Drop Dead Gorgeous (26 page)

“One-third.” Harry struggled forward until his feet firmly found the floor. “It will cost you far more in legal fees and embarrassment, not to mention the…uh…young lady involved.”

Monday, he'd liked the man and admired his empathy for Harriet. Today, he'd have gladly wrung the wretch's neck.

“Get out of my office.”

“We can pinpoint the exact location of the activity described, and after meeting your secretary, Mr. Daily is prepared to testify as to the identity of the female participant.”

Laurence battled the urge to throttle the man. His chest tightened, the air he dragged in unsatisfactory.

“I know it'll take time to get the money.” Harry struggled to his feet, the top of his comb-over not reaching farther than Laurence's biceps. “I'll give you seventy-two hours.”

“I suggest that if you don't want the police breathing down your neck for blackmail, you both get out of my office now.”

“Seventy-two hours or Mr. Daily gives me a deposition attesting to everything he saw going on,” he said, patting the leather, “on this cushy little piece of office furniture.”

Laurence bared his teeth. “Get. Out.”

“Seventy-two hours, Larry.” Harry waddled to the door, Daily gliding on his heels. “We'll show ourselves out.”

Laurence congratulated himself on his ability to close the door gently behind them. He was not a violent man, but he wanted to slam his fist through something, most especially Harry Dump's head. He wasn't a sex-in-the-office type. Madison drove him to things he'd never contemplated.

Christ.
Admit it, Laurence, you lost control and inflicted irreversible damage.
Nothing had been Madison's fault.

He recognized her tentative knock. “Come in.”

“What did they want?”

He couldn't trust himself to speak. The veins at his temples throbbed, and his face burned with a rush of blood to the surface of his skin. His eyes bathed the office in angry shades of red. It picked up the fire and gold in her hair.

She put out a hand, but at whatever she saw in his eyes, stopped just short of touching. “T. Larry, you look like my father did the day he had his stroke.”

“You weren't more than a few weeks old when he died.”

“It's some sort of universal knowledge I share with my brothers and mother.”

He couldn't deal with her craziness, not now, not when he had to figure out how to protect her from his incredibly stupid folly. “Get Harriet.”

She opened her mouth to ask yet another inane question.

“Now, Madison!”

She rushed to do his bidding as if he'd lit a fire under her bottom.

What had he brought down on their heads? What had he been doing for the entire last week? Where was his usual command of the situation, all his plans?

Standing in the doorway, Harriet looked like hell. Laurence motioned her to a seat, closed the door and sat facing her across the wide expanse of his desk.

Harriet, except for the shade of her dyed hair, had always taken care with her appearance. Today her hair hung in strings. The makeup smudged beneath her eyes looked suspiciously like yesterday's application.

Laurence couldn't afford to feel sorry for her, baby her or wait her out. “Call off your lawyer, Harriet.”

He knew it was the inflammatory thing to say, had when he'd planned his speech in the spare moments it took Madison to get Harriet into his office. Harriet wanted Mr. Nice Guy. Laurence was done playing the game her way.

She pulled at her knee-length skirt, which at least conformed to the new company standard, and her narrowed eyes took on that Harriet the Harridan glare. “I have every right to—”

“You will
not
disrupt this company with your romantic problems. If you want Zach, fight for him. Lie, cheat, make him jealous, anything, I don't care. But don't involve this firm.” Laurence realized he could take some of his own advice. “You'll never recover from this debacle. It will follow you to every job you take. If you can get a job. Accounting is a small world.”

“Are you threatening to sabotage my career?”

“You've already done that yourself, Harriet.” He leaned forward, his arms on his desk. “But it's not public yet. You can still save yourself.”

“I think you want me to save
you.
”

He wanted to save Madison. And he did not have five hundred thousand dollars to pay off Dump and Dilly-Dally. “Save us both. Talk to Zach the way you should have eight months ago. Air your problems with him, but take it outside company time and property, the way you should have in the first place.”

“My problem is with you, not Zachary.”

“Then find another job.”

“You
are
threatening me.”

“I'm suggesting a more palatable method of dealing with it than destroying this company with a frivolous lawsuit.”

