“Shit.” Jill’s fingers sifted through the massive pile of documents on her desk. “Sorry, Toni’s a new client. She’s asked me to run her reelection campaign. It’s a big deal for us. Normally someone in her shoes would go to one of the big corporate firms.” Jill beamed and Clara could see why the men of Greenwich had once fallen at her aunt’s feet. “She said she likes that we’re famous for championing underdogs.”

“Of course. I can see that this is a bad time. I should go,” Clara said, already edging toward the door. She could call later on her way to the airport.

“No, wait. Don’t leave. What time is your flight? I’m a bit underwater at the moment. One of my associates quit last week without notice.” Jill continued riffling through the mess on the desk. A folder careened off the edge, splashing papers in a waterfall at her feet.

Clara bent to retrieve the fallen items. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Actually”—Jill cocked her head—“what do you think about sitting in on the rest of this meeting with me and taking some notes? You’d be doing me a huge favor, and it shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes. Once it’s over, we can sit down properly and talk.”

“Oh, well. I’m not really . . .” Clara stopped herself. She could hardly argue that she couldn’t take notes. She owed Jill whatever favors she required after interrupting her work twice in as many days. “You know what, sure. I can do that. Do you have a notepad?”

And that was how Clara found herself sitting across a conference room table from the district attorney of Los Angeles County.

Clara had never seen anyone wear a suit half as well as Toni Granger. She didn’t know if the woman had them custom made to fit her tall frame, or if she commanded the material through sheer force of will. The oatmeal Clara had had for breakfast began swimming laps in her stomach.

“Please accept my apologies for keeping you waiting. This is Clara. She’ll be sitting in to capture some takeaways from our conversation.” Despite the calamity in her office a few moments ago, Jill’s voice now radiated calm professionalism.

The DA gave Clara a nod.

Pushing her nerves aside, Clara happily sank into a familiar position for the first time in almost a week.

Josh might excel in orgasms, but with the number of hours she’d logged in classrooms over the course of her lifetime, Clara knew her way around lined paper like nobody’s business.

Toni sat back in her chair. “As you know, I’ve had a contentious relationship with my constituency over the last few years. When I decided to run for DA, I knew there would be people in this town who wouldn’t like the idea of a Black woman in such a prominent office, but lately, it seems like the press is going out of their way to tear me down.”

Jill folded her hands together on top of the table. “Yes, I’ve noticed that as your term comes to a close, your critics have grown more persistent.”

“That’s one word for it.” Toni shook her head. “I’ve always been so stringent about keeping my nose clean. A sniff of scandal and my opposition would make sure I never work in this town again. But playing it safe has left me polling fifteen points behind my challenger.”

With a judge for a father, Clara had grown up around more than her fair share of political and legal officials. With polling numbers that bad, Jill certainly had her work cut out for her.

“You’ll need a big marquee case, something that will stir up public attention and bring in free airtime for the campaign.” Clara scribbled a few notes. Headlines. Big-name endorsements.

Toni looked at Clara for the first time since Jill had introduced her. “Excuse me?”

She hadn’t meant to say that out loud. “Oh. I’m sorry. I’m sure Jill would know better. I watch a lot of political dramas on TV.”

Toni’s face evened out. “Well, it sounds like Hollywood got it right for once. No one in this town gives a damn about run-of-the-mill cases. I need something big.” She turned back to Jill. “That’s where your firm comes in. I need to galvanize people.”

Twenty minutes later, Clara and Jill waved at Toni’s car as the DA pulled away.

“I like her,” Clara said. “She’s got that magnetism that makes people fall in line. Do you think she stands a chance?”

Jill cocked her hip to the side and gave Clara a once-over. “Do you wanna come work for me?”

Clara laughed until she realized her aunt wasn’t joking.

“Me? No, I can’t. I bought a plane ticket.” Clara had a plan to save her reputation. It mandated that she get out of this city and away from Josh Darling’s pheromones ASAP.

“Right, but what if you didn’t leave? What if I hired you as a junior associate?”

