Jennifer Hayward - The Magnate's Manifesto

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?”

“Yes.”

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

His mouth twisted. “It’s not exactly in my bio. The bank did a good job of hushing it up, and only those close to it ever knew.”

Her gaze moved uncertainly over his. Wondering why he’d told her.

“Trust,” he said softly. “You shared with me. I need to share with you. I meant what I said, Bailey. This is the most important presentation of Stone Industries’ history. There are no second chances. We have to nail it. We have to trust each other completely walking into that room or we don’t do it at all.”

She chewed ferociously on her lower lip. He kept his gaze on hers. “You have to be all-in, Bailey.”

She nodded. “I’m in.”

His shoulders settled back into place, his relief palpable. “Good. Let’s try to streamline that second section so it sings…”

She leaned forward to grab her notebook. “Ouch.”

“What?”

She pressed her fingers to her neck. “I slept the wrong way last night. I’ve got the worst kind of kink.”

She’d been struggling with it throughout their rehearsals, he realized. He’d thought her funny faces had been grimaces about the material but instead, she’d been in pain.

“Come here.”

She looked blankly at him.

He held up his hands. “These are magic. Let me work it out so you can concentrate.”

She shook her head. “It’ll work itself out. Let’s just figure that p—”

He got to his feet and pointed at the chair. “We need to nail this and you obviously can’t concentrate. Five minutes.”

She came then, taking the chair he’d vacated, as if she knew further resistance was futile. “Here,” she told him, pointing to the spot. He sat down on the side of the chair, ran his fingers over her skin lightly, then with increasing pressure.

“Here?”

“Yes,” she groaned. “Be careful. It’s killing me.”

“Trust, remember?” He set about working the immobilized muscles, on the outer edges first, loosening them up so he could find his way to the source of the pain. He felt her relax, let him in. But only so much. And he wondered how often, if ever, this woman allowed herself to be vulnerable?

I like to be in control, just like you do, Jared. Always .

Kink worked fully, he brought his hands down to her shoulders and started to work out the knots from where she’d held herself stiff from the pain. He expected her to protest. Say that was fine. But she didn’t. And why the hell did he still have his hands on her?

The scent of her perfume filled his nostrils, light but heady. Like her … It made a fist coil tight in his chest. The air thickened around them, his hands slowing as he finished the job. She must have felt it too, this undeniable connection between them, because her breathing changed, quickened, a flush stained her alabaster skin, and she was completely pliable beneath his hands.

She wanted him .

Bailey St. John—queen of the brush-off—wanted him.

The vaguely shattering discovery took him to a place it wasn’t wise to go. The woman every man in Silicon Valley coveted was not impenetrable. No pun intended. She was far from asexual as some had suggested jokingly, and perhaps bitterly. And it struck him that maybe he’d been avoiding working with her, promoting her, because he’d been afraid of this . Because they’d have to work hand in hand. Because he’d wanted to unravel the mystery that was Bailey St. John from the first day she’d walked into his office.

Correction. From the night he’d hired her…

His body tightened with an almighty surge of testosterone. Not particularly admirable, but there it was. And how had he not realized it sooner? Hadn’t he learned this in grade school? You only fought with the girls you liked. And on a much more adult level, he realized he wanted Bailey in his bed. Under him as he peeled back layer upon layer.