Mad About the Man (3 page)

Game. Set. Match.

Sighing again, she sipped her wine.

If only he hadn't made that crack about needing a little breeze up her skirt, she might have withstood his baiting. But of all the things he could have said, that was the one guaranteed to light a fire, the one for which there was no forgiving.

Even now, twenty-one years later, she could still remember how it had felt. . . .

The school bell rang, signaling the end of first-period lunch and the beginning of second. Books were slapped shut, papers rustled, backpacks were zipped, and the metallic chime of lockers being opened, then slammed closed again, echoed through the corridors. A cacophony of teenage voices ebbed and flowed, punctuated by shouts, squeaking sneakers, and Doc Martens, while somewhere within earshot, the algebra teacher, Mr. Heneke, scolded a trio of boys for roughhousing in the hall.

Brie did her best to ignore the mayhem, quietly hugging the neat stack of books inside her arms as she made her way out of her favorite class—English—and down the hall to her locker. Her two best friends were absent today; Becca had stayed home with a cold and Jo—who despised her real name, Josephine—had left early for an orthodontist's appointment. Rather than eat by herself in the cafeteria, she'd decided to go outside and enjoy the clear fall day and a few minutes of quiet.

She slid her books into her backpack in the bottom of her locker, then grabbed her lunch and a dog-eared copy of Jane Austen's
Persuasion
, which she had neatly camouflaged inside a cover made from a brown paper grocery bag. She'd decorated it with flower and rainbow stickers and written her name inside a rectangle at the top that she'd outlined in bold red marker.

After snapping closed her combination lock and giving the dial a good spin, she tightened her plaid hair scrunchie around her long ponytail—the accessory carefully chosen that morning to go with her blue plaid skirt and tan cardigan—and headed for the rear doors that led to a small area with trees and grass where students were permitted to sit during the lunch period. She pushed the metal hand bar. It gave a springy thunk as she let go and walked out the door.

Seventh and eighth graders were grouped in loose clusters, mostly self-segregated by age and gender except for a few couples who walked or sat, hip to hip, hand in hand, while they talked and laughed. One couple was coiled around each other like eels, exchanging long, slow kisses that looked like a warm-up for a porno.

Brie stared for a moment, then walked past. She didn't have a boyfriend. Not that she wouldn't like one, but all the boys in her classes were such immature idiots, too busy playing Tetris on their Game Boys, tossing Koosh Balls, and cracking stupid jokes to interest her.

The worst of the bunch was Maddox Monroe, who was in her homeroom and third-period science class. Long and lanky, with thick dark hair that he always wore too long, he spent his time doodling, passing notes to his friends, and making faces at her when the teacher wasn't looking. He stared at her too sometimes and seemed to take the most hateful pleasure in tormenting her, such as the time they'd been segmenting earthworms and he'd slipped up behind her and silently draped one over her shoulder. She could still remember her ear-piercing screams and the way the other kids had laughed as she'd frantically batted the formaldehyde-soaked annelid off her sweater. Maddox had been reprimanded by the teacher for the stunt and made to apologize, which he'd done with a smirk on his face.

For the most part, though, he got away with murder. Most of the teachers liked him in spite of his casually attentive attitude in class, and even the few who didn't couldn't complain, since he got straight As on all his homework and tests. The students thought he was the height of cool, revering him for his confident style and clever pranks. Brie was definitely in the minority when it came to drinking the Maddox Monroe Kool-Aid and she made no effort to hide her dislike of him to anyone interested enough to listen. She couldn't even take pleasure in trashing him to Becca and Jo, since they thought he was “dreamy.” To her disgust, she knew that either one of them would have gone out with him in a split second if only he'd asked.

He'd actually asked her out once, though thank God no one knew. It had been during the previous summer when they'd accidentally run into each other at the country club where his parents and hers were members. They'd been pushed together, since they were the same age and were going to be starting at the same junior high in a couple of months. He'd stared at her for a while, as he always did, then cracked some ignorant joke about whether her mother had gotten knocked up in France, since she was named after their national cheese. While she'd still been fuming from that, he'd given her his patented smirk and said they should go to a movie together sometime.

She'd said sure, they'd do that, next time she wanted to be seen in public with a jerk.

And that had been that.

Only it hadn't been, not with him in the same classes with her every single freaking day except weekends and holidays.

Head lowered with her book and lunch sack clasped against her small but developing bustline, she continued through the crowd, the green space and its illusion of privacy only a few yards beyond.

Off to the side, Maddox Monroe and a scrum of his rowdy friends were messing around with a leaf blower that they'd obviously liberated from one of the groundskeeping crew. They were pulsing it on and off, blowing at whatever happened to be in the way, leaves whipping up into the air in mini-tornadoes, girls screaming when the forced air blew their hair and notebooks.

