Page 10 of Tempt Me

Rhiannon snorted. “Keep your dirty hands out of my code. The last time you programmed a module, no one could figure out what you’d done. We had to toss it because we couldn’t maintain it. Save your hands for dealing with that nonsense.” She pointed out the window that faced the road where a news van trundled toward the building.

“Oh, shit,” was Winslow’s helpful contribution.

Rhiannon spun on the toe of her Chucks and walked out.

“Listen, Jamila,” I said. “Let me help. I might not be a qualified developer, but I can set up a press conference for you. We’ll handle this proactively before it gets out of hand.”

Winslow disguised a laugh with a cough.

Jamila was kinder. “I appreciate the offer, baby girl, but leave it for the…for us. We’ll handle it.”

Had she almost said,Leave it for the grown-ups?I was nine years old again, wearing pigtails, and she was patting me on the head. I wilted into the club chair.

“Sorry, I don’t have time for the rest of that tour,” she said. “Felicia sits right outside, and she’ll call you a car home. Okay? Good seeing you, Nat.”

As if I hadn’t been humiliated enough for one day, she’d dismissed me. Winslow didn’t even wait for me to leave the office before he started talking to her about run rates and burndowns. I slunk out, closing the door gently behind me, and let Felicia call me a town car. Unlike my Uber driver, he didn’t say a word about my fish stink.

Jamila needed help. I had to figure out a way to offer it so she’d accept it. So on the drive back to the city, I phoned a friend. Or a friend of my mother’s.

She answered on the first ring. “Lippman PR. Della Lippman speaking.”

“Hey, Della. It’s Natalie Jones.”

“Natalie! How are you? How’s your mother?”

“We’re fine. Mother’s working on a book ban project right now, in Texas, I think. She hates those.”

“I’d hate to be a book banner with Audrey Jones on the case.”

“Me too.” I shuddered. I hoped that when I got home, Mother was too fired up about racists to be bothered by what I’d done with Larry. “Hey, I need a favor.”

“Uh-oh. No one ever calls me for a favor because they have joyful news to share with the world.”

“Because you’re the best crisis communications consultant on the West Coast.”

“That I am.” I could hear the smile in her voice.

“So, a friend of mine, Jamila Jallow—”

“Oh, no.”

I winced. “You heard.”

“She’s put her foot in it with that PI stuff.”

“She thinks it’s going to go away, but—”

“It’s not,” Della said.

“I know, right? So you’ll help her?”

“I’m sorry, honey. That job’s going to take a lot of work, and I just took on a major project for—for someone else. I wish I could help.”

“Oh.” I sank back into the leather seat, too disappointed to even dig for who that “someone else” with a “major project” might be. “Can you recommend anyone? All I need is a consult. I’d like to do most of the work myself.”

She was silent for a minute. “You know, I think you could. You’ve seen me in action. Your mother too. And you’ve got a cool head. That’s what you need in situations like these. Stay on message. Tell as much of the truth as you can, and don’t let anyone goad you into saying more. I have a niece, Hannah, who just graduated with a degree in communications. She’s looking for a job. I think she can help. She’s a little on the shy side, but I think you two could make a good team.”

Someone with an actual degree might not want to take direction from someone who’d poured thousands of her parents’ dollars into three aborted degrees and who—I sniffed—stillsmelled like fish. But communications-major Hannah was my best chance at helping Jamila.

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