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Sam gave him a hard look. “Fine,” Jared rasped. He’d figure out a way to work the Bailey equation. “What else?”
“Cultural sensitivity training,” his head of legal interjected. “HR is going to set it up.”
“That,” Jared dismissed in a low voice, “is not happening. Next.”
Julie outlined her plan to rescue his reputation. It was solid, what he paid her for, and he agreed with it all, except for the cultural sensitivity training, and ended the meeting.
He had way bigger fish to fry. A board’s support to solidify. His own job to save.
He paced to the window as the door closed behind the group, attempting to digest how his perfect morning had turned into the day from hell. At the root of it all, the abrupt end to his “relationship” with his trustworthy 10:00 p.m. of late, Kimberly MacKenna. A logical accountant by trade, she’d sworn to him she wasn’t looking for anything permanent. So he’d let his guard down, let her in. Then last Saturday night, she’d plopped herself down on his sofa, declared he was breaking her heart and turned those baby blues on him in a look he’d have sworn he’d never see.
Get serious, Jared, they’d said. He had. By 10:00 a.m. on Monday she’d had his trademark diamond tennis bracelet on her arm and another one had bitten the dust.
He’d been sad and maybe a touch lonely when he’d written that manifesto. But those were the rules. No commitment. His mouth twisted as he pressed his palm against the glass. Maybe he should have given his PR team the official line on his parents’ marriage. How his mother had bled his father dry… How she’d turned him into half a man. It would have made him much more sympathetic.
Better yet, he thought, Julie could devote more of her time to controlling the industry media that wanted to lynch him before he’d even gotten his vision for Stone Industries’ next decade off the ground. When you’d parlayed a groundbreaking new personal computer created on your best friend’s dorm room floor into the most successful consumer electronics company in America, a NASDAQ gold mine, you didn’t expect the naysayers to start calling for the CEO’s head as soon as the waters got rough. You expected them to trust your vision, radically different though it might be from the rest of the industry, and assume you had a plan to revolutionize the connected home.
A harsh curse escaped his lips. They would rather tear him down than support him. They were carnivores waiting for the kill. Well, it wasn’t going to happen. He was going to go to France, tie up this exclusive partnership with Maison Electronique, cut his competitors off at the knees and deliver this deal signed and sealed to the board at his must-win executive committee meeting in two weeks.
All he had to do was present his marketing vision to Davide Gagnon and secure his buy-in, and it was a done deal.
Spinning away from the window, he stalked to the door and growled a command at Mary to get Bailey St. John in his office now. He would promote her all right. But he wasn’t a stupid man. He would leave himself a loophole so when she proved herself too inexperienced for the job, he could put things back where they belonged until she was ready.
His last call was to his head of IT. Whoever had hacked into his email was going to rue the day they’d crossed him. He promised them that.
* * *
Bailey had cooled her heels for fifteen minutes outside Jared Stone’s office, resignation in hand, when Mary finally motioned her in. Her ability to appear civil at an all-time low, she pushed the heavy wooden door open and moved into the intensely masculine space. Dominated by a massive marble-manteled fireplace and floor-to-ceiling windows, it was purposefully minimalistic; focused like its owner, who preferred to roam the hallways of Stone Industries and work alongside his engineers instead of sitting at a desk.
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.”
