Speak Now (36 page)

“Hello, Cara! Who knew you’d be here.”

Even before turning, Cara pasted on a polite smile. “Jacob. What brings you here?”

“I’m representing the firm…” A man interrupted him, leaving Cara ready to bolt, but Jonathan stopped her.

“Cara, will you introduce me?” Jonathan slipped his arm around her waist as he spoke. She nearly choked on her drink at the standoff before her.

“Jonathan, this is Jacob Laban, a friend from college. Jacob, I’d like to introduce you to my Jonathan.”

Her slight emphasis on “my” didn’t do any good. Jacob gave his new rival a once-over that would have quelled a weaker man and then ignored him completely. Jonathan, however, seemed amused. “It’s nice to meet you, Jacob. I hope you have a lovely evening. Is your date here? I’d love to meet her.”

Jacob shuffled uncomfortably and then met Jonathan’s eyes squarely. “I’m here for work. I don’t mix business with pleasure.” He glanced at Cara, “As difficult as that is sometimes.”

“I see. That’s quite admirable of you. You’re the kind of employee that every employer hopes they’ll find, but we rarely do. If you ever need a job, be sure to ask for me at Delta Advertising.” Jacob began to reply, but Jonathan continued fluidly. “However,
we
am here on pleasure, and it’s rude of me to keep Cara standing here talking about business. I hope to see you again sometime.”

The dinner bell chimed just
as Jonathan turned to accept an appetizer. “Sounds like time to eat…”

At their seats, Cara leaned into him and whispered, “Who are you and what have you done with Jonathan Lyman?”

“
Your
Jonathan?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact,
my
Jonathan.” At the look in his eyes, she laughed. “Jonafan, too.”

Though she was sure he knew what she meant, Jonathan still asked, “What’s wrong with me?”

“I’ve never seen you so—so—” she hesitated. “Well, if you were a woman, I’d call you vivacious!”

“You forget that I’m not shy. I don’t have a great horror of social situations or people. I just don’t like to talk.”

She cocked her head and asked, “But you like to hear others talk.”

“Usually.”

“Have you ever considered that perhaps your dislike of conversation has to do with something about the vibrations in your vocal cords or your eardrums bothering you when you speak?”

Lost in thought over her observation, Jonathan didn’t respond immediately. Not until the welcoming speeches about everything from the importance of th
e year’s charity of choice to instructions for the silent auction did he finally answer. “I think you might have a point. I’ve never thought of it that way. Unfortunately, I’ve also grown accustomed to things the way I like them.”

Cara picked up her fork as her plate was set before her and asked, “If I just wanted to hear you talk, for no good reason, would you do it?”

“Cara mia, I’ll do just about anything for you, as you well know.”

“I’ll remember that.”

Jonathan sat with a phone in each hand. In his right, he held Todd’s phone with the message from Lynn Czech-something
-that-sounded-like-a-sneeze; in his left, his own phone with a message from Della. His thumb punched each one in turn, listening carefully, trying to find a difference. Despite every attempt to find one, he failed. He printed several emails from his laptop, grabbed the phones, and strode through the office to the elevator. He had to ask his Uncle Weston before he stormed into the office, accused one of their best agents of unethical conduct, and then waltzed back to Atlanta, leaving his uncle with the fallout.

The elevator opened directly into Uncle Weston’s reception area. The assistant that Jonathan hoped to inherit when he took over the company, smiled and nodded as he pointed to the door. “Wes is waiting for you.”

“Thanks, Viv. Did your son get that scholarship?”

“Yes, he did. Covers books and tuition.”

Jonathan paused. “Did he apply for the Delta Award?”

“Well, I thought it might be a conflict of interest…”

“I don’t think it’s been awarded yet. Have the application in my inbox by five, and I’ll personally throw my vote his way. Can’t promise anything, but he’s a good kid. He did excellent work for the intern program.”

Weston Lyman beamed as his nephew entered. “Did you come to give me your transfer notice, so I can get out of this rat race?”

“Two more years, Uncle Wes. At least two more years.”

“That’s better than the five I’ve been hearing for the past ten.” Weston’s eyes narrowed as Jonathan offered the email printouts.
“What do you have for me?” The middle-aged man pulled his glasses from his shirt pocket and took the papers, glancing at them with a decided lack of interest.

“What I hope is a very bad coincidence.”

After reading each of the emails from Todd, Cara, and Derek, Weston Lyman removed the glasses again, leaned back in his chair, and gestured to the phones in Jonathan’s hands. “Does one of those have the voicemail?”

“Yep.”

“What’s on the other?”

“A voicemail from Della
Carletti to me. She left it this morning.”

“Why was she calling you?”

Jonathan pointed at the papers. “I left her a message while she was in a meeting with a client so she’d have to return my call. I didn’t answer.”

“Let’s hear them.”

Jonathan played each message, back to back, several times before Wes picked up his office phone and told Vivian to get Della Carletti in his office immediately. “Give me the one with the message from ‘Lynn,’ and sit in that chair. You’ll know if I want you to play your message from her today.”

They talked about several work related issues before Wes
ton said, “I’m tired of dancing around the issue. What is going on with that Laas woman—Carrie?”

“Cara.”

“Is she the one in charge of the Mayflower account?”

“For now, yes. Their internet division is spread very thin right now, so once that’s remedied, she’ll be passing it along to someone else. She’s an assistant CFO.”

“I see. If I hadn’t heard that voicemail myself, I might have thought you let your emotions get in the way of your judgment.”

“If anyone but Cara had brought this to my attention, I would have been in here hours ago. I wore down the batteries of both phones, had to recharge them, and poor Todd is working with a temp phone. I just wanted to be sure—”

“I get it. So this Cara—is it serious?”

