The Merger

by Bernadette Marie

  He must have apologized a thousand times, she thought as she built herself a turkey sandwich in her kitchen.

  At least he’d been gentleman enough to take her home before hurrying off. There weren’t any sparks between them, but she did like how heat had burned in Spencer’s eyes when he’d seen her get up to leave with him. It was priceless.

  It made up for him kissing Tiffany in the office—or so she told herself. No matter what he said about Tiffany, Julie still wasn’t comfortable when they were both around. What man cared that much for a woman and wasn’t in love with her? That meant he just used them. Well, she certainly didn’t need more of those kinds of men in her life.

  There was no doubt he’d be an attentive boss. That was something she could handle. Having seen him in action with his team and his lawyers, she knew that he got what he wanted, but he was willing to listen to ideas as well.

  What she needed to remember was that she’d need to listen too. Her instinct was to argue everything. That was what had made her a successful lawyer, even if it was in the boardroom and not in court.

  She’d single handily stalled the merger for nearly five months making sure the Grayson family was selling their company to the right people. Likewise, she knew that because of her thoroughness, the Bensons were equally getting the best deal.

  Adding the top slice of bread to her sandwich she then carried the plate to the small table and sat down.

  With more thought, she decided that stalling wasn’t something to be proud of. Libby had asked her to stall. She’d told her it was so that she was sure her grandfather got everything he deserved.

  Julie took a hard bite of her sandwich.

  The thought of Libby sitting on the edge of her desk making a list of things she wanted to see happen during the merger just made her sick now. She’d thought they were a good team. She thought, even though Libby wasn’t involved in the day to day running of PLL, she had wanted what was best for her grandfather. How could she have been such an idiot to even believe one word that woman said?

  It was her husband that should have been fired. Not her. She’d been ethical in her dealings with Spencer. They’d had plenty late nights alone in her office arguing over the merger. They’d had many decent conversations too as they worked together to make the best deal. None of that had been easy as she watched her husband’s affair continue while she worked with him during their divorce. Julie should have gotten a raise of remaining so professional.

  All she could think was, Ha! Now he was stuck with her. Sooner or later he too would be out of a job. Spencer had promised to keep the employees as long as the jobs they were doing were beneficial to Benson, Benson, and Hart. He was certainly not beneficial.

  She took another bite of her sandwich.

  He’d screw up. He always did. Only this time he wouldn’t have his wife there to fix his mistakes. He’d only have Libby Grayson, and she’d be moving on to the next conquest—that was for sure.

  What Julie needed to do was figure out how she was going to keep it all together until she could pass the bar in Tennessee. One wrong step and Spencer could fire her and she’d never get a legal job in construction again.

  But she thought about the kiss she’d planted on him in the elevator. She closed her eyes and rested her head in her hands. She’d wondered for nearly a week if he’d felt the earth move beneath his feet—and not the rise of the elevator. It had been impulse just to feel like a woman, but it had turned into something so much more.

  She feared she’d do it again and make a mess out of everything. But that was what happened to her when she was around Spencer Benson. And on Monday they’d be working closely—perhaps alone.

  Julie knew she had two sides—fun loving and bitch. It would be imperative that she find a middle ground.

  Chapter Nine

  Stress had Spencer in the office at six-damned-thirty on Monday morning.

  He’d had calls from Oregon on Sunday saying loads were going to be late getting to Tennessee. That was just a sticky mess. Spencer made a few more phone calls and lumber was on its way.

  Chuck had called and let him know of a concrete shortage for the next week. Been there done that. Again, a few Sunday phone calls and that section of concrete they needed to pour would be filled.

  What had him pacing the damn floor all day yesterday and now in his office doing the same as the sun was bright in his window, was Julie leaving with Randy from the bar and Avery commenting that she hadn’t seen her since.

  He’d driven by the house. Her car was still parked where she’d left it.

  It wasn’t so much her leaving, and God only knowing what went on, it was that no one would tell him anything.

  Avery said she hadn’t seen her or talked to her, but then she’d been busy.

  When he’d called Clara she let him have it.

  “It’s none of your business what they did or didn’t do. I’m not telling you crap.”

  He’d sighed into the phone and she’d continued her rant.

  “You hang on to Tiffany like she’s some prize to keep around and you want another woman to not assume you’re involved and not go out with someone as amazing and sweet and gentle and considerate as Randy? She’s just an employee. Why do you care what she did all weekend? That’s not even fair to her. I should hire her away from you. I don’t know what I’d do with her, but if you’re going to be checking in on her all the time you don’t deserve her.”

  The conversation had lasted nearly twenty minutes, though it wasn’t much of a conversation. It was Clara yelling at him and then crying because she was just so emotional because of the baby.

  Clara had been right. It wasn’t any of his business.

  So why did he care?

  Spencer sat down in his plush leather chair yawning as he kicked up his feet and leaned back. He tucked his hands behind his head and let his heavy eyes shut for a moment. What did his father ever get done in the office this early, he wondered.

