The Merger (19 page)

She’d walk out right now and go get a damn job at that fancy shoe store they went to yesterday. Rent wasn’t too expensive. She could live off of packaged noodles if she had to. The bus went right from her neighborhood to downtown. Things would be fine.

Julie sat down behind her desk as Chuck pulled open the door.

“Shit! God
damnit
!” He threw down the papers. “What the hell?”

Julie figured Tiffany told him about the trucks. Maybe she got the good
curses
. These ones were weak.

“Hey, Jules, Tiff wants to see you,” Chuck growled out the shortened names.

In a huff, Julie pushed back from her desk and marched out one trailer and back to the other.

“You need something else?”

Tiffany shot her a glare as she put a pin into the display. Julie watched. It was the best lot Julie thought. The backyard would be plentiful with an amazing view. The front situated on a cul-de-sac and the park would only be a short walk away.

Tiffany closed the glass lid on the display and turned to her.

“First off, I’m sorry.” Her words were strained, but one thing Julie understood was anger filtered through words. She’d made a living from it.

Tiffany fisted her hands on her hips and continued, “It still stands that if you screw him over I’ll mess you up. But I like you and coincidences happen.” She watched Tiffany’s shoulders drop. “Spencer needs you to go home, pack a bag, and meet him at the Riverside Building in an hour.”

Julie held her breath for a beat. “It’ll take me an hour and a half to do all that. It takes thirty minutes from here to get home.”

Tiffany shrugged. “Maybe don’t pack a bag.”

“Where am I going?”

“You’re his assistant on this job. Amber can’t go.”

“I’m going to Oregon?” She shook her head. “No. That’s not a good idea. I don’t want to do that. You go. You know the job better than me.”

“I’m sales. And are you kidding me? You’re going to send
me
with your boyfriend?”

Julie balled her fists at her side. “Does that mean I can’t trust you?”

“
No,
it doesn’t mean that. It means get your ass in your car and get over there. This is
business
now. It just so happens he needs you and you have to go back to where you used to work. Big deal.”

But it was a big deal. She’d been fired. Steven would be there. She didn’t want to deal with that. She didn’t want to deal with any of them. It was just going to look bad. God, why had she come to Nashville? They were all going to think she was moving in on the big boss now. Was he going to think that too?

Her stomach churned and she was damn sure she was going to get sick.

“If you puke on my new
shoes,
I’ll still mess you up,” Tiffany said walking toward her. “You’re not screwing with him, right?”

“No.”

“You fell into this relationship, right?”

“Yes.”

“Did you sleep with him?”

Julie stared at her. “No. No. I didn’t sleep with him.”

Tiffany’s lips curled into a smile. “What are you waiting for?”

“I’m not jumping into a relationship. I’m not on the rebound.”

“I didn’t think you had. He’s too much of a gentleman and you seem to be to goodie-two-shoes to do that in the first week.”

“I don’t know if that was an insult or not.”

Tiffany shrugged. “Take
it
however, now get your butt out of here.”

Julie went back to her desk, grabbed her purse, and headed out to her car. Why hadn’t Spencer called her if he was going to demand all of this from her? She had no idea she was going to have to travel.

She climbed into her car, started the engine, and drove out of the development.

Pulling her phone out of her
purse,
she noticed he had called. Six missed calls. Four missed texts. He must have been calling when she’d gone in to get coffee.

As she maneuvered through traffic to get to the highway, she called.

“Ah, you do have your phone,” he answered. “I thought I had the wrong number.”

“What’s going on? Why do I have to go on this trip with you?”

“You’re my assistant on this specific build.”

“But PLL is your lumber supplier, not just on this project and has been for years.”

“And you have
insight
into the company. Listen, something is going on in there and the guys I left to run it don’t know why shipments aren’t getting across country to us. I need you there.”

Julie began to merge into the next lane when she heard a car honk. Quickly she swerved back into her lane.

“I don’t have time to pack.”

“No worries. Just get here and when you get to Oregon you can go shopping.”

“I don’t have any money to do that.”

“Consider it a travel expense toward BBH.”

Strangely that didn’t appeal to her. “I’m not comfortable going back, Spencer. The thought of it is making me sick.”

She heard him let out a breath. “I’ll talk to you when you get here. Maybe we can work something out.”

They said goodbye and she tossed her phone into the passenger seat. Perhaps she could talk him out of her traveling with him. It would be better for everyone if she stayed away for a while. Especially since she
was seeing
Spencer and since her ex-husband still worked for PLL.

The thought crossed her mind briefly. Maybe she should go. There was a matter of him living in the house she owned and she was letting him. Suddenly she thought it might be time to sell it out from under him.

~*~

Spencer paced in his office waiting for Julie to arrive. They had a car waiting in the garage for them. He’d have to take his father and Ed with him. Something told him he’d need to let a few of the original employees go if they found out something was going on internally.

The moment she hurried through his office door he stood and moved to her.

“You have fifteen minutes to decide whether you’re going or not,” he said.

“I’m not. Spencer, I can’t just show up there again a week later. Besides, I don’t know anything about this build really and it isn’t about the build. It’s about your supplier.”

He turned from her and
paced
again raking tunnels into his hair with his fingers. “I guess I just needed someone there to comfort me.”

He moved to her and took her hands in his, lacing their fingers together.

