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And that was how Clara found herself sitting across a conference room table from the district attorney of Los Angeles County.
Clara had never seen anyone wear a suit half as well as Toni Granger. She didn’t know if the woman had them custom made to fit her tall frame, or if she commanded the material through sheer force of will. The oatmeal Clara had had for breakfast began swimming laps in her stomach.
“Please accept my apologies for keeping you waiting. This is Clara. She’ll be sitting in to capture some takeaways from our conversation.” Despite the calamity in her office a few moments ago, Jill’s voice now radiated calm professionalism.
The DA gave Clara a nod.
Pushing her nerves aside, Clara happily sank into a familiar position for the first time in almost a week.
Josh might excel in orgasms, but with the number of hours she’d logged in classrooms over the course of her lifetime, Clara knew her way around lined paper like nobody’s business.
Toni sat back in her chair. “As you know, I’ve had a contentious relationship with my constituency over the last few years. When I decided to run for DA, I knew there would be people in this town who wouldn’t like the idea of a Black woman in such a prominent office, but lately, it seems like the press is going out of their way to tear me down.”
Jill folded her hands together on top of the table. “Yes, I’ve noticed that as your term comes to a close, your critics have grown more persistent.”
“That’s one word for it.” Toni shook her head. “I’ve always been so stringent about keeping my nose clean. A sniff of scandal and my opposition would make sure I never work in this town again. But playing it safe has left me polling fifteen points behind my challenger.”
With a judge for a father, Clara had grown up around more than her fair share of political and legal officials. With polling numbers that bad, Jill certainly had her work cut out for her.
“You’ll need a big marquee case, something that will stir up public attention and bring in free airtime for the campaign.” Clara scribbled a few notes. Headlines. Big-name endorsements.
Toni looked at Clara for the first time since Jill had introduced her. “Excuse me?”
She hadn’t meant to say that out loud. “Oh. I’m sorry. I’m sure Jill would know better. I watch a lot of political dramas on TV.”
Toni’s face evened out. “Well, it sounds like Hollywood got it right for once. No one in this town gives a damn about run-of-the-mill cases. I need something big.” She turned back to Jill. “That’s where your firm comes in. I need to galvanize people.”
Twenty minutes later, Clara and Jill waved at Toni’s car as the DA pulled away.
“I like her,” Clara said. “She’s got that magnetism that makes people fall in line. Do you think she stands a chance?”
Jill cocked her hip to the side and gave Clara a once-over. “Do you wanna come work for me?”
Clara laughed until she realized her aunt wasn’t joking.
“Me? No, I can’t. I bought a plane ticket.” Clara had a plan to save her reputation. It mandated that she get out of this city and away from Josh Darling’s pheromones ASAP.
“Right, but what if you didn’t leave? What if I hired you as a junior associate?”
Clara wrung her hands. “I don’t have any experience.”
“Please. You’ve got a PhD from Columbia.”
“In art history.” A made-up degree for rich people. “Sure, if you need someone to discuss the privatization of culture in fifteenth-century Florence, I’m your gal, but I don’t know the first thing about public relations.”
“You’ve got good instincts and, since you’re a Wheaton, years of practical education in crisis management and reputation rehabilitation. The associates mainly do grunt work. Collecting research, drafting press releases. Nothing you couldn’t handle.”
“I prefer to stay under the radar.” Thanks to her infamous family, she knew how the limelight could burn.
Jill leveled her gaze. “You need a reason to stay in Los Angeles. No matter what happened with your roommate, I know you don’t want to go back after four days and face your mother. Do me a favor for a couple of weeks until I can fill the position. The pay isn’t great, but I do supplement it with needlessly fancy green tea.”
Clara shook her head. She wanted to help. She liked Jill, obviously, and Toni Granger inspired a surprisingly strong sense of civic engagement, but working across town from Everett’s place wasn’t a long-term option. The logistics alone made her brain bleed.
“I can’t. Thank you, but I’m not cut out for this whole take-’em-as-they-come, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants lifestyle. I did one stupid, huge, impulsive thing.” Two. “But from here on out I think I’d like to return to my comfort zone and set up camp.”
“No. See, I don’t buy that. You claim to have come out here for a guy, but what if Everett Bloom was an excuse to abandon a life built around pleasing other people?”
Why did people keep saying things like that to her? Sometimes a cross-country move didn’t represent a quest for adventure so much as a failed booty call. Everyone had the entirely wrong idea about the capacity of Clara’s courage.