The machine was in Maddox's hands and he was revving the motor when he turned and swept it upward in an arc—straight at her.

The blast hit her, a noisy gust of warm air swirling around her legs and under her clothes. Up flew her skirt, flaring high and wide so that her bare legs and panties were on display like a peep show. She'd worn her favorite Mickey Mouse underwear that morning, the big-eared mouse grinning at everyone from his place on her ass. Desperately, she tried to push her skirt back down to cover herself, but it was already too late.

Laughter erupted, jeers and catcalls being shouted out. From the corner of her eye she saw Maddox, who looked oddly horrified. The blower cut off. But then one of his friends said something and he laughed too.

“Hey, those are some nice panties, Mickey,” he called.

And they all laughed again.

She ran, her lunch forgotten where she'd dropped it on the ground. Her face was hot and wet with tears, her chest aching with sobs she tried to hold down.

She hid in an empty classroom for the next half hour, then went to the school nurse and said she wasn't feeling well. Her mother came and took her home, but she didn't tell her what had happened. The humiliation went too deep to bear repeating.

Brie had disliked Maddox Monroe before; now she hated him, especially once the whole school started calling her Mickey. It had been the worst year of her academic life.

She raised her glass of wine to her lips again and took another drink, shaking off the memories. She'd come a long way from the shy girl she'd been then, gaining self-confidence and much needed poise and popularity after she transferred to an elite private school the next year.

As for Monroe, today was the first time she'd seen him since that
annus horribilis
. She'd heard his family had moved away and he'd changed schools not long after she herself left. Where he'd gone or what he'd done, she hadn't cared. She'd moved on, making a success of her life, and apparently so had he.

But she was a grown woman now—a consummate professional who was more than capable of going up against even the toughest adversaries.

So why had she let him get to her?

Why had she felt again like that embarrassed twelve-year-old girl wanting revenge?

“You're right, James,” she said, setting her glass onto the coffee table with a solid click. “I will make my case. We were playing a sport and people get injured playing sports sometimes. They'll just have to understand.”

And if they don't?

Well, she'd regroup and go on. She'd remade her life years before and she could remake it again if she had to, no matter how hard it might be.

F
or all her supposed optimism, Brie couldn't help the tangle of nerves in her stomach as she walked into work on Monday morning. The guards at the security desk in the lobby made no move to stop her from getting on the elevator, and a pair of gossiping second years, who'd arrived even earlier than she, did nothing more than offer passing good-mornings as they made their way into the break room for a first jolt of morning caffeine.

She'd actually started to relax as she worked quietly at her desk, the office filling up with its usual hivelike hum of people and activity, when her paralegal poked her head past the doorframe.

“Mr. Prescott wants to see you in his office,” Trish said.

Brie jerked, her stomach clenching in a way that made her glad she'd skipped breakfast. “Now? But it's only seven thirty.”

“Yeah. Right now. A couple of the other partners are in with him too. Something big must be going down to have them all in so early on a Monday.”

Brie gave her a shallow smile.

Me,
she thought.
I'm the one going down, straight to the bottom, just like the
Titanic
.

For a second, she considered making a couple of emergency calls to people she knew who could help her land at a new firm. But Ol' BS and his uncle Wendell, aka Mr. Prescott, had already had the entire weekend to poison the well, so what would another few minutes matter?

No, she might as well go face the firing squad, then come back here to her office for one last look, collect the little pink African violet she kept on the windowsill, her few personal items and family photos, and be on her way.

She stood, then smoothed a crease out of her slim-fitting pewter gray pencil skirt, straightened her pale blue, long-sleeved silk blouse and gray suit jacket, and took a deep breath. Last, she put on her pleasant poker face—the one she wore in court when she had to appear before a particularly difficult judge. No matter what happened, she would show no fear.

Prescott's large corner office was at the end of a long central hallway. She felt a bit like a dead woman walking as she put one high-heel-clad foot in front of the other.

When she reached his open doorway, she stopped, took one last breath, then knocked quietly and went inside. “Mr. Prescott, you wanted to see me?”

Wendell Prescott looked up from where he sat behind his massive antique mahogany desk. Relaxing in a pair of wide brown leather armchairs were two of the other partners—Steven McNeal and Brice Burns, an up-and-comer who everyone assumed would be added to the masthead as soon as old Mr. Marshall finally stepped down. They turned their dark heads to look at her too.

Birds of prey gathered for the kill.

She gave no reaction, careful to keep a friendly, polite half smile on her face as she waited for Prescott to lower the boom.

“Brie, yes, do come in.” He motioned with a hand toward an empty chair. “Sit and let's talk.”

