Cowboy Casanova - Lorelei James [117]
Do not lunge across the conference table and wrap your hands around his scrawny throat.
“You won’t. Because if you continue with your accusations about Ainsley’s involvement with Ben McKay prior to the loan, I have documentation of times you were spotted with Jenny Timsdale, outside of banking hours, prior to her loan application too.”
Turton’s face immediately went bright red. He seemed too angry to speak.
But Leslie wasn’t finished. “I strongly advise you allow me to handle this phone conference. That way we can all keep our jobs and continue to work together as one big, happy family here at National West Bank.”
For the first time in two days, Ainsley felt like the world wasn’t crumbling beneath her feet. On a professional level anyway.
Leslie looked at them each in turn. “So. What’s it going to be?”
Turton wouldn’t meet Ainsley’s gaze. “Make the call.”
The district manager was notoriously cranky. After listening to Leslie’s question, he let fly. Chewing out both Ainsley and Turton for overstepping their bounds and reminding them National West assigned a loan officer at that location for a reason. Then he reminded them of their responsibilities and if they were too busy doing someone else’s job, they were neglecting their own. In a totally surprising move, he insisted Ainsley and Turton attend an interpersonal management skills workshop in Denver. Over the weekend. He commended Leslie for her attention to detail. All in all, the phone call was short and to the point.
Ainsley sat in stunned silence when the dial tone echoed in the conference room. Turton didn’t say a word. He just left but he’d seemed to have lost some of the cock-of-the-walk attitude.
Leslie gathered up her papers.
“Thank you,” Ainsley said. “I expected I’d be packing up my office and turning in my pass key today.”
“You’re welcome. I didn’t do this for you, Ainsley. You and Turton were both in the wrong, professionally, and I didn’t want to get caught in the middle. I need this job and I’ve seen it happen before, where the lower level employee gets fired for a mistake the boss made.”
She knew Leslie had worked for Steve Talbot at Settler’s First for a few years before getting laid off.
“On a personal level, I hated Turton’s double standard. He expected you to get fired for a personal relationship crossing the line, when he was doing the same thing.” She shook her head. “The bizarre part of it was Turton wasn’t drawing those parallels.”
Ainsley knew trying to find common ground with Turton would be nearly impossible now.
Leslie paused at the door and looked over her shoulder. “Just so you know. Ben McKay came by yesterday to see me and formally dropped his loan request.”
Her heart jumped into her throat. “He did?”
“Yes.”
The door shut behind her.
She didn’t move for the longest time. Mostly because she wasn’t sure what her next move should be.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
As soon as Ben finished chores on Friday he drove to the Rawhide Club. After Ainsley’s stinging dismissal, he’d needed to be in a place where people looked at him with respect. Where he was liked for being exactly who he was.
But his haven didn’t offer him the usual validation. And that confused the hell out of him. So he’d found a spot in the back corner and brooded. About Ainsley. About her refusal to listen to reason and his attempt to fix his mistake. For the first time since they’d started a relationship, she’d looked at him with pity. Like he was a freak.
When Cody straddled the chair around across from him, Ben bit back a leave-me-the-fuck alone snarl. Cody would snap right back, demanding to know why Ben came to the club if he’d wanted solitude.
“Looks like you’re doing some deep thinking.”
“I am. It’s very taxing on my pea-sized brain.”
He laughed. “Bullshit. Spill the details, man. Especially since you ain’t been here in a month again. What’s going on?”
“Fuck, Cody, I don’t know where to start.”
“I see I had reason to be worried about you. Come on, Ben. It’s me. We’ve talked about everything over the years. And I mean everything.”
“I know