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Dennis put his mocha down. “We had this very important meeting yesterday.”
The girls leaned in to hear.
He pointed at me. “The other side tried to gloss over a very large issue, money-wise, but Jennifer caught it and threw it back in their faces.”
“Not very nicely,” I added.
“True,” Dennis said. “So I took her aside and instructed her to apologize so we could sign the deal as it was.”
I slid down in my chair.
“But,” he continued, “she had a different idea.”
“What was that?” Mona asked.
Dennis looked to me for an answer.
It couldn’t get much worse, so I told them. “I told them we weren’t doing a deal with a group like them.”
“You tell ’em, girl,” Martha chimed in.
Martha crossed herself. “That’s what my Marty—God bless his soul—would always say. To win the negotiation, you have to be willing to walk away.”
Her husband had been a salesman at a car dealership forever.
I picked up my drink and sipped to keep from talking.
“You know what happened?” Dennis asked.
The girls didn’t offer a guess. They didn’t understand that I’d screwed the whole thing up.
Dennis’s eyes held mine captive, perhaps daring me to admit my failure in front of my friends?
I waited for theyou’re firedsentence to arrive.
He grinned. “She demanded better terms, they agreed, and that’s what we signed. This lady here talked them down one hundred and seventy-eight million dollars in a few minutes.” His smile brightened even more. “That’s why she’s getting a raise today.”
I choked on my coffee. “What?” I asked through a coughing fit.
He reached across to touch my hand. “Jay told me you turned down a raise for the chance to work with me, and after yesterday, you certainly deserve one.”
His touch sent an uncomfortable tingle up my arm. My brain was misfiring. I blinked hard.
He was still here, his fingers over mine.
I pulled away and lifted my coffee to my lips to hide my speechlessness.
“You’re my kind of boss,” Mona said.
Dennis gave her a warm smile. “I try.”
My heart had almost returned to a normal pace, but my head was spinning. I had attempted twice yesterday to screw up his deal with Talbot, and somehow I’d only made it better. Why on Earth would Talbot have gone for that? Everything was working out backwards. I was helping Benson instead of taking him down.
On top of that, now I had to continue working with him, though it was good to still be employed. Then his words registered—I was getting a raise.
“How much?” I asked.
He stood. “We’ll talk about it at the office. I’m going to run along now. You girls have a wonderful day.”
