by Dorien Kelly
“So much for the Digital Era,” Cara said to Annabeth, who looked damn pleased to have the mess relocated from the reception area to Cara’s office. “Hasn’t Newby ever heard of computers?”
Morgan edged in the doorway. “What do we have here? A rat maze?”
“They’re boxes,” Annabeth said. You moron was implicit in the curl of her lip.
Cara gave the receptionist a back off glare, then focused on Morgan.
“They’re the Newby mall leases and…” she looked around one more time “…a hell of a lot of other stuff. I have no idea what though.”
He pulled the packing tape from the top of the box closest to him. “Wow.”
“What?” Cara wove her way through the waist-high stacks of boxes and stood next to him.
“It’s definitely not what I expected to see,” he said.
Random documents had been thrown loosely into the box. She sifted through. Some were photocopies, some were originals, and most had the remnants of a great number of coffees and lunches staining them.
“Ugh.” Cara stepped back from the box. She hustled to her desk, and pulled the travel-sized bottle of hand sanitizer from her pencil drawer. “Does your client realize they’re about to fork over thirty-seven million dollars to a company that rubs their files with jelly doughnuts?”
Morgan laughed, but Cara really failed to see the humor. This was a huge amount of money, and the Newby people were obviously nuts.
Annabeth peeked into the box and her lip curled. “I’m getting out of here before I’m contaminated.”
Morgan worked his way around the rest of the maze, counting to himself as he went.
“Incredible,” he said in a voice that sounded a tad too cheery to Cara, given the situation. “This is like a huge jigsaw puzzle.”
“I hate puzzles,” Cara muttered.
“Yeah, but in this line of business, they pay.” He hesitated before saying, “I know she’s not your favorite person, but if this is too much for you to get through, let me see about getting Gail in here to help you.”
This little voice in the back of her head was screeching “Take the help!” but she didn’t dare. Not from Gail, who was out to knife her, or any other associate, for that matter. Maybe it was time to learn to like puzzles, even thirty-seven-freakin’-million-dollar ones.
“No way. I want to put the files in order myself. I don’t know if Newby’s just the worst-run business in America, or if they’re intentionally hiding something. Either way, I’m not leaving it for Gail to make the call.”
“I appreciate the personal investment, but I think you’re taking on too much—”
“Let me be the judge of what I can do.” She was a grinder, Cara reminded herself—the very best of grinders. And she would do what grinders did: work until she dropped. So what if vultures were already circling over her life?
Morgan’s expression was dubious. “Cara…” He shook his head, then gave a disgusted sigh. “It’s not going to do me any good to argue with you, is it?”
“It’s partnership or die,” she replied, softening the words with what she hoped was a gutsy smile.
“Great…Cara Adams, the first legal lemming. I’m getting this stuff moved to the small conference room, where it looks like you’ll be living.”
He nudged the closest pile of boxes with his toe and laughed again. Did he have to be so damned happy?
“Awesome,” he said. “I’m going to call Nic and give her a heads-up.”
And by six o’clock Saturday morning, Cara was facedown on the conference room couch. Forget the luxury condo in downtown Royal Oak. Her new address was Legal Hell, Michigan.
9
Cara’s Rule for Success 9:
The harder you work, the more you get ahead…
but only if someone important notices,
so make a show of it.
MARK REFUSED TO FEEL guilty because it was Sunday afternoon, he was on the golf course, and Cara was at S.U., training for the title of Most Bloodshot Eyes. Her choice. Her life.
Mark lined up his shot and swung. The ball immediately spun into the trees to the right of the fairway. God, sometimes he hated this game.
“That’s one nasty slice,” Stewart Harbedian commented, barely able to contain his glee.
“Thought you were a scratch golfer,” Howard Blenham added.
“We all have off days,” he said to the partners. For Mark, golf was a Zen experience. When all was right in his world, all was right in his game.
