Free Conflicts of the Heart by Julie Michele Gettys Page B

not tell Dana I came over here.”
    “I won't, on one condition.”
    She glanced up. “Yes?”
    “You're on my side. I run this show. Deal?” A long silence.
    “Deal.”
     
    * * *
     
    Wednesday morning, with negotiations finally under way, Patrick knew he’d met his match. The elevator of the Downtown Hotel bounced to a stop. He stepped out into the hallway and headed for the designated room. Dana ranked on the top of his list as one of the toughest negotiators he ever met. In the beginning, he read her all wrong. He believed he had his contract in his hands because of her being a woman. If anything, she negotiated tougher than any man he'd ever come up against before.
    She turned him into a bloody wreck. He obsessed about the woman, which interfered with his objectivity. Behind her strength as a negotiator, she had a mysterious quality, a certain vulnerability about her that fascinated him. He didn’t understand this alluring quality and it drove him crazy. More than negotiating a contract, he wanted to take her in his arms and assure her things were going to be okay. His “man protecting the little lady” took over.
    Before entering the room, he straightened his shoulders and decided he better rein in his feelings for this woman before he bungled the contract.
    He arrived first. For two days, he used every trick he knew to see just how far he could go. Today he stopped testing her. She knew her stuff.
    Like a group of kids responding to the school bell, everyone arrived together, except Dana, who, twenty minutes later, made her entrance.
    With grace, she eased her curvy, navy-blue suited body into her chair. He liked her hair brushed away from her face, and she blushed her cheeks just enough to give her the glow of youth. She must not have liked his compliment about her sexy dress yesterday, because this morning she arrived in one of her tailored, corporate suits. Little did she know she looked great in both a soft, feminine dress and a tailored suit.
    “Did you pick up the evening paper on your way in?” he said with a glint of humor in his voice.
    “Sorry. I had an urgent errand this morning. Then I had trouble finding a parking place.”
    A full team sat around a large table in the center of the light and airy room. Together, they decided once the contract expired, the confidentiality rule expired as well, which meant they were free to discuss the state of affairs openly. Secondly, whenever either side called a caucus, which happened frequently, Dana took her team to the smaller room next door. Patrick and the nurses always stayed in the large room.
    “Are we ready to go over our proposals?”
    Patrick nodded, then broke into a four-hour litany of reasons his members should have more money, improved benefits, more creative flex-shifts. He ended at one, slumped down in his chair and sounding exhausted, demanded easier access to the hospital for himself.
    When Dana called for a lunch break, the team members came to life. “We'll review our proposals this afternoon.”
    Downstairs in the bustling Indoor Cafe, the hostess ushered Dana's team to a banquette along the wall. Patrick had placed two tables four feet from hers. She sat on the outside of her table, unaware Patrick, seated at the end of his table, faced her. She couldn’t imagine eating lunch with that man staring at her.
    He smiled. She smiled back, and then turned her attention to Ann, her assistant, sitting across from her.
    Ann unfolded her napkin on her lap. “We should be grateful we got through his proposals in one sitting without a caucus. If he'll allow you the same courtesy this afternoon, we might make some headway.”
    Patrick used an old negotiating trick by gazing directly into her eyes. She snapped her gaze to Ann. She’d show him. She needed to concentrate on the people sitting around her and ignore him, which lasted all of five minutes before she began to check him out from the corner of her eye. He caught her. She swung her gaze