Working It (20 page)

“But the fact of the matter is, I don't have that choice. I have to fight for my job tomorrow, in front of a bunch of partners who aren't going to give a crap that I fell in love with one of my clients. They're just
going to know that I unethically slept with someone who owed the firm money, and got him to pay up.”

“I understand you get a certificate of recognition in some companies for that sort of behavior,” Hailey quipped.

“The bottom line is, what do I tell them?” Jade tugged at her hair in frustration. “It's not like they're wrong.”

“Did you sleep with Drew to get what you wanted?”

“No, of course not.”

Hailey leaned back, smiling. “Did you sleep with him because he was your client.”

“Hailey…”

“Don't ‘Hailey' me. You fell in love. It had nothing to do with your job. You did everything you could to help him both because you cared about him and because he was a client of Michaels and Associates. It was a special circumstance, it is a personal relationship, and it's bottom line none of their business. Period, end of sentence.”

Jade leaned back, too, staring at Hailey. “Wow. Maybe I should just bring you tomorrow.”

“Maybe you should,” Hailey said, obviously still riled.

“I thought bartenders just listened to problems,” Jade said, nudging Hailey with her foot and smiling warmly. “I didn't know you went in and solved them.”

“You're a special case. So, are you going to give them hell tomorrow or what?”

Jade thought about it. “You know, it occurred to me today, while I was driving, that maybe—just maybe— I spend too much time at my job.”

Hailey blinked at her for a good minute, then smiled
broadly. “Thank God for Drew Robson. I've been trying to get you to see that for
years!
”

“Yeah, well, if you're so interested in me taking it easy and getting balance in my work life,” Jade pointed out, “then what difference does it make if I show up to this hearing and fight for a job at a company I'm not even sure I want to work for anymore?”

“Look at it this way. They're trying to tell you who you can and can't fall in love with. They're accusing you of being unethical, after years of looking you over for promotion. They're railroading you.” Hailey paused a beat for dramatic effect. “If this were happening to someone else, like me for instance, would you just roll over and tell me to make the best of it? Or would you tell me to get the lead out and kick some ass?”

Jade thought about it…a bureaucratic group telling Hailey she was fired for falling in love. Hailey was so not cut out for corporate life, and she had a habit of…oh. “Gotcha. I see your point.”

“So…what's it going to be? Rolling over or kicking ass?”

Jade grinned. “What do you think?”

Hailey grinned right back at her. “I think I'm proud of you,” she said.

“Game on,” Jade replied, and hugged her.

D
REW SHOULD'VE BEEN
used to driving by now. He glanced at his map again. Just take the Five, get off at the Ten, off at Santa Monica Boulevard. Now was that big Santa Monica or little Santa Monica? For a city that big, you'd think they could have the imagination to come up with different names for their streets, he thought, honking hard at a minivan that was threatening to cut him off. He was in rush-hour traffic. It had been a full year since he'd had to deal with something as annoying and mundane as rush-hour traffic.

It's for a good cause.

His cell phone rang and he hit the on button. “Drew, here.”

“Hey, boss.” Ken's voice rang unmistakably through the static. “It's about eight in the morning. I thought we were going to get an early start before the call to Inesco this afternoon?”

He took a deep breath. “I left a message with Inesco. We're rescheduling the call to Wednesday.”

“Um…okay.” Ken was obviously puzzled, and Drew couldn't blame him. On any other day, Drew would be in the office, hashing it out.

“I'm taking today for me. I'll be back in tomorrow. I'm not shirking my responsibilities.”

“Nobody said you were,” Ken pointed out.

Drew sighed. “Sorry. I had sort of an epiphany the
other night. I sorted out some things…about the business, for one thing. And the deal. And…well, a lot of other things.”

“Like a certain tall, redheaded business coach?”

Drew smiled. “Yeah. And my father.”

Ken whistled, low. “No kidding.”

“I guess I sort of figured out I can't do anything for Robson unless I get some balance. Otherwise, I'm going to snap and do something rash, something stupid.”

“That's not good,” Ken said, laughing nervously.

“Don't worry, I'm not going to steal a million dollars and make a break for the Caribbean,” Drew answered with a laugh of his own. “But I'll tell you one thing. For the first time in my life, I have an inkling of why Dad did it.”

“Wow. That must've been some epiphany.”

“You have no idea. So. Can you hold down the fort until I get back?”

“No problem. Handle your business. Robson Steel will be here when you get back.”

Drew smiled. “That's just what I wanted to hear.”

“Oh, and good luck…on whatever, you know, personal business you have to take care of.”

“Thanks,” Drew said, glancing at the map one more time and thinking of Jade. “I'm going to need it.”