On this seventy-degree sunny Sunday, with the late-spring breeze eddying around him, all was wrong in Mark’s world. Though he refused to feel guilty about Cara’s obsessive work habits, he reserved the right to be good and pissed off.
He’d brought her dinner last night and the night before, after she’d refused to be coaxed out of the building. And both nights he’d stayed until he was almost too tired to drive home. It seemed she thought they were in an endurance competition. She could forget that noise.
Today she could starve. She could read until her eyeballs rolled across that vile-looking blue conference room carpet. She could—
“Mark? You with us, pal?” Stewart gave him one of those paternalistic pats on the back that Mark detested.
He kept his expression as neutral as he could. “I’m still here. You were saying something?”
“We were just wondering how the Newby deal is progressing. Perfectly, we assume, since we haven’t heard otherwise. That Cara is a real trouper. Firms need workhorses like her.”
So much for neutrality. “She’s not an animal. She’s a woman. A brilliant and determined woman.”
Stewart held up his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, I meant it as a compliment.”
Mark reminded himself that he was touchy on the subject for reasons Harbedian had no way of knowing. Stewart was being as complimentary as he was able. People were accessories to him, and apparently Cara was one who suited.
“Maybe we could try to go nine holes without talking business?” Mark suggested.
The partners’ answering snorts made it clear he’d have better luck asking them to golf blindfolded.
“We like what we’ve seen of you, so far, Mark,” Howard said as he wiped the grip on his driver with a crisp white handkerchief. It appeared that his germ anxiety extended beyond the office. “We think you’re a good fit for Saperstein, Underwood.”
“That’s great to hear.” Especially since he’d undone his New York life to the point that there was no easy reassembly.
“We’ll be making some substantial decisions in the next few months, ones that will affect your livelihood.”
Mark said nothing, because there was nothing to be said.
“We want you to know that you shouldn’t worry,” Howard said as he returned the hankie to his pocket. “Relax, finish the Newby transaction and know that things are looking good.”
With that, Howard addressed the ball, swung, then cupped his hand over his eyes and tried to follow his shot’s trajectory.
“The ball’s still on the tee, Howard,” Stewart said.
Mark looked at his watch. Yes, sometimes he really, truly hated this game.
IT WAS PAST THREE o’clock when Mark escaped the Square Lake Country Club and the worst golf experience of his life. He’d meant to head straight home. Instead, he found himself taking the long way, the route right past the office.
He knew Cara was there. Without pulling off Woodward or going down the drive, he knew. But he had to check, anyway. He couldn’t leave her working alone, not when all the credit was accruing to him.
And he couldn’t feel sorry that he had the contacts to bring in work in the first place. That he was born a Morgan was indisputable. And God knew it had its downside, too. His father had come back from Palm Beach early yesterday and immediately closeted himself in his home office. He hadn’t spoken a word to family members, unless telling his driver, Paddy, that there was a scrap of paper in the back of the Mercedes counted.
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His mother’s dignity in the face of her husband’s stony silence had been a killer to watch. As an escape, Mark and Jerome had taken her to Detroit’s Eastern Market. They had stopped at the nut company and bought her the pistachios she loved, loaded her down with fresh-cut flowers and had even gotten her to haggle with a vegetable vendor. It wasn’t much in the face of a crappy marriage, but it was the best Mark could do before he’d had to hit the office—just like his old man.
Now there was another thought that killed.
Back to work yet again, he parked right next to Cara’s car. As he made his way up the walk and into the building, his sense of disquiet grew.
His father hadn’t cornered the market on using work as an avoidance technique. He could name one leggy redhead who had that act down cold.
He marched past her empty office, around the corner, down the hall and past the bust of Saul Saperstein, the stone poet laureate of S.U., who today was wearing dark shades and a black beret.
Cara was—as always—in the conference room.
“What are you doing that can’t wait until Monday?” he demanded.
“Helping your client and saving my ass.” She paused. “Hey, I must be really fried. I didn’t even jump when you snuck in here.”
