Page 93 of Maddy's Justice

“We should go in the conference room,” Carvelli said. “We don’t want to make all of these women envious.”

“It’s getting a little deep in here,” Connie said.

“Did you talk to her majesty?” Carvelli asked Marc.

“Yes,” Marc replied while noticing the exterior door opening. “And she’ll be here right about now.”

“Hello, beautiful,” Carvelli quickly said.

“Yeah, I heard that ‘her majesty’ crack,” she replied giving Carvelli a dirty look. “Where did that come from?” she asked looking at Marc.

“Damned if I know. Let’s go in and see what he has to say,” Marc replied, trying to change the subject.

When they were seated at the conference room table, Maddy, a little stung by the “her majesty” remark turned to Marc.

“Am I really a pain-in-the-ass prima donna?” she seriously asked.

“No,” Marc laughed. “Besides, how am I supposed to answer that? That ranks right up there with, does this dress make me look fat?”

“Yeah, try answering that one anyway but no,” Carvelli said.

“So, you’re saying I am a prima donna but you’re afraid to admit it,” Maddy said.

Marc spun his chair around, looked her right in the eyes and emphatically said, “No. You are not a pain-in-the-ass, prima donna. In fact, you’re amazingly just the opposite. Okay?”

“Okay, but you wouldn’t admit it anyway.”

Carvelli started laughing while Marc shook his head in dismay and looked at Connie.

“They’re all a little nuts,” Connie said referring to Maddy. “Learn to live with it.”

By now Maddy was barely restraining herself from laughing. “Gotcha,” she said.

It took Carvelli less than ten minutes to fill them in on what he had learned in Chicago. When he finished, the others went silent for a minute.

“I could try to get them to fire us again,” Marc said looking at Connie referring to Stafford, Hughes.

“If they’re not gonna fire us after you insulted all of them, I’m not sure what else you can do. You know these guys. Their egos and vanity are the most important things they have.”

“Money,” Marc said.

“Okay, second most important,” Connie replied.

“What do you have in mind, Mr. Carvelli?” Marc asked.

Carvelli didn’t answer him. He simply looked across the table with a mischievous smirk on his face.

“That’s his, ‘you don’t want to know’ look,” Marc told Connie.

“I’ve seen it before,” Connie replied.

“Do we want to know?” Marc asked him.

“Well, um, depends,” Carvelli said. “There could be some, I don’t know, gray area, not quite perfectly legal things we’ll have to do.”

“We?” Marc asked.

“Is Paxton in on this?” Maddy asked.

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