Davide Gagnon detached himself from the group he was standing with and came toward them, his sun-lined, handsome, younger-looking-than-he-was face breaking into a wide smile as he took Bailey’s hand and brought it to his mouth. “My pilot told me you were lovely,” he murmured gallantly. “I think he erred on the conservative side.”
Bailey gave their host a warm smile and returned his greeting. In French. In perfectly accented, lilting Parisian French that sounded so sexy Jared’s jaw dropped open.
“I think I’m in love,” Davide murmured, hanging on to her hand. “What are you doing with the most controversial man in the room, ma chère?”
“And the most brilliant,” Bailey returned smoothly as she drew back, an amused sparkle lighting her blue eyes. “I’m with him for his brain.”
Jared’s gaze tangled with hers. She appreciated a lot more than his brain, he was sure of it. And he suddenly had the burning urge to make her admit it. Maybe it was the look of pure male appreciation on Davide’s face. Maybe it had been the scene with the shoes. Regardless, it was out of the question. He had to be a good boy. He was on a very short leash with no room for error.
“You have an absolutely magnificent home,” he murmured appreciatively, when Davide finally deigned to let go of Bailey’s hand and offer him his. “Thank you for the invitation to join you.”
“It only increased the desirability of my guest list,” the distinguished Frenchman said in a wry tone. “Like you or hate you, they all want to meet you.”
Jared caught the disapproval the Frenchman lobbed him loud and clear. “It was a personal joke that should never have been made public,” he asserted.
“But it was,” Davide drawled. “And now you’ve alienated fifty percent of the population.”
Tension tightened his jaw. “It will blow over.”
Gagnon’s eyes glinted. “That’s what Richard Braydon thought when his comments about the French were broadcast on YouTube.” His gaze was deliberate. “It destroyed his business.”
A fist reached in and wrapped itself around his heart. Gagnon could not have missed the business stories depicting him teetering on a high-wire when it came to retaining control of his company. His radical push in a direction few dared to go. The Frenchman’s deal would push him over the edge one way or another, and Davide knew it.
“It will blow over,” Jared reiterated harshly. “And when you see what we have in our marketing plan, you will not have any doubts, I promise you.”
The other man inclined his head. “I expect brilliance from you, Stone. It’s the wild cards you throw my way I’m not so sure about.”
Jared gritted his teeth as Gagnon blew off the conversation and turned to introduce them around. Turned to introduce Bailey around, if he were to be accurate. With himself in Davide’s bad books, she apparently was a more enticing draw.
He spent the rest of the cocktail hour deflecting conversation of his manifesto, which truly seemed to have struck a global note. Heartily sick of it and inordinately annoyed with himself, he was then seated next to Gagnon’s daughter, Micheline, for dinner. Whether a joke or penance on Davide’s part, Jared thought he’d died and gone to hell by the main course. Micheline had not let up over the soup and appetizers about how damaging his effort “to be cute” was to women. How much it denigrated everything she’d worked for.
By the time the Cornish hens came, he would have laid down on the floor and allowed her to stick needles in every part of him if she would have stopped. Just stopped.
Bailey, of course, had been placed beside Davide. She spent the evening chatting away to him in that perfect French he didn’t understand so he couldn’t follow their conversation. Apparently, she had lost her nerves.
Micheline glanced over at her father and Bailey, her thin mouth curving in a cynical smile. “She was a brilliant stroke of strategy on your part, Jared, no doubt about it. You know Daddy can’t resist a beautiful blonde.”
“She’s extremely smart,” Jared muttered. And annoying. He needed to be in on that conversation. But it didn’t happen. Dessert stretched into liqueurs and no one moved. Finally, the French singer took the stage on the terrace, the band backing her up, and Jared seized the opportunity to grab his CMO.
“Care for a dance?” he requested on a slightly belligerent note, holding out his hand.
She nodded and excused herself from Davide’s side. Jared’s long strides ate up the distance to the dance floor set up on a corner of the balcony. He slid an arm around Bailey’s waist, laced his fingers through hers and pulled her to him.