 

T
HE EXECUTIVE
conference room at Michaels & Associates would probably work in a pinch if the U.N. needed an extra meeting place in Los Angeles. The room was cavernous, to start, and there was a lot of dark wood and brass accents. It was swank, and intimidating. Usually they brought clients here that they were trying to impress.

That wasn't the point of today's exercise.

Jade sat ramrod straight in her chair, her legs crossed. She forced herself not to fidget with the gold pen she held tightly in her right hand. She was wearing her power suit, trying hard not to shiver in the overly air-conditioned atmosphere. She had a leather portfolio in front of her with all the arguments she could brainstorm the night before.

“You're going to have them begging for mercy,” Hailey had predicted, giving her a hug goodbye that morning. Jade only wished she could have smuggled Hailey in somehow. She could use a friendly face. The eight faces flanking her on the opposite side of the mahogany table were distinctly unfriendly. They were all wearing clothing that could only be described as Business Somber, and they were staring at her as if their glares were glass shards, cutting into her.

Jade glared right back.
Game on.

Dean Michaels cleared his throat. “Well. This is a little unusual for us, so I guess we'll just get started.” He looked at Jade with an expression of pity and extreme discomfort. “I, uh, see you don't have a lawyer with you.”

She nodded. “I don't think I need one,” she said, pausing just enough to let them relax, then adding,
“yet.”

“Yes, well, we're hoping it won't get to that,” Dean said. Still she noticed that as he shuffled the papers he had in front of him, he looked over at two new people entering the room. Ah. That would be Michaels & Associates' lawyer and human resources expert. Apparently they were bringing out the big guns. Jade refused to feel nervous about that, deliberately ignoring the sudden churning in her stomach. “Today we'll be going over the decision to terminate your employment.
We're giving you the opportunity to explain yourself and your actions, and see if we need to, uh, reevaluate our decision.”

Jade looked over. The partners, the lawyer and the human resource expert stared back. She noticed that Betsy had almost no expression, although her gaze kept moving from Jade, then tilting over to Dean, then back to Jade.

“Betsy, since you're the one who brought this to our attention,” Dean said, obviously eager to pass the ball to somebody else, “why don't you go over the details?”

Betsy straightened, getting her game face in place. “Jade had been on the road for the past three weeks with a client that we frankly were not expecting to pay us. That would be Drew Robson, from Robson Steel.” She paused. “Honestly, it was a loser client. We had all but written it off…apparently the previous owner's claims of giving us a big account were completely blown out of proportion. So when Jade pressed so hard to work with this client, to the exclusion of picking up new clients, I was needless to say curious of what was motivating her.”

“I wanted to help Robson Steel and the town of San Angelo,” Jade said, her temper almost singeing her hair. “And you never…”

“Please,” Dean said. “You'll have your chance for rebuttal.”

Jade acknowledged his point, seething silently while she kept her face composed.

“As I was saying, I did some research. Mr. Robson, that would be Drew Robson, is the owner of the steel plant. He's also young. From what she described to me, it was obvious that she found him rather attractive.”

And what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?
Jade only blinked a few times, keeping her mouth drawn in a tight line.
She told me that one of the account managers she was working with had the tightest ass she'd ever seen! I didn't report her!

“When she said that she was going on a three-week road trip, with this same client, I was more than surprised. I was shocked. It was a completely unprecedented request.”

Jade's face must have registered her ire at this comment, because Betsy shook her head. “Think about it, Jade. Three weeks on the road with a client? Does anybody else at this firm do that?”

“There were reasons,” Jade said…but she felt her rock-hard resolve start to weaken a little.

Betsy's face was the picture of sympathy, which made her next sentence that much harsher. “I think we all know what those reasons were, Jade.”

Jade gasped at the injustice, then looked at Dean. He shook his head, gesturing to Betsy to continue.

This was one of my dumbest decisions,
she thought bitterly. At this point she wasn't sure if she meant Dean or this “hearing.”

“She had called in regularly, but by the end of the third week, she wasn't calling in at all, just e-mailing her clients and giving me little generic updates. I knew something was wrong. Considering her previous bizarre reaction to Mr. Robson, I suspected the worst and decided to try confirming it. I called his secretary and found out where he was planning to stay.”

Betsy produced a piece of paper from her leather portfolio with a flourish. “I have here a copy of an invoice from the White Sands hotel in Las Vegas. Two occupants. Mr. Drew Robson and Ms. Jade Morrow.”

There was a general gasp at this, as the paper made its way down the table. Jade felt heat flush her cheeks.

“I realized at this point that she was sleeping with a client. It completely goes against the ethics of the firm. She had started showing aberrant behavior, she was ignoring her regular book of business, and now this. I brought it to Dean's attention, he discussed it with the rest of you, and the decision was made to terminate her.”

