The Magnate's Manifesto

He turned as her heels tapped across the Italian marble, and as usual when she was within ten feet of him, her composure seemed to slide a notch or two. She might not pursue his assets like every other female in Silicon Valley, but that didn’t mean she could ignore them. The piercing blue gaze he turned on her now was legendary for divesting a woman of her clothes faster than she could say “only if you respect me in the morning.” And if that didn’t do it for you, then his superbly toned body in the exquisitely tailored suit and his razor-sharp brain would. He supplemented his daily running routine with martial arts, and there was a joke going around the Valley that it was no coincidence his name was Stone. As in All-Night Jared Stone.

Heat filled her cheeks as he waved her into a chair, his finely crafted gold cuff links glinting in the sunlight. She started to sink into the sofa, obeying him like his mindless disciples, before she checked herself and straightened. “I’m not here to socialize, Jared. I’m here to resign.”

“Resign?” His usual husky, raspy tone held an incredulous edge.

“Yes, resign.” She pushed her shoulders back and walked toward him, refusing to let the balance of power shift in his favor as it always did. When she was a few inches away from him, she stopped and lifted her chin, absorbing the impact of that penetrating blue gaze. “I’m tired of drifting aimlessly through this company with you lying to me about where I’m headed.”

His gaze darkened. “Oh, come on, Bailey. I would think you of all people could take a joke.”

She sank her hands into her hips. “You meant every word of that, Jared. And to think I thought it might be our personality conflict that’s been holding me back.”

The corner of his mouth lifted, the scar that sliced through his upper lip whitening as skin stretched over bone. “You mean the fact that every time we’re in a boardroom together we want to dismantle each other in a slow and painful manner?” His eyes took on a smoky, deadly hue. “That’s the kind of thing that gets me out of bed in the morning.”

The futility of it all sent her head into an exasperated shake. “I think I’ve always known what your opinion of women is, but stupid me, I thought you actually respected me.”

“I do respect you.”

“Then why has everything I’ve done over the past three years failed to impress you? I was a star at my last company, Jared. You recruited me because of it. Why give Tate Davidson the job I deserved?”

“You weren’t ready,” he stated matter-of-factly, as much in control as she was out of it.

“In what way?”

“Your maturity levels,” he elaborated, looking down his perfect nose at her. “Your knee-jerk reactions. Right now is a good example. You didn’t even think this through.”

Antagonism lanced through her, setting every limb of her body on fire. “Oh, I thought it through all right. I’ve had three years to think it through. And forgive me if I don’t take the maturity criticism too hard after your childish little stunt this morning. You wanted to make every male in California laugh and slap each other on the back? Well, you’ve succeeded. Good on you. Another ten steps backward for womankind.”

His hooded gaze narrowed. “I put women in the boardroom when they deserve it, Bailey. But I won’t do it for appearance’s sake. I think you’re immensely talented and if you’d get over this ever-present need to prove yourself, you’d go far.”

She refused to let the compliment derail her when he was never going to change. Pushing her hair out of her face, she glared at him. “I’ve outperformed every male in this company over the past couple of years, and that hasn’t been enough. I’m through trying to impress you, Jared. Apparently the only thing that would is if I was a D cup.”

His mouth tipped up on one side in that crooked smile women loved. “I don’t think there’s a man in Silicon Valley who would find you lacking in any department, Bailey. You just don’t take any of them up on it.”

The backhanded compliment made her draw in a breath. Sent a rush of color to her cheeks, heating her all over. She’d asked for it. She really had. And now she had to go.

“Here,” she said, shoving the letter at him. “Consider this my response to your manifesto. And believe me, this was draft two.”

He curled his long, elegant fingers around the paper and scanned it. Then deliberately, slowly, his eyes on hers, tore it in half. “I won’t accept it.”

“Be glad I’m not filing a human rights suit against you,” she bit out and turned on her heel. “HR has the other copy. I’m giving you two weeks.”

“I’m offering you the VP marketing job, Bailey.” His words stopped her in her tracks. “You’ve done a phenomenal job boosting domestic sales. You deserve the chance to spread your wings.”

