That sort of blind confidence is the only thing keeping my smile in place and my head firmly attached to my shoulders. I’ve stuck my head so deep into the sand when it comes to my personal life I’m about to hit the Earth’s core.
It’s also been great that I’m basically holding my department together, so I can fill my empty bed with contracts and my laptop. I don’t even want to think about how many times this week I’ve woken up to ink stained PJs because I fell asleep while working. For once, it would be nice to wake up to something toned and naked.
The elevator dings, and it’s time to put thoughts of bare-chested men out of my head.
Pity.
I plaster on a smile and square my shoulders. I am Savannah Sunday, I kick ass, I am up for a promotion at work, and I fucked up my love life. If anyone is going to make big things happen, it’s me.
Briggs, Meyers, and Associates occupies four floors in a high rise in downtown Atlanta, with sweeping views of the city. This is our base of operations, and I may as well be a four star general. The receptionist looks up at me when I enter, and I give her a small wave.
Our Entertainment Division is a long corridor. We handle everyone from musicians, to rising film stars, to DJs—and we’re the best in town.
“Coming in late this morning, Savannah?” Richard asks. He’s already got his suit jacket off and his sleeves rolled up. He’s the competition. I’ve been holding the department together after our boss retired, but Richard—or The Dick, as I personally prefer to call him—has been angling for the spot that should be mine.
I’ve been coming in early to get a head start on work, and I have to admit, it’s amazing how a lack of sex life makes you more productive. Despite the number of dates I’ve been through in the last few months, nothing has been worth taking home, let alone sampling. Good for my clients, bad for me.
“Good morning to you too, Richard.” I watch him struggle through another set of boxes. “Can I help you with something?”
No reason the department should go down on my watch, regardless of our rivalry.
“Just going over the last few clauses in a contract and I wanted to look at something Meyers had written several years ago. He mentioned it yesterday when we were going over…” He drops off, probably because I wasn’t supposed to hear that Meyers—a partner—was going over his work.
Meyers is a misogynistic pig who only hired me because Briggs interviewed me and did it behind Meyers’s back. The Dick is Meyers’s favorite. The only reason I wasn’t given the position after the first month was that Meyers wanted to give The Dick a chance. Because the five years he’d already been here weren’t evidence enough of his incompetence.
“Get a paralegal to do it.” I don’t want to work with him. In fact I’d like to fire him, but for the good of the team I play nice and bide my time until I can boot his ass to the curb. I don’t love being a bitch, but sometimes, in this business, even southern belles have to show their balls .
“I want to make sure my client’s receiving the personal touch,” The Dick says, his gaze flicking up and down my body. Ugh.
“Okay, then you go ahead and do it. But they’re not billable hours.” I turn on my heel and sweep down the hall, trying not to think about The Dick’s eyes glued to my ass.
I’d hook up with Cash before I’d let The Dick bill a client for time spent looking up an obscure quote that he wouldn’t let a paralegal touch. At least I’d get the better end of the deal.
Rob’s outside my office with a stack of contracts in one hand and a green tea latte in the other. Rob’s been with me since I started here, and he’s the type of assistant I would go to the mat for. And it’s not just because he knows my coffee order. Rob knows how to handle difficult clients, ferret out information, and he can read contracts so well I suspect he may have negotiated his own birth.
I take the contracts and the latte and he follows me into my office, going over messages.
“We haven’t heard back from Davies, so I—”
“You sent the flowers to him and the—”
“Bourbon—to Mathias, yes ma’am.”
I glare at him. Rob’s one flaw in my opinion is the ‘ma’am.’ The tips of his ears redden. He grew up in the country, or as he says, just to the left of the middle of nowhere—and it was the kind of old-fashioned place where everyone was ma’am or sir if they held a position over him. He moved to the city to find more open-minded people, and somehow he found us. I’m glad he did. Wherever he wants to go, I will move mountains to help him get there.
Flipping open the first contract, I start scanning it while we run down the laundry list of morning issues.
“Put Davies on the call list and we’ll hit him up again. He needs a new lawyer to take on the studios. We have plenty of experience there.”
Rob makes a face. “I got the impression from his assistant that he really wants someone in Los Angeles.”