Page 28 of The Distiller's Darling

“I hope it goes well,” she blurted. “I’m sorry, Luis, I’m supposed to be asking my dad something.”

She fled, leaving Luis alone. He’d cope. She, on the other hand, was in desperate need of some time to think. She found a bathroom and locked herself in, leaning against the door and closing her eyes.

Why was nepotism fine for her own career, but bad when it came to helping Iain? She rubbed her forehead and wondered if she ought to see if any of the fancy psychologists hobnobbing in the crowd wanted to give her a freebie in the back hallway. She clearly had some issues to work out.

And now, faint guilt was starting to overtake her. Sure, she’d been sleeping with Iain, and had extensive and fairly lurid plans to continue doing so, but he was also a perfectly nice guy. Noah, Max, Angelica, and her other friends all seemed to like him a lot, too. She could have done him the favor as a friend. Couldn’t she?

Except asking for this particular favor in this specific crowd didn’t come off as friendship. It brought her dangerously close to Stepford territory. And she wasn’t going there. Ever.

She sighed. She couldn’t handle helping Iain the way her mother would expect her to. A flicker of the white towels folded neatly on the counter by the sinks caught her eye. For some reason, her mind went back to her office, and the logo she’d sketched while she’d been pondering Max’s menus.

Sometimes, when she was working out a design plan, she let her fingers draw whatever they felt like. It was the closest using pen and ink ever felt to working with clay, leaving herself at the mercy of whatever creative breeze the universe felt like throwing her way. That day, what had blown in was a logo for Whitman’s Revival, the W forming bold strokes accented by curving serifs that led into the dots of holly-like berries and quickly-drawn tiny sparkles and leaf shapes. It really was the perfect logo, evoking the nostalgia of handmade with some of the flavors that Iain had described to her.

Maybe she could help him in a different way. She couldn’t bring herself to talk to Luis for Iain, but she could take the branding job he’d been trying to hire her for since he’d arrived in River Hill. Helping him with her actual skills was a far cry from begging her friends and family to play nice. Iain was a good marketer, a great salesman. With the right branding package, he’d meet his quota without even trying. And then she could sleep easy. Or not sleep, if her two-months-of-hot-sex plan worked out the way she was hoping.

She pulled her phone out and fired off a text to Iain before she could rethink it. I’ll do your logo.

---