Page 15 of Take the Bait

Her roommate in college had gotten a degree in psychology and told her she was subconsciously trying to replace her father. It had something to do with Dani not feeling as if her father paid enough attention to her, so she was attracted to men who reminded her of him and then did back flips trying to get their attention and earn their affection.

She wasn’t sure she bought the theory. She preferred to think she had high standards in dating partners that most men simply didn’t live up to. She would rather be single than date some jerk who treated her badly and made her miserable, or heaven forbid, who needed a mommy-figure to raise him and take care of him. Was that too much to ask for?

It was a question she asked the universe a lot. Particularly when yet another three-date wonder piqued her interest, took her out a few times, and eventually showed his true colors, turning out to be fatally flawed as a potential life partner.

It wasn’t that she only dated with an eye to marriage. But why would she waste her time dating some guy who wasn’t even remotely decent enough to consider marriageable?

Her amateur psychologist roommate also said Dani held herself in too high esteem and imposed her own impossibly high standards on the people around her, costing herself friends and boyfriends. The roommate had delivered the observation as a critique, but Dani had taken it as a compliment.

And hey. Her taste in men hadn’t always been abysmal. Bobby Thompson in the first grade had been cute and very sweet to her. He’d always let her climb the monkey bars first and had stood below her to catch her in case she fell. Sometimes when she was particularly down on men in general, she pondered the irony of a six-year-old demonstrating more chivalry that some adult men.

It had been downhill pretty much ever since Bobby, though. Apparently, she’d now added being a ginormous ass to her list of requirements for bad boyfriend material. She was doomed. Might as well buy herself a wimple and get to the nearest convent.

Her cell phone rang and she moaned into her pillow. The noise was worse that the effort of making it stop, so she reluctantly emerged from under the pillow to fumble on her nightstand for the phone. She rolled over to look at its face and see who was disturbing her at this ungodly—no wait, it was after ten a.m.—this perfectly godly hour.

Crap. WMP’s main number. She didn’t recognize the extension. She snatched the phone to her ear. “Hel—“ Her voice cracked. She cleared the just-woke-up phlegm out of her throat and repeated brightly, “Hello!”

“Miss Wellford?” an unfamiliar female voice said briskly.

“Yes, this is she.”

“Mr. Whitney would like to see you in an hour. Is your schedule free?”

The secretary was calling her at home. Of course her schedule was free, particularly for the founding partner of WMP. Aloud, she responded, “I’ll be there in an hour.”

“Perfect.”

Holy crap. Was she getting called on the carpet for drinking too much last night? She thought she’d held her liquor pretty well, all things considered, and hadn’t barfed in the potted palms or made a pass at anyone in front of his wife—or done anything else to humiliate herself or the firm that she could remember.

Granted, she’d made out with Cam in a restroom, but nobody had seen them that she was aware of. She was pretty sure she’d snuck out of the bathroom without anyone seeing her, and she assumed Cam would’ve been equally careful not to be seen slipping out of a ladies’ room.

He might be an ass but surely he didn’t want to get a reputation for accosting women in ladies’ rooms. In point of fact, she probably had grounds to file some sort of sexual harassment complaint against him. Although she guessed her enthusiastic participation in said accosting would disqualify it as harassment.

What did Whitney want with her, then?

Was this some sort of test to see if she could hack partying hard and then manage to pull herself together enough to be functional the next morning?

They weren’t going to fire her already, were they? Had Cam narced on her to that raspy voiced partner and told the guy she’d rejected his advances like some frigid virgin, had he?

Horror coursed through her. They wouldn’t fire her for not going along with their secret scheme to pimp her out to hotshot attorneys they were trying to lure to the firm, would they?

Would a jury take her word that she’d overheard a conversation between a member of the firm and Cam where she’d been offered to him as an enticement? Would Cam corroborate her story?

He might’ve helped her before she’d kissed him like a slut and then abandoned him in a ladies’ room. But after humiliating him like that? Probably not.

Could she sue for wrongful termination? It would depend on the grounds they cited for firing her. Maybe she should tape record the upcoming conversation with the big boss. She would have to notify Mr. Whitney, of course, for the recording to be admissible as evidence?—

Her thoughts raced around in frantic circles as she eased herself carefully to a vertical position and forced her body into motion.

It turned out racing around one’s bathroom showering, drying hair, and doing make-up on an empty stomach with a martini hangover sucked. Bad. She was a hot mess, but somehow, she pulled herself together.

She stared at the contents of her closet for a long time and eventually dug out a semi-sheer blouse she would normally never dream of wearing to the office, or any legal setting at all, for that matter. It had a high neck, but it also had a teardrop cutout below the collar that showed a generous amount of cleavage. She’d worn it to her roommate’s wedding last year in a futile attempt to sex up her image a little and try to attract any single male’s attention at the wedding. It hadn’t worked. But it was sexiest top she owned.

She tied the bow at the neck in a puffy rosette and let the ends trail down to cover most of her décolletage. If Whitney pissed her off bad enough at the meeting, she could always reach up and untie the bow to expose a lot more of her chestular region.

Along with the blouse, she donned her most conservative suit, a black wool affair that was tailored a bit more loosely than usual to disguise her hourglass figure. No need to give the old geezer any ammunition for his sexist attitude.

Last but not least, she donned silk stockings and a pair of black leather pumps with stiletto heels. She was armored for battle to the best of her ability.

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