Alexander’s cool, unruffled composure across the table was utterly unnerving. As if they’d been trading old war stories rather than him throwing her past in her face.
The night thankfully ended an hour later when Davide, she figured, took pity on her and suggested they do a final nightcap back at the villa. He insisted she rest rather than join them, and Bailey didn’t protest. She brushed off Jared’s intention to walk her to her room. “I’m fine.”
He came anyway, wearing a frown.
“I’ll be back to check on you,” he said when they’d reached her room, planting a hand against the wall and looking her over. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.” She pressed a hand to her pounding head, which was making her feel distinctly nauseous now. “Don’t bother. I’ll be asleep.”
He stared her down. “I’ll be back in half an hour.”
* * *
Bailey forced some painkillers down her throat with a glass of water and paced her beautiful, airy suite. The more she paced, the more her head pounded. The two lives she’d so carefully kept light-years apart for so long had just crashed together with debilitating consequences. And the chances she was going to be able to keep them apart any longer were slim. Alexander Gagnon had offered her fifty thousand dollars to sleep with him almost ten years ago. And now she had to face him, to pitch to him over a boardroom table?
What if she had to work with him afterward?
The trails of perspiration rolling down her nape made her feel hot, feverish. She had not spent years of her life building her reputation in the business world to let a man like Alexander Gagnon destroy it. To assume he knew what she was when she wasn’t anything like that.
I remember every curve, every dip of your mind-blowing body. How you seduced every man in that room and left them begging for more…
Alexander’s words, cutting, accusatory, washed over her. Suddenly she felt dirty, so dirty. Hands shaking, she ripped off her jeans and tops. Found her bathing suit, threw it on and took the back stairs to the beach. The sea was dark and strewn with moonlight. The surf was up, eating into the sand with swift currents. She ignored how the darkness made it look dangerous, walked into it and struck out to a place unknown. To a place where the past couldn’t find her.
* * *
Jared knocked on Bailey’s door forty-five minutes later. He’d nursed a final brandy with Davide and the others, fought the urge to put his fist through Alexander Gagnon’s face and ultimately restrained himself. He didn’t believe Bailey for a second when she’d said she didn’t know him. She’d had a violent reaction the minute she’d seen him. He’d felt it.
They don’t know, do they? You’ve moved on. Gone to a great deal of trouble to put your past behind you.
What had Gagnon been talking about?
He knocked again on the door, his mouth tightening. Nothing. He waited five more seconds, knocked again and turned the knob. The door was open, a table lamp flooding the drawing room with light. No Bailey. He strode across the room, pushed her bedroom door open and saw the bed hadn’t been touched. Her clothes were lying in a heap on the floor, which raised his antennae because Bailey was obsessively, compulsively neat.
He walked out onto the floodlit terrace and found it empty. Scanning the grounds, he searched for her. On the beach below a flash of white in the water caught his eye. Bailey’s pale skin in the moonlight. There. He stripped off his shoes and socks and went after her.
She was so far out in the waves, he almost dived in fully clothed. But her pace was steady and her strokes sure, so he waited her out instead, his heels sinking into the sand. When she reached shore, she headed toward her towel, not fifteen feet from him, but she didn’t notice him at all.
He allowed himself to enjoy the view while she toweled off. He’d had his fair share of women in his life. Some would say gone through them much more carelessly than a man should. But he’d never seen a woman look so utterly…goddess-like in a bathing suit.
The spotlights on the beach rendered those never-ending legs of hers a work of art. The product of gently rolling hips, they were slim enough to look delicate, curved enough to be irresistible. His hungry gaze moved upward, over her slim waist and more than ample chest, the perfection of which made his mouth go dry. She might not be a D cup, but she was exquisite.
She reached up and pulled her hair back into a ponytail, squeezing the water from it. It threw her delicate, unforgettable beauty into perfect spotlight. She looked untouchable…haunted.
