She wanted to say no. She desperately wanted to throw the offer back in his face and walk out of here, dignity intact. But two things stopped her. Jared Stone was offering her the one thing she’d sworn she’d never stop working for until she got it—the chance to sit on the executive committee of a Fortune 500 company. And despite everything that he was—an impossible, arrogant full-of-himself jerk—he was the most brilliant brain on the face of the planet. And everyone knew it. If she worked alongside him as his equal she could write her ticket. Ensure she never went back to the life she’d vowed to leave behind forever.
Survival was stronger than her pride. It always had been. And men having all the power in her world wasn’t anything unusual. She knew how to play them. How to beat them. And she could beat Jared Stone, too. She knew it.
She stared at him. At the haughty tilt of his chin. It was almost irresistible to show him how wrong he was. About her. About all women. This would be her gift to the female race…
“All right. On two conditions.”
His gaze narrowed.
“Double my salary and give me the title of CMO.”
“We don’t have a chief marketing officer.”
“Now we do.”
His eyes widened. Narrowed again. “Bailey…”
“We’re done then.” She turned away, every bit prepared to walk.
“Fine.” His curt agreement made her eyes widen, brought her swinging back around. “You can have both.”
She knew then that Jared Stone was in a great deal of trouble. And she was in the driver’s seat. But her euphoria didn’t last long as she nodded and made her way past Mary’s desk. There was no doubt she’d just made a deal with the devil. And when you did that, you paid for it.
CHAPTER TWO
BY THE TIME newly minted CMO Bailey threw herself into a cab twenty-four hours later, bound for San Jose Airport and a flight to France, the furor over Jared Stone’s manifesto had reached a fever pitch. Two feminist organizations had urged a full boycott of Stone Industries products in the wake of what they called his “irresponsible” and “repugnant” perspective on women. The female CEO of the largest clothing retailer in the country had commented on a national business news show, “It’s too bad Stone didn’t put this much thought into how he could balance out his board of directors, given that the valley is rife with female talent.”
In response, a leading men’s blog had declared Stone’s manifesto “genius,” calling the billionaire “a breath of fresh air for his honest assessment of this conflicted demographic.”
It was madness. Even now, the cabbie’s radio was blaring some inane talk show inviting men and women to call in with their opinions. She listened to one caller, a middle-aged male, praise Jared for his “balls” to take the bull by the horns and tell it like it was. Followed by a woman who called the previous caller “a caveman relic of bygone days.”
“Please,” Bailey begged, covering her eyes with the back of her hand, “turn it off. Turn the channel. Anything but him. I can’t take it anymore.”
The cabbie gave her an irritated glance through his grubby rearview mirror, as if he were fully on board with Jared’s perspective and she was the deluded one. But he switched the channel. Bailey fished her mobile out of her purse and dialed the only person she regularly informed of her whereabouts in case she was nabbed running through the park some night and became a statistic.
“Where are you?” her best friend and former Stanford roommate, Aria Kates, demanded. “I’ve been trying to get you ever since this Jared Stone thing broke.”
“On my way to the airport.” Bailey checked her lipstick with the mirror in her compact. “I’m going with him to France.”
“France? You didn’t quit? Bailey, that memo is outrageous.”
And designed for shock value. She shoved the mirror back in her purse, sat back against the worn, I’ve-seen-better-days seat, and pursed her lips. “He made me CMO.”
“I don’t care if he made you head of the Church of England…. He’s an ass!”
Bailey stared at the lineup of traffic in front of them. “I want this job, Aria. I know why he promoted me. I get that he wants me to be his female executive poster child. I, however, am going to take this and use it for what it’s worth. Get what I need, and get out.”