The Magnate's Manifesto(53)

Apparently she’d also decided to live her life in denial. If she didn’t acknowledge the past and the choices she’d made, it could never hurt her. She could go on pretending she was something she wasn’t.

But that was all over now. With those men looking at her like this, she felt like a Jenga puzzle someone had pulled the last piece out of.

“I need to go,” she muttered in a low, harsh voice to Jared as their dessert plates were cleared. “Tell them I have a headache, tell them I’m exhausted…tell them whatever you want.”

She stood up, grabbed her wrap and skirted her way through the tables to the exit. On the street, she flagged a cab. Jared caught up with her as she was about to slide in.

“Get in,” he said grimly, climbing in behind her when she did.

Neither of them spoke until they were in Bailey’s hotel suite. She tossed her bag on a chair and turned on him. “Why would he do it? Why would he humiliate me like that? What happened between the two of you?”

Jared sat down on the sofa near the windows. The guilty schoolboy look he wore as he raked his hands through his hair made her heart sink into the ground.

“Alexander saw me coming out of the washroom. He made some comments I couldn’t let pass. I figured it was time we had a chat.”

She felt the color drain from her face. “We weren’t going to do that.”

“I changed my mind. I said some things I shouldn’t have.”

“Like what?”

His mouth flattened. “When I made it clear you were with me, he said he didn’t care. He said I should take one for the deal. Give you to him for a night then put you in the shower afterward and forget it happened.” He pressed his fingers to his temples. “I lost my mind. I went too far.”

A wave of nausea flashed over her. “What else did you say?”

“I told him I wished I’d taken you right there under his nose so he would know what he could never have.”

Her breath left her. “You didn’t.”

“I did.”

Her hands curled by her sides. “You….”

He stood up. “Bailey—”

“No.” She hurled the word at him. “You do not get to be excused for this, Jared. You do not get to be excused for egging him on in some testosterone-fueled duel when you knew what he was capable of. You knew he would not hesitate to throw my past in my face.”

His face grayed. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“No—no, you weren’t. You were too busy bragging about being the one to get me into bed. Making it impossible for him to not retaliate…” She threw her hands up in the air. “My God, Jared, I’m falling for you. Falling for you. How could you do this?”

He covered the ground between them with swift steps. The fire in his eyes set her back on her heels. “I have put this deal, this must-win deal, on the line for you this entire time, Bailey, because of my feelings for you. So do not question my intentions. Yes, I made a mistake tonight…I let my temper get the best of me, and I’m sorry for that. But it’s done. And maybe it’s a good thing, because you need to move on, you need to stop letting the past hold you captive.”

Her eyes widened. “You’re kidding, right? You think it’s a good thing that the entire table of men I have to present to tomorrow will now be picturing me naked on a stage rather than listening to what I have to say?”

He lifted a brow. “So what? Who cares what they think? You’re brilliant. Your ideas are brilliant. You want to defy the naysayers? Prove my manifesto is crap? Then get tougher, Bailey. Get a whole lot tougher than that.”

The fists she had clenched by her sides tightened. She thought she might hit him then, and he eyed her as if he would take it. Instead, she felt big, huge, fat tears burning the backs of her eyes and backed away from him before she gave in to them.

“You said earlier you wanted to talk. Let’s talk then. This is proving very illuminating.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think now is the right time.”

His eyes said more than his words, the grim look stretching his face making her chest go tight. He was second-guessing what he’d said earlier. Second-guessing his feelings for her after what had happened tonight. After he’d watched an entire table of men react to what she’d been just as he had the first time she’d told him. Shocked. Appalled. She could see it on his face.

Anger built inside her, a white-hot storm that was impossible to control. She clenched her hands by her sides. How was it that every man in her life eventually rejected her? Her father, who’d thrown her out? The man she’d liked in Vegas who’d wanted only one thing? Now Jared.