The Magnate's Manifesto

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 rеsumе. 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?”