He stared out the window, watching the mad drivers dart in and out of traffic with an early-morning fervor that was just this side of frightening. Winning the Maison partnership would be an incredible achievement. He could transform the consumer electronics industry with it. But he could no longer sacrifice his soul for the company he’d built. Maybe it was the summons from his father that had done it, the knowledge that life was finite. But he knew the path and it wasn’t this.
He didn’t need a trek to the Himalayas to find peace. He needed to trust himself. And he wanted to be back in his labs creating with the engineers.
The car rolled to a halt in front of the skyscraper containing the Maison offices. The Gehrig team had already pitched when they walked into the metal-and-chrome boardroom, filled to the brim with the marketing, PR and sales teams. He read the atmosphere: alive but not buzzing. And knew they just had to set the room on fire and the deal was theirs.
If Alexander Gagnon played fairly. Gagnon was uncharacteristically subdued as he introduced them to the heads of the key departments. They socialized for a few minutes, then began. Adrenaline surged through him as he walked to the front of the room and opened with the history of Stone Industries, the “why us” argument and the successful alliances his company had forged around the world.
By the time he’d laid the groundwork, given an impassioned speech about vision, the room was noticeably energized. He handed the clicker over to Bailey, who looked calm and composed. Gobsmackingly stunning. “We’ve got this,” he murmured. “Bring it home.”
She nodded and walked to the front of the room. There wasn’t a male eye that wasn’t on her behind in the beautifully tailored suit as she stopped and turned around. He was pretty sure the hushed whispers had more to do with the gossip from last night than the subject at hand, and apparently Bailey had figured that out too, a shadow falling across her face. He watched her blink, then visibly check herself. Pull her shoulders back. And begin.
She launched into her slides with an easy, firm command of her ideas. Laid them down as if everyone in the room better be in the game or they were missing something special. Head thrown back, she roamed the room, keeping their interest, soliciting their response. And when the arrogant young marketer who’d passed her photo around last night started a side conversation with a coworker that clearly had nothing to do with the presentation and everything to do with Bailey’s assets, she stopped by his chair and asked him if he had a question. Davide’s mouth twitched, the marketer shut his and sank back into his chair, and Bailey moved on.
Jared leaned back and simply watched. He didn’t sit poised to jump in and help her. Wasn’t concerned a fact might be wrong. He knew Bailey now, knew he could trust her. What he was fascinated with, however, was this Bailey. He’d seen her confident before, seen her unsure in her own shoes and overcompensating. But he had never seen this version. Commanding. Fierce. Combative. And he knew in that moment he’d been wrong the day they’d driven in from the airport into Paris. Bailey was more than any man had a right to expect in a woman. She was courageous and vulnerable and stunningly brilliant, everything he’d been convinced didn’t exist in a female.
She made him feel things he’d thought he’d never experience for another human being. Realize he was capable of it. And knew she’d been right; he was afraid. Afraid of making the same mistakes his father had made. Afraid of loving a woman who might leave.
Afraid of facing the truth of himself.
He shifted in the chair, his clarity unsettling. Bailey had never had love in her life, never had someone to protect her. Yet she was courageous enough to open herself up in the hopes she might someday have it. He was pretty sure he wanted to be that for her. To be the one to protect her. To believe in her.
He was scared he wanted all of her. Frightened it wasn’t within his realm.
He raked a hand through his hair, his guts doing a fine job of rearranging themselves as Bailey sat down beside him, a rosy glow in her cheeks.
He gave her a sideways look. “Where did that come from?”
“Garbage trucks.”
“Garbage trucks?”
Her mouth curved. “I’ll tell you later.”
Alexander opened the room to Q&A. There was a spirited debate about their direct-to-consumer ideas, their unorthodox retail strategy. But a seemingly general agreement the ideas were inspired. Alexander spoke last, directing a hard look at Jared. “All very impressive, Stone. We’d no doubt make a great partnership together. But when it comes down to it, it’s the products that will win, not the marketing. And to me, you and Gehrig are neck and neck.”
