Anything You Can Do(45)

Bailey returned to her office feeling more disoriented than she had at the beginning of the meeting in spite of the coffee and rolls. Falling into her chair, she spun it around and looked out the window at the parking lot next door. The rectangular cars sat quietly in tidy, rectangular rows.

Until recently she'd thought her life was like that, tidy and symmetrical. Bad enough her personal life had gone down the tube with all her time and thoughts centering on Austin, but now her career, which had been proceeding on schedule, was suddenly an unknown element. And she would cast the deciding vote. That was a hell of a thing to put on somebody's shoulders who wasn't even officially a partner yet.

Leaning back in her chair, she crossed her arms and chewed on her bottom lip. Her instinct rebelled at the thought of merging with another firm. But on the other hand, maybe she'd grown into the situation here and could just as easily adjust to another. In a bigger firm, there was certainly greater potential for advancement and growth.

Not that Stafford Morris had ever tried to stop her personal expansion within the firm. They'd fought tooth and nail over a lot of things, and he had been known to pull rank on her. But in the overall picture, she had no real complaints. She'd pretty much been allowed to carve her own niche.

Conversely, stories she'd heard via the grapevine about the new and improved Kearns, Worley firm indicated the niches were carved before the insertion of attorneys. She could see that. Pushy as Austin was, he'd enjoy molding people to his specs, but she'd be damned if he'd get the chance to mold her.

Bailey kicked at the credenza behind her, spinning her chair back around to her desk. Damn! Her personal feelings were intruding on a business decision. She couldn't let that happen.

Pulling a yellow legal pad from the middle of one of the stacks on her desk, she ripped off the top pages and drew a line down the middle of the first blank sheet. On one side she wrote "Pro," on the other, "Con," and began making her lists.

She muttered an expletive as both sides rapidly filled.

She didn't want this responsibility. If Stafford knew her decision could be influenced by personal factors...

Or maybe the crafty old fox did know. That would be just like him, to stack the deck.

The pencil lead snapped, and Bailey realized she had been pushing a hole into the paper. She tossed the paper and pencil into the midst of the mess on her desk.

This was all that blasted Austin's fault. He made the offer. Because of him, she was in this unenviable position.

Then it hit. She straightened as energy surged through her. Austin was asking for a merger, and the decision was in her hands. She was back in familiar territory, not the unexplored terrain of the night before. She could talk to him now. Grabbing the phone, she punched in a number she hadn't realized she'd memorized.

"Austin," she greeted when he came on the line.

"Bailey! Hello." His voice sounded excited on the first word then dropped to an intimate tone on the second.

"So we may be in this thing together before long," she said, then explained that the offer had been presented that morning.

"Oh." She'd obviously taken him by surprise, but he rallied immediately. "How's it look? Have they made any decisions yet?"

"We won't vote until Monday. Stafford just presented it to us in a special partners' meeting this morning."

He took the bait. "Partners' meeting? Are you—I didn't think—"

"I know I can trust you to keep quiet for now. My partnership isn't official yet, but of course, I was invited to vote on something so important, especially since there were six partners. That could have resulted in a tie vote." She leaned back in her chair, propped her feet on her desk, waited.

"You're being made a partner? Bailey, that's great. When is the official announcement? We'll have to get together and celebrate." Give the devil his due, he sounded sincere. But then the full impact must have hit him. "Six partners? A possible tie?" He was silent for a moment. "Well, so, what do you think?"

"You know I couldn't possibly divulge that information, Austin, not even to a good friend like you. Firm loyalty and all that, but I'm sure you'll be the first to know when the decision is made. Oh, my client just walked in. I've got to run."

Bailey whirled around in her chair and laughed at the ceiling. "One point for me," she said softly. But even as she said it, she had to admit to herself that her exhilaration didn't derive solely from scoring one on Austin. Oddly, she felt more connected to him now than last night and certainly more comfortable talking to him. Some of her elation slipped away, however, at the thought that she was limited to relating to him on a business level, that she just couldn’t quite get there when they took it personal.