Kiss Me in the Summer - Barbara Dunlop Page 0,4
bite mark.”
“I was quick. And then he jumped to the floor. But he was perfectly fine when he landed.” I went back to looking for ice cream, shifting a loaf of sunflower seed bread. “You should have seen him streak across the boardroom. Annalisa was freaking out. I swear Thad was laughing.”
I spotted a tub of ice cream and slid it out over a layer of frost before plunking it on the counter. “You want some?” I peeled back the lid. Cookies and cream was my favorite flavor.
“Laila.” Her tone held a warning.
Cecily had strong opinions on proper nutrition. She was usually right. But that didn’t mean I had to like it. And these were extraordinary circumstances…
“I know, I know. I’m eating ice cream right before dinner.” I pulled opened the cutlery drawer to get myself a spoon. “Advanced warning: This might even be my dinner.”
“That’s not it,” Cecily said.
“That’s not what?” I determinedly dug the spoon into the creamy mixture.
“There’s a video.”
“Of the proper food groups?”
“Of you,” she said and paused. “And the dog . . . and the dessert tray and the champagne.”
I stilled with the spoon halfway to my mouth, blinking at her expression. The implications were too staggering to grasp.
“Somebody got it all on their cell phone,” she said.
My mind sputtered back to life and then reeled with the implications. “They can’t do that. We’re lawyers. It’s privileged. They’ll be disbarred.”
“Annalisa can waive privilege.”
“But she wouldn’t. Is she going to sue us?”
“She did.”
“File a lawsuit?”
“Waive privilege.”
“Why?”
It didn’t make any sense. She couldn’t look good in the video. None of us could possibly have looked good in the middle of that chaos.
“She wants the attention,” Cecily said. “The video has gone viral.”
The wave of dread that flowed through me was colder than my ice cream.
Cecily covered my free hand with hers. “Annalisa re-tweeted the video herself. That definitely waives privilege.”
I felt dizzy for a second. “She has . . . like . . . twenty million . . .”
“Followers,” Cecily finished for me.
My hand dropped to the counter and the melting ice cream slid off the spoon.
Cecily watched it puddle on the counter. “I have a feeling you’re going to need that.”
“I’m doomed.” I’d be the laughingstock of the New York City legal community, probably the whole state, maybe the entire country.
“I think you might need to lay low for a while.”
“I think I might need to move to Canada.”
“You’re not licensed there.”
“I might as well not be licensed in New York either.”
I’d lost a client, and now I’d publicly compromised the reputation of the firm. Laatz Wallingsford prized dignity and professionalism above almost anything else. They were sure to fire me now. And nobody else would hire me—at least nobody who’d seen the video—and everyone would see the video.
“You should take a vacation,” Cecily said. “Give this all a chance to blow over.”
“Do you honestly think this will blow over?”
“It’s social media, Laila. Something else will happen, something goofier or more exciting. I give it two weeks, tops.”
I braced myself on the lip of the counter. This couldn’t be happening. It had to be a nightmare. I scrunched my eyes shut desperately hoping to wake up in my bed and find it was only Tuesday morning and I had a do-over.
I waited. Nothing happened.
“Laila?”
“Please tell me I’m asleep.”
“You have some vacation time?”
I opened my eyes. There was no point in pretending anymore. This was real. “You want me to run away?” I asked. It seemed like a cowardly thing to do.
“I want you to lay low for a few days.”
“You mean hide out like a criminal.”
“You’re not a criminal.”
“I know! Because I’m a lawyer, so I know crime.” I didn’t want to run away. Then again, I didn’t want to walk into the office tomorrow morning either. Maybe a breather wasn’t such a bad idea.
“Check with Elizabeth Jones.” Cecily named one of the partners. “She’ll understand. For sure she’ll say yes, and she can tell Luke in the morning. He’ll take it better from her.”
Luke Perrington was our direct supervisor. If anyone was going to fire me without hearing my side of the story, it would be Luke. He was on the partnership track and desperate to ingratiate himself to Mr. Laatz. He’d throw me or anyone else under the bus in a second if he thought it would buy him goodwill.
“Then get in your car and just drive,” Cecily said. “Go anywhere, really. Get out of cell range and stay out as long as you