Fair point, Jared conceded. If you looked at the here and now. He stood up and walked to the front of the room to advance the slides.
“I’d like,” he said, pausing for emphasis, “to introduce you to Project X.”
The room buzzed as he unveiled his next generation product line: phones, tablets, computers, home alarms, thermostats all linked by a common platform—the connected home realized. No company, anywhere, had anything like it, and he felt the energy of the room skyrocket as the questions came fast and furious. How quickly can you bring it to market? Would people really pay that much for a thermostat that controlled their house? Can it really do that?
Alexander watched it all, a smile playing about his lips. As if he knew Jared had won. As if he wasn’t sure he had a choice anymore.
He said nothing until it was just them and Davide in the room. “You didn’t deign to enlighten us about Project X before now?”
“No,” Jared said deliberately, “I didn’t.”
Alexander’s eyes glittered. “I’ll give you a decision within the week, then.”
Jared nodded. Said his goodbyes to Davide. The older Frenchman looked heartsick as he kissed Bailey goodbye, and Jared had to smile. She had that effect on men. Now what was he going to do about it?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
FOR THE FIRST hour and a half of their flight back to San Francisco, Jared tore through the wrap-up from their presentation with quick efficiency. He fired a list of to-dos at Bailey, marked items for follow-up and outlined his vision for how he saw their marketing evolving. He wanted to expand her ideas to other partners, make them a cornerstone of their strategy, and although she loved the idea, she was too tired, too emotionally exhausted and too wary of him to really take any of it in.
Were they ever going to have that talk or was he just planning on forgetting they had ever happened?
Her stomach rolled. Had she turned him off that badly?
Jared repeated something in that relentless, authoritative tone that was getting on her nerves.
“What?”
He gave her a long look. “Need a break?”
She threw her notebook on the table in answer, stood and crossed to the tiny windows to stare out at the inky darkness. The snap of his laptop closing cut across the silence.
“Consider our business concluded for the evening, then.”
Something, some edge to his voice made her turn around. He was watching her with that strange, contemplative look he’d been giving her all day since they’d walked out of the Maison building, their presentation behind them.
He pressed a button on the console and asked the attendant to serve the champagne.
She lifted a brow. “We haven’t won yet.”
“You need to be a more positive thinker.”
Her chest tightened, lifting her shoulders. “Alexander could still follow through on his threats, Jared. Choose Gehrig.”
“He won’t. He wants Project X.”
“And if he continues to play games for the sake of it?”
He lifted a shoulder. “Then I’ll reinvent myself. Frankly, I’m very much in the mood.”
He was in some kind of mood, that was for sure. Another side of him she couldn’t read.
Betty, a young, attractive twenty-something brunette with an eye for Jared, bustled in with the champagne and poured it into two flutes.
The brunette put the champagne bottle in the ice bucket, flashed Bailey an “I am so jealous” look and disappeared.
Jared picked up the glasses and crossed over to hand one to her. Warmth seeped into her cheeks as his fingers brushed hers. “You know what she was thinking.”
His blue eyes glittered with intent. “Then she’d be right wouldn’t she? I don’t intend to spend the next thirteen hours studying our stock price.”
Her pulse sped into overdrive. “We haven’t even talked yet.”
“So let’s talk.” He lifted his glass and tipped it at her. “You were magnificent in that room today, Bailey. Absolutely brilliant. You have earned my trust, earned my respect. You can stand by my side any time and I would be lucky to have you there.”
Oh. She rocked back on her heels. His gaze remained on her, purposeful, intent. “You had the room in the palm of your hand. Including me.”
