Do-Over (5 page)

Most senior associate?

He was thankful that she was behind him and couldn’t see the startled expression he couldn’t quite mask. Obviously, none of the partners had given her the news that he was being brought in above her in seniority. He wasn’t sure if it was a lack of courage or newfound diplomacy on their parts, but whatever the reason, he didn’t plan to be the one to break the news. At least, not when she was standing behind him where she could neatly plunge a dagger between his shoulder blades, all the while purring, “This won’t hurt a bit.”

He angled his chair until he could meet her eyes and give her a thank-you as sincere as her own words. Her
gaze traveled marginally downward. He imagined that she was pinpointing his jugular vein.

Stewart stood. “Well, then, as Mark said, let’s get to work.”

The meeting broke up. Some people, like Cara, slipped from the room without a backward glance. Others lingered, cornering Mark for some chat. By the time he escaped, Cara was long gone.

Mark had never felt so much an intruder as he did stepping into her office for the first time. He didn’t let that twinge of unaccustomed emotion slow him.

She stood at the windows with her back to him, apparently watching the landscaping crew below. He’d forgotten how she gave the illusion of being tall, when she wasn’t, really. For a while, he’d dated a dancer from the American Ballet Theatre who’d had the same sort of willowy poise. Without those shoes so high that they had to hurt, he’d guess Cara stood several inches beneath his six feet.

He’d also forgotten the way her hair shone in the sunlight. He couldn’t begin to count the shades of red.

Without turning, she spoke to his reflection in the glass. “The view’s the same from your windows.”

There, she was wrong. The view in his office wasn’t even close.

“Did you want something?” she prompted when he kept silent.

“Thanks for putting up a polite front in the conference room.”

She turned. “That wasn’t for your benefit.”

He laughed. “No kidding. I haven’t grown stupid over the past six years, either. But whatever our personal deal is, I’m glad you’re not going to let it stand in the way of the clients’ needs.”

“I’m a professional.”

“I know.”

She smiled. He definitely recalled that from six years earlier. Her smiles were luminescent, incredible, as if they started at the tips of her toes and worked their way up. They had almost never been directed at him, though.

“Well, thank you for that, at least,” she said.

It was becoming too intense, watching her, without being able to drop the polite demeanor and ask the questions he was biting back, like, “Do you remember that night after the Michigan bar exam?” and, “Someday, could we try it again without the margaritas?”

He looked away, his gaze jogging from desk to walls to credenza, then fixing on a sight that was like a fist to the gut.

“Are these your children?” he asked, gesturing at a framed photo of a boy and girl. The boy’s hair matched hers exactly.

She picked up the picture, cradling it in slender hands. “They’re my sister’s. I don’t know about you, but I can hardly find the time to date, let alone marry and have kids.”

Mark didn’t give a name to the feeling passing through him, because if he did, he’d have to admit it bore a certain similarity to relief.

“I’m leaving for New York tonight,” he said. “When I come back, I’d like to settle things between us. Would you meet me for dinner on Friday?”

She looked at him as though he’d suggested they strip naked and conduct a little mutual discovery. Which, of course, on a purely academic level, he wasn’t opposed to, either.

“Why?” she asked, returning the photo to its spot on the credenza.

“To talk?”

“You can talk to me just fine here in the office.” She retreated behind her desk and flipped open a folder. “Now if you don’t mind…”

He did, but knew it would make no difference. “I’ll bring dinner in.”

“Whatever makes you happy,” she replied.

And that, Mark concluded, continued to be the essence of their relationship. Whatever made him happy was guaranteed to piss Cara Adams right off.

Cara’s Rule for Success 5

(with apologies to Sun-tzu and Don Corleone):

Hold your friends close,

and your enemies closer…

preferably with your hands locked

in a death-grip about their throats.

M
ARK
M
ORGAN
was as conspicuous in his absence as he had been in his presence. He slipped into Cara’s thoughts at the oddest times, like when she was waking, or at her weekly kick-boxing class.

