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Bailey wanted to say no. She desperately wanted to throw the offer back in his face and walk out of there, 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. And despite everything else that he was—impossible, arrogant and full of himself—he was brilliant. And everyone knew it. If she worked alongside him as his equal she could write her own 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.”
“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. There was no doubt she’d just made a deal with the devil. And when you did that you paid for it.
JENNIFER HAYWARD has been a fan of romance and adventure since filching her sister’s Harlequin Mills & Boon® novels to escape her teenaged angst.
Jennifer penned her first romance at nineteen. When it was rejected, she bristled at her mother’s suggestion that she needed more life experience. She went on to complete a journalism degree and intern as a sports broadcaster before settling into a career in public relations. Years of working alongside powerful, charismatic CEOs and traveling the world provided perfect fodder for the arrogant alpha males she loves to write about, and free research on the some of the world’s most glamorous locales.
A suitable amount of life experience under her belt, she sat down and conjured up the sexiest, most delicious Italian wine magnate she could imagine, had him make his biggest mistake and gave him a wife on the run. That story, THE DIVORCE PARTY, won her Harlequin’s So You Think You Can Write contest and a book contract. Turns out Mother knew best!
A native of Canada’s gorgeous east coast, Jennifer now lives in Toronto with her Viking husband and their young Viking-in-training. She considers her ten-year-old book club, comprising some of the most amazing women she’s ever met, a sacrosanct date in her calendar. And some day they will have their monthly meeting at her fantasy beach house, waves lapping at their feet, wine glasses in hand.
You can find Jennifer on Facebook and Twitter.
The Magnate’s Manifesto
Jennifer Hayward
A big thanks to Rebecca Avalon of Strip and Grow Rich, the original stripper school, for taking me inside the life and mind of a dancer and helping me bring Bailey to life. I can’t thank you enough!
Contents
THE DAY THAT Jared Stone’s manifesto sparked an incident of international female outrage happened to be, unfortunately for Stone, a slow news day. By 5:00 a.m. on Thursday, when the sexy Silicon Valley billionaire was reputed to be running the trails of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, as he did every morning in his connected-free beginning to the day, his manifesto was dinner conversation in Moscow. In London, as chicly dressed female office workers escaped brick and steel buildings to chase down lunch, his outrageous state of the union on twenty-first-century women was on the tip of every tongue, spoken in hushed, disbelieving tones on elevator trips down to ground level.
And in America, where the outrage was about to hit hardest, women who had spent their entire careers seeking out the C-suite only to find themselves blocked by a glass ceiling that seemed impossible to penetrate stared in disbelief at their smartphones. Maybe it was a joke, some said. Someone must have hacked into Stone’s email, said others. Doesn’t surprise me at all, interjected a final contingent, many of whom had dated Stone in an elusive quest to pin down the world’s most sought-after bachelor. He’s a cold bastard. I’m only surprised his true stripes didn’t appear sooner.
* * *
At her desk at 7:00 a.m. at the Stone Industries building in San Jose, Bailey St. John was oblivious to the firestorm her boss was creating. Intent on hacking her way through her own glass ceiling and armed with a steaming Americano with which to do so, she slid into her chair with as much grace as her pencil skirt would allow, harnessed a morning dose of optimism that today would be different, and flicked on her PC.
She