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“It would be nice if you told me which depo, Mom. A case name would go a really long way to helping me not be totally incompetent,” she muttered to herself while turning on her computer.
Three monitors turned on at once, but only one of them popped up with an email from Bamford’s assistant. Noticing first that her mother had been copied, and second that the woman was seriously trying to make her comply with the ridiculous anger management demand, Carmen’s anger returned with a vengeance.
She stood, muscles tensed and blood singing in her ears. There was no way she was going to bend to Bamford’s ridiculous will just because she was rich and difficult.
Before Carmen could get around her desk, her mother was in her doorway. She had chopped off her hair when she turned sixty and stopped coloring it. The side-swept salt and pepper ‘do only made her more fierce. She wasn’t taller than Carmen’s five-foot-four, but somehow she made everyone around her feel tiny.
The look on her mother’s face, a combination of irritation and disappointment, told Carmen that she’d already seen the email. Swallowing the solid lump in her throat, she focused on mounting her defense.
“I’m going to pull the lease agreement, but I’m positive that she can’t make me—”
“You’re going to do it.” Her mother never needed to raise her voice to stop Carmen dead in her tracks.
“Mom. This isn’t binding.” She pointed at the back of her monitor as if her mother could see the email open on her screen. “On what grounds can she—”
“Bamford will try to terminate our lease and initiate eviction proceedings. She’s done stranger things in the past.”
“And we’ll sue the shit—”
“And we would win,” her mother agreed unexpectedly. “How much time and money will we waste in the interim?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “In addition to tarnishing our reputation with Bamford.”
“But Mom, this is insane—”
Her mother leveled her with a chilly glare that drained the heat from Carmen’s body. “Perhaps you should have considered your time before you made a fool of yourself arguing with that girl.” She blinked, her unmoving face making her long nose and angular jaw hard. “And maybe you should have stopped short of ramming her with your car.” She turned to leave. “Take care of this, Carmen.” She tossed it over her shoulder like a grenade and walked away from the fallout.
Gritting her teeth, Carmen tipped her head to the side. Fucking Lola.
CHAPTER5
After a long dayof smelling like coffee, the last thing on earth Lola wanted to do was step out of her office, only to go to a conference room in the building’s lobby. She was tired and over it and wanted to go home.
But of course, she couldn’t go home because Carmen was incapable of waiting her turn. Every inch she descended in the elevator added to the heat prickling her skin. To the pit in her stomach.
Whatever, just get it over with, she told her warped reflection in the elevator doors. At least whatever stupid shit Bamford was putting them through, it was only for four weeks. Princess Carmen might never have had to do anything hard, but Lola had suffered worse than a mild inconvenience for a month.
By the time she reached the frosted glass door between the management office and the mail room, Lola had talked herself into taking the stupid class in stride. Maybe if she beat Carmen at managing her anger, Bamford would decide to give her law firm the boot anyway.
She was grinning, satisfied with her future-self’s victory, when she noticed the light was off and there was a note taped to the door. Furrowing her glorious eyebrows that she had threaded once a week to keep in precision shape, Lola leaned closer to read the typed script.
Anger Management Class Canceled.
Confused, Lola pulled her phone out of her bag. She searched her inbox, trash, spam. There was nothing about the class being canceled. If Bamford was so insistent that they start today, why would she cancel?
Lola’s fuckery detector lit up like a Christmas tree and blared like a pack of ambulance sirens. She ripped the note off and pushed on the door. It opened.
Finding Carmen sitting at the 10-person conference room in the dark was a lemon squirted straight into her eyeballs.
“Hilarious,” Lola snapped, finding the light switch under the TV affixed to the wall. “But if class was canceled, they would have sent an email.”
Two seconds in and Lola was already simmering. She shouldn’t have to take the damn class with Carmen. She’d be just fine if she didn’t have to share oxygen with her.
When the lights came on, Carmen was sitting on one side of the oblong table. Her hands folded like the very best girl in class. Her long, light brown hair was usually loose around her slender shoulders, but at some point in the hellish day, she’d picked it up into an irritating ponytail that made her hazel eyes too prominent. Too hard to ignore.
Carmen’s glossy lips eased into a smile that was more frustrating than continuously picking the slow lane at the supermarket. “It was worth a try.”
Lola sat across from her, resisting the urge to vault over the table, talons extended. “Very honorable. Trying to get my entire agency tossed out of here because Bamford thought I willingly didn’t show up for this? Very ethical.”
Unexpectedly, Carmen’s face changed. She obviously hadn’t considered what might happen if her stupid note had worked. And now her eyes, bleeding into Lola like some mind-bending drug, were too soft. They looked too familiar. Too reminiscent of her last lapse in judgment.