On Wednesday night, she’d joined Bri and Seth for a quick dinner and a wedding invitation addressing session. Bri had brought up Morgan once, then immediately let the subject slide when Cara’s upper lip had locked into a sneer at the sound of the hated name.

Making matters worse, by Friday midmorning, Cara found herself in a condition she hadn’t experienced since her first days as a lawyer. She was out of work to do, a terrifying state for someone who justified her existence in terms of hours billed. Rory’s defection had cut deep, and since her clients had actually been his, she was bleeding the most.

Earlier in the day, she’d dropped in on each of the
finance group’s partners and asked if there was something—
anything
—she could do for them. Howard had hissed that he didn’t have time to watch over her. Most of the other partners had told her they’d call her if they found something.

Finally, Stewart had passed her some mercy work, a stack of security agreements and financing statements to double-check, which was a task usually done by a paralegal at a far more reasonable billable rate. Now that she’d finished those off, she was in search of a diversion, her totally lame “Lawyers do it with Appeal” coffee mug in hand.

Cara walked to the front of the offices and settled her mug on Annabeth’s desk. What better person to visit when feeling aimless than the girl who’d majored in it at college?

“Have you noticed how people are acting weirder than usual around here?” Annabeth asked.

Cara knew she could count herself among those ranks. “Yeah.”

“Ancient burial ground.”

“What?”

“That’s my theory of what’s going on. Didn’t you ever wonder why this building sits higher than the ones on either side?”

Cara took a swallow of coffee before answering, “Actually, no.”

“Well, there’s something beneath here,” Annabeth asserted. “And I think it’s remains from an indigenous population.”

“Took an anthropology course in college, did you?”

“For about a week,” she said while slipping a finger under the coiled wire necklace that was today’s statement. “I dropped it to pick up Astronomy.”

It appeared that their receptionist had taken the alphabetic approach to course selection.

“Anyway,” she was saying, “we’ve unsettled the spirits. We need a ceremony to appease them.”

Cara pushed aside thoughts of her very own gods on Olympus, who could probably use an appeasement ceremony or two, themselves. “Did you have anything in mind?”

“Now that you mention it, yeah. We need to have a party. Lots of booze. Free booze.”

“Sounds to me more like we’re appeasing you,” Cara said.

“That, too.”

Cara was about to speak when she was distracted by the wall of names. Something looked different…and very, very wrong. A name had slipped in above hers. It was, naturally, Mark S. Morgan.
S
stood for not only
shark,
but also for
slime bucket, scumbag,
and
stupid, stupid gods for jerking with her this way.

It was one thing to have Morgan land at her firm and mess with her life. It was another to have him immediately afforded more seniority. The slot she’d taken six years to earn had been given to him in a day. And no one had even thought to mention it to her.

“What’s that about?” she demanded, pointing at the new plaque.

Annabeth didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Hey, don’t yell at me. I was just following orders.”

Cara grabbed her mug and headed to Stewart’s office. Mark was his new boy; he’d have the answers.

Stewart’s secretary was walking out as Cara walked in.

“Is Stewart available?” Cara asked, fulfilling ever-important
protocol, but blowing by without an answer.

He was just hanging up the phone as she deposited herself in one of his guest chairs. He didn’t look especially annoyed—or surprised—by the intrusion.

She cut to the chase. “Is there any reason you didn’t bother to tell me that Mark Morgan was being brought in above me?”

Stewart met her eyes, no fuss, no deception, no B.S. “I should have said something. It was an oversight, Cara, and I’m sorry.”

She relaxed her grip on the silly mug she still held in her right hand. “I appreciate the apology.”

He nodded, then as was his habit, checked out his reflection in the glass covering the print on the wall directly behind her. It had taken Cara a few of these primping sessions to figure out what he was doing. Now that she knew, she scarcely noticed. For all his vanity, Stewart was a good person.

“You had to have expected this, Cara. It’s difficult to lure a person of Mark’s credentials from New York without certain accommodations.”