“What makes you think that?” Weston Lyman didn’t interfere in his relative’
s personal lives until invited. The interrogation, mild as it was, intrigued him.

“You flew here, not took a train, flew. You used miles to take her to Chicago, and the return ticket was the next day. I’ve never known you to do anything so—so—modern.”

“My credit card bill will reflect two hotel rooms, if it’ll make you feel better, but yes. I think it’s serious.”

“Are you going to string things along for two years until you’re done in Atlanta, are you considering moving things up early, or will she be moving there if you get married sooner?”

“I assume she’ll move there. Mayflower has a large office down on Peachtree, and I don’t think they’d want to lose her.”

“Are we looking at six months, a year?”

“She’s coming to Atlanta next month. After that, I think I’ll be able to give you a better answer. All I can say now is that I don’t think either of us is prepared to wait for a long engagement.”

“Chemistry?”

“Something like that. I—”

The phone buzzed and Vivian’s voice came over the speakerphone. “Ms. Carletti to see you, Wes.”

“Send her in.”

Della showed no concern, no surprise at the sight of Jonathan—nothing to indicate she’d been engaged in nefarious activities to undercut one of their employees. For one long, unnerving minute, Jonathan changed his mind, certain he’d been premature. “Jonathan, did you get my message returning your call?”

“Got it, thanks.”

Wes took over the discussion almost immediately. “Della, I have something I’d like for you to listen to.” He punched the button and waited for her response as her voice filled the room.

Silence hovered for a moment, and then Della asked, “Who is Lynn Czhewhatever?”

“We don’t know.”

“Shouldn’t you be talking to Mayflower about this?”

Wes passed the email printouts across the desk. “Perhaps if you read these—”

Before he could finish, Della’s face contorted with rage. “That witch! I can’t believe she’s doing this to me! I knew she was an unprofessional—”

Wes interrupted before Jonathan found it impossible to control himself. “That’s enough.”

“But, you don’t understand, Mr. Lyman, this woman canceled appointments, insulted me, made appointments with other agents
in our firm
after I made time in my schedule—”

“For a client, Ms. Carletti. You seem to forget that those things are your job. You cancel appointments every other week. It’s part of life. Things come up. You don’t have a right to an account, even once you’ve secured it. The customer can go wherever they like. It’s your job to ensure they like staying here, and from what we’ve heard of your behavior, it’s amazing that Mayflower gave us a second chance.”

“What is with this woman? First she cancels her appointment because it’s ‘inconvenient,’ then she doesn’t even have the authority to approve it, then she goes trawling through our junior agents to upstage me, and now she’s accusing me of sabotage?”

Wes played the message again. Two words into it, he nodded at Jonathan who punched his cellphone. The voices were identical. “You just put us in such a bad position; I don’t know where to begin.”

“That’s not me!”

“Mayflower Trust has no one by that name. Do I need to ask the police if they can pull cellphone records?”

With the sight of her job on the line and the realization that she was caught, Della tried a new tactic. “Okay, it was me. I just wanted to see this great plan of Todd’s. No one would let me near it, and I needed to see where my weaknesses lie.”

A glance from Wes gave Jonathan the opening he’d waited for. “Well, I can help you there. First, you underestimated the value of Mayflower Trust. You didn’t present any kind of market research to show where they needed to focus their attention, and you basically did a snow job. Fortunately for you, you’re amazingly talented. Your snow job is another person’s best work, or in this case, I’m guessing your assistant’s work because you were too busy to do it yourself. You gave a general idea and let Jim run with it.”

Stunned, Della nodded. “I thought that’s what an assistant—”

Jonathan didn’t wait for her to continue. “However, the real problem came when you accused your client, the person with the money who pays your salary, of being inconsiderate, of wasting your time, of aggrandizing, and then pulled some underhanded hijinks to get her in trouble.” His voice grew steely and cold. “Your unprofessionalism toward a client and the problems you’ve caused with our relationship with Mayflower Trust is enough that, if I was in charge of this office, you’d be fired.”

“Well—”

“As it is, you will never work in the same building with me. When I return to Rockland as CEO of this company, I will not have a woman who insulted my wife, calling her detestable names, working for me.”

“Your wife?”

“Jonathan has been seeing Cara Laas for weeks.” Wes leaned forward. “It is very serious.”

“I— I—” Della looked helplessly at Wes and said the stupidest thing she could have. “I didn’t know.”

Jonathan stood and walked around the desk to hug his uncle. “I have a flight in a couple of hours. I’ve got to go. I’ll take Todd his phone. I have a copy of the message on my computer. You’ll need it for her file.”

At the door, he turned and added one last parting shot. “The killer is; Cara didn’t like you from the first conversation you had with her. You were rude to her and showed an entitlement mentality toward the account. However, she put it aside in order to give you a fair shot, because she knew her boss wanted you. He insisted, from the beginning, that she use you. If you hadn’t been so rude and dismissive, she never would have called me for an alternative recommendation.
You
lost that account. If she hadn’t seen me every day for a week, Delta would have lost it entirely. Thanks to Todd, we have it.”

~*~*~*~

“She really did it?” Cara shook her head in disbelief. “I really thought I was crazy.”

“She did. She’ll be looking for a new company—eventually.”

“I didn’t want to see her fired. I just didn’t want to have to deal with her, and I didn’t want her to hurt your company’s reputation.”

Wheeling his suitcase toward the automatic doors of the airport, Jonathan shook his head. “I didn’t fire her. I just informed her that I wouldn’t work with her when I move back here.”

They waited for an open kiosk and then turned to find seats until Jonathan had to go through security. He glanced at her, weary from the ugliness of the morning. His eyes told Cara more than his words ever could. “I know, but just two more weeks…” Cara wanted to touch him but had already learned her lesson that weekend.