She stares at me.
“Even if I ask, there’s nothing he can do,” I say.
“Oh, we’re talking about ahe, are we?”
I roll my eyes. “Yes. It’s Luke. The idiot I used to work with.”
Now her eyes have taken on a whole new look. Wide like saucers. “The handsome one you used to talk about all the time?”
“I didn’t talk about him all the time,” I say, my voice pitching upward.
She waves my words away with her hand. “You did. I met him once, right? He had nice shoulders.”
“What?” I ask, scrunching my face.
“You can always tell a good man by his shoulders.” She sticks a pointer finger in the air. “A man with good shoulders carries things without complaining about it.”
I close my eyes, because what are we even talking about?
“Luke can’t help me,” I finally say.
“How do you know if you haven’t asked?”
I shake my head. “I mean, short of him getting River to—” I stop talking, my mind suddenly racing with possibilities.
Because I might know what to do. I could get River to say something. To defend Bailey.
If I can get Luke to have River deny the claims in the video, not only will it help my client, but it will also help Luke. River gets to look like the hero here, which is exactly what Luke would want. It’s a win-win.
“Gigi,” I say, smiling for probably the first time today. “You’re a genius.”
“Well, of course I am,” she says. Then she furrows her brow. “But how exactly am I right now?”
“I’ll explain later,” I say, grabbing the phone from my purse and pulling up Luke’s number.
It’s time to swallow my pride and ask Luke Wilder for help.
Chapter 10
PR Tip #74:You can control the message. You can’t control how people hear it.
The only possible hitch in my plan was River not agreeing to it, but thankfully he does. By Saturday midmorning, his post is live, and it reads exactly as I hoped it would:
“I've stayed out of the personal side of this because I didn't want to add to the noise. But I won't stay quiet about this. Whatever happened between us, using it to question who Bailey is as a person—that's not something I'll let stand.”
It made the post with the old morning show clip irrelevant almost instantly. Which is fine because it wouldn’t have worked anyway.
Luke drafted it and ran it by me before posting. After it went out, I got a text from him.
Jerkwad:You owe me one, Archie.
It honestly made me a little nervous, like I’d made a deal with the devil.
Regardless, I have no choice but to hate him a little less now. The grudge is still there—just slightly smaller than it was this morning.
I’m sure he’ll do something to tick me off again soon. Because he’s Luke.
Tessa is keeping an eye on things, but so far it seems like the social climber video is getting buried under River’s post. Which is exactly where it belongs.