Elation flashed through her, success after three long years of brutally hard work overwhelming her, followed almost immediately by the grounding notion of exactly what was happening here. She turned around slowly, pinning him to the spot with her gaze. “Which member of your team advised you to leverage me?”

If she’d blinked she would have missed the muscle that jumped in his jaw, but she didn’t, and it made the anger already coursing through her practically flammable. “You want me,” she stated slowly, “to be your poster child. Your token female executive you can throw in the spotlight to silence the furor.”

His jaw hardened, silencing the recalcitrant muscle. “I want you to become my vice president of marketing, Bailey. Full stop. You’ve earned the opportunity, now take it. Don’t be stupid. We’re due at Davide Gagnon’s house in the south of France the day after tomorrow to present our marketing plan, and I need you by my side.”

She wanted to say no. She desperately wanted to throw the offer back in his face and walk out of here, dignity intact. But two things stopped her. Jared Stone was offering her the one thing she’d sworn she’d never stop working for until she got it—the chance to sit on the executive committee of a Fortune 500 company. And despite everything that he was—an impossible, arrogant full-of-himself jerk—he was the most brilliant brain on the face of the planet. And everyone knew it. If she worked alongside him as his equal she could write her ticket. Ensure she never went back to the life she’d vowed to leave behind forever.

Survival was stronger than her pride. It always had been. And men having all the power in her world wasn’t anything unusual. She knew how to play them. How to beat them. And she could beat Jared Stone, too. She knew it.

She stared at him. At the haughty tilt of his chin. It was almost irresistible to show him how wrong he was. About her. About all women. This would be her gift to the female race…

“All right. On two conditions.”

His gaze narrowed.

“Double my salary and give me the title of CMO.”

“We don’t have a chief marketing officer.”

“Now we do.”

His eyes widened. Narrowed again. “Bailey…”

“We’re done then.” She turned away, every bit prepared to walk.

“Fine.” His curt agreement made her eyes widen, brought her swinging back around. “You can have both.”

She knew then that Jared Stone was in a great deal of trouble. And she was in the driver’s seat. But her euphoria didn’t last long as she nodded and made her way past Mary’s desk. There was no doubt she’d just made a deal with the devil. And when you did that, you paid for it.

CHAPTER TWO

BY THE TIME newly minted CMO Bailey threw herself into a cab twenty-four hours later, bound for San Jose Airport and a flight to France, the furor over Jared Stone’s manifesto had reached a fever pitch. Two feminist organizations had urged a full boycott of Stone Industries products in the wake of what they called his “irresponsible” and “repugnant” perspective on women. The female CEO of the largest clothing retailer in the country had commented on a national business news show, “It’s too bad Stone didn’t put this much thought into how he could balance out his board of directors, given that the valley is rife with female talent.”

In response, a leading men’s blog had declared Stone’s manifesto “genius,” calling the billionaire “a breath of fresh air for his honest assessment of this conflicted demographic.”

It was madness. Even now, the cabbie’s radio was blaring some inane talk show inviting men and women to call in with their opinions. She listened to one caller, a middle-aged male, praise Jared for his “balls” to take the bull by the horns and tell it like it was. Followed by a woman who called the previous caller “a caveman relic of bygone days.”

“Please,” Bailey begged, covering her eyes with the back of her hand, “turn it off. Turn the channel. Anything but him. I can’t take it anymore.”

The cabbie gave her an irritated glance through his grubby rearview mirror, as if he were fully on board with Jared’s perspective and she was the deluded one. But he switched the channel. Bailey fished her mobile out of her purse and dialed the only person she regularly informed of her whereabouts in case she was nabbed running through the park some night and became a statistic.

“Where are you?” her best friend and former Stanford roommate, Aria Kates, demanded. “I’ve been trying to get you ever since this Jared Stone thing broke.”

“On my way to the airport.” Bailey checked her lipstick with the mirror in her compact. “I’m going with him to France.”