She walked forward to do as he asked.

So, Prescott wanted to play up the moment, did he? Well, she supposed they needed to go through their dog and pony show—appearances to keep up and all that.

Rather than perch timidly on the edge of her chair, she settled back as if she had no anxiety whatsoever. Inside, her stomach felt like she'd swallowed a bagful of glass shards.

“I might as well get right to it,” Prescott said, his thin gray eyebrows creasing over his cool gray eyes. “I understand there was an incident while you were in the Hamptons on firm business this weekend. Tennis injury to one of our prospective clients.”

“Yes, sir, that's correct,” she said.

“Barrett Collingsworth called to apprise me of the details. He was quite concerned about Mr. Monroe's health.”

And getting me fired.

She thought about James's comment and her earlier decision to make her case, but she would wait until they had laid out all their evidence before offering her own counterargument.

“McNeal was at home yesterday when he got a call from Monroe himself.”

She froze. Monroe had called McNeal at home? She'd known Monroe couldn't be happy about getting walloped in the face, but she hadn't thought he was angry enough to track one of the partners down on a Sunday just so he could complain about her.

Looks like he was.

“That's right,” McNeal said, entering the conversation. “Monroe and I had a very interesting talk. He assures me his injury was treated and he's already on the mend. He also told me that he wants to move his business over to our firm.”

“What?” Her eyes popped wide.

“My reaction exactly, especially under the circumstances. He's certainly never expressed any desire in the past to let us represent him, quite the opposite in fact. He does have one very specific stipulation, however, before he'll agree to become a client.”

Crap, here it comes.
She braced herself, waiting for the deathblow to fall.

“Monroe will only come on board if you are the one to personally handle all his legal work. What's more, he instructed me to make you a partner, since he doesn't deal with associates.”

Her mouth fell open. Quickly, she shut it.

“So, what do you think, Brie?” Prescott said, his eyes, which had looked so hard before, gleaming with a shrewd twinkle. “Shall we accept Mr. Monroe's terms and make you a partner?”

She looked at the three men, who were all watching her expectantly. Her thoughts were in a whirl; she was barely able to believe she'd heard right. Not only was she
not
being fired, but apparently a promotion was hers for the taking. And not just any promotion, a move up to partner. It was everything she'd been working so hard to achieve, everything she had dreamed of, and happening only months after her return to the legal big leagues.

She opened her mouth, wanting to say yes, but she hesitated, remembering that she would have one person to thank and that was Maddox Monroe. If she accepted, she would be forever in his debt.

Clearly, he was up to something. What was his game? What did he really want, since he had plenty of excellent legal representation without hiring her?

Talk about a devil's bargain. She'd always suspected Monroe must actually be an alias for his real name—Mephistopheles. And yet how could she pass this up? It was the opportunity of a lifetime, one that might not come her way again for years, or maybe never. Still, a woman had her pride. . . .

“Ms. Grayson?” It was Brice Burns who spoke this time, a frown on his long, square face.

So what would it be? Tell Monroe to stuff it and turn down the job—and possibly risk losing her current position? Or accept, even if it meant having to work with a man she'd hated since junior high?

Personal integrity or pragmatism? It was a lawyer's perennial dilemma. Then again, everyone was entitled to fair legal representation, even Lucifer himself. When it came to pride vs. profit, billable hours won every time.

She straightened her shoulders and looked each man square in the eye. “Whether you make me a partner is up to you, gentlemen. But MJM Enterprises is a big fish that you've been trying to reel in for years. Do you really want to toss him and all his millions back now that he's almost in the net?”

A significant silence fell. Then Prescott grinned. The other two men quickly followed suit.

“No, Ms. Grayson,” Prescott said. “No, we most certainly do not.”

“We knew there must be a reason Monroe would go to all this trouble just to work with you,” McNeal said.

“Other than the fact that you're damned easy on the eyes. No offense,” Burns added.

“None taken,” she said.

“My nephew thought Monroe would want you fired after what happened on the tennis court.” Prescott's eyes twinkled again. “But apparently he must like your go-for-the-jugular style.”

“A quality every good lawyer needs,” Burns agreed.

McNeal nodded. “Exactly.”

“I can assure you, gentlemen, that I won't let you down,” she said.

“From now on, it's Monroe you don't want to let down. Just consider us very interested bystanders.” Burns gave her a look that was part amusement, part warning.

She swallowed, understanding that accepting this partnership meant her entire career now hinged on keeping Maddox Monroe and his millions of dollars happy.

Prescott stood and extended his hand. “Welcome, Brie, and congratulations on becoming our newest equity partner.”

Standing, Brie shook hands and sealed the deal.

Holy shit, what in the hell have I just gotten myself into?