“I sent your driver on. Told him you had a ride. And a meeting. With me.”

“Was that a meeting for me to punch you in the face for that stunt you just pulled?”

“Are we suddenly forgetting about what happened at my last product launch?”

Julia bit the inside of her cheek. “What?”

“All of the swag bags at the product reveal for Datasphere’s new smartphone had your OnePhone in it. And then you had that slogan projected on the wall…”

“OnePhone to rule them all.” She laughed. “It never gets old.”

“It’s old.”

“Disagree. But anyway, the fact is, your presentation wasn’t nearly as high profile as mine. A bunch of tech heads getting their specs fix. My presentations are events.”

“Only because you make a spectacle about every product you unveil.”

“It’s my signature, okay? People like it. It caters to my clientele. I’m a trend, Calvaresi. You should try it sometime.”

“A trend, huh? Why don’t you ask acid-washed jeans how that worked out?”

“I’m an evolving trend,” she bit out. “My products stay relevant.” She leaned back in the seat and the car started moving. “Where are we going?”

“My office.”

“I’m done working for the day,” she said.

“No, Julia, you aren’t. Not unless you want to miss out on the chance of a lifetime.”

“I just had the chance of a lifetime in there.” She looked down at her manicure. Her hands didn’t even look like hers anymore. No more chips and glitter. Her rough edges were being polished away nicely. Well, the rough edges of her looks. The social thing was a bit harder. She could cover the geek girl up with paint and cool clothes, but she was still there. She could just never show that poor, weak vulnerable girl to the world. Never again. “I get chances of a lifetime all the time.” She looked back up at him. “Chances most people never get. Why? Because I work hard. Because I’m a genius, yes. But the hard work, too. That means, if I pass up this chance of a lifetime, another one will happen before dinner.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it.”

“You seem so sure.”

Ferro leveled his dark gaze at her, a smile curving his lips. “You’ve been contacted by Barrows.”

“How did you know that?”

His smile widened. “I wasn’t sure until just now. But so have I. And so has Hamlin. We’ve all been tapped to design the new navigation system for their fleet of luxury cars.”

“Have we?” she asked, keeping her voice monotone. This offer had been about the biggest thing to hit since her One Phone had become the bestselling mobile device in the United States. A chance to have her devices in cars all over the world? A huge deal. Massive. And she was apparently dealing with stiff competition if she hoped to get it.

“We have. And if you want it, I can help you get it.”

“I don’t need your help.”

His expression didn’t falter. “You do. I’ve made you look incredibly vulnerable. A bit inexperienced and unprepared, even. You may need my help more than you realize.”

She gritted her teeth. It was the v word she hated most. “Catch.”

“What?”

“Catch, Calvaresi, what’s the catch?”

“You’ll be seeing a lot more of me,” he said, winning smile firmly in place. Ugh. He was so annoying. And hot. Which was even more annoying.

“Why? Because if you intend to pull more stuff like this, you can bet I won’t be happy about seeing more of you.”

“Most women are very happy to see more of me.”

“Most women don’t rival you for net worth and the position as head of the most profitable tech company in the world. Boom. Headshot.”

“Most women are also not such a spectacular pain in my ass. But I’m willing to let it go for the greater good.”

“Greater good?”

“I’ll be straight with you. I can’t land this account. Neither can you. I lack the…simplicity that your technology has.”

“You aren’t user friendly.”

“I haven’t dumbed anything down to create mass appeal unless necessary.”

“Snob.”

“Anyway,” he continued. “I lack the tech necessary to make the navigational devices simple and smooth for the average driver. You lack the sheer power I possess. You know my processors are superior to yours and they last longer. Hamlin, well, he can provide a mediocre version of my processor and your interface. Not as good on either end, but his processor is better than yours and his interface is better than mine.”

“And you know this how?”

“Corporate espionage, how else?”

“That’s not right.”

“As if you’ve never done it to me.”

She feigned a sneeze and looked out the window at the California scenery scrolling by. Rolling hills dotted with stucco walled-houses with red roofs and the jewel bright sea beyond. Even after seven years of living on the coast, the view took her breath away. It had been her new start to her brand-new life. A true reboot.

Thankfully it never got old since she needed a nice breathtaking view to distract her from Ferro and all of his questions and smiles and that spicy, masculine way he smelled.

Which was hard to ignore in the enclosed space of the limo. A lot of tech guys had a smell a bit like they’d been living in a cave. And some of them even had a permanent hunch from bending over the keyboard. Had she not hired an image consultant, she very well might have ended up that way herself. Because frankly, in her life, she’d become much more concerned with coding than how she looked to the world. When she’d tried on her own, she’d always come out looking ridiculous. Without a consultant, she was hopeless.

But Ferro wasn’t like that. He exuded a kind of easy charm and sex appeal that most people with his level of intelligence, including her, rarely bothered with.

Not that she could achieve sex appeal, even with professional help, even if she did bother, but it was a nice thought.

“I’ll take your silence as affirmation and move on,” he said, his tone dry. “I don’t want Hamlin to get the account, mainly because I want it. I’m sure you feel the same way about both of us.”

“Yes,” she said, still scanning the shoreline, keeping herself distracted. The limo wound up the side of a hill and she whipped around to look at Ferro. “I thought we were going to your office?”

“My home office.”

She frowned. “Why?”

“I’m not advertising any kind of alliance with you until I’ve had time to figure out how I want it to look.”

“For a man proposing a partnership of some kind you used the word I a lot.”

“Problem?” he asked, one dark eyebrow arched.

“There’s no I in team, Ferro, which you may have heard.”

“I hate clichés.”

“They’re cliché for a reason. Because they’re true.”

“Not necessarily,” he said.

The limo pulled around a corner and up to a security box with a facade in the same white stucco that was on the houses. It was shrouded by palm fronds and large, flowering plants so that it almost faded into the lush background.

Ferro leaned out the window of the limo and placed his thumb on a scanner. His driver did the same. “You, too,” he said.

“It won’t recognize me.”

“I know,” he said, “and you won’t be given clearance to use your print to open the gate. But I keep records.”

“Fingerprint records! Talk about paranoid.”

“Don’t I need to be?” he asked.

She shrugged and nodded in grudging agreement. Especially since she was one reason he should be paranoid. She wasn’t above snooping for secrets. But he did it to her, too, dammit. Fair was fair. Or two unfairs made it fair…or something.

“Now, you. Print,” he said.

She looked across the seat, across him and out the window. “You want me to just…lean over and do it?”

A flicker of amusement sparked in his eyes. “Yeah. Just lean over and do it.”

Her cheeks heated and she did her best not to make eye contact or show him that he’d disturbed her in any way. She was used to men. She worked with a lot of men, and she’d gotten to the point where their innuendos didn’t really bother her. Especially not when she had her armor on. The face she showed the world. The leather clad, boot-wearing, tough chick who took no prisoners in the boardroom.