Take the Bait

by Cindy Dees

  Cam turned to her. “Will he plead guilty if I agree to ask for the maximum penalty under the law for his crimes?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “All right,” the judge said. “You two call a sidebar conference to plea this out, and get that disrespectful nutball out of my court.”

  She and Cam started to rise, and the judge said warningly, “I’m going to assume your client’s accusation of an inappropriate relationship between you two was a lie. There will be no improprieties in my courtroom, correct?”

  “That’s correct, Your Honor,” Cam replied deadpan.

  “Correct, Your Honor,” Dani chimed in.

  The judge shook his head and jotted down a note somewhere in Alex’s file. “Get out of here.”

  Cam took her elbow and hustled her out of the judge’s office before the man looked up again from his desk.

  “Will he take the plea?” he asked as they approached Koronov.

  “Gimme a sec.” She relayed the offer to Alex, who smiled broadly when he heard it. Shaking her head, she turned to Cam. “We have a deal.”

  The judge emerged from his office, and they rushed through the formalities of entering the plea and filing the required paperwork to indicate the plea deal had been struck. And just like that, it was over. Alex was remanded to the bailiff for processing, and she walked down the steps of the courthouse.

  “Dani! Wait up!”

  She turned to face Cam, who hurried down the steps to join her. “I’d take you out to lunch to celebrate your loss, but I’ve got a deposition this afternoon. Dinner tonight?”

  “That would be great.” Conscious of standing on the courthouse steps in sight of any number of members of the local legal community, they shook hands while trading wry smiles.

  She went back to the WMP offices in an ebullient mood. Finally. She and Cam could be together.

  But as soon as she set foot out of the elevator into the WMP offices, she knew something was wrong. Very wrong. Everyone was staring at her and scurried out of her way as she headed for her office. Zoey was waiting for her in her tiny cubbyhole.

  “What da heck?” she asked her friend under her breath.

  * * *

  ZOEY CLOSED THE door fast. “Word is you’re being canned. The big boys are gonna blame you for losing the Koronov case. The line will be that it was a no-brainer case and you couldn’t even get it right.” She added heavily, “But we all know why they’re firing you.”

  “The discrimination thing.”

  “Yeah, sweetie. Have you got enough to hang them with, yet?”

  She squeezed her eyes closed. Not without that name from Cam.

  Damn her bosses, anyway. This was just like what she’d read from those other women. The firm treaded right up to the edge of actionable behavior and then swept everything under the rug and quietly got rid of the female associate before she could make a stink.

  She was so close to having enough to nail them.

  But her gut yelled that WMP was going to manage to get rid of her before she could expose them. The bastards were going to get away with it. Again.

  Desperate, she picked up her cell phone and dialed Cam’s number. It kicked over to voice mail immediately. He must already be in his deposition. She swore under her breath as the beep signaled she could talk.

  “Cam, It’s me. WMP’s about to fire me. The only thing that will stop it is for me to get the name of who you were talking to that night at the cocktail party. The person who told you to screw me if you’d like because that’s what I was hired for. I have to warn you, WMP will get you blackballed with every law firm on the east coast if you get involved with this. I won’t hold it against you if you’d rather not say anything. You have your career to look out for. I shouldn’t have asked you at all. I’m just panicking a little, here. In fact, forget that I asked at all. I would never wreck your career to save mine.”

  The second she disconnected the call, buyer’s remorse slammed into her. She asked Zoey urgently, “Is there a way to delete messages once you’ve left them on someone else’s phone?”

  “No, honey. That’s why drunk texting is so dangerous.”

  “Dammit.” She thought fast. “Then I’ve got to get the partners to fire me before Cam can get that message and ruin his career for me. Quick, do you know if the partners are in the building?”

  “I can find out for you—” Zoey started.

  “Forget it. I’m just going upstairs to confront them, now.” She scooped up the affidavits and files she’d compiled and rushed out of her office.

  “Dani!” Zoey called after her. “Stop and think about this!”

  “I love him, Zoey. I’m not wrecking his life!”

  “But you’re wrecking yours—”

  The elevator door closed on her friend’s protests. Dani knew what she had to do: the right thing.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  DANI BARGED PAST Mr. Whitney’s secretary into his office. Her continued employment at this firm could be measured in minutes, anyway. Who cared if she pissed off the guy’s secretary? Whitney was not in his office, but she heard voices coming from the attached conference room. She thought she heard Pinter’s voice in there. Perfect. The partners were together.

  She stepped into the conference room boldly, and dead silence fell. Not only were the senior partners there, but most of the junior partners. “Let me guess,” she said breezily. “The topic of conversation just busted into your sanctimonious, holier-than-thou bullshit meeting.”

  Various degrees of shock, anger and disgust blossomed around the conference table.

  “Here’s the thing, boys. I’m on to you. I can’t believe it took this long for a female attorney to nail you bastards’ M.O.”

  “You are not invited to this meeting, Miss Wellford. Kindly leave,” Whitney declared stonily from the head of the table.