Her stomach contracted. “I don’t know about that.” She rested her glass against her chin, “The garbage trucks woke me up this morning. And there I was standing at the window watching them and I knew you were right. If I don’t deal with my garbage, with my past, and accept that it’s a part of me, I will never truly move forward.” She looked up at the man who had never doubted her, not even once, when so many people in her life had. “I wanted to win this for you. That’s all I knew.”
He captured her free hand in his and tugged her forward. “I didn’t walk away from you last night because I didn’t want you, Bailey. I walked away because I wanted that woman, the woman who blew my mind in that boardroom today.”
She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “I’m still figuring out who she is.”
“I know,” he said softly. “Every time I watch you struggle and triumph, it touches something inside of me. I can no more remain immune to you than I can stop the sun from rising in the morning. And that terrifies me.”
Her heart slammed against her chest, loud and insistent.
“Last night,” he admitted, tracing his thumb over her cheek, “the thought of Alexander getting anywhere near you made me crazy. I had to tell him he would never have you because I want you. I don’t want anyone else to have you. But I’ve never been that man, Bailey, the man who sticks. I don’t even know if I’m capable of it.”
She pulled in a breath, but the air in the tiny plane suddenly seemed nonexistent. The joy exploding inside her that she hadn’t ruined everything was almost overwhelming. “Maybe we both need to try…” she managed to get out. “Try to move beyond our pasts.”
His mouth twisted. “We’re quite a pair, no?” He hooked his fingers in the waistband of her skirt and pulled her flush against him.
Her lashes drifted down as heat ignited inside her. “We make a good one, though.”
He nodded, his gaze resting on hers. “You said you’d settle for a man who respects you. A man who tells the truth. A man who wants you for who you are. I cannot, will not, make promises I’m not sure I can keep. But I can promise you those things, Bailey. And I’m willing to try with the rest.”
Emotion clogged her throat, so big, so huge, she felt as if she might choke on it. She didn’t need his promises. It had never been about that with them. It had been about trust. And for the first time in her life, she trusted a man explicitly, without reservation.
“Last night might not have been the last time you need to pick me up,” she murmured, offering him an out. “I am definitely a work in progress.”
He brought his mouth down to brush against hers. “Consider me on board.”
He kissed her then, a long, lingering promise of a kiss that lit her from the inside out. Her arms crept around his neck. He ditched their glasses, swung her up in his arms and carried her into the bedroom at the back of the plane. It was tiny, dominated by a king-size bed and a chest of drawers, and when he set her down on the soft carpet and sat on the bed, her pulse rate skyrocketed.
“Last night,” he murmured, leaning back on his palms, “I didn’t want sex between us to be about anger. I didn’t want you lowering yourself to that. But tonight,” he amended huskily, his gaze on hers, “feel free to demonstrate.”
She stared at him. “Jared—”
He shook his head. “I don’t want that memory between us. The thought of you doing this for me is a massive turn-on, Bailey. For no other reason than you are you and you do that to me. Not because you did it for hundreds of other men who couldn’t have you and I can.”
The heat in his gaze got her. The deep, powerful throb of the jet beneath her feet mirrored the one pulsing between them. Her head went there and then her body followed. She wanted to do this for him. She wanted to wipe away the memory of last night.
She bent her leg and tugged a shoe off. He held up his hands, eyes glittering. “No missiles, please.”
She tossed the shoe on the floor. Reached for the second. Then she moved forward to stand in front of him. His electric-blue eyes darkened into deep metallic as she reached for the top button of her blouse.
“There are rules,” she murmured. “No kissing and no touching.”
His gaze narrowed. “I think I’ve changed my mind.”
“No, you haven’t.” She took her time, working her way down the buttons. Watched him as she stripped off the shirt and dropped it to the floor. His gaze fell to her breasts encased in cream-colored lace, her nipples already hard and pressing insistently against the confining material. He swallowed hard.
“Still want to change your mind?”
“No,” he rasped. “I’m good.”
She straddled him. Waited for the detached feeling that always came with this. But his eyes wouldn’t let her; they held hers firm and forced her to connect. With Jared there was only the truth. There only ever had been.
