Free The Right Time by Delaney Diamond Page B

short.”
    “No problem. My girlfriend will be joining us, too, if you don’t mind. She’s visiting from Atlanta and I don’t want to blow her off.” He lowered his voice. “To be honest, I’m doing a bit of damage control. She gave me another chance, and for the past few weeks, I’ve been working my ass off trying to prove to her I’m a decent human being after I majorly screwed up.”
    “This sounds serious.”
    “It is. My player days are over.”
    “Good for you.”
    Ransom couldn’t care less about Keith’s relationship. He half listened, running through a list of tasks he had to complete in his head.
    “Finally broke her down,” Keith said, puffing out his chest.
    Hating himself for being curious, Ransom asked, “How’d you manage that?”
    “Lots of gifts and plenty of groveling. Women love some well-placed groveling.” He laughed to himself.
    “Glad it worked out for you.” He knew very little about Keith, but what he did know was that he was a player. Ransom didn’t even know Keith had a girlfriend, or had one that he needed to grovel to, so this was a bit of surprising news. Still, it was not his business. He already had plenty on his plate without wasting time at lunch when he had work to do.
    “I’ll see you around one-ish?” Keith called as they walked away from each other.
    Ransom agreed with a wave of his hand and kept moving down the hall. He gave Lena the thumbs-up as he went by and left the door of his office open before sitting down to work.
    Lena came in, glancing over her shoulder before she closed the door. She crossed her arms over her chest. “What did Wong want?”
    Ransom gave her the details of the short conversation in Brit’s office. She didn’t appear the least bit surprised about Belch’s fall from grace. “Good news. Brit confirmed I should get an invitation to the cocktail party.”
    Lena’s eyes it up behind her glasses. “Yes!” She gave a reserved pump of her little fist. “That’s wonderful.”
    Ransom leaned back in his chair, for the first time really accepting he’d received the invite. Oddly enough, the immediate rush he’d felt upstairs had dissipated rather quickly, and Lena appeared more excited than he was. Delayed reaction, no doubt. The invitation simply hadn’t sunk in yet.
    “Are you taking a date?” Lena asked.
    “Going solo. Easier that way.” Ransom wrote three names on a sticky note and handed it to Lena. “Pull these files. I need to get some work done before I have to waste an hour at lunch with Keith and his girlfriend.”
    Lena took the piece of paper. “Be careful,” she said in a loud whisper.
    Ransom frowned. “About what?”
    She edged closer. “You know what. You’re trying to make partner, and Keith can make the process difficult for you if he wants to.”
    “He won’t.”
    “He might, and you don’t want anything standing in your way. Especially not an overly indulged man-boy looking for a friend or mentor or whatever it is he wants from you. You know what happens when people get on his bad side. He makes life miserable for them. Remember Melinda in the New York office?”
    “Melinda left because she screwed up,” Ransom reminded her.
    Lena raised an eyebrow in an expression that clearly said, Oh really? “That was the story circulated around the office, but she was on the partner track. Why would she make such heinous mistakes when in a couple of years, she could be a partner?”
    Ransom had always wondered the same thing, but in this business, he’d seen all kinds of aberrations in human behavior. “Are you saying Keith had something to do with it?”
    Lena leaned over the edge of the desk and spoke in a lower tone. “All I know is, one minute I heard he made advances to her and she turned him down, the next thing I heard, her expense reports contained fraudulent information and she was losing important files. Then she resigned.”
    Ransom sighed. “So you’re saying I shouldn’t piss off Keith if he