Clara wrung her hands. “I don’t have any experience.”

“Please. You’ve got a PhD from Columbia.”

“In art history.” A made-up degree for rich people. “Sure, if you need someone to discuss the privatization of culture in fifteenth-century Florence, I’m your gal, but I don’t know the first thing about public relations.”

“You’ve got good instincts and, since you’re a Wheaton, years of practical education in crisis management and reputation rehabilitation. The associates mainly do grunt work. Collecting research, drafting press releases. Nothing you couldn’t handle.”

“I prefer to stay under the radar.” Thanks to her infamous family, she knew how the limelight could burn.

Jill leveled her gaze. “You need a reason to stay in Los Angeles. No matter what happened with your roommate, I know you don’t want to go back after four days and face your mother. Do me a favor for a couple of weeks until I can fill the position. The pay isn’t great, but I do supplement it with needlessly fancy green tea.”

Clara shook her head. She wanted to help. She liked Jill, obviously, and Toni Granger inspired a surprisingly strong sense of civic engagement, but working across town from Everett’s place wasn’t a long-term option. The logistics alone made her brain bleed.

“I can’t. Thank you, but I’m not cut out for this whole take-’em-as-they-come, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants lifestyle. I did one stupid, huge, impulsive thing.” Two. “But from here on out I think I’d like to return to my comfort zone and set up camp.”

“No. See, I don’t buy that. You claim to have come out here for a guy, but what if Everett Bloom was an excuse to abandon a life built around pleasing other people?”

Why did people keep saying things like that to her? Sometimes a cross-country move didn’t represent a quest for adventure so much as a failed booty call. Everyone had the entirely wrong idea about the capacity of Clara’s courage.

“I’m not asking you to do anything crazy. Go home after you’ve had a few weeks to relax and recover. Let everyone back home wonder how you spent your time on the other side of the country. They’ll never guess that I had you behind a desk from nine to five.”

Clara chewed on her thumbnail. “It’s not that I’m scared.” Not only that.

“Well, then, what is it?”

Why did L.A. insist on ripping off all of her emotional Band-Aids at once? “I can’t drive.” The expense of taking a car forty miles each way, Monday through Friday, was doable, but certainly extravagant.

“Since when? Didn’t your dad buy you a Beemer in high school?”

Clara couldn’t help but crack a faint smile. “He did. Technically I have a license, but I prefer not to get behind the wheel. In New York, it wasn’t an issue. I took public transit or walked most places. But here . . . I think I could catch a bus, but I have to imagine it’d take a while?”

Jill raised her eyebrows. “You’re omitting an obvious third option.”

“That’s by design.” Clara grimaced. It smarted to show another weak spot to this family member she barely knew. To arrive with so many broken parts and missing pieces and still expect acceptance.

Her aunt leaned in and hugged her. Somehow, the squeeze released all the shame and fear of the last few days.

“I get it. I do,” Jill said. “But maybe it’s worth giving driving another shot? Like it or not, you moved to L.A., kiddo. You’re smart and capable. I know because I hired you.”

Clara shook her head but couldn’t stop the surge of pride that warmed her chest.

When Jill spoke next, her words took on gravity. “Some fears kill us. They drain us our whole lives, and we die filled with regret. But this isn’t one of those fears. Make a plan. It doesn’t have to be now, but you know the only way to get better at driving.”

Clara tried to dust off whatever sense of conviction she’d tapped into a few weeks ago when, drunk on a combination of red wine and nostalgia, she’d decided to move to L.A., changing the course of her future.

Her answer resounded like a dumbbell tossed into her gut. “Drive.”

Jill tapped her chin with a single finger. “I don’t suppose your new roommate has a car?”

Chapter eleven

CLARA’S PLAN HINGED on her ability to make pancakes.

Batch four had the right color, golden brown, versus anemic batch two. But batch three had a better texture, less cakey and airier. She tightened her ponytail. After spending the entire ride back from Malibu plotting, she had to get this right.