Betsy gestured to Dean, as if to say,
All right, now you nail the coffin shut.

Dean squirmed in his executive chair. “Well, Jade,” he said in a tone without hope, “what do you have to say for yourself?”

Jade stood. She thought it gave her a bit of an advantage, evening out the ten-to-one odds she was currently facing. “I only have one thing to say for myself.”

She waited a second, taking a deep breath. They watched her, expectantly.

She straightened her back. “I could give you a lot of explanations and excuses, but the fact is that I did sleep with a client. I take full responsibility for that action.”

They gasped. Betsy let out a triumphant, catlike smile before realizing she'd let the expression slip and slapped on a look of shock that mirrored everyone else's.

“Do you have any idea what sort of liability you've put the firm in?” Dean goggled. “You have an affair with him, he sues us…Good God, what were you thinking?”

“I was thinking I was in love with him,” Jade said quietly.

Now they were more than shocked. They were openly aghast.

“And that's supposed to make it all right?”

“I wasn't in love with him when I started the job. There was no intention of ever getting involved in any non-professional way,” she continued. “I know it seemed like a losing proposition, but the town and the plant touched me. Do you have any idea how many clients we represent, who carry on grossly unethical practices, and we paper it over because they're paying us gobs of money? Or how many times clients have tried to proposition me, in really ugly and mercenary ways, and I've said no? Robson Steel was a special case,” she said, and at this point her voice broke. “Drew Robson is a special case.”

“I appreciate your emotion, dear,” Dean said, and his kindness made her eyes moisten with tears, “but you have to understand—emotion or not, what happened was wrong.”

“No,” Jade corrected. “What happened was unethical and definitely ill-timed. But I can't look at falling in love with Drew Robson as wrong.”

With that, the door opened. She turned and her mouth dropped open.

Drew was standing, resplendent in a navy pinstriped suit and gleaming white shirt. His tie was crimson silk. He looked as if he'd just stepped off a model's runway.

“I'm sorry I'm late,” he said without any other preamble, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “I'm afraid my map was a little misleading.”

She gaped at him.

“Excuse me, who are you?” Dean looked bewildered. “This is a private…”

“My name's Drew Robson, and I think this meeting affects me as well as Ms. Morrow.”

Now the partners were riveted, as though they'd somehow accidentally stumbled into a daytime soap opera. Betsy, Jade noticed, paled a little.

“I understand that Ms. Morrow is getting fired because of her relationship with me.” He stood next to her, his eyes like glacial ice. “I want to get the details on this.”

“Well, uh, you are our client, and it is unethical for her to…er, get involved with you. While you're our client.”

“The job is finished,” Drew said. “I'm no longer your client, so she shouldn't have—”

“The thing is,” Betsy interrupted, “she got involved with you while you were still a paying customer.” She put emphasis on the term
paying.
“That's unethical.”

“I see.” He sat, and Jade followed suit, still numb from the unreality of the whole situation. “So…she wasn't able to get work done because of her involvement with me?”

“Yes,” Betsy said.

“That's not true,” Jade said. “I was able to maintain my normal book of business.”

“You weren't working up to par. What you were turning in was completely substandard.”

Jade thought back to her night in Las Vegas and Betsy's frantic phone call. “You mean, I wasn't able to help you with the new sales pitch that you wanted me to.”

Betsy hissed, then her eyes narrowed. Now some of the other partners weren't looking at Jade…they were craning to look at Betsy.

“You slept with the man,” Betsy said in a frigid voice.

“But she wasn't neglecting her work?” Drew's voice, on the other hand, was completely calm. “I see. And what brought the fact that she was involved with me to your attention? What is the proof of this?”

“You two shared a hotel room,” Betsy said. She looked vindicated. “There's proof of that.”

“And that's proof that we were romantically or otherwise unethically involved?” His voice was mild, but his face was stern. “I see. Just how did you obtain a copy of my hotel bill, Ms. Diehl?”

She blinked. “That's not the point here.”

“It is the point. Or rather, it will be the point after I speak with my lawyer.”

Dean went a few shades whiter. “This is what we were afraid of,” he said, looking at the Michaels & Associates' lawyer. “I knew that a lawsuit would result from this!”

Drew sighed. “I see. So your main concern regarding the ethics of her behavior isn't so much how you feel it will reflect on the firm…but the kind of trouble the firm will be in?”

Jade looked at him. Where was he going with this?

“We don't want to see this go to court,” the lawyer said, his voice rumbling and low. “Perhaps I ought to speak to…”

“What if we draw up a contract, an agreement if you will, saying that I won't sue Michaels and Associates for sexual harassment, or anything similar, now or any time in the near future?”

Dean blinked. “That…would work well.” Then he paused. “And what would you want in return?”