  The smell of coffee began to tingle in his nose and wake up his brain. The sound of someone moving about in his office made him quickly pry his eyes open and put his feet on the ground.

  His back ached and the room was much brighter.

  “What time did you get here?” Amber asked as she set his mail on his desk.

  “What time is it now?”

  “Seven-thirty.”

  He groaned as he worked his head from side to side. Had he really just fallen asleep in his chair for an hour?

  When Amber moved from in front of his desk and he spun his chair forward he saw Julie seated in one of the large chairs before him. She held a mug of coffee in her hands and a tight smile on her lips.

  Her hair was knotted at the base of her neck and she wore one of those uptight navy blue suits he’d seen her in for months. This sure was a change from the girl at the bar on Saturday, who twisted that butterfly earring—which had been replaced with a sensible little hoop, he’d noted.

  Spencer pressed his fingertips to his eyes. When he opened them again, she just stared at him. That she’d done for five months too. That was more comfortable.

  “I see you met Amber,” he said cutting through the silence.

  “I did. She’s been showing me around,” she said coolly.

  Amber threw down a report on his desk. “You know if you hire someone else to help out around here it’s nice to know before Monday morning.”

  “Right. Hey, I’m sorry.”

  Amber shrugged. “Thank God you did. I’m tired of running multiple projects. At least with her here now you don’t have to call and tell me how miserable she’s making you in Oregon.” She gave him a curt grin before leaving the room and him alone with Julie.

  Julie’s eyes had lowered to look at her coffee. Her lips twitched and he wondered if she was going to cry in his office again.

  “I’m sorry about that. She…”

  She lifted her head and he could see those chocolate eyes mist. “She’s threatened. She’s feeling
replaced. Unprepared.”

  “She told you that?”

  “Didn’t have to.” She gripped the coffee mug tighter. “It was a mistake for me to come here and ask for a job. It already looks like I’ll be causing problems here. I should just go before I even get started.” She stood and set her mug on the desk. “Randy told me that his label has some opportunities in legal. I could consult until I…”

  “You’re not leaving here to get another job,” he cut her off. “I hired you to help me and that’s what you’re here to do.”

  “I don’t want to upset someone who has been with you a long time.”

  “And she’ll continue to be with me a long time.”

  Julie nodded, picked back up her cup, and sat down. “She’s actually very nice.”

  “That was uncharacteristic of her.”

  “She’s protective of you. I’m someone who obviously brought you a great deal of anguish,” her voice dropped as she said it.

  This wasn’t how he wanted to start their first day working together.

  Spencer walked around his desk and leaned up against it. He pulled a tissue from the box on the corner and handed it to her. “Maybe you need a few more days to adjust to being here.”

  “I need work. I told you, I left with nothing.”

  He nodded and then sat down in the chair next to her. Her eyes remained averted.

  “Let’s get this out of the way,” he said and she lifted her sad eyes to meet his. “You’re going to run into more than one person who may or may not have heard me refer to you unkindly.”

  Her shoulders dropped and her gaze moved back down to her mug. In his chest, his heart ached to see anyone look so crushed. Worse, he’d caused it.

  “I was wrong,” he said as he placed his hand on her forearm and rested it there. “I didn’t take time to understand you or realize there was more to you than just some…”

  “Bitch behind all the stalling?”

  The ache in his chest sharpened. “Julie, I’m sorry.”

  “I get it. I do.” She sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Let’s just get to work. I’ll get a few days under my belt and then we can decide if I need to move on.”

  He certainly hoped they could move past this. He’d been so wrong about her being a bitch. This woman was nothing more than lonely and misunderstood.

  Julie lifted her fingers to the small hoop in her ear and twisted it. A tell, he thought. When she was nervous, she touched her earring. It was cute.

  Spencer shook his head. Again with the cute.

  The intercom on his phone buzzed and Amber’s voice rang through the room.

  “Chuck is on line one.”

  “Thank you,” he said walking around his desk.

  “I’ll wait outside,” Julie said as she stood from her seat.

  Spencer shook his head as he picked up the phone. “No need. I’ll be one moment.”

  Julie sipped her bitter and cold coffee as Spencer took his call. He was jotting down some notes and replying with grunts. When he was finished, he stood still until she looked up at him.

  He was casual in a building of suits and ties. A pair of dark Dockers and a button up shirt already rolled at the sleeves. She was used to him in a suit, but casual suited him just fine too, she thought.

  The day hadn’t warranted his fingers through that dark hair yet, but she knew what that looked like too. She’d studied it for the past five months. He did that when he thought too much. When he was stressed, as he was now, his eyes were dark. When he was enjoying himself, they sparkled with hints of gold. When she’d caught him off guard and kissed him in the elevator, they were rich and dark and wide.

  She swallowed hard as he studied her.

  “We need to head over to the site. Chuck, the foreman,” he clarified, “says the wiring is done on the model home. I want to do a walk through before we close up the walls.”

  “You want me to go with you?”

  “This is your project. You might as well get to know it and see your desk.”

