Page 1 of Escape Girl

Chapter One

“So you see,Ms. Austin, what I’d like is for you to explain to my daughter that pursuing a legal career is in her best interest. Law school is unquestionably the right next step for her.” Wholly satisfied with his own analysis, the man on the other side of my desk leaned back comfortably in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest.

His twenty-three-year-old daughter, on the other hand, perched miserably on the edge of her seat, looking defeated and angry at the same time. She hadn’t spoken a word since they’d arrived, and she only made eye contact with me in short, painful bursts. This noon visit to my firm had obviously been an ambush. Poor girl had probably thought her dad was taking her to lunch.

Inwardly I sighed.No good deed goes unpunished. Not that this “mentoring chat,” as it had been sold to me, could be categorized as a good deed. When the named partner of your law firm—a law firm you’ve only worked at for six months—asks you to have a “mentoring chat” with the daughter of his oldest friend, you really can’t say no. “She’ll respond to you,” the partner had said, just before dropping the father-daughter pair in my office with less than ten minutes’ notice. “I’m sure you have a lot in common.”

I eyed the young woman, Gwen Meadows, as she sat across from me in trendy high-waisted jeans and a cropped red top. Her eyeliner was dramatically winged and a perfect complement to her asymmetrical haircut with bright blue streaks. Not only wasI almost a decade older, but in my conservative gray suit, I was dressed more like her father.

We were both stifling yawns, but I would have bet hers were because she was out on the town clubbing with friends late last night, whereas I was in this very office until 1:00 a.m., eyeballs-deep in research. No, I doubted we had a lot in common.

Well, except pushy fathers.

I took a deep inhalation through my nose and furrowed my eyebrows thoughtfully. So Dad wants his daughter to go to law school. Daughter has no interest in law school. Dad drags daughter to best friend’s law office and best friend digs up the only young female lawyer in the vicinity to try to talk her into it.

This was a strategy that would never work in a million years. Even if his daughter had interest in the law—which this one clearly did not—a little power play like this from Dad would be the exact wrong move.

Like visualizing chess pieces maneuvering on a board, I imagined and dismissed strategies as quickly as I could. There was only one worthwhile move here: the mind I needed to change was Dad’s. Not an easy task. But if, under all that pushiness, her father loved and respected her, not impossible.

I nodded seriously in response to his last statement. “Law school is certainly one path to a successful career.” I flicked my eyes to my computer screen, where I’d done some frantic Googling in the ten minutes I’d had to research Gwen Meadows. “Though it looks like Gwen has been remarkably successful at forging a different path.

“I see that you’ve been working at Fulcrum Digital Marketing,” I said cheerfully. “Crain’s New York Business has nothing but praise for Fulcrum. And you, personally, are building quite a reputation there.”

For the first time, her gaze caught mine and held. Her spine straightened.

“Do you like what you’ve been doing at Fulcrum?” I asked.

“I love it,” she said immediately.

Her father frowned at both of us. “She spends every waking hour at this…‘start-up.’” He said “start-up” like it tasted bad in his mouth. “She doesn’t have any time left to study for the LSAT.”

I opened my mouth, but he cut me off, pointed at my framed diplomas on the wall. “Ms. Austin, what did you study in college?”

Another sigh. He was going to take me off track, but a good lawyer always knows how to account for verbal detours. “Engineering.”

He nodded approvingly and then shook his head at Gwen. “See? A real course of study.” Her shoulders slumped back down. He leaned forward, as if his gravity would physically pull me into his argument. “I wanted Gwen to study something solid, like engineering or computer science. But her mother indulged her and look at where we are.” Gwen’s lips thinned and she glanced at the door.

I tried to win her back with a light, tinkling laugh. “Where we are? With a daughter who’s not only gainfully employed, but absolutely exceling in her chosen profession? At such a young age too!”

They both blinked at me, wearing identical expressions of distrust. It was kinda funny.

The dad opened and shut his mouth a few times, before deciding on “It’s kind of you to say so, but Gwen knows very well how I feel about her dabbles in marketing.” His mouth turned down at the corners. “I would have loved for her to join my business, but she’s never been interested in it. At least law school would lead her to a real career. To something important—not like whatever she’s doing in her current job.”

Apart from the fact that Gwen looked ready to commit patricide, I wanted to bounce up and down with glee. His carelessly cruel words had given me the ammunition I was looking for.

“Importance,” I emphasized. “Right.” I glanced one more time at the quick data I’d compiled and then stared at him across the desk. “I’d have to say that most companies consider sales to be pretty important. Wouldn’t you agree?”

He smirked at me indulgently. “As a business owner, yes, I would agree.”

“Well,” I continued, “as a result of Fulcrum’s last marketing campaign for Scandal Shoes, which Gwen led, the store enjoyed a forty percent sales increase in their last quarter.”

Dad rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, the smutty shoe store. I’m so proud.” Gwen’s hands turned to fists.

“You should be,” I said. “But if you have something against shoes, consider her other most recent project. Did you know that her digital campaign for Trident Bank caused a twenty-five percent increase of Trident ATM usage on the Upper East and West Sides? Or, how about her campaign for Pepper, the online grocery delivery service? I don’t have the exact statistics, but theNew York Postarticle I read about the ad campaign credited it with Pepper’s advance to the number-one vendor in that space.”

He froze, pummeled into silence by my calm, factual defense. Gwen was making eye contact with me again, a proud open-mouthed smile on her face. Before now, I hadn’t even known she had teeth.

Dad started to say something, but I was on a roll. “What’s the name of your business, Mr. Meadows?”

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