“France? You didn’t quit? Bailey, that memo is outrageous.”

And designed for shock value. She shoved the mirror back in her purse, sat back against the worn, I’ve-seen-better-days seat, and pursed her lips. “He made me CMO.”

“I don’t care if he made you head of the Church of England…. He’s an ass!”

Bailey stared at the lineup of traffic in front of them. “I want this job, Aria. I know why he promoted me. I get that he wants me to be his female executive poster child. I, however, am going to take this and use it for what it’s worth. Get what I need, and get out.”

Just as she’d done her entire life: clawed on to whatever she could grasp and used her talent and raw determination to succeed. Even when people told her she’d never do it.

She heard Aria take a sip of what was undoubtedly a large, extra-hot latte with four sweeteners, then pause for effect. “They say he’s going to either conquer the world or take everyone down in a cloud of dust. You prepared for the ride?”

Bailey smiled her first real smile of the day. “Did I ever tell you why I came to work for him?’

“Because you’re infatuated with his brain, Bails. And, I suspect, not only his brain.”

Bailey frowned at the phone. “Exactly what does that mean?”

“I mean the night he hired you. He didn’t start talking to you because he detected brilliance in that smart head of yours. He saw your legs across the room, made a beeline for you, then you impressed him. You could almost see him turn off that part of his brain.” Her friend sighed. “He may drive you crazy, but I’ve seen the two of you together. It’s like watching someone stick the positive and negative ends of a battery together.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I can handle Jared Stone.”

“That statement makes me think you’re delusional…. Where in France, by the way?”

“Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat in the south.”

“Jealous. Okay, well, have fun and keep yourself out of trouble. If you can with him along…”

Doubtful, Bailey conceded, focusing on the twelve-hour flight ahead with the big bad wolf. Admittedly, she’d had a slight infatuation with Jared when she joined Stone Industries. But then he’d started acting like the arrogant jerk he was and begun holding her back at every turn, and after that it hadn’t taken much effort at all to put her attraction aside. Because she was only at Stone Industries for one thing: to plunder Jared Stone’s genius and move on.

The master plan hadn’t changed.

Traffic went relatively smoothly for a Friday afternoon. Bailey stepped out of the cab in front of the tiny terminal for private flights, ready to soak up the quiet luxury from here on in. Instead she was blindsided by a sea of light, crisscrossing her vision like dancing explosions of fire. Camera flashes, her brain registered. She was stumbling to find her balance, her pupils dilating against the white lights, when a strong hand gripped her arm. She looked up to see Jared’s impossibly handsome face set in grim lines.

“Good God,” she muttered, hanging on to him as his security detail forged a path through the scrum. “Do you regret your little joke now?”

“I regretted it the minute it was broadcast to the world,” he muttered, shielding her from a particularly zealous photographer. “But basking in regret isn’t my style.”

No, it wasn’t…although looking amazing in the face of adversity was. Because in the middle of the jostling reporters, acting like a human shield for her, he looked all-powerful and infinitely gorgeous. His fitted dark jeans molded lean, powerful legs, topped by a cobalt-blue sweater that made his piercing blue eyes glitter in the late afternoon sun. And then there was his slicked-back dark hair he looked like he’d raked his hands through a million times that gave him a rebellious look.

When you tossed in the pirate-like scar twisting his upper lip, you ended up with a photo that would undoubtedly make front page news.

A photographer eluded Jared’s two bodyguards, stepped in front of them and stuck a microphone in Bailey’s face. “Kay Harris called you a figurehead this morning on her talk show. Any comment?”

One hundred percent true. Bailey gave the reporter an annoyed look as Jared started to push her forward. She leaned back against his arm, stood her ground and ignored his warning look. “I think,” she stated, speaking to the cameras that had swung to her, “Mr. Stone made an error in judgment he apologized for earlier today and that’s the end of the matter.” She waved her hand at the man at her side. “I work for a brilliant company that is on a trajectory to become the world’s top consumer electronics manufacturer. I couldn’t be prouder of what we’ve accomplished. And I,” she forced out, almost choking on the words, “have the utmost professional respect for Jared Stone. We have a great working relationship.”