  She bit down on her bottom lip. “I’m not working here?”

  “You will be expected in both locations. For a recently unemployed woman, you’re about to be extremely busy.”

  Quietly, she let out a little breath. For being someone the man certainly didn’t like, it seemed he was about to give her a lot of responsibility. That she could handle. She wasn’t afraid of a challenge. Obviously she’d proved to him she could be thorough and organized. Her only hope was that Spencer Benson was a decent man and not just trying to seek revenge on her for being such a bitch.

  “I have a bag in the lounge, in my locker. I brought some different shoes, but I didn’t think to bring different clothes.”

  “You’ll be fine today in what you have on. Don’t feel as though you have to wear your lawyer attire unless we’re in meetings with big clients.”

  She nodded. A shopping trip might be in order. She had business attire and almost too casual. There needed to be a middle ground in her wardrobe, just as she was having to find one with her attitude as well.

  “I’ll meet you back in here in ten. I’m going to head up and talk to my dad and Ed.”

  Her stomach tightened when he mentioned his family. It was as if she’d forgotten they would be in the same building. What had they heard about her, she wondered as she left his office and headed toward the break room.

  Eyes followed her as she walked down the hall. Had they all heard she was a bitch? Had they seen her fall on her ass on Friday before Spencer pulled her to her feet and then groped all over Tiffany?

  The nagging question kept running through her head, why had she come here?

  As she opened her locker and pulled out her bag, she remembered why.

  Because her husband was still working at PLL and Libby Grayson was pulling his strings. They were in Oregon and she wasn’t. However, they were still embedded in the same company now and she could keep an eye on what he was doing.

  Her hope was he wasn’t doing anything that would cause Spencer more grief. He was a stupid man, but he wasn’t mean.

  She’d keep her eyes on him through channels. As far as she knew, Spencer wouldn’t know who her husband was. She’d never taken his name.

  There would be no need for her to run into him either. He was embedded in a merged company on the coast. She was embedded in a single project through the main company, many miles away.

  The flashy BMW was as nice on the inside as it was on the outside, Julie thought as she took in its ambiance. The black leather seats and faux wood trim was beautiful. She wondered what a car like this would set someone back.

  One thing was for sure she’d never own one. She’d be lucky if her little Toyota Corolla, which was nearly as old as she was, would hold out another ten years and another one hundred thousand miles. Maybe by then she could afford a car payment again on a much smaller scale than a BMW.

  Spencer had on the radio and Home Sweet Home played and comforted her.

  “You don’t listen to country music?”

  He shot her a look and from behind his sunglasses his eyebrows rose. “This is country music.”

  She laughed. “This is Mötley Crüe.”

  He chuckled with a shake of his head, diverting his attention back to the road. “No, this is Jason Aldean and Vince Neil. Trust me. In ten minutes, you’ll have me turning up Blake Shelton nice and loud.”

  “The guy from The Voice?”

  He was still humored. “You knew who Warner Wright was, but you don’t know Blake Shelton?”

  “Warner Wright was on reality TV.”

  Spencer let out a grunt. “That was crap TV. And I wouldn’t mention it to him.”

  “It was intriguing.”

  “I don’t know what anyone sees in that junk. But I know Clara used to watch it.”

  Julie shrugged. “I guess it makes you feel normal.”

  “Doesn’t it make you wish you were a Kardashian?”

  Julie shoo
k her head. “Oh, I could never fit into that life. I’m not that pretty.”

  He turned toward her again, but he wasn’t laughing—he wasn’t even smiling.

  “You’re prettier than all of them combined.”

  Her breath caught in her lungs, but somehow she managed to say, “Thank you,” between loud heartbeats pumping in her ears.

  Thankfully Spencer pulled up to the lot where two different construction trailers sat. One was landscaped with a parking lot and banners waving to draw attention into the development. The other was a few feet away, in the dirt, with a beat up old Ford pickup parked in front of it.

  “So this is it huh? The future Hart Estates?” She looked at the mounds of dirt and machines that moved it.

  “It’s going to be amazing.”

  She felt the smile settle on her lips. “My mom used to talk about building a house in one of these communities. But they’d lived in their home since they’d been married. Actually, my mother had lived there her whole life. It had been her parents’ home before that.”

  Spencer turned off the car. “Ed and Darcy live in my grandparents’ home. It’s very sentimental.”

  “Did he move in when they passed?”

  Again his brows moved, but this time into a confused V beneath the rim of his glasses. “Passed.” They rose. “Oh, they haven’t died. They moved to a retirement community. They’re both in their nineties, but I think they have a few good years left.”

  “Really?”

  “You can’t take down a Keller.”

  “That’s your mom’s side of the family, right?”

  He nodded. “You’ll have to meet all of them some day.” He opened his door and she did the same, stepping out onto the paved lot where he’d parked in front of the sales trailer.

  “I’ve already met three of your cousins. How many more are there?”

  “You haven’t met Chris and his family or my brother and his wife. Then aunts, uncles, parents.”