When Lightning Strikes (Whiskey Creek #1)(2)
Author: Brenda Novak

Also thanks to Simon. He’d been with Big Hit for three years, knew they were rivals, so he’d gone to Chelsea and taken almost fifty of Gail’s sixty-four other clients there, too. “Pierce will regret letting Chelsea sign him. Simon will ruin them. There isn’t a PR firm in America, or anywhere else, that can protect the image of a client so bent on self-destruction. Since his wife left, he’s worse than Charlie Sheen ever was.”

“At least PM will die a slow death,” Joshua said, dropping into the chair across from her. “How long before we have to close our doors?”

She pursed her lips as she glanced around her swanky office. There’d been days when she’d been unable to believe her own success. Now it all seemed to have been an illusion. “Two months?” Could she even hold out that long?

He rocked forward. “That’s it?”

“Our overhead is huge, Josh. Rent alone is fifteen thousand. Together with salaries for twenty people…the money will dry up fast.”

His next words were muffled; he’d buried his face in the stylish scarf he wore under the collar of his too-cool jacket. “When do we tell the others?”

She couldn’t bear to see him slumped over like that. He’d told her not to cast Simon aside but she’d done it, anyway. Simon had deserved to be cut from her client roster—he’d been asking for it—but he wasn’t anyone to mess with, and he’d proven that.

Struggling under the weight of her responsibility, she got up and walked to the interior window overlooking the expansive lobby designed to impress visitors. The staff cubicles and three other offices branched off to the right. They couldn’t be seen from where she stood, but she could make out the back of Savannah Barton’s dark head as she lounged in the doorway of Serge Trusso’s office. Savannah was a single mom with two kids. Where would she go? Serge would land on his feet. He saved money, never took anything for granted. But what about Vince Shroeder, one cubicle over? He had a disabled wife. Then there was Constance Moreno, barely twenty years old. She’d come from New York two months ago and signed a year’s lease on her apartment. How would she pay the rent?

These people depended on her. Why had she been so determined to punish Simon, to see that he received some type of backlash?

Gail tapped her forehead on the cool glass. “You’d better call a meeting. I’m sure they already know trouble’s brewing. It’s been dead around here. They’re out there throwing spitballs at one another.”

“You want me to get them now?”

She thought of Simon’s movie premiere tonight and the fact that he’d be at the after-party, probably roaring drunk but enjoying the fame and fortune that followed him everywhere. He shouldn’t get away with what he’d done. She’d been in the right, damn it. But…if she wanted to save her employees, she was going to have to humble herself and apologize, maybe even beg.

She’d rather throw herself in front of a bus, but there was more at stake here than pride. She had a good team; they didn’t deserve to lose their jobs. “No, wait.”

“You think something’s going to change?” he said with a telltale sniff.

She didn’t dare hope. But she had to make one last-ditch effort to save the firm, just in case it was still possible. “Give me until tomorrow.”

He toyed with the expensive pen set he and the rest of her staff had bought her for Christmas. “For what?”

She turned to face him. “A Hail Mary.”

2

Simon spotted Gail immediately. In a sea of silicone, Botox and spray tans, she stood out. Maybe it was her chest, flat by L.A. standards, the severe cut of her business suit with its starched white shirt or the stubborn set to her jaw. Or maybe it was her general disdain for Hollywood parties and the licentious behavior that went on, and her unwillingness to dress up and join the fun.

Regardless, Simon had always liked the fact that she wasn’t an adoring fan—almost as much as he hated it. One would think she’d at least try to blend in if she was going to crash the party. He was fairly certain she hadn’t received an invitation.

“What’s wrong?”

He jerked his gaze back to the stunning blonde sitting in the booth next to him. A “hot yoga” instructor he’d met about twenty minutes earlier, her name was Sunny Something, and she was smarter than the stereotype her short skirt and low-cut blouse brought to mind. She was a nice person, too. But he was bored. These days the women he socialized with seemed virtually interchangeable.

“Nothing.” He tossed back the rest of his drink. “Why?”

She angled her head to see where he’d been looking but skimmed right over Gail. She probably couldn’t imagine such a nondescript woman being of any consequence to him. If not for the guilt that plagued him, he might not have given Gail a second thought. When he’d told Ian Callister, his business manager, that he wished she’d go broke and return to the small town she called home, he hadn’t meant it literally. He’d been drunk when he made that statement. But Ian had decided to take revenge for her defection, and Simon had been preoccupied and angry enough to turn a blind eye. He hadn’t even asked what Ian was up to. Part of him figured Gail DeMarco deserved whatever she got. The other part didn’t see why Ian would go to too much trouble.

But just yesterday he’d learned that Ian had called all her clients and “suggested” they might like it better with Chelsea Seagate at Pierce Mattie. Almost every one of them had promptly switched.

“You were frowning,” Sunny said. “Is there someone here you’re not happy to see?”

“No,” he lied.

“What did you say?”

She couldn’t hear him for the music. He raised his voice. “Just getting tired, that’s all.”

“Tired? Already?” She offered him a pout. “It’s barely ten.”

His lack of interest was an insult to such an attractive woman. He understood that. If he were a better man he’d pretend to be entertained, but he simply couldn’t fake it. Not tonight. He did enough acting when the cameras were rolling. Besides, he didn’t care if she moved on to someone more attentive. He’d been telling the truth when he said he was tired. He’d been tired since before he came, hadn’t slept in days. Every time his mind grew quiet, the regrets that tortured him returned.

“Would you like another drink?” he asked.