Page 32 of Tempt Me

“Actually,” I confessed, “I did something bad last night. I need some armor to feel brave enough to go back.” The ball of dread was back, filling up my stomach. Maybe I could give my coffee to Rhiannon. No, she’d probably think it was another bribe.

“I never thought of a designer suit as armor, but you do you.” She leaned over the counter. “Go get ’em, hon.”

“Thanks. Have a great day.”

When the coffees were ready, I took them out to the Benz and nestled the carrier into the console.

At the Jamilow building, I dropped two cups with Felicia. Jamila was already in her Tuesday-morning developers’ meeting, but Felicia inhaled hers with a grateful smile.

Point scored.

My good luck continued as Hannah and I huddled in our office all morning fielding calls from journalists and strategizing about next steps. I had a list of ways for Jamila to build positive buzz on my tablet when we walked down the hall to our daily meeting with Jamila.

The coding teams held daily stand-up meetings, and I’d copied the concept for our updates. We literally stood—so no one felt comfortable enough to get long-winded—and provided rapid-fire updates on our progress and the day’s focus. As little as Jamila liked talking about PR, she could take it in these small doses. We had ten minutes of the lunch hour Felicia so ferociously guarded.

But today, there was an extra person in Jamila’s office.

Rhiannon.

“Oh, hey, are we early?” I asked.

We were not early. We were exactly on time, the way Jamila liked it.

Jamila glanced at her phone. “No, I was wrapping up with Ree.”

I let out a small sigh of relief. She was leaving.

“I’d like to stay today,” Rhiannon said, malice lighting up her whisky-brown eyes. “See how the PR efforts are going.”

My heart dropped into my stomach. I was so screwed.

“Really?” Jamila asked.

“It’s going to be really dull,” I said. “Just talking about how we can raise Jamila’s profile in the community.”

“I think we need to talk about last night’s PR activity,” Rhiannon said, a smirk pulling her lips up.

“The press conference?” Jamila asked. “That was days ago. We’ve already done a postmortem. I know I’m not allowed to threaten the press. Make sure that’s on your list, Nat.” She winked.

Rhiannon said, “Why don’t you tell Jamila what you and that lunkhead did after work last night, Natalie?”

“A lunkhead?” Jamila raised her perfect eyebrows. “Did you have a date, Nat?”

“N-no.” I wished a trapdoor would open in Jamila’s office and suck me down into a dungeon. At least I’d be safe from Jamila’s sharp eyes.

But there was no escape for me. I had only eight minutes before Felicia ejected us all.

“I…I was trying to find the leak. So, I set a trap.”

“A trap?” Jamila asked. “For who?”

I glanced at Rhiannon, but she only folded her arms across her light-blue polo shirt.

“For Rhiannon.” I huffed out a sigh. “I thought she might be the leak.”

Beside me, Hannah gasped.

“Me,” Rhiannon said. “One of your longest-tenured employees. I left a solid job with a 401(k) and unlimited vacation to come here. Remember the couple of months when we didn’t get paid on time?”

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