She smiled then, a cunning, mean smile. “So, I
am
having the desired effect.”

There was no sense in denying his total failure. “You are. And you might revel in it now, but two, five, nine months from now you're going to wish to God you'd made a different choice.” Laurence was wishing he had, too, like taking Madison home and spending days with her in his bed rather than expose her, literally, to the world. “What is it you really want, Harriet? Money? An apology?”

“I don't want anything from you.”

“You do, Harriet. Or you wouldn't bring this suit.” He sat back, folding his hands over his stomach. “Tell me what you want.”

Her chin went up defiantly, her trembling lip mitigating the effect, until she spoke. “I want you to fire Madison.”

Fire Madison? He couldn't imagine Carp, Alta and Hobbs without her. Why, there'd be nothing to look forward to, no reason to hurry in every day, no reason to come in at all. No Reese's Peanut Butter Cups in a drawer, no special coffee brewing, no hair bleach in his bathroom, no appointments out of place, no impediments to his plans, no candy necklaces, no flirting, no teasing. No joy.

“I'll drop the suit if you get rid of her,” Harriet repeated.

And maybe no choice if he wanted to protect Madison from the consequences of his reprehensible action yesterday afternoon.

He punched the intercom button. “Madison, come in here.”

“P
LEASE SHUT THE DOOR
and have a seat, Madison.”

T. Larry kept his eyes on hers. Not on her breasts or her lips, not even her hair. He'd erased all emotion from his features, muting even the expression in his gaze.

Harriet stared at her hands.

Madison began to get worried.

T. Larry cleared his throat. “Harriet says she'll drop the suit if I fire you.”

Her heart skipped her stomach and plunged right down to her toes. She loved Carp, Alta and Hobbs. She loved the people she worked with. She loved her job. She loved T. Larry.

Some of her shock must have shown on her face. T. Larry looked to the corner of the ceiling, then back at her. “I won't do it unless you agree.”

“Agree to be fired?” Somehow that seemed an oxymoron.

“Agree to pack your things and go.” How could he say that with so little emotion? “Of course, I'll give you severance pay and a reference.”

Harriet shifted in her seat, the leather chair creaking. Her fingers plucked at cat hairs on her dress.

“I have a lint roller at my desk you can get that stuff off with,” Madison offered.

Harriet's fingers stilled, but her gaze didn't rise. “I've got one, thank you.”

The room fell silent. T. Larry leaned his elbows on his desk, steepled his fingers and rested his chin on the top. Harriet fidgeted, swinging her legs an inch short of the carpet, chewing the inside of her cheek.

They were like schoolgirls sitting in front of the headmaster. Backlit by the windows, T. Larry's bald head gleamed, his gaze now focused on Harriet. The tick of the clock on the wall exploded in the silence. Traffic commotion slipped through the double-pane windows. Madison had never realized you could hear it. The sound of the phones ringing, the chunking of the copier and voices drifted beneath T. Larry's closed door.

Had anyone heard her cries yesterday afternoon? No, T. Larry's mouth had taken care of them.

Give up Carp, Alta and Hobbs? Could she? What about T. Larry? Her leaving didn't mean she wouldn't have a chance to fall
in
love with him. T. Larry always had another plan. She was only sorry she wouldn't be there to protect Harriet from Bill, Anthony and Mike. But, if she'd done a proper job of that in the first place, none of this would have happened. She should have dumped Bill's coffee on him years ago.

“For the sake of the company…” And for T. Larry. Especially T. Larry. “I'll do it.”

Harriet gasped, abandoned her perusal of her hands and stared at Madison. T. Larry's eyes clouded, his jaw clenched, then he closed his lids for the briefest of moments.

“Will three months severance do?”

“Three months?” Her birthday was a little over a week away. She didn't have three months. She wouldn't need to find a job or make new friends. But T. Larry had a plan gleaming behind his glasses, and she'd play along in any way he wanted. “Do you think it'll take me that long to find a job?”

He glanced at Harriet, the smoke in his eyes now a true flame. “I'm sure you'll have one by tomorrow. But you'll still get three months severance.”