Mark pulled out a chair and sat opposite her. “I didn’t sneak, and my client would prefer that you didn’t work yourself to death on their tab, thanks.”
She dragged a hand through her raggedy-looking red hair and then tugged at her T-shirt. She looked as if she was still in college and in the middle of a cram session for final exams. All the picture needed was cold, half-eaten pizza on the table and cans of caffeine supercharged drinks littering the floor.
“Were you insane enough to sleep here?” he asked.
“Yes, not that it’s any business of yours. But since you’ve apparently appointed yourself my keeper, Morgan, here’s my schedule… I’m about to go home, get cleaned up, then sink into a bubble bath with a glass of wine and a book. Is that okay by you?” She stood. “And, no, you’re not invited.”
Somewhere beyond annoyed, Mark stayed and counted to ten, then ten again for good measure, before he followed her.
CARA WAS RUNNING FRESH out of Tough. She wasn’t smarter than Morgan—well, not by much. She wasn’t better connected. In fact, other than some work helping Bri incorporate Retreads, which Cara had refused to charge for, she hadn’t brought in a single client.
The only thing she could do was outwork Morgan, and even the odds on doing that were pretty ugly. If he wasn’t in the office, he was out at meetings or with the practice group’s partners, doing whatever it was that members of the Old Boys’ Club did. She knew that Mark wasn’t trying to tank her partnership chances; he was simply doing his job. Still the more tired she grew, the more upset she became, and the more the sheer size of the Newby deal scared her.
She’d stopped home last night around ten for some clean sweats, but other than that, it had been a marathon session in unraveling Newby’s knot of files. Already she was so tired, she was forgetting simple things, like whether she had gas in her car or if she had promised to bring something to the family dinner tonight.
And there Morgan was in her doorway, looking as if Tiger Woods and he had just been out for a round, and he’d won. Though she’d never admit it, Morgan looked really good, and she only felt grungier by comparison. Grungier and more scattered. She pinned on a smile and tried to make chat.
“Did you ever have the feeling that there was something you were forgetting?”
“In your case, I’d have to guess that was what the sun looked like, or where you lived.”
It hadn’t escaped her that her skin had regressed from white to translucent. “Cute.”
“I’ve been feeling this way all day.” She dug through the heap of sweaters, blazers and other stuff she’d abandoned on one of her guest chairs over the past few days. “As if there’s someplace I’m supposed to be. But other than my usual Sunday get-tortured-by-the-family dinner—which I slept through last week, so they’ll be gunning for me—nothing turned up in my planner.”
At least she’d unearthed her purse and could now find her car keys. How the hell had the purse sunk so low in the pile? It must have happened when she was looking for a mint to cut her case of empty-stomach breath.
Frustrated and desperate to get out of the office, she began to dump the purse’s contents onto her desk. The keys gave up their resting place after a fight. Cara was scooping the rest of her stuff back into the bag when a pen-and-ink card with a caricature of Bri and Seth caught her attention. A jolt from a stun gun couldn’t have been any more effective. Panic set in.
“Crap.”
“What’s wrong?” Morgan asked.
She was going to cry, and she wanted to do it without Morgan hovering over her. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“Right.”
Cara’s hands shook as she flipped open the invitation. The couples’ shower for Bri had started at noon, over two hours ago. “Go away, Morgan. I need to make a call.” God, her voice was trembling worse than her hands.
“Tell me what’s wrong.”
Eyes watering, Cara walked to the other side of her desk and dialed the RSVP number on the invitation, which belonged to a friend of Bri’s from her old job, and now one of her bridesmaids. A nonsucking, attentive, deserving bridesmaid. Three rings… Four…
What was she going to say when they brought Bri to the phone—”I forgot about you?”
She hung up and grabbed for her tissue box.
“Come on, Cara. What’s the matter?”