It reminded him why he was here. He started toward her. She bent over to dry her calves. Her mouthwatering backside was not something to be missed. The round, dark mark on the curve of her buttock wasn’t either. He froze. It was unmistakably a mole. A mole Alexander Gagnon knew intimately enough to call out.
He was across the sand and in her face so fast it made his own head spin. Bailey looked up, her pale face catching the moonlight. Her hands slapped the towel around her hips but he was faster, spinning her around and pointing at the mark.
“You lied to me,” he snarled. “You don’t know him but he knows about intimate marks on your body? What exactly is going on?”
She tried to twist out of his hold, but he was stronger, his fingers digging into her upper arms. Her eyes flashed dark, almost gray in the moonlight, contrasting with her chalk-white cheeks. “Get your hands off me, Jared. Or are you no better than him?’
He let her go then, fury singeing his nerve endings. “We are negotiating a deal worth tens of millions of dollars a year, Bailey. I want the truth and I want it now.”
She took a step back. Wrapped her arms around herself. “I told you the truth. I don’t know him. I met him once when I lived in Vegas. He came on to me, I turned him down. That’s it.”
“That’s it?” He slapped his palms against his temples, biting out a curse. Seconds passed, three, maybe four. Then he pinned his gaze on her face. “How did he know about the mole if you turned him down?”
She went even paler. “There’s nothing further you need to know that has anything to do with this deal.” Her chin came up. “That’s all I’m answering and this conversation is done.”
His blood fired. Raced in his veins. And he realized his fury had nothing to do with the deal. He wanted to know why that snake had an intimate knowledge of Bailey’s behind. “I don’t think so.” He took a step closer, and this time she didn’t back up. She stood her ground, eyes flashing. “You turn every man in Silicon Valley down. You act like you are untouchable…and yet that arrogant jerk, known for his womanizing, has had his hands on you… I don’t get it.”
She stepped up to him, her heat fusing with his until they were in danger of a spontaneous combustion. “What’s the matter, Jared? You can’t stand that it wasn’t you? That Mr. Manifesto has met his match?”
He raked his gaze over her. “You know what, Bailey? You’re right. I can’t. Because if it had been me, you wouldn’t have walked away.”
She opened those luscious lips of hers to say something not very nice. He kissed her before she made it there. And by God, she was the sweetest female he’d ever tasted. Hot, honeyed perfection he savored for about two seconds before she raised her hand to slap him. He caught it in his and slid his other behind her nape, tangling it in her wet hair. Changed the kiss into a persuasive, seductive assault on her senses. The kind that always, without fail, worked.
* * *
Bailey wanted to fight but somewhere along the way, somewhere along the edges of the soul-destroying assault Jared was laying on her, she found escape. Needed it.
When he cupped the back of her head and angled her to take the kiss deeper, she let him. Moaned her approval when he brought his tongue into play and stroked her deeply. He smelled insanely good and he tasted better. Of cognac and expensive cigars. And she wanted more of him. A lot more.
He muttered something under his breath. Slid his hard thigh between her wet, shaking ones and brought her closer. So close his heart pounded beneath her palm. His hand at her back dragged her against his chest, urged her softness against his hardness. Her cool, air-tightened nipples brushed against him through the fine material of his shirt, and the heat that flooded her core came hot and hard. Like nothing she’d ever felt before.
He cursed again and dragged his mouth down the column of her throat, pressing openmouthed kisses against her damp skin. “Bailey,” he breathed. “Who is he to you?”
Reality hit her like the hard slap of the night waves to her face. He wasn’t kissing her because he wanted her. He was kissing her because he wanted to possess her. Just like all the others.
She sank a palm into his chest and pushed. Caught off guard, he stumbled backward. His gaze flew to hers. “What the—?”
“You are all dogs,” she hissed, legs spread wide, feet planted in the sand. “Fighting over what you want. What you think is yours.”
He gave her wild-eyed look a wary glance. “You were as into that kiss as I was.”
Her elegant blond brows came together. “And now I’m walking away. Again. You were wrong, Jared. You aren’t any different than the rest of them. You’re all the same.”