Page 60 of Take the Bait

She paused to let out the breath it felt like she’d been holding for the past hour, then started down the steps of the courthouse.

“Dani! Wait up!”

She turned to face Cam who hurried to join her. “I’d take you out to lunch to celebrate your loss, but I’ve got a deposition across town and need to run.”

“Congratulations,” she said politely. Vividly conscious of standing on the courthouse steps in sight of any number of members of the local legal community, she shook the hand he offered her and managed not to shiver with delight as their palms touched.

Cam smiled wryly at her as he released her hand. Without moving his lips, he said under his breath, “Dinner tonight? Same place as before?”

“Deal,” she replied from an unmoving smile. Then, as they walked down the steps side by side, she asked conversationally, “How on earth do you swing reservations at a place like that on such short notice?”

“My cousin’s the pastry chef. I’m family.”

“Ahh. I’ll look forward to hearing more about your family sometime.”

“Later. We have other things to…discuss…that could take a long time.”

“A very long time,” she agreed with a straight face.

With a quick flash of that thousand watt smile of his at her, he turned and jogged of down the sidewalk.

She could not wait for tonight.

She went back to the WMP offices in an ebullient mood. Finally. She and Cam were going to be together.

But as soon as she stepped out of the elevator into the WMP offices, she knew something was wrong. Very wrong. Everyone stared at her as if she was a plague bearer and scurried out of her way as she headed for her office.

Had they already heard she lost her case? News did travel fast in legal circles.

Zoey was waiting for her, grim-faced, in her tiny cubby hole of an office. Uh oh. It was serious, then.

“WTF?” she asked her friend under her breath.

Zoey closed the door behind her. “Word is you’re being canned. The big boys are gonna blame you for losing the Koronov case. The line will be that it was a no-brainer case and you couldn’t even get it right.” She added heavily, “But we all know why they’re firing you.”

“The discrimination thing.”

“Yeah, sweetie. Have you got enough to hang them with, yet?”

She squeezed her eyes closed. Not without that name from Cam.

Damn her bosses, anyway. This was just like she’d read in the files of those other women. The firm pulled crap right up to the edge of actionable behavior, then swept everything under the rug and quietly got rid of the female associate before she could make a stink.

She was so close to having enough to nail them.

But her gut yelled at her that WMP was going to manage to get rid of her before she could expose them. The bastards were going to get away with it. Again.

Desperate, she picked up her cell phone and dialed Cam’s number. It kicked over to voice mail immediately. He must already be in his deposition. She swore under her breath as the beep signaled she could talk.

“Cam, it’s me. WMP’s about to fire me. The only thing that will stop it is for me to get the name of the man you talked with that night at the cocktail party. The guy who told you to screw me if you’d like because that’s what I was hired for. I have to warn you, WMP will get you blackballed with every law firm on the east coast if you get involved with this. I won’t hold it against you if you choose not say anything. You have your career to look out for. Now that I think about it, I shouldn’t have asked you at all. I’m just panicking, here. In fact, forget I asked. I would never wreck your career to save mine.”

The second she disconnected the call, even more intense buyer’s remorse slammed into her. Crap. She shouldn’t have said anything to Cam about giving her the name.

She asked Zoey urgently, “Is there a way to delete messages once you’ve left them on someone else’s phone?”

“No, honey. That’s why drunk texting is so dangerous.”

“Dammit.” She thought fast. “Then I’ve got to get the partners to fire me before Cam can get that message and ruin his career for me. Quick, do you know if the partners are in the building?”

---