Apparently, Morgan wasn’t giving up. “I missed Bri’s wedding shower, okay? It was this big party for couples, and—” She tried to pull herself together. “She’s my very best friend, and I—”
She couldn’t talk again, not without really losing it. Cara dragged in a shaky breath and worked on a solution other than burying herself under the damned Newby files forever.
The message light was flashing on her phone which shouldn’t have surprised her, except she’d been in and out of her office a few times already today. Stress obviously made for tunnel-vision. Cara hit the speaker button then dialed into her voice mailbox.
“Hi, girl, it’s the bride. Don’t forget to emerge from your cave and come to my shower.”
Shit. More guilt.
She punched the skip code to hear the next message.
“They got you tied to a desk or something? Give me a call and let me know you’re okay.”
Skip again.
Finally, Cara heard Bri say, “There had better be something wrong with you, because if there’s not, you’re dead.”
This time, Morgan reached across the desk and disconnected her from the rest of the messages.
“Where is this shower?” he asked.
“In Ferndale, about twenty minutes from here.”
“Let’s go.”
“What?”
“You said it’s a couples’ shower, right? I’ll take you. It’s not like I’d trust you behind the wheel of a car right now.”
“No way. Look at us. You’re there in your golf clothes, doing your Biff the Wonder Preppie impersonation, and I look like I just came off the voyage of the damned.”
“So what? They’ll get over it. At least you’d be there.”
She couldn’t. She was mired in a mix of embarrassment, fear and the knowledge that she didn’t deserve to go. “Thanks, Morgan, but it’s so late that it would be less disruptive if I just stayed away.”
“You’re making a mistake. Bri would want you there.”
“Two hours ago, maybe. Now, it’s as if she’s an afterthought.” Which was exactly what she’d turned her best friend into. Cara’s throat tightened with the tears she refused to let slide. What was wrong with her? It was as though she’d lost some crucial part of herself and could no longer connect with other people. Like, say, maybe her mind.
“I’m going to go home and get ready for d
inner at my sister’s. I don’t want to risk being disowned by her, too.”
Morgan’s mouth was set in a somber line. “Cara, I’m worried about you.”
“Don’t be.” She swooped up the pile of clothing from her other guest chair. “I’ll be fine,” she said, not even convincing herself. “See you tomorrow.”
He stayed her with one gentle hand on her arm. “Do me a favor, would you?”
“What’s that?”
“Take tomorrow morning off. Sleep in, visit Bri, just don’t come to the office until after lunch.”
With her last, miniscule shreds of Tough, she said, “No can do, Morgan. But I think your tan is looking a little uneven. Why don’t you take the morning off and hit the course?”
Cara didn’t even make it another heartbeat before the Tough ended and the tears began. Morgan offered his kindest gesture yet. He left her alone.
CARA WAS BECOMING a pro at pushing back hysteria. Besides, it was amazing what a crying jag, good food and ten hours of sleep could do for a girl. Not quite as much as a night of abandoned, mind-blowing sex, but hey, no one had offered.
When Monday rolled around, she was almost back to her old self. The qualifier of “almost” remained because she’d been unable to reach Bri. Cara had, however, eloquently groveled to her friend’s answering machine. She’d give it a day or so before cornering Bri in Retreads. Bri did best after her Irish temper had cooled, and Cara did best when her guilt had subsided enough that she wasn’t defensive.
And because she didn’t want Morgan to think she was pathologically inflexible, she’d stayed out of the office until almost ten. Even now, she lingered at the front desk with Annabeth, not quite ready to face the horrors of the Newby files.
Based on what Cara had almost literally unearthed so far, the malls’ tenants weren’t paying rent at quite the rate Newby had represented to Morgan Financial. Plus there was the matter of several pending lawsuits they hadn’t disclosed, either. A couple of them were of the slip-and-fall, probably bogus variety, but one contentious dispute with an anchor tenant of about a dozen of the malls was really making Cara jittery. It was one of a number of items she planned to discuss with Morgan later today…when she was good and ready.
