feel every decibel of it.
“Would someone like to tell me why I nearly got run down by Miss Waite on her way out of this office, my attorney is bleeding to death on the nice, new carpet, and my son…well, you, I can figure out. You’ve pissed her off again, haven’t you?”
Matt felt the ice pack hit his sore head and was both grateful and relieved when it felt better.
“I most certainly did not piss her off. She was already mad when she came in here.” Michael turned to Matt. “He can tell you. She started on me the moment I walked in the door.”
Matt decided that he’d had enough for the day and stood up. “I’m not answering that on the grounds that I would have to fight you again because I won’t agree with you. You snapped, end of story. Mrs. Cunningham,” he said to her with a smile. “Perhaps you could speak with the lovely Miss Waite and see what she is willing to negotiate on the price and other things she’s listed on the contract she took with her.”
“I’ll deal with her,” Michael said, but Matt cut him off.
“If you want that building, then I suggest you stay the hell away from her. You and she seem to rub each other the wrong way, contrary to the way you two heated up the pages of those pictures.” Matt grabbed up is briefcase and his jacket as he headed to the door with the ice pack still on the back of his head. “And if you want my advice, sign the release forms and let her use the pictures. They could go a long way into making her believe you might actually have a brain in that fucking head of yours.”
Matt was nearly to the elevator when he felt his wife next to him. She was grinning and he grinned back. She didn’t say anything until the doors shut behind them and they were moving to the floors below.
“Wow, she certainly is a match to our Michael, isn’t she?” She grinned again. “And she is going to give me a discount on some of the line she has at her building. Miss Waite is going to be my new best friend.”
“Mine, too, if she and Michael can work this out.” He winced when he moved the pack again. “She has a hell of a left, I’ll give her that. Not that she took me out, I did trip over Michael, but damn.”
Stacey’s laughter made him smile again. “Sure she didn’t. I would guess a little bitty girly girl like her wouldn’t be able to take out a big, bad man like you.”
Matt wasn’t sure, but he thought she was making fun of him. He didn’t really care. Not if she looked at him like she was. He slid into her car, closed his eyes, and thought about the woman who punched nothing at all like a little bitty girly-girl, but a longshoreman on a three-day leave looking for a brawl.
~~~
Grace hated to lose her temper. And when she did it made her cry, and that just wouldn’t do. She wiped again at the tears and looked out the window of the cab she’d flagged down outside the building. She shouldn’t have lost her temper.
The phone calls were getting worse. And the horrible part was that whoever it was had her home phone and her business line as well. She hadn’t even answered any phone for several days. Monday had been bad enough. She’d been right, someone had found her.
Long ago she’d had a phone number that she’d given everyone, including her mother. The phone calls from California had been frequent back then; her mother would call for money and Grace, stupidly, would send her some. Her father would call to tell her that she needed to be more dutiful and she would simply hang up on him. Until later, that was.
About five years ago she’d stopped giving her parents anything, including speaking to them. Guinevere had become verbally abusive. And not just that, but her father had threatened her physically as well. Grace had never let her family come to visit her and, in the beginning, had had a nice apartment, but she’d since moved into the warehouse and had a security system put in. Her father had been to see her more than once and had called her to tell her to let them come stay with her, to recoup their losses. Grace had refused.
Then he’d