The Magnate's Manifesto(51)

“I’m sorry.” He whispered the words against her mouth. Against the velvety softness of her cheek. Against the perfectly shaped earlobe he bit into, sending a shiver through her. It moved through him, made his heart race as his hands went to the hem of her dress and pushed it up, allowing his palms access to the smooth, voluptuous curve of her hip. The scent of her warm, heated flesh filled his head. He slid his hands under her bottom and dragged her to the edge of the vanity. He wouldn’t take her here…he just needed to feel her against him.

“Jared—” She moaned his name as if they should stop and start all at the same time. He pulled her hips into his and kissed her. Bailey whimpered and wound her legs around him, and if he’d been inside her it couldn’t have felt better than the sweet torture he was inflicting upon himself now.

He lifted his mouth from hers and framed her face with his palms. “As much as I want this, it’s not happening here.”

She nodded.

He lifted her off the counter and straightened her clothes, then his own.

“I need to fix my lipstick,” she murmured, looking a bit shattered. “You go.”

He nodded and pulled open the door. Was halfway through it, when he turned back, pulled her into his arms and stole one last kiss. She wound her arms around his neck and kissed him back. He indulged it for a few seconds, then set her away from him.

“We talk when we get back to the hotel, okay?”

“Okay.”

He released her and left. He did not see Alexander until he just about walked into him. Stopping short, his gaze flickered back to the door he’d just exited from.

“Oh, I caught the whole touching kiss.” The Frenchman’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Am I allowed to say I’m jealous? Because I am, Stone.”

“Why don’t we say we’re overdue for a drink instead?” Jared resisted the urge to deck him. He was shutting Alexander Gagnon down and he was shutting him down now.

Alexander lifted his shoulders. “If you say so.”

Jared led the way to the bar by way of answer, ordered two scotches and took a deep pull of his before he deigned to speak. “Here’s how this is going to go, Gagnon. You’re going to stay away from Bailey, you’re never going to say another sideways word to her, and if you do, I will take you out at the knees.”

Alexander smiled, a lazy, loose twist of the lips that wasn’t at all concerned. “You have it bad, you know that, Stone?”

He did. He was only beginning to realize how bad.

Alexander eyed him over the top of his glass. “She said you weren’t sleeping together.”

“Things change.” Jared set his drink down, flattened his palms on the bar and leaned forward until the far-too-smooth soon-to-be CEO filled his field of vision. “You aren’t ever having her. Get that through your head.”

Alexander took a sip of his scotch. “No isn’t a word I tend to take very seriously. It only makes me want something more.”

His mouth twisted. “You couldn’t even buy her. What makes you think you could ever have her?”

A warning light flickered in those slate-gray eyes, but his shrug was elegantly dismissive. “This deal will make or break you, Stone. Decide your future at a very rocky point in your company’s history. Why not set Bailey free for a night? Donate her to the cause? You can put her in the shower afterward and pretend I never happened.”

He froze. Clenched his hands by his sides. A fury like he’d never known blanketed him. “You are a sick bastard, you know that?” he gritted out. “She told me you wanted what I have. Well, you will never have what I have, Gagnon. Ever.”

Alexander’s face tightened. “You are walking a thin, thin line Stone.”

“As are you,” he bit out, shoving his drink on the bar and pushing to his feet. “I should have taken her under your nose tonight. That would have given me a deep sense of satisfaction.”

He walked away before he lost his mind. Then thought he might already have. Because he shouldn’t have said that. He should not have gone there.



Bailey reentered the restaurant just as Jared got up from the bar, a coldly furious look on his face, and walked away from Alexander. The matching look the Maison heir wore sent alarm bells ringing through her. What could possibly have happened in the last ten minutes?

Before she could snare Jared and find out, Davide was flagging him down to introduce him to someone. Then they were being rounded up for dinner with both Gagnons, the Gehrig team and several marketing executives from Maison. Jared sat beside her at the round table of ten, quietly seething, leaving Bailey to carry the conversation from their end.