Tongue Tied

Chapter 21

"What do you have in mind?" I caved, immediately regretting agreeing to go out.

It sounded like Alec was shuffling paperwork around, probably attempting to clean up his horror story of a desk. "How 'bout I pick you up at eight and we'll go over to that fifties diner you used to tell me you loved so much?" he suggested.

My heart seemed to swell at his words. It had been years since I'd been to the Camaro Diner. When I was younger I used to go there a lot with friends. They had the world's best pulled pork sandwich, as far as I was concerned. Alec had never been there but I'd certainly droned on about how good it was to him on numerous occasions. It was next to impossible for me to turn down his offer.

I paused briefly, considering it, but ultimately there was no saying no. "Okay," I smiled. "We can do that."

"I'll see you at eight."

I decided that a pulled pork sandwich was worth whatever consequences there might be of going out in public with Alec. I also decided I was going to wait until after I'd let him pick up the dinner tab to bring up Blondie. I was itching to find out what the hell was going on between them.

A knock on my door startled me, causing me to drop my phone on the floor. "Come in!" I said, retrieving it from its face down position.

"Hey," Renee smiled, heels clicking as she made her way into my office. "Mr. Hilliard wants to see you in his office in fifteen minutes."

She had a grin on her face and her voice was pretty chipper, giving me the impression that she knew the reason he wanted to talk to me and that it wasn't anything bad. I was already sure I knew what it was too. He'd heard about me securing the Rutherford Laurence deal and he was going to tell me I wasn't going to be fired. I wasn't really sure how my day could get any better. Aside from the Alec and Blondie thing, I was in a pretty great mood.

"Great," I nodded. "Thank you."

Renee clicked back to her office and I spent a few minutes responding to emails and making a note to myself to draft the contract I needed to send Margaret for Sean to sign. That would allow Corbin and Hilliard to work for Rutherford Laurence.

Five minutes later I sauntered into Mr. Hilliard's office feeling pretty confident. "Good morning," I greeted him happily.

He acknowledged my presence with a nod and a gesture for me to have a seat until he finished what he was doing on his computer.

"Bree." Mr. Hilliard finally looked up with a halfway smile. "I received a call from Sean's secretary and she informed me that he has decided on us for his campaign advertising. She told me he was very impressed with your presentation."

I could feel my confidence growing with every word out of his mouth. "Thank you," I smiled.

"I realize now that I may have been a little hasty giving you a two-week limit on something you had no control over," he sighed, lounging back in his big leather office chair. "You've been a tremendous asset to this agency, and Mr. Corbin and I value your work ethic very much."

Mr. Hilliard's tone had begun to drop to a monotone level and I slowly started to think maybe he wasn't going to give me good news.

"Thank you," I repeated, unable to come up with anything else to say.

"Bree, I'm very happy that you were able to acquire Rutherford Laurence's business," he said. "I, of course, am not letting you go." What a relief! "However," he cleared his throat. "I do have to inform you that Mr. Corbin and I have decided to discuss a possible acquisition with Abernathy Advertisements. I know you met with Darin Forbes recently. I'm sure he mentioned it to you."

Shock flooded through my veins at his words. "What?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I had been so sure that Mr. Corbin, if not Mr. Hilliard also, would never let any type of merger occur. "He said they were looking at several companies, but-"

"Bree, you're not to tell anyone about this," he told me, frowning as he spoke. "But we're in a lot of debt. Hawthorne Hills Hospital hasn't been paying the full amount we agreed upon when we signed into contract with them, and several of our other clients are attempting to screw us on payments, whether it be dragging them out passed the set due date or not paying in full or just not paying at all. We should be filing suit but it would be wildly expensive and we just can't afford to do that right now with the shape we're in. We had been counting on paying back the bank for what they loaned us to start this agency, but it doesn't appear to be doable at this point."

I had been so sure that if I got Rutherford Laurence to work with us, we wouldn't have to worry about that debt problem. What had gone wrong?

"But Rutherford Laurence is going to bring in a ton of revenue," I reminded him.

Mr. Hilliard nodded but then shook his head. "I know that, Bree, but it's just not going to be enough. We're losing money faster than we're making it, with or without Rutherford Laurence. Mr. Forbes personally came to speak with me yesterday about joining forces and we're going to seriously consider. I just need you to be aware of this so that you'll be prepared if we get bought out. I don't want you to lose your job, Bree, but if we agree to Abernathy buying us, I don't know how many of our people they're going to keep on."

I was stunned, to say the least. Obviously it had gone in one ear and out the other when I told Darin to look elsewhere for an agency to buy. Not that I had any say in it anyway, but I thought I had been pretty up front about it. I thought he would've taken a hint and fucked off. But then again, if he had, I might've screwed Corbin and Hilliard out of business.

My emotions were right on the edge of a wine-drinking breakdown, unable to decide which way to focus my energy: the bad news or the good news. It was great that I wasn't getting fired - yet - but I couldn't stop wondering what was going to become of Mr. Corbin and Mr. Hilliard's talks with Darin and the rest of the Abernathy board. What if I did end up losing my job? What would I do then?

My thoughts traveled back to Darin offering me a job, but thinking of it made me cringe. After seeing how little of a crap he gave about the employees of the agencies Abernathy wanted to buy, the idea of working for Abernathy had become a huge turn off. They were no longer my dream agency to work for. Now I had no clue who was. One thing was for sure: I was going to have to figure out who was pretty fast and keep them in mind as a backup plan.

I decided to call it a day early and leave the office around one. I went home, all too anxious to shed my work clothes, and flopped into bed, covering up and attempting to block out the world for a few hours until I had to get up again and get ready for my dinner with Alec. I wondered what he would say about all this. I wondered if Harper Media was also in talks with Abernathy.