“Wow.” Except for Harriet, she would have asked him if they were still on for their date on Friday. He couldn't have a single objection now. He wasn't her boss anymore. She rose. “Okay, well, I guess I'll pack up my stuff.” Her plants, her photos, her cards, her daily calendar with the cats on it. “Do you want me to leave the Reese's cups?”

“Yes.” No inflection and no play of muscle around his mouth. Maybe he was seeing all the possibilities, too.

She got halfway to the door. “Do I get a going-away cake and a lunch?” She glanced at her watch. “It's too late for today, but I can drive in tomorrow.”

T. Larry stared hard at Harriet, but all Madison could see was the back of her bent head. “Tomorrow'll be fine Madison. Where do you want to go?”

“How about…” She tapped her finger on her lips.

Harriet jumped up before Madison could think of the best place in all of San Francisco for her going-away lunch.

Her gaze darted between the two of them. “I've changed my mind. Just forget it, okay? I—” Harriet put her hand to her mouth, edged toward the door, then suddenly turned and fled.

T. Larry remained motionless and emotionless behind his desk.

“Does this mean I'm not fired?”

“I think it does.”

Madison puffed out a breath of air. “Well, that's good.”

“I agree. Breaking in a secretary is an overwhelming task.”

“Yeah, it sucks.” She furrowed her brow. “Would you really have let me go, T. Larry?”

“If I thought it was best for you.”

Which didn't answer the question, but he was playing Mr. Enigmatic, and she was sure she wouldn't get another answer out of him. “You were bluffing, weren't you?”

He rubbed the top of his head, saying nothing.

“Does this mean she's dropping her suit?”

His mouth lifted slightly in one corner. “I guess we'll have to wait and find out.”

“I guess we will.” She turned to him with the brightest smile she could fit on her face. “Can I still have a cake and lunch anyway? We can say it's my welcome-back lunch since I was fired for at least five minutes.”

 

H
ALLELUJAH
, she was staying.

Laurence basked in the afterglow of Madison's lopsided smile as she exited his office. He hadn't been bluffing, Harriet had. What made her back down? Madison's ready acceptance? Guilt? He didn't care. He'd wanted only one outcome.

The scene would play across Harriet's mind over and over again until she did indeed call off Harry Dump. And in turn, Harry would call off William Dilly-Dally.

This nonsense with Madison, however, would have to stop. For her own protection. A boss had no right crossing that line with his employee. She would henceforth be off-limits, even in his fantasies.

He could do it.

After all, back in college, he'd once gone without making a plan for an entire six weeks because his girlfriend, Constance, told him he was inflexible. Six weeks, cold turkey. Until he realized the folly of it, sent Constance on her merry, flexible way, and started on the dual Financial-Family Plan.

He'd learned his lesson then. Remain in control. He wasn't about to repeat the failure with Madison.

 

M
ADISON'S FINGERS
clicked happily over the keys as she typed time sheets into her hours worksheet. Harriet was gone, running out, purse in hand. The fuss was over. Dear Lord, she even thought she'd heard T. Larry humming in his office.

The reception door banged against the wall. Madison's fingers skipped across a number of keys and deleted half the cells she'd just entered. Undo didn't work. Double darn. Who—

Sean's boots thumped on the carpet in front of her desk.

“What are you doing here?”

“What the hell happened to your clothes?”

Oops. “What were you doing looking in my closet?” She pushed past him to glance outside her cubicle.

Rhonda peeked through the glass separating the reception area. Bill, then Anthony and Mike poked their heads out of the coffee room—didn't they ever work? ZZ Top turned a corner and stopped smack-dab in the middle of the aisleway. T. Larry appeared at his door.

Madison sat in the proverbial fishbowl, and this time she wasn't sure she liked it.

“What's going on here?”

Sean turned to T. Larry. “Your secretary here had her entire wardrobe slashed to bits and didn't see fit to tell her brothers.”

T. Larry's cheeks stiffened, and he came to stand shoulder to shoulder with Sean, two big ugly lugs staring down on her.

Time for a lie to save her neck. “I called the police.”

“Liar.” She wasn't sure whose mouth that came out of.