“Julie, this has been the craziest week of my life,” he said looking down into her eyes. “When you dropped those papers in that boardroom I was a goner.” Lifting his hand to her cheek he caressed. “Maybe you don’t have to go. I think I was looking for companionship that wasn’t just my father and my cousin.”

“They’re going
too
?”

“They have to. Essentially my dad owns PLL, well the company, and he heads that.”

“I’ll be right here when you get home,” she said raising her hands to his chest. “And I’m only a phone call away if you need to know something.”

Spencer lifted her hands to his lips and pressed kisses to her knuckles. “I might take you up on that.” He waited a moment and thought about asking her about her ex-husband. She’d never mentioned who he was. Why? What was there to hide? Steven’s affair was common knowledge, yet she’d never mentioned she was married to another lawyer on the payroll.

His cell phone buzzed in his pocket. Pulling it out, he looked at the screen. “That’s Ed. I need to go.”

Julie hooked her arms around his neck and pulled him in for a long, deep, satisfying kiss. “Remember we talked about parking out at the site and looking at the stars?”

Spencer nodded resting his head to hers. “I remember.”

“Maybe by the time I get back the other land will be ours too. We can check out the view from there.”

“Let’s make a plan to do that when you get home.”

He nipped her nose with a kiss. “It’s a date.”

The driver opened the door for Spencer when he saw him walking toward the car.

Spencer slid into the back next to his father. “You’re alone? Where’s your assistant?”

“Julie pointed out this is a supplier issue not a build issue.”

The thought crossed his mind that he hadn’t even introduced Julie to his father, but he was sure Ed had filled him in.

“Julie is the lawyer from PLL,” he admitted.

His father nodded. “It was mentioned to me.”

“I hired her to work on site. She has a good eye and her background makes her very organized.”

His father nodded again. “Are you justifying your employee?”

“No. Maybe,” Spencer shrugged. “It wasn’t fair of me to ask her to go back there. They fired her a week ago. Though I’d like to know why they did that at the end of negotiations.” He’d ponder that later. “She’s not ready to walk through the door there again.”

Both Ed and his father laughed. Then his father pulled a ten-dollar bill from his pocket and handed it to Ed.

“Thank you, sir.” He laughed as he put it in his pocket.

“What was that about?” Spencer asked.

“Your dad has more faith in you. He figured you’d sweet-talk her and she’d come. I thought you were way out of your league and she’d talk you out of it.”

“You bet on me?” Spencer looked at his father.

Zach Benson shrugged his shoulders. “I was rooting for you.” His father was grinning. It was unnerving. “I took your mother on a business trip like this once. I figured you were getting serious, even though I haven’t officially met her yet.”

“I know. You will. I’ll bring her to
the birthday
party and then everyone can meet her officially.”

“So I take it she isn’t a bitch anymore?” His father asked crossing his arms over his chest.

Spencer shook his head feeling deflated. “No. I wish I hadn’t said that to anyone. I don’t think I ever really meant it.”

His father patted his knee. “Spence, one thing about this family, we all know you pretty well. I don’t think any of us took it to heart.”

“Good. Besides, Avery and Tiffany like her. I’d say they’d have been the best judges.”

His father nodded. “You’re a brave man. You put your new girlfriend under the nose of your keeper.”

“Tiffany is not my keeper.”

That caused Ed to snort out a laugh. “Whatever. You’ve kept Tiffany on a leash for years just like Avery has with Pete.”

He didn’t like the term
on a leash
. “Tiffany has always done what she wants. She’s even been married. She wasn’t mine to have.”

“Maybe not, but I think that was because she’s not your type. You like someone a little more like-minded, who goes after what she wants. Grounded, but courageous. You
know,
the kind that will pick a fight—because she’s a lawyer. And someone who would leave where she lived and cross the country to start all over again under the watchful eye of a man who despised her. That’s gutsy.”

Spencer threw his head back against the seat. He supposed it was gutsy of her. And she had stood up to him. She was sure she didn’t want to make this trip with him. Who could have blamed her?

He
thought
while they drove through the streets of Nashville on their way to the municipal airport, without her there he could do some prying. He could see what Steven McDaniels was all about.

~*~

It was a wonder that such a bad day could actually get worse.

Julie sat at her desk with
the file
for the
perfect house
on the
perfect lot
in front of her. It was to be a corporate house and they wanted her to design it. She’d never heard of the company before and she was sure if they had execs moving into a full house for a family she would have heard of the company. Regardless, there was a little pang of sadness that Spencer’s house design on that lot with
a view
wouldn’t be personal to someone.

She closed the file. It wasn’t the house and she knew it. It was that lonely feeling when someone was missing and that someone was Spencer.

It wasn’t just that he was missing from her afternoon either. It was that he was in Oregon where her life had been a mere week ago. Only Spencer had been there too. But so were Steven and Libby.

Julie hadn’t told Spencer
who
her husband was. What if something was said? Steven had a temper. She was sure Spencer did too, but he was professional enough to keep it tucked away.

The door to the trailer opened and Tiffany stepped inside. “Are you done brooding for the day?”

“I’m not brooding.”

Tiffany gave a deliberate roll of her eyes. “You haven’t left your desk since you got back here. You should have gone to Oregon with him. Who cares if you run into your lying, cheating, sack of shit ex-husband.”

Julie wanted to laugh, but she couldn’t. Not yet.