  “Kindly stuff it,” she said back, mimicking the man’s condescending tone exactly. “Here I went to all the trouble of assembling all these files and affidavits from former female employees of yours. And you’re telling me you have no interest whatsoever in knowing what’s inside them? Well, then. I’ll just take my files and leave. You can see them when they come to you in a discovery document from a civil rights attorney.” She added cheerfully, “Won’t this be fun?” She was bluffing, but what the partners didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. She’d always been hell on wheels over a stack of pennies playing poker with her brothers.

  She turned around with her armful of folders and made it all the way to the door before Pinter folded and called out, “Wait.”

  She turned around slowly, for dramatic effect. Great legal arguments always contained an element of theater in them. No sense giving up her tactical advantage by being the first to speak. She waited in expectant silence, staring around the room like a stern mother waiting for a guilty child to confess. If only she had that name from Cam. Then she truly would have these assholes by the short hairs. As it was, she only had their amorphous fears and not quite enough evidence to convict them on.

  This time it was Whitney who couldn’t take the heat and blurted, “What affidavits?”

  “Oh, those.” She waved a casual hand. “I contacted over twenty former female associates of the firm and inquired as to the circumstances of their departures. You can’t believe how many of them included detailed accounts of their work experiences here, too. Fascinating reading.”

  “We’ll want copies of those,” Whitney snapped.

  She dropped the blonde bimbo facade abruptly. “Get your own damned affidavits, Whitney.” She looked around the room accusingly. “We all know what’s in those statements anyway, don’t we, gentlemen?” She emphasized the last syllable. “Did you know WMP is the only major law firm of its size and scope in the state of New York without a single senior female associate?”

  A few of the lesser poker players at the table squirmed a little in their seats. The others merely stared at her, stone-faced.

  “What do yo
u want, Miss Wellford?” Pinter demanded baldly

  “I have no agenda. Our job is to seek the truth and defend the innocent, is it not?”

  Marcos, silent up until now, spoke up abruptly. “She’s got nothing. I’ve personally reviewed every firing we’ve made of female associates, and we’re safe in every case.”

  Crap. She just wanted a stalemate out of this confrontation. A promise that they wouldn’t destroy her reputation if they wouldn’t destroy hers. But if Marcos successfully called her bluff, she was toast. Now was no time to lose her nerve. She looked over at him coolly. “Worried enough to check, were you? Fascinating. Interesting also, that you chose a word like safe to describe the firm as opposed to clean or without reproach. May I quote you on that at a later date?”

  “No, you may not,” he snapped.

  “It goes without saying that your services will no longer be required at this firm, Miss Wellford.” Whitney stated.

  She shot him a laser look. “Are you firing me?”

  “Let’s just call this an amicable parting of the ways—”

  She cut him off briskly. “Let’s not.”

  “She’s got nothing. I’m telling you. Throw the bitch out on her ear.” Marcos’s voice rose, taking on a certain raspy quality.

  Was it him? Was he the one she’d overheard? Did she dare accuse Marcos and risk being wrong? Worse, it would end up throwing Cam under the bus. She closed her mouth. Dammit. She was not dragging him down with her.

  Whitney looked down the long conference table at her coldly. “If this afternoon’s little drama was designed to wangle some sort of severance settlement out of Whitney, Marcos & Pinter, you have miscalculated badly, Miss Wellford.” He pushed the intercom button in front of him. “Janice. Call security to escort Miss Wellford out of the building.”

  Pinter piped up, “You should seriously consider moving far, far from New York if you intend to continue in the practice of law, Miss Wellford.”

  This was it. She either made an accusation or she slunk out of here with her tail between her legs.

  She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t hurt Cam. Despair washed over her as the door opened behind her.

  “What the—!” Whitney exclaimed.

  “Townsend?” Marcos demanded. “What are you doing here?”

  Dani whipped around to face Cam, who stood in the doorway glaring down the conference table at the senior partners. “Go away, Cam. I’m not letting you wreck your career for mine.”

  “This isn’t about your career or mine, Dani,” he said low and fierce. “It’s about right and wrong.”

  Something cracked wide open in her heart right then and there. He was willing to throw himself on a sword for her? She officially adored him.

  Pinter spoke to Cam smoothly. “We’re in the middle of some internal business at the moment. If you’d give us a minute, Cam, we’ll wrap this up and be delighted to speak with you. Your name’s been discussed around this table on more than one occasion, and I think it’s safe to say WMP is ready to make you an offer you can’t refuse.”

  “You have no idea how right you are,” Cam replied pleasantly.

  Frowns around the table met his comment. These were attorneys, one and all, and they all could smell a threat no matter how pleasantly it was delivered.

  Dani literally tugged at his sleeve in panic. “Don’t do this, Cam!” She added under her breath—way under her breath for his ears only— “I love you. I don’t want this for you. I’ve already blown up my career—there’s no need to blow up yours.”

  He muttered back, “And that generosity of spirit would be part of why I love you. It would also be why I’m not letting you sacrifice yourself for me.”

  She glared at him and he glared right back.

  Finally, he murmured, “What say we call a truce and do this together?”

  “You’ll never work outside the DA’s office.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t need the money, and I like the work.”

  “You’re sure?” she breathed.

  “You and me, babe. Together.”

