“But what?”

“But this is getting very tiring. You’ve become quite impossible to deal with and I say that as your brother, with much respect for all you’ve done for me and the company.”

“The company I started.”

“The same company you need to be held accountable for.” He walked over to my desk and set down a sheet of paper. “I’ve managed to get them all to agree to hold off on pushing you to resign, unless you commit something else egregious—a la saying you enjoy ‘fucking’ on live television.”

“I was answering the question honestly.”

“Of course, you were.” He rolled his eyes. “This is a list of the remaining, reputable PR firms in this city. Do me a favor and call around to see if one is willing to take you on. If you can, lie about who you are and only use your initials and an LLC.”

“Any particular reason why Linda can’t do this for me?”

“Not at all.” He tapped his chin. “Well, unless we account for the fact that she’s currently dealing with tying up the loose ends from the last publicist who just quit you minutes ago, and you can’t afford to lose her right now.” He walked toward the door and then looked over his shoulder. “Oh, and one last thing. Because I know you and I know how you think—”

“You don’t know how I think at all.”

“I noticed that you had today’s date highlighted on your digital calendar,” he said. “I couldn’t help but realize that it correlates to the last day in your seven-month ‘no-partying’ agreement with the board.”

“It also correlates with my birthday.”

“Your birthday was yesterday,” he said, his voice firm. “They’re going to redraft that agreement and ask you to re-sign it Monday. If you do choose to go out this weekend and break your self-imposed no-sex rule, I highly suggest that you don’t make the most of it.”

“I won’t.”

I will...

THE PUBLICIST

PENELOPE

I stepped out of a town car at Broadway and Fifth Avenue, juggling my umbrella and coffee in one hand and my clients’ files in the other. Today marked the eighth day in a row that heavy rains had fallen over this city, and I was beginning to regret not renting an office space closer to my apartment.

“Good morning, Miss Lauren.” The concierge greeted me as he pulled the door open. “Good to see that you’re two hours early as always.”

“Good morning to you as well, Oliver,” I said, smiling. “You know I’m allergic to being late.” I walked inside and hit the button for the elevator, taking it straight up to the seventh floor.

The second I stepped off, I stared in awe at the shiny, silver plated lettering that hung high above my double doors: Penelope Lauren & Associates.

My firm was one of the smallest public relations companies in Manhattan, and our clients were mostly mid-level athletes, local celebrities and colleges, and a few Wall Street assholes who were incapable of keeping their cocks in their pants. Every now and then, we’d land a huge account but they’d eventually be lured away by the brighter lights of a larger firm. A firm with more staff, bigger resources, and other big name clients that I could only dream about landing.

Still, with only six years under my belt, I was proud of how much me and my team of five had accomplished thus far.

I unlocked the door to my office and started my morning ritual: Listen to thirty minutes of an audiobook, respond to all the important emails, and vow to give two hundred percent effort for the rest of the day. I read through my current clients’ files—making sure I was on schedule for everything they needed, and by the time I finished, my secretary Tina was setting a fresh cup of coffee on my desk.

“Good morning, Miss Lauren,” she said. “I’ve got your daily updates.”

“Great.” I looked up and motioned for her to take a seat. “I’m listening.”

“Mr. Bradley of V-tech wants us to write his speech for that ribbon cutting ceremony next week. He wants it to be ‘beautiful, poignant, and humorous, all at once.’ And, in addition to requesting our help with press interviews, he also wants us to get him a beautiful redhead for a date. He’ll settle for a brunette, but no blondes.”

“Have Jenna get me a first draft of the speech by tomorrow and have Bob arrange four interviews with the local stations. Then kindly tell Mr. Bradley that we are not a match making service. He can find his own date.”

“Got it” She scribbled in her notepad. “Onto a quick client update: New York University wants to extend their account with us for another six months. Hilton wants a phone call at the end of the month to discuss local rebranding and um, Taylor Carew...” She mumbled the rest of her sentence.

“Could you repeat the last thing you said?” I asked. “I didn’t quite catch that.”

“Taylor Carew is ending his account with us effective immediately. He sent us a ‘Best of luck’ fruit basket, and he’s officially leaving us for—Well, you know.”

“Drew & Associates?”

She nodded and my blood began to boil. Drew & Associates was run by the one and only Sebastian Drew. He was one of the biggest “trust-fund entrepreneurs” and assholes in this city. He was also, unfortunately, my ex-boyfriend.

I picked up my phone and dialed his number, demanding his secretary put me straight through to him.

“He’ll be with you in two minutes, Miss Lauren.” She at least had the decency to sound sympathetic each time I called. It almost made me forget that she’d betrayed me by leaving my firm to join his.

Almost...

“Were those all the updates for today, Tina?” I placed my hand over the receiver.

“Actually, no.” She stood up and handed me a pink post-it. “We’ve been getting random calls all week from a guy who claims he needs representation, but he won’t give us any information about himself.”

I raised my eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“He called and said, I need a publicist. I highly suggest you accommodate me. I told him I’d call him back, but I couldn’t because he wouldn’t give me his phone number. So, he called again a couple days later and before I could say a word, he said, I’m doing your small firm a favor by even considering you for this. You need to accommodate me.” She rolled her eyes.

“At first, I thought it was Mr. Drew playing a prank on us since the guy continuously refused to fill out our pre-screening questionnaire, so I told him we charged two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a month per client.”

“Let me guess. That was when he finally came out and admitted he was hired by Drew to harass us?”

“No...” She pointed to her pink post-it. “He paid it. For a whole year.”

“What?” I gasped as I read over her scrawled note.

Anonymous, unsigned client deposited three million dollars into our account this morning...

I didn’t get a chance to completely process my thoughts before Drew’s familiar voice came over the line.

“Good morning, Penelope!” he said. “How may I help you on this lovely day?”

“For starters, you can stop poaching my goddamn clients.”

“Whoa. Whoa. Whoa! Such colorful language.” He laughed. “It’s a bit too early for that, don’t you think?” There was a smile in his voice and I wished I could reach through the line to swipe it right off his face.

“You don’t need any more clients and you certainly don’t need mine, Drew,” I said. “You’re only doing this to get back at me.”

“That’s not true at all. I’m hurt that you would even think that about me.”

“Then stop doing this.” I tried to keep my voice firm, to keep my true emotions from showing. “Stop going out of your way to lure my clients to your company six months after they’ve already signed with me.”

“I really think you need to rethink your baseless accusations, sweetheart.”

“I’m not your sweetheart anymore.”

“Oh, that’s right. You rejected me in front of three hundred people at our engagement party.”