The questions came at her fast and furious. She held up a hand, stated they had a flight to catch, and let Jared propel her forward, hand at her back.

“Since when did you become such a diplomat?” he muttered, ushering her through the glass doors into the terminal.

“Since you created that zoo out there.” She came to a halt inside the doors, took a deep breath and ran a hand over herself, straightening her clothing.

Jared did the same. Before the airline staff could spirit them off, he squared to face her. “Thank you. I owe you one.”

Her gaze flickered away from the intensity of his. Looking at Jared was like observing all the major forces of the world stuffed inside the human form—charging him with an energy, a polar pull that was impossible to ignore. She’d felt it that night he’d headed purposefully across that bar and ended up hiring her. But she didn’t need it now. Not when she’d gotten used to avoiding it. Not when she had to spend twelve hours crammed into a private jet with him absorbing it all.

“It was nothing,” she muttered. “Don’t make me regret saying it.”

“I’m sure you already do….” His taunting rejoinder brought her head up. The dark glint in his eyes reminded her that there was still a line in this détente of theirs. And she knew there was. She really did. She just couldn’t help it with him.

“After you,” he murmured, extending his arm toward the exit to the tarmac. She swished past him out the doors and up the stairs of the sleek ten-person Stone Industries jet. She’d been on it once before, the decor a study in dark male sophistication. An official boarded the plane for a cursory check of their passports, and Bailey settled into one of the sumptuously soft leather seats and buckled up.

They took off, the powerful little jet racing down the runway, leaving San Jose behind in a blur of bright lights. As soon as the seat belt lights were turned off, Jared unpacked a mountain of paperwork and suggested they rehearse the presentation. He wanted it perfect—was determined to rehearse until they’d nailed every last key message. Given that it was new material to her, it might be a long night.

It was. Their styles were completely opposite. She liked to wing it. Jared, emphatically not. Not to mention how intimidating he was when his passion for the subject took over. She could usually hold her own with the best of them, but he was too smart, too intense and too sure of himself to make it easy. So she resorted to her default mechanism of asking a million questions. Knowing the material inside out. What was the logic behind that statistic? Why were they making that particular point here? And wasn’t this information coming too soon? Shouldn’t they save it to drive the stake in at the end?

Four hours and four rounds of the presentation later, Jared flung himself into the chair opposite her and rubbed his hands over his eyes. “This isn’t working. You are the queen of going off script.”

“It makes it believable,” she countered, sinking down into her chair. “I’m playing off you, taking your lead. You’re the one who keeps losing the thread.”

He gave her a disbelieving look. “I’m following the slides.”

She blew out a breath as her head pounded like a jackhammer. “You are stuck on process. Try loosening up. It works beautifully. It’s even better when I have an audience.”

He dropped his head into his hands. “That idea scares me. Greatly.”

She looked longingly up at the flight attendant as she came to hover by them with an offer of predinner drinks. “I’m having a glass of wine. I’ve earned it.”

“Whiskey,” Jared muttered to the attendant, then sat back and watched her from beneath lowered lashes. The longest lowered lashes she’d ever encountered. Divine, really.

He opened them. “What is it about falling in line you have a problem with?”

Bailey widened her eyes. “I fall in line when I need to. Witness the press a few hours ago, for instance.”

“You are challenging everything I say,” he growled.

“I’m challenging everything that doesn’t make sense,” she countered. “I haven’t seen the material before. I’m an objective eye.”

“It’s perfect.”

“It would be perfect if everyone in the world thought exactly like you. Davide Gagnon has a creative streak. You need to appeal to that side of him.”

“An expert on him already?” he asked darkly.

“I did my homework.” She tore open the can of cashews she’d brought with her and shoved some in her mouth. “What value would I be adding if I fell into line like a trained seal?”

His expression inched darker. “A lot of value right now, given that this is the only rehearsal time we’re going to get. Davide is famous for his social lifestyle. You can bet he’ll have things lined up every night.”

