After-Hours Negotiation: Can't Get Enough / An Offer She Can't Refuse

“What exactly are you suggesting then, Mr. Beck?” she asked carefully.

“I want to assign Jack to Welcome Home as an associate editor for a while—six months, tops. Just so he can have a few meetings with old man Hillcrest, shoot the breeze, all that stuff Jack does so well. It’ll be purely window dressing. Jack’ll write up a few articles, and then we’ll just downplay his involvement until he simply disappears altogether.”

She tried to get her head around it. They wanted to give half the credit for her magazine, based on her concept, sold to the client by her, to this crinkle-shirted lothario slouching next to her?

“This…this really…” She struggled to find a way to finish her sentence that didn’t have the word “sucks” in it.

“I’ve got to agree with Claire, Morgan. Surely we can just tough this out? Once Hillcrest have the first edition of their new magazine in hand, they’ll be so dazzled they’ll forget any objections,” Jack said.

Morgan nodded, almost as though he was giving Jack’s suggestion some thought.

“We’ve gone over all this, Jack, believe me. What I’m suggesting is painless, simple and foolproof. I think we can all work together to pull this off, don’t you?”

There was no mistaking the sudden glint of steel in Morgan’s eyes now. She found herself fixating on the small tufts of hair remaining on his otherwise bald head. She’d always thought of them indulgently as pseudo teddy-bear ears, but now she realized he probably cultivated them to cover the scars from where he’d had his twin horns surgically removed.

“I’ll leave the details of all this up to you two, and I know I can rely upon you both to be discreet about this…arrangement.”

Somehow she managed to find her feet. Her legs felt numb and heavy, and the distance between her chair and the doors leading back to the reception area seemed a mile off. Morgan leaned forward and shook her hand, again going for the meaningful eye contact. He’d probably look that way as he was pushing her out of a lifeboat on the Titanic—deeply moved, but completely committed to saving his own backside.

Anger trickled into her frozen limbs. She lifted her chin, aware she must be looking like a stunned mullet. Although it felt as though her face might crack, she forced her lips into a curve that she hoped resembled a smile.

“I’m sure we can smooth this over,” she said, and she was amazed at how professional and calm she sounded. As she turned toward the door she glanced just once at Jack Brook, and she saw surprise and something else—respect?—in his deep blue eyes before she fixed her attention on the double doors ahead and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.

Just get me out of here, just get me out of here, just get me out of here, she begged herself, already aware that her mask of calm was about to dissolve. To show any weakness in front of these men… She’d rather charge at the plate-glass window behind Morgan’s desk and take a dive down to the sidewalk.

Jenny looked up and smiled at Claire as she approached, and again Claire dragged her lips into a smile.

“See you later, Claire,” the assistant said.

The rest of the office geography assumed the visual equivalent of white noise as Claire honed in on the ladies’ sign at the end of the hall and simply walked.

She had no idea what had happened to Jack Brook, but she had no intention of hanging around to discuss details with him—or worse, to listen to some mealymouthed vote of sympathy.

The veneered surface of the restroom door felt smooth and cool beneath her fingers and at last she was alone. She couldn’t even look at herself in the mirror, afraid all of her emotions would be painfully obvious: disgust, disappointment, anger, betrayal.

God, when would enough be enough in this world? When would her achievements measure up for these people? When would her skills and talents be acknowledged?

She threw her handbag and briefcase onto the marble vanity and at last faced her reflection in the mirror. To her surprise she looked calm. Cool. Hard. Determined.

She snorted. The great irony of her life was that a childhood of insecurity and disappointment had helped her build a tough fortress of impenetrability as an adult. So now when she was disappointed, no one ever knew. Except for her.

Angry tears burned at the back of her eyes and she clenched them shut for a moment. She would not cry. She hated that when she became angry one of her first responses was to feel tears coming on. It felt weak, ineffectual—a child’s response to being thwarted or hurt. If she were a man, she wouldn’t be in here being a big sooky-la-la. If she were a man, she’d be off somewhere kicking a hole in a wall or punching up some innocent bystander in a bar.

Inspired, she took a step toward the wastepaper can and gave it a good, solid kick. It slid across the tiled floor and slammed into the far wall, toppling to one side and spilling out a morning’s worth of scrunched-up paper towel and tissue.

“Hah!” she said out loud.

As an expression of her anger and hurt and disenchantment, it felt woefully inadequate.

And now there was a pile of tissue all over the floor. Unable to stop herself, she knelt and scooped the scrunched-up paper back into the bin.

Just like a man, she mocked herself.

The outer door swung open and one of the finance directors’ assistants entered the room. Claire shot to her feet, smiled awkwardly, then entered a stall as a way of avoiding explanations.

She waited until the other woman had left, then emerged to wash her hands. Patting them dry, she checked her watch: a good five minutes since the meeting had ended. She could head for the elevators now and be confident of avoiding Jack. She could ride the elevator all the way down to the foyer, and just keep on walking. She’d always planned to come back to the office after her appointment with Hillcrest and work late, as usual, but now she impulsively decided to take the rest of the afternoon off. Perhaps if she went for a really punishing run she could lose some of the anger coiling in her belly.

And then she could return to Beck and Wise tomorrow and show them that she wasn’t going to let them beat her.

It felt like a plan. If only she didn’t still want to scream at someone.

Her hand shook a little as she reclaimed her bag and briefcase, and she took a deep breath before exiting. To her relief, the waiting area near the elevator bank was empty, and she pressed the call button stiffly. A car eased its doors open almost immediately, and she stepped in and pressed the foyer button.

The doors had almost slid to a complete close when a tanned arm shot into the narrowing gap. The doors automatically bounced open, and she gritted her teeth as Jack stepped into the car.

She refused to look at him, but she could feel his eyes on her as the elevator gathered momentum and sped downward.

Silence stretched between them. She kept her eyes glued to the floor indicator, just wanting an out from the elevator, this day, her life.

“Look—” he began to say, but she cut him off.

“Spare me. You’ve never liked me, and I’ve never liked you, so don’t bother mouthing some empty platitude at me, okay? Of all the unpalatable aspects of this deal, you I find the most difficult to swallow.”

She’d planned on exiting grandly into the foyer on these cutting and deeply satisfying words, but all of a sudden the lights flashed once, then blackness descended at the same time that the grinding shriek of metal-on-metal filled the car and the elevator shuddered to a halt.

CHAPTER THREE

“WHAT THE—?” Jack exclaimed.

“What’s happening?” Claire demanded at almost the same time.

“Probably just a freak glitch,” he said into the darkness, wishing he felt as confident as he sounded.

“You’re an expert on elevator technology now, are you?” she asked sharply.

He couldn’t see her, but he rolled his eyes at the corner he guessed she was occupying.

“No, I’m being optimistic. Would you prefer I start reciting the Lord’s Prayer and scribbling my will on the back of an envelope?”

Silence. Good. He was sick of her attitude and misdirected anger. As for that dig she’d made just before the elevator went crazy… It had been a long time since someone had told him to his face that she didn’t like him. And he was surprised at how much it annoyed him.

An emergency light flickered to life above them and he moved to the control panel. The pale, inadequate glow allowed him to find the compartment which hid the emergency phone, and he pried it open and reached for the receiver.

“Hello? Is anyone there?” he asked, suddenly aware that his heart was pounding faster than usual.

Okay, so this was a bit scary. And maybe he should forgive Claire for being a tad shrill. He glanced across at her as the continuing silence on the other end of the phone sunk in. Her face was pale, taut. Frightened.

“Nothing,” he said.