“What women have here,” Megan said coldly, “aren’t privileges, they’re rights. As for the sheikh…he spends as much time in the west as he does in his own country. He deals with women ambassadors at the United Nation. You can’t actually mean—”
“Our representative will have to work at his side. Deal with his people. Do you think, for one minute, those men agree to sit down with a woman, much less take criticism and suggestions from her?”
“What I think is that it’s time they joined the twenty-first century.”
“Getting them to do that isn’t the function of Tremont, Burnside and Macomb.”
“I also think,” Megan said in a dangerously soft voice, “that you’d better join this century, too. I’m sure you’ve heard of anti-discrimination laws.”
Simpson proved ready for that threat. “Anti-discrimination laws are valid only within the United States. There are place where even our female soldiers conform to local customs.”
“What the military does has nothing to do with the sheikh’s plan to raise capital to further develop Suliyam’s resources,” Megan snapped, though a lurch in her belly told her she’d just lost ground.
“It has everything to do with it.”
“I doubt if a judge would agree.”
Simpson slapped his hands on her desk and leaned toward her. “If you’re threatening to sue us, Miss O’Connell, go right ahead. Our attorneys will make mincemeat out of your case. The laws of Suliyam take precedence over American law when our employees live and work there.”
Was he right? Megan wasn’t sure. For all she knew, Simpson might have already trotted the issue past the company’s legal counsel.
“And, knowing the outcome, if you were still foolish enough to go ahead with a lawsuit,” Simpson added with smug self-assurance, ‘what would you put on your résumé? That you sued your employers rather than follow their wishes? How many jobs do you think that would get you?”
Zero, but Megan wasn’t going to admit that. “That’s blackmail!”
“It’s the truth. You’d be poison to any firm of financial advisors.”
Her stomach took another dip. He was right. Legally, you couldn’t pay a penalty for bringing an anti-discrimination lawsuit. Practically, things weren’t quite that simple.
Simpson smiled slyly. ‘‘Besides, we never really had this conversation. I only stopped by to thank you for the fine work you did on that proposal and to tell you, sadly enough, that you don’t have quite the experience you’d need to take on the job yourself. I’m sure you’ll gain a world of experience staying here in the States and being Fisher’s diligent assistant.” Her boss rocked up on his toes, which elevated him to at least five foot five. “Nothing wrong with any of that, Miss O’Connell. Nothing at all.”
Megan stared at him. He was a worm, but he was right. She probably didn’t have grounds for suing the company. Even if she did, doing so would end her career.
She was stuck. Cornered, with no valid options.
The logical thing was to choke back her rage, pin a smile to her lips and thank Simpson for telling her she was going to become a partner and that she’d be thrilled to take on an important new client in the film business.
But she couldn’t. She couldn’t. She’d always believed in playing by the rules and Jerry Simpson was telling her the rules didn’t mean a thing. He was beaming at her now, certain he had her beat.
He didn’t.
“You’re wrong,” she said quietly. “Wrong about me, Jerry. I’m not going to let you and the Prince of Darkness shove me aside.”
Simpson’s smile tilted. “Don’t be stupid, Megan. I just told you, you can’t win a suit against us.”
“Maybe not, but think of the publicity! It’ll be bad for you—we both know what the senior partners think about negative publicity. And it’ll be worse for the sheikh. Suliyam’s floating on a sea of oil and minerals, but once investors hear his backward little country’s up to its neck in a human rights lawsuit, I’ll bet they’ll gallop in the other direction.”
Simpson wasn’t smiling at all now. Good, Megan thought, and leaned in for the kill.
“You yank this job away from me,” she said, “I’ll see to it that Suliyam’s dirty linen is hung out for the world to see.” She stepped past her boss, then turned and faced him one last time. “Be sure and tell the exalted Pooh-Bah that, Mr. Simpson.”
It had seemed the perfect exit line and she’d stalked away, realizing too late that she’d abandoned her own office, not Simpson’s, but no way in hell would she have turned back.
As for her threat—she wouldn’t take that back, either, even though it was meaningless. She knew it and she didn’t doubt that Simpson knew it, too. He was an oily little worm but he wasn’t stupid.
Her career meant everything to her. She’d devoted herself to it. She wasn’t like her mother, who’d cheerfully handed her life over to a man so he could do with it as he chose. She wasn’t like her sister, Fallon, whose beauty had been her ticket to independence. She wasn’t like her sister, Bree, who seemed content to drift through life.
No, Megan had thought as she yanked open the ladies’ room door, no, she’d taken a different path. Two degrees. Hard work. A steady climb to the top in a field as removed from the glittery world of chance in which she’d grown up as night was from day.