  It sounded like he was talking about more than tangling with WMP. Like he was talking about a long-term relationship. She searched his beautiful eyes seeking his meaning.

  Smart man that he was, he saw what she was silently asking of him. “I’m talking about the whole shooting match, Dani.”

  She would have loved nothing more than to launch herself into his arms right then, rip his clothes off and make wild love to him right there on the conference table in front of every last one of the sanctimonious WMP bastards.

  Laughter entered his gaze. “Hold that thought for me until tonight.”

  “That’s a deal, Counselor.”

  “You’re accepting the whole deal?” he asked in a low, charged tone.

  “The whole shooting match,” she declared.

  It was his turn for his gaze to ignite. He turned away from her briskly to stare down the table. “I’m prepared to testify that Wendall Marcos told me the only reason this firm hired Miss Wellford was so attorneys the firm is hoping to attract to work for it can screw her.”

  Gasps sounded around the table, and many of the partners straightened abruptly in alarm.

  “In fact, I already have a letter to that effect on file in an undisclosed location. Shall I have it sent to the New York State Bar Association?” He pulled out his cell phone and flicked at the touch screen quickly. “Yes or no, gentlemen. I’m a single touch away from bringing this house of cards down around your ears.”

  “You wouldn’t,” Whitney growled.

  “Make Miss Wellford an offer she can’t refuse,” Cam said sternly.

  The senior partners conferred in whispers at the far end of the table. Cam glanced down at her. “Go get em, kid. The bargaining table is yours.”

  Pinter’s head finally popped up from the huddle. “Name a number, Miss Wellford.”

  “Two.”

  Everyone looked at her in incomprehension, even Cam.

  “What’s that?” Pinter growled.

  “More precisely, two of three,” she repeated. “That’s the number of female senior partners I want in control of WMP within twelve months’ time, or else everything I’ve got goes public in a very messy, very high-profile lawsuit that takes this place down.”

  “Cash,” Marcos spluttered. “We’ll pay. A million dollars. Two? Five? Name a number.”

  “It’s not about the money, gentlemen. It’s about doing the right thing. Turn this into the most inclusive, socially-forward law firm on the east coast, or go down in flames. I leave the decision to you.”

  Every single person in the room could’ve caught flies in their open mouths.

  Into the silence, she said pleasantly, “I’ll be watching, gentlemen. Twelve months.”

  She turned around in time to see the huge smile spread across Cam’s face. “Remind me never to mess with you in a negotiation, Counselor.”

  “I couldn’t have done it without you, Counselor,” she replied, matching his smile.

  “We make a hell of a team.” He held the door open behind her. A pair of security guards pulled up short as the panel opened in front of them.

  “Your services will not be required, gentlemen,” Cam said to them. “We’ll show ourselves out of the building.”

  He held his arm out to Dani, and she looped her fingers around the hard muscles encased in smooth, warm wool. “Tell, me, Miss Wellford. Have you ever considered jumping across the aisle?”

  “Why, yes, Mr. Townsend. The thought had occurred to me to do some jumping into your aisle sooner rather than later, in fact.”

  He laughed warmly. “I’m serious. I’d love to work with you.”

  “You’re not joking?”

  “I’d be happy to put a good word in with the DA for you. And after he hears—unofficially, of course—what you just pulled off over at WMP, he’ll be all over hiring you.”

  Dani looked up and down the hall fast and pushed Cam into an open
doorway behind him. She shut the door to the empty conference room, dim and smelling of leather. “Are you serious?”

  “It would put us on the same side of the aisle. I don’t know how many more conflict of interest separations I can take from you, Dani. I want to go to sleep with you every night and wake up beside you every morning. I want to argue politics and talk about books and movies and tough cases, and I want to have sex with you all the damned time. Hell. I want to marry you.”

  She stared at him in disbelief. “Are you sure?”

  “Dead sure.”

  “Well, then. I guess I’m making a phone call to the district attorney to ask if he’s got a position open.”

  “Tomorrow. You’re making the call tomorrow,” he murmured.

  “There’s still time now—”

  “Right now, you’re making love to me on a conference table in the WMP offices. They did say I could screw you any time I’d like, after all.”

  Laughing, she reached for his tie, pulling it free of his neck with a sexy slither of silk. “I do like the way you think, Counselor.”

  “You haven’t answered my question, yet,” he said low and rough.

  “Which question would that be?”

  “Will you marry me?”

  She shimmied out of her silk blouse and pencil skirt and struck a pose in front of him in her naughty lingerie and stiletto heels. His eyes blazed like a wildfire. “As long as you promise to look at me just like that for the rest of your life.”

  “Done,” he declared promptly.

  “Then we have a deal,” she replied, laughing as he swept her off her feet and laid her on the table.

  “Thank God for Alexei Koronov bringing us together,” he muttered against her stomach, his breath incendiary on her flesh.

  “Thank you for coming forward about Marcos and sacrificing your shot at private practice.”

  He kissed his way between her breasts and paused, his mouth hovering just above hers, and his hot, hard male flesh hovering just above her opening below. “You’re welcome. And I’ll get all the private practice I need. With you.”

  “You’re so hokey.”

  “And you love it.”