Page 12 of Until You

“Why not? You’ve never worried about me before. I’ve worried about you since you started this vagabond life.”

“Vagabond?” Lanie laughed, trying to lighten the mood. But Britt shot her a glare, and Lanie felt like the world’s biggest bitch. “Britt, of course I care about you.”

“When was the last time you called me?” Lanie started to speak, but Britt pointed her finger at her again. “And calling to say you were going to be late to lunch—and my shower—doesn’t count.”

God, she really was a bitch. “Britt, I’m sorry.”

Tears filled Britt’s eyes. “I made my peace with it a long time ago. But you being here is reopening old wounds. I miss you, Lanie.”

Lanie’s phone began to ring in her hand.

“Go deal with your current crisis.”

Lanie’s stomach twisted even more. What was the right thing to do here? The opening was already running behind schedule. She couldn’t afford to lose any more time. But she’d let Brittany down too many times to count.

She thrust the papers at Stephanie. “Take these back to the office. Scan them and send them to Eve, then call her and ask her if they have legal covered or if we need to take care of it. Then call those employee interviews we have set up for next week and see if we can conduct them tomorrow. Tell Eve we’re making the most of the shutdown.”

“You want me to talk to Eve?”

“You know everything that I know about the job site, so why not?”

“She’ll want to talk to you.”

“Tell her I’m not available.”

“But she’ll be pissed.”

Lanie took a breath. “I don’t care.” But then she realized she was throwing her assistant under the bus. Every boss Lanie’d had before Eve had done the same to Lanie in one way or the other, but she’d be damned if she did the same to Stephanie. “On second thought, I’ll do it.”

Stephanie’s eyes narrowed. “Do you think I can’t handle it?”

“No. Not at all. But just because you can handle it doesn’t mean I should throw you to the wolves.”

Pride filled Stephanie’s eyes. “Then I’m doing it. You’re the one who always catches all the crap. I’ll take point on this one.” She paused. “But we need to figure out what to do about the interviews. We have confidential information all over our office, and we don’t get the space we set up for interviews until next week.”

“Then we’ll have them at Starbucks.”

“Are you crazy?”

“We’ll use the working project name for the store name, but still tell them it’s a clothing store. Then we’ll have the ones who make it to the next step of the process sign NDAs when we interview them in the store space, because we will be open by tomorrow afternoon.”

Stephanie gulped, then nodded. “Okay.”

“I’ll be back within an hour.”

“Okay.”

Stephanie hurried off, and Lanie turned to find her cousin gawking at her.

“What have you done?” Brittany asked.

“Getting my priorities straight.” She sat down and hid her shaking hands in her lap. “Where’s our food? We’re sitting in an empty restaurant. Surely it shouldn’t take this long.”

“Lanie. Go. I was being a self-centered bitch.”

“No.” She took a breath to steady her nerves. “Stephanie can take care of it. It’s good experience for her.” Lanie wasn’t about to sabotage her career, but between this latest delay and Eve’s obvious displeasure with the last few openings, Lanie wasn’t confident she was going to have a career at Margo Benson much longer. But maybe changing things up professionally wouldn’t be a bad idea.

“You should talk to Randy. He can give you advice about the injunction.”

Lanie gave a tiny shake of her head. “I’m sure corporate will have their own lawyers all over it.”

“Then talk to him about your own options. You know…just in case.” When Lanie hesitated, Britt added, “It can’t hurt.”

Then, before Lanie could protest, her cousin grabbed her phone out of her purse and called her fiancé, explaining the situation. Brittany glanced over at Lanie. “Can you go see him first thing tomorrow morning? His first client is at nine, but if you get there by eight thirty, he can see you.”

Lanie agreed, but she knew she wasn’t meeting him to find out what she could do about the injunction. Yesterday she thought she’d been happy with her job, and now she was strongly considering leaving.

Those Pink Pantie Pull-downs must be stronger than she’d remembered…

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