“I know.”

“And I think you also know that our finance practice group is in need of some fresh business. This isn’t like the litigation department, where one big case can feed us indefinitely.”

“I know,” she said once again.

Cara also knew that she didn’t have the connections to bring in that sort of work. In law, you were either a finder or a grinder: you found new clients, or you ground out so many billable hours that you became indispensable to your firm. She led the harried life of a grinder.

“Since the day you arrived, you’ve been a wonderful asset to the firm. But you know, you’ve never really been put to the test. Maybe that’s what Morgan’s arrival is meant to be—your chance to prove your mettle to us. Back when—”

“Is this going to be one of those ‘I walked five miles through the snow to get to my classes at Harvard Law’ speeches?” Cara interrupted.

She imagined that but for his Botox injections, Stewart’s brows would have flown upward to match the start of surprise in his eyes. Then he relaxed and favored her with a smile.

“Everything happens for a reason, Cara.”

She should have opted for the poor, suffering attorney talk. “
Everything?
You don’t think that random, stupid events are visited on us? That’s what I believe, Stewart, and I’m fresh out of words to explain how utterly sucky this past week has been.”

The phone rang.

Stewart muttered “damn,” glanced at his watch and said, “Suzy’s on her way in. I was supposed to take her out to lunch, but something’s come up. This is going to be a long call.”

Suzy was Stewart’s twenty-two-year-old bride, acquired soon after his face-work had failed to fend off depression over the approaching Big 5-0. Cara really liked Suzy, who at least was less bitchy than Stewart’s last wife.

“I don’t suppose you could keep her company for me, could you?”

She hesitated.

“Just this once…”

He had that charming Peter Pan act down pat. “Okay.”

It wasn’t until she was out the door that it occurred to her that she’d just taken on an assignment for which law school hadn’t prepared her. She, Cara Adams, was now a wife-sitter.

D
ECIDING TO MOVE HOME
turned out to be a boatload easier than actually doing it. Since returning to New York on Monday, Mark had packed his office, packed his apartment, arranged for a sublet and reassured friend after friend that contrary to the Manhattan mind-set, Detroit was not located somewhere north of Siberia. He knew that most of his buddies would agree to his face, and then after he was gone, talk about the “poor, deluded bastard, stranded in the wilderness.”

As for the women he’d dated, once he’d boarded that plane home, he was as good as dead to them. That, at least, covered his current state, since his friends had thrown him one hell of a going-away party last night.

When, bleary-eyed and semi-hungover, he’d walked through the gate at Detroit Metro just past dawn today, there had been no marching band, no virgins throwing rose petals, not even Cara Adams in snug shorts and a skimpy white top, as he’d so vividly fantasized at thirty-thousand feet. There had been only Jerome, in one pisser of a mood over having to pick him up at such an early hour on a Friday.

His faithful and totally nonservile servant had been equally unthrilled with the concept of Mark moving home, even temporarily. Apparently, in Jerome’s book, once someone had crossed out of their twenties, the front door to the family manse should be locked behind them.

Mark agreed…in theory. As a practical matter, he was in no mood to go house-hunting. He’d had about all the stress a guy could stomach without either a therapist or tranquilizers. Listening to some real estate agent yap about neutral decor and booming real estate values just wasn’t going to happen.

After ditching Jerome midlecture, Mark had closeted himself in the library and wrapped up the ends of what was, no doubt about it, the most important business deal of his life. When he emerged at around four o’clock, he headed to the kitchen for a late lunch.

Jerome and his mother were seated at the antique pine table. It looked as though they were having a tea party, with those tiny useless cut-up sandwiches and all. He’d pass, thanks.

After hauling some real food from the fridge, Mark pulled out a chair. “Mind if I join you?”

“I don’t care how big this house is, you need a place of your own,” Jerome said, picking up the morning’s conversation as though time had stood still.

He sat. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

“It’s not healthy, thirty years old and back under mama’s roof.”