His heavy-lidded stare dropped to her erect, pink-tipped nipples. “I’m not sure why they call this a lap dance. Feels more like torture to me.”
“Yes,” she agreed, “it could be described that way. Except,” she murmured, rotating her hips in a seductive circle against him, “if you’re a very good boy you might get more.”
He muttered something under his breath she thought she deciphered as, “I sure hope so,” and closed his eyes.
He was hard beneath her, thick and long under his suit pants, and this time it was she who swallowed. She remembered how he had filled her. Remembered how her muscles had clenched around him and how powerful her release had been. Lord.
She kept up her sinuous rotations. His thighs tensed beneath her, his hands fisting at his sides. “This better be special treatment, Bailey. Because if you did this for another man, I might have to kill him. Kill them all.”
She leaned down and gave him a kiss. “Easy, tiger. It is.”
He slid his hands over her hips. She removed them. “No hands.”
“But you just kissed me…”
“That’s because I’m in charge.”
Ruddy color dusted his cheekbones. “Go ahead, convince yourself of that.”
“No hands,” she repeated, swaying closer. “Lips, however, are allowed.”
He dipped his head and took her engorged nipple in his mouth. The hot warmth of his lips around her sent a bolt of heat to her core. She arched her back on a low moan and gave herself to him, wholly, sinfully, rocking against him.
He transferred his attention to the other hard peak and took her higher. She felt herself unraveling under his touch, losing the control she’d once so desperately craved. But this was Jared, and she was mad about him.
“Goddammit, Bailey.” He lifted his head, eyes glittering. “I’m waving the white flag, whatever you need.”
She stood up and slid her skirt off. Her panties. His gaze tracked her every movement, hot, hungry. She came back to him, moved her fingers to the button of his trousers and slid it out of the material. Then she eased his zipper down.
“Please,” he was
begging now. “Hands are good. I do good things with them.”
She freed him from his boxers. Lowered herself to brush against the hard, hot length of him. “No hands.”
She was slick and fully aroused, but he was a lot to handle. It took all her concentration to take him inside her, ease herself down on the potent length of him. She hadn’t taken half of him when a low groan escaped her lips. “Jared—”
“Oh yes you can,” he rasped, reading the look. “But you need to let me use my hands.”
She nodded. Closed her eyes as his palms took the weight of her hips and held her over him, sliding farther inside her. He held her there while her body adjusted to him, his superior strength sending a surge of lust through her.
“More,” she groaned.
He gave it to her, slowly, inch by inch, whispering in her ear how much he wanted her, how good she felt. His sexy voice excited her, inflamed her, softening her body until she took him all. It was all she could do to breathe with him buried inside her, but his hands supported her hips, controlling the rhythm, easing her into it.
The feeling of intense fullness morphed into a slow, hot burn every time he took her. The angle, the spot he was reaching deep inside her, promised extreme pleasure. Higher and higher he led her until it wasn’t enough anymore—until she wanted to scream. She buried her hands in his hair and pleaded in a husky tone she didn’t recognize as her own.
He slid his hand between them and pressed his thumb against the throbbing center of her. She looked down, watched him, the erotic sight of the rough passes of his thumb over her throbbing center summoning a wild, shattering release within seconds, her love for him escaping her lips as the white-hot intensity tore her apart.
He heard her, she knew, from the way he froze beneath her. Then the tight convulsions of her body around him pushed him over the edge, an animalistic groan tearing itself from his throat. And then there was no room for thought. Only pleasure.
The fact that he didn’t repeat her words as he settled her against his chest and put his lips to her hair, his breathing hard and uneven, didn’t completely throw her. This was Jared, after all, who’d just taken a huge step in telling her how he felt. She was going to focus on that and nothing else. Not on the very real possibility he would never get there.
The Magnate's Manifesto Page 15