Hell. He’d told Sam this would happen. He should have listened to his instincts.
Bailey spent the rest of the evening trying to manage the thundercloud that was Jared. She had the distinct feeling Davide Gagnon was administering a slap on the hand to her boss by giving him the cold shoulder, because there was no doubt that he respected Jared immensely.
She felt as if she was doing damage control on all sides. She also felt that she was the missing piece of the puzzle. The link between Jared’s brilliance and Davide’s creative side. Davide loved her ideas. He thought they were grassroots, buzz-inducing genius. And it made her feel just this side of cocky as she stood at the two men’s sides for a last brandy as the crowd dwindled on the star-strewn terrace.
She felt empowered.
“My son, Alexander, has been delayed until tomorrow night,” Davide updated them, pointing his glass at Jared. “Since he will be assuming the mantle at Maison upon my retirement next year, I want him to take the lead on this partnership decision. Why don’t you enjoy the day tomorrow, meet Alexander at dinner and we can hear the presentation on Sunday?”
Jared, who had been raring to get the presentation nailed and over with, nodded congenially as if that were the greatest idea in the world.
“You’re planning on stepping back over the next few months and transitioning, then?”
Davide nodded. “But I will still be very involved. My son is nothing if not ambitious and aggressive, but he’ll need guidance.” He shot Jared an amused look. “You’ll like him. He likes to win as much as you do.”
Jared smiled. “Not a bad trait.” But his eyes were blazing with a plan. Four or five more hours of endless rehearsal? She almost groaned out loud at the thought. She might kill him first.
“I should say goodbye to a guest,” Davide observed, “then I think I’m going to turn in. I’ll see you in the morning for breakfast.”
Bailey couldn’t imagine anything better than bed. It was 2:30 a.m., her feet were killing her from the heels, she was jet-lagged, and the mental exhaustion of maintaining such a perfect facade all night, of using the French she hadn’t practiced in years, had fried her brain. And then there was Jared, who moved silently beside her into the house like a quiet, lethal animal ready to strike.
She stayed quiet because taunting the animal was never a good strategy. And she’d slipped during that dance. Had gotten caught up in him for a split second before she’d walked away.
She didn’t think that was helping their harmony.
The hallway stretched long and silent ahead of them. Jared stopped in front of her door, turned the handle and pushed it open. She came to a halt beside him, tension raking over her as she risked a look up at him. Latent, unresolved antagonism stretched like a live wire between them, Jared’s penetrating stare making her shift her weight to the other foot. Away from him.
She pulled in a breath. “I shouldn’t have said wh—”
Her heart sped into overdrive as he leaned forward and braced a hand against the wall behind her, his intent, purposeful look stopping the breath in her chest.
“Add the yoga idea to the deck, Bailey. Blow it out big and make it sing. And don’t ever, ever run a strategy by a client without my approval first. Or you’ll have the shortest tenure an executive at Stone Industries has ever seen.”
He had removed his hand from the wall, stepped back and slammed his way into his room before her breath started moving again. She stood there, frozen for about five good seconds, then closed the door behind her. She backed up against the wood frame and finally let a triumphant smile curve her lips.
She had won. She had forced Jared Stone to acknowledge her ideas had merit. Not only had merit—they were going to present them to Davide Gagnon.
The smile faded from her lips, adrenaline pounding through her, licking at her nerve endings. Just now, outside that door, for a split second, she’d been convinced Jared was going to kiss her. Worse, for a fraction of that second, she had been unbearably excited by the idea.
Pulling in a breath, she wiped the back of her hand against her mouth. Since when had she become a fan of Russian roulette? Because surely that’s what tonight had been.
With her own career at stake.
She might want to start thinking up alternative strategies.
CHAPTER FOUR
BAILEY WOKE UP full of “piss and vinegar” as her mother would have said, ready to attack the presentation, slot in her yoga idea and rehearse it until it sparkled. She pulled on shorts and a knit top, her mouth curving at the thought of her colorful mother. She may have limited her exposure to the family who’d turned her out when she’d started dancing, stripping as her father had bitingly referred to it, but it didn’t mean she didn’t have some good memories of her childhood.