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?”