Okay, so a little lie hadn't worked. She tried minimization. “I had to get rid of them anyway. All my skirts are too short.”

Sean's green eyes, a mirror of her own, flashed with an angry conflagration. “Your tires were slashed last week. Now someone breaks into your bloody apartment to slash your clothes. And all you can say is you needed new stuff anyway.”

Now for deflection. She had an arsenal of sneaky weapons. “They didn't break in. They used the key under the mat.”

Sean bellowed, “How many times do I have to tell you not to leave the key under the mat all the time?”

“How would you get in if I didn't leave the key?”

Sean narrowed his eyes. “Stop trying to distract me.”

He
was
distracted. She took another shot—shifting the blame—to throw him off completely. “You didn't answer my question. What were you doing searching my closet?”

“I was looking for the damn key because
I
knew I sure as hell hadn't lost it.” He dipped into his jeans pocket. “And speaking of it, here's your damn new key for your damn new lock.”

“Thanks, you sweet guy.” Madison slipped the key from the desk and into her drawer. “But you shouldn't say
damn,
Sean.”

T. Larry burst in with, “What the hell is going on, Madison?”

She took T. Larry and Sean in with the same glare, straightened to her mighty height of five foot two and jammed her hands on her hips. “There's just a bit too much swearing going on around here. This a place of business, you know. You should both conduct yourselves accordingly.”

“The tough stuff's not going to work, little sister.”

T. Larry ignored her huff. “Sean, tell me.”

Sean did, without taking his eyes off Madison. “She tells me
I
lost the key she leaves under the mat when I have to fix something, and asks me to put on new locks. I thought she lost the key herself.”

T. Larry eyed her. “Sounds like what your sister would do.”

She wanted to take a swat at him, but Sean mowed her over.

“But I left the damn key where I always leave the damn key, and my memory's a damn sight better than hers.”

Madison wagged her finger. “I'll tell Ma you were swearing.”

“I figured she set it down somewhere and forgot. So I
looked,
not searched, and what did I find?” Sean, a handsome guy even if he was her brother, was not handsome with that sneer on his face. “Go ahead, Madison, tell T. Larry what I found.”

She took a moment to wonder if any one of the rubberneckers standing in the hall was wondering how her brother knew T. Larry.

“Madison.”

They were
all
waiting. Then Sean sniffed. “What's that smell?”

She'd thrown her meat loaf sandwich in the copy room trash, but the slightly rancid odor lingered in the cubicle. And thank you very much God for finding something to take their minds off her little apartment problem. “It was just my lunch. I think I left the meat loaf in the refrigerator too long.”

Sean wrinkled his nose. “You had
that
in your refrigerator?”

She rolled her eyes. “At least I didn't eat it. And I did learn my lesson. You shouldn't let your meat loaf.”

Much to her dismay, no one laughed. Meat? As in the male organ? Don't let it loaf around? Well, if she had to explain it, the joke lost its punch.

“Now that we've dispensed with your lunch, Madison, why don't you tell me what your brother found?”

Darn T. Larry. She'd almost had Sean sidetracked. There was still a chance. “Then again, maybe it wasn't the meat loaf. Maybe it's the flowers.” They did smell a bit funny, not like any carnations she'd ever whiffed. “Maybe you should throw them in the hall garbage on your way out, Sean.”

“Madison.”

Ooh, everyone was saying her name that way. “All right. Someone cut up all the clothes in my closet. Sean already told you that. Everything was destroyed but this.” She spread the folds of her lacy black skirt. The little bells at her waist tinkled.

T. Larry studied the skirt. “That was left untouched?”

“Yes.”

“Isn't that your only long skirt?”

Goodness, he was going right where she didn't want him to go, to Harriet. Maybe the rest of the truth would deflect him. “And actually, it's been a bit more than the tires and the clothes.”

“What?” they growled in identical voices.

She hemmed and hawed, pursed her lips, then said, “I've had a few hang up calls.”

Sean gave her a narrow-eyed scowl. “How many?”

“Three or four a night.”

More glares and scowls from everyone, but T. Larry was the one who spoke. “What else?”