She winced inwardly. Although her research had told her all about Davide Gagnon’s lavish lifestyle and love of a good party that tended to include the who’s who of Europe, and she’d packed accordingly, it was the type of lifestyle she abhorred. She’d seen too much of it when she’d danced in Vegas. The destructive things money and power could do. And although she’d been the girl who’d always gone home after the show rather than take advantage of the high rollers who’d wanted to lavish hefty doses of it on her, she’d seen—experienced—enough of it for a lifetime.

Focus on her studies, fast-track her business degree and get the hell out. That had been her mantra.

“Bailey?”

Jared was looking at her, an impatient look on his face. She blinked. “Sorry?”

“I was saying Davide has a fondness for blondes.” He folded one long leg over the other and popped a handful of the cashews into his mouth. “I consider you my secret weapon.”

Hostility flared through her, swift and sharp, spurred by a past she couldn’t quite banish. “If you’re suggesting I flirt with him, that’s not going to happen. And I can’t believe you would even say that considering that your reputation is hanging by a thread and I’m the only thing keeping it afloat.”

He gave her a long look as the attendant set their drinks on the table. “I was asking you to charm him, Bailey, not sleep with him.”

She gave him a black look. “Forgive me for misinterpreting. We women apparently don’t have a use beyond securing ourselves a rich man and keeping ourselves within the style to which we’ve become accustomed. So I just wanted to make the point.”

A muscle jumped in his jaw. “You were the one who just said I’d made my apology and bygones should be bygones. Perhaps you can walk the walk, no?”

“That was for public consumption.” She pulled the glass of deep ruby-red wine toward her. “Know that in my head, my respect for you personally is at an all-time low.”

His eyes darkened to a wintry, stormy blue. “As long as your professional respect is intact, I’m not worried about your personal opinion.”

And there it was. The man who cared about nothing but his driving need for success. He was legendary for it and she couldn’t fault it because she was his mirror image.

She took a sip of the rich, velvety red, her palate marking it a Cabernet/Merlot blend. “I am curious about one thing, though.”

He lifted a brow.

“What is your real opinion of women?”

His sexy, quirky mouth turned up on one side. “If you think I’m answering that, you consider me a stupider man than I am.”

‘No, really,” she insisted, waving her glass at him. “Utterly open conversation. I want to know.”

His long-lashed gaze held hers for a moment, then he shrugged. “I think the science of relationships goes back as far as time. As far as the cavemen… We men—we hunt, we gather. We provide. Women want us for what we can offer them. And as soon as we can’t, as soon as they get a better offer,” he drawled, “we are expendable.”

She was shocked into silence. Considering that her mother had been the only thing keeping her family afloat with her alcoholic father off work more than on, that seemed ludicrous. “You can’t really mean that,” she said after a moment. “It’s crazy to lump all women together like that.”

He lifted a shoulder. “I never say anything I don’t mean. You wonder who’s really in the power position, Bailey? Think about it.”

She frowned. “What about women who can provide for themselves? Women who bring equal billing to a relationship?”

“It doesn’t survive. There is always a balance of power in a relationship. And when a woman has that power, the relationship is never going to last. Women need us to dominate. To be the provider.”

She stared at him. “That’s ridiculous. You are impossible.”

His white smile glittered in the muted confines of the jet. “I’ve been called worse this week. Come on, admit it, Bailey. A strong woman like you must like a man to take control. Otherwise you’d walk all over him.”

A warning buzzed its way along her temple, signaling dangerous territory she wasn’t about to traverse. She lifted her chin, met his magnetic blue gaze head-on. “On the contrary. I like to be in control, just like you do, Jared. Always. Haven’t you figured that out already?”

His lashes lowered, studying, analyzing. “I’m not sure I have one-fifth of you figured out.”

The air between them suddenly felt too hot, too tight in the close confines of the jet that pulsed with the powerful throb of the engines. She took a jerky sip of her wine. “Should we get back to rehearsing?”

“After dinner.” He nodded toward her glass. “Enjoy your wine. Be social.”

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.