After-Hours Negotiation: Can't Get Enough / An Offer She Can't Refuse. Sarah Mayberry

rest of the office geography assumed the visual equivalent of white noise as Claire honed in on the ladies’ sign at the end of the hall and simply walked.

      She had no idea what had happened to Jack Brook, but she had no intention of hanging around to discuss details with him—or worse, to listen to some mealymouthed vote of sympathy.

      The veneered surface of the restroom door felt smooth and cool beneath her fingers and at last she was alone. She couldn’t even look at herself in the mirror, afraid all of her emotions would be painfully obvious: disgust, disappointment, anger, betrayal.

      God, when would enough be enough in this world? When would her achievements measure up for these people? When would her skills and talents be acknowledged?

      She threw her handbag and briefcase onto the marble vanity and at last faced her reflection in the mirror. To her surprise she looked calm. Cool. Hard. Determined.

      She snorted. The great irony of her life was that a childhood of insecurity and disappointment had helped her build a tough fortress of impenetrability as an adult. So now when she was disappointed, no one ever knew. Except for her.

      Angry tears burned at the back of her eyes and she clenched them shut for a moment. She would not cry. She hated that when she became angry one of her first responses was to feel tears coming on. It felt weak, ineffectual—a child’s response to being thwarted or hurt. If she were a man, she wouldn’t be in here being a big sooky-la-la. If she were a man, she’d be off somewhere kicking a hole in a wall or punching up some innocent bystander in a bar.

      Inspired, she took a step toward the wastepaper can and gave it a good, solid kick. It slid across the tiled floor and slammed into the far wall, toppling to one side and spilling out a morning’s worth of scrunched-up paper towel and tissue.

      “Hah!” she said out loud.

      As an expression of her anger and hurt and disenchantment, it felt woefully inadequate.

      And now there was a pile of tissue all over the floor. Unable to stop herself, she knelt and scooped the scrunched-up paper back into the bin.

      Just like a man, she mocked herself.

      The outer door swung open and one of the finance directors’ assistants entered the room. Claire shot to her feet, smiled awkwardly, then entered a stall as a way of avoiding explanations.

      She waited until the other woman had left, then emerged to wash her hands. Patting them dry, she checked her watch: a good five minutes since the meeting had ended. She could head for the elevators now and be confident of avoiding Jack. She could ride the elevator all the way down to the foyer, and just keep on walking. She’d always planned to come back to the office after her appointment with Hillcrest and work late, as usual, but now she impulsively decided to take the rest of the afternoon off. Perhaps if she went for a really punishing run she could lose some of the anger coiling in her belly.

      And then she could return to Beck and Wise tomorrow and show them that she wasn’t going to let them beat her.

      It felt like a plan. If only she didn’t still want to scream at someone.

      Her hand shook a little as she reclaimed her bag and briefcase, and she took a deep breath before exiting. To her relief, the waiting area near the elevator bank was empty, and she pressed the call button stiffly. A car eased its doors open almost immediately, and she stepped in and pressed the foyer button.

      The doors had almost slid to a complete close when a tanned arm shot into the narrowing gap. The doors automatically bounced open, and she gritted her teeth as Jack stepped into the car.

      She refused to look at him, but she could feel his eyes on her as the elevator gathered momentum and sped downward.

      Silence stretched between them. She kept her eyes glued to the floor indicator, just wanting an out from the elevator, this day, her life.

      “Look—” he began to say, but she cut him off.

      “Spare me. You’ve never liked me, and I’ve never liked you, so don’t bother mouthing some empty platitude at me, okay? Of all the unpalatable aspects of this deal, you I find the most difficult to swallow.”

      She’d planned on exiting grandly into the foyer on these cutting and deeply satisfying words, but all of a sudden the lights flashed once, then blackness descended at the same time that the grinding shriek of metal-on-metal filled the car and the elevator shuddered to a halt.

       CHAPTER THREE

      “WHAT THE—?” Jack exclaimed.

      “What’s happening?” Claire demanded at almost the same time.

      “Probably just a freak glitch,” he said into the darkness, wishing he felt as confident as he sounded.

      “You’re an expert on elevator technology now, are you?” she asked sharply.

      He couldn’t see her, but he rolled his eyes at the corner he guessed she was occupying.

      “No, I’m being optimistic. Would you prefer I start reciting the Lord’s Prayer and scribbling my will on the back of an envelope?”

      Silence. Good. He was sick of her attitude and misdirected anger. As for that dig she’d made just before the elevator went crazy… It had been a long time since someone had told him to his face that she didn’t like him. And he was surprised at how much it annoyed him.

      An emergency light flickered to life above them and he moved to the control panel. The pale, inadequate glow allowed him to find the compartment which hid the emergency phone, and he pried it open and reached for the receiver.

      “Hello? Is anyone there?” he asked, suddenly aware that his heart was pounding faster than usual.

      Okay, so this was a bit scary. And maybe he should forgive Claire for being a tad shrill. He glanced across at her as the continuing silence on the other end of the phone sunk in. Her face was pale, taut. Frightened.

      “Nothing,” he said.

      As if she didn’t trust him to know the difference between a live phone and a dead one, she crossed to take a listen herself. He leaned against the side wall, elaborately casual as he waited for her to confirm his initial assessment.

      “You’re right,” she said.

      “Wow, that must have really hurt,” he couldn’t resist saying.

      She shot him a look that would have turned lesser men to stone.

      “What, didn’t expect to have to actually stay and cop the consequences of all that mouthing off?” he asked, for some reason feeling really angry with her now. “I know you probably prefer to just hit and run, but unfortunately we appear to be stuck for the short term.”

      He watched, fascinated, as the color flooded back into her cheeks and her eyes burned with an angry light. Pretty impressive, a part of his brain acknowledged. She even drew her shoulders back and inhaled sharply, and, for the first time ever, he found his eyes dropping to her suit-encased chest.

      “It’s easy for you to stand there all smug and confident. Did you just have your idea taken away from you and handed to someone completely undeserving? Did you just get treated like some token office bimbo? No. Because you’re a man. A racquetball playing, big-game-fishing, bungee-jumping man with a stupid red sports car and the right equipment between his legs to get ahead in this company.”

      If he’d been a cartoon, his hair would have been streaming back from his head as if he’d just stepped out of a wind tunnel. Whoa, but this was one angry woman. And he could see her point, really he could. But he didn’t like the way she was sighting her feminist crosshairs directly on him.

      “Listen, I had nothing to do with what just happened in that meeting. You think I want anything to do with this? And if we’re talking about tokenism, I’m the one who’s being wheeled