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“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.
“Get some rest,” Jared told her. “We won’t be needing you anymore.”
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.”