“You’re the one who wanted me home,” Mark said between bites of a roast beef sandwich.

“I meant within driving distance, kid, not messing up bedrooms and creating laundry.”

“I’ll do my own laundry.”

Jerome snorted. “Not in my washing machine. You think I’ve forgotten how you broke it—”

“When I was ten, so just give it up,” Mark finished. He looked to his mother, who appeared to be enjoying the show. “You don’t have any problem with me moving in for a while, do you?”

She shook her head.

He’d been doing some reading about aphasia and knew to expect these sorts of evasions. He also knew she had to keep trying. “Words, Mom. I want it in words.”

She shot him a good scowl instead, but then worked up a “no” with minimal struggle.

She was dressed to the nines, as though she was about to leave for an opera society gathering, or to meet the queen. Still, something was not quite right about the picture. It took Mark a couple of seconds, but he figured it out. She was missing her jewelry, the hefty diamond ring and earrings to match, which she always wore in public, but never at home.

“Besides doctors’ appointments, when was the last time you left the house?” he asked.

She folded one hand over the other. “Ye—ye—”

Jerome raised a gray brow. “Don’t lie, Frances, or you’ll be keeping me company in hell.”

“Heaven,” she corrected, smiling with pleasure as the word came out in her regal voice of old.

“I can barely get your mother to visit her doctors, let alone go any place else,” Jerome said.

“Rat.”

Jerome ignored her. “And your father’s flat-out gone most of the time. He took off to the Palm Beach house just yesterday. Don’t know when he’s coming back.”

His dad had always had a talent for absence—emotional and otherwise. Mark mentally adjusted an already packed schedule.

“Here’s the deal, Mom. I have to go to the office until pretty late tonight, but tomorrow morning, we’re going out for apple pancakes, just like we used to.
Make sure you’re up and ready because you’re not skipping out on this.”

She rattled her teacup against her saucer, chiming her displeasure.

“Look, I don’t care if you’re silent the whole time we’re out. I’ll even order for you, but I’m not going to let you roam this place like an overdressed ghost. Got it?”

Her drama queen sigh worked a chuckle loose from Jerome. “That’s my Franny,” he said, patting her hand.

Mark smiled. Except for the sexual preference issue, Jerome and his mom made a great couple.

He stood, walked to his mom’s side and kissed her cheek.

“Gotta go. I’ll see you in the morning,” he said.

She squeezed his hand, then sent him on his way.

J
UST PAST FIVE
, when anyone with half a brain—or half a life—was looking ahead to Memorial Day long weekend plans, Mark entered Howard Blenham’s office, where Cara, Howard and Stewart waited. Cara sat in one of the two guest chairs, her slender legs crossed, and foot bouncing in just the way he recalled. She wore a pained expression, as if they’d been sticking bamboo slivers under her fingernails before he arrived. He took the chair next to her.

Mark hated seeing her apprehension. In his fantasy life—which was increasing exponentially when it came to her—he was entering this room a rescuer, ready to kick some bad-guy butt. The reality was, by the time this meeting was over, she’d be gunning for his ass.

Or maybe he was being too sensitive. If so, that was a first.

“Nice of you to join us,” she said. “And since you finally have, can someone now tell me why I’ve been sitting here for the past twenty minutes?”

Howard cleared his throat. Mark looked to Stewart, who gave him an apologetic half smile. Since there was no rescue from pontificating on that front, Mark steeled himself for Howard-speak.

“Mark has presented the firm with a spectacular opportunity. We will be representing Merchant Financial in their recapitalization of Newby Holdings.”

Cara appeared to perk up. “Newby…the shopping mall family, right?”

Howard nodded impatiently. “They own twenty-three malls in fourteen states, and I’m sure you’ve read in the papers that the downturn in the economy has hurt them. And I’d hope you’re aware that Merchant specializes in lending to troubled companies. This will be a complex transaction, and until it’s complete, we’re giving you to Mark.”