeing her like that? And why did that idea torture him?
He went for the whiskey then, because quite honestly, he didn’t know what else to do. A sixteen-year-old Lagavulin he found in the lounge would do the trick. Might help wipe from his head the look on Bailey’s face when he’d tossed that file into the fire and forced her hand.
She’d never wanted anyone to know about that part of her life. And he’d made her reveal it.
He carried the tumbler out onto the terrace and rested his palms on the railing. The sea glistened at the base of the cliffs in the moonlight. The whiskey slid down his throat, smoky and salty, a welcome heat to counter the disquiet plaguing him. He’d needed to know. Had to know. The ends justified the means. But now what?
He should take Bailey off the pitch. He should handle it alone for both their sakes. It was clear Alexander Gagnon had a fixation with her. He’d offered her an insane amount of money to sleep with him. And a man like that just didn’t give up…he pursued until he won. To hell with his deal.
But there was also Davide to consider. Bailey was his ace in the hole when it came to the elder Gagnon, and he was still very much in the picture. He needed her thinking to win.
The whiskey slid down his throat, smooth and fiery. Bailey’s words echoed in his head.
I had dreams, Jared. Just like you had. Except you had a brain and I had my body so I used it.
The look on her face when she’d given up…when she’d told him to take her off the deal.
His guts twisted. Bailey had fought her way out of a life most people would have accepted as their fate and never tried to rise above. But she had. She hadn’t let it define her. She was the smartest, most composed, drop-dead beautiful woman he’d ever met. Her brilliant ideas had made their presentation.
He stared out at the brightly lit boats bobbing on the sea, their smooth roll telegraphing a calm night to come. And a strange kind of certainty settled over him. Bailey needed someone to believe in her. He was pretty sure she’d never had that. And he wasn’t giving up on her.
It wasn’t even a question.
It was then that Jared Stone realized his manifesto was the biggest piece of crap he’d ever written.
* * *
Bailey had just slipped her nightie on when a knock came at the door. Her emotions far too close to the surface, she stayed where she was.
“I’m fine, Jared. I’m good with all of it. I just need some sleep.”
“I’m not leaving until I talk to you. Open the door.”
His tone was hard; implacable, like Jared was. She cursed, grabbed her robe and tugged it on. Attempted to compose herself as she pulled the door open and found him standing there like a fierce warrior, filling the doorway with his broad-shouldered frame.
“I am not dropping you,” he announced. “We are partners and we are doing this together.”
“Jared—” She bit her lip, furiously blinking back tears. Even after what she’d just told him, he was still backing her?
“We are a team,” he said quietly, blue gaze softening. “I’ve told you that from the beginning. You trusted me enough to tell me about your past tonight and I know that wasn’t easy. I need you in that room with me, Bailey. You’ve proven that.”
A tear slid down her cheek. She couldn’t help it. No one had ever shown such faith in her. She’d been going it alone since she was seventeen and suddenly, she felt so tired of it. Tired of fighting every battle by herself.
“Christ, Bailey.” He took a step forward and brushed the tear away with the pad of his thumb. “Did you think I was just going to abandon you? After everything you’ve put into this? Those are your ideas Davide loves.”
She looked down, anywhere but at him, but the tears kept rolling. “I thought you wouldn’t respect me, that you wouldn’t want me anywhere near this deal if you knew what I’d been…”
He slid his fingers under her chin and brought her gaze back up to his. “I am not going in there without you. And as for respecting you? I’ve never respected a woman more in my life. For who you are. For what you’ve done…”
Something melted inside of Bailey. Something that had been frozen for so long she’d forgotten it existed. She thought it might be her heart.
“But what about Alexander? Lord knows what he’s capable of and I would never forgive myself if you lose this deal because of me.”
“I’m not going to lose,” he said softly. “Alexander Gagnon likes to win. I like to win more.”
“But—”
He pressed his fingers against her lips. She fell silent in a sea of confusion that had only one focal point: the electricity that was so strong between them that it held her completely still as his eyes darkened with an emotion she couldn’t read. He put his mouth to the hot, wet tears dampening her cheeks and kissed each one away with a slow drag of his lips that started out comforting and ended up something else entirely.
Hot. Scorching hot.
She didn’t know who kissed who first. It was unspoken communication, her hands cupping his jaw, devouring him, while his found the belt to her robe, untied it and pushed it off her shoulders. She mov
ed into him until her bare skin was molded against the hard muscles of his chest, tasting him, knowing him, until she wasn’t sure where she started and he ended.
“You are so beautiful,” he rasped, his mouth leaving hers to trail a path of fire down her throat. When he hit the ultrasensitive spot between her neck and shoulder, she gasped and arched to give him better access. He took full advantage, nuzzling and exploring until she dug her hands into his shoulders and demanded more.
He drew back and took her in. Color swept every centimeter of her skin. “We can’t do this. You are my boss.”
He shook his head. “It’s never been that simple with us and you know it.”
“Jared…”
He slid a finger underneath the spaghetti strap of her nightie and slipped it off her shoulder. Her heart pounded in her chest as he weighed her breast in his palm and learned the shape of her. She could have pulled away then, should have pulled away, but the want in her shocked her, the fact she’d never let a man touch her like this becoming inconsequential somewhere around the time he took her inside the heat of his mouth and her knees went weak.
The rush, the sweet, all-encompassing rush knocked her brain sideways. She buried her fingers in his hair and closed her eyes. And for once in her life just let herself feel. Want. He slid his jean-clad leg between her thighs and brought her closer. He was hard and rough against her sensitive skin and it excited her beyond belief.
She moved against him and whimpered. “Jared…”
He slid the strap off her other shoulder and flicked his tongue over her engorged nipple. Gave her what her husky entreaty hadn’t been able to verbalize. And the unfamiliar throb inside her reached a fever pitch.
Somehow she was in his arms and he was striding across the room to the sofa in the lounge. He sat down, wrapped her legs around him and brought his mouth back to hers in a red-hot kiss that pulled her under again.
She should have been alarmed at how fast things were moving, that they were moving at all given her lack of experience, but somehow with Jared, it felt so right. She buried her mouth in the hollow of his neck and explored his musky, salty, utterly male scent.
The Magnate's Manifesto Page 9