Page 13 of Arranged To Be Mine

“The guy who made you look like a fool in court? He stood up there and called you a rich bully trying to steal a family’s pets? That’s who you want to help me?”

“Yes.”

“Are you insane?”

Dad fixed me with that look. The one that said he’d made up his mind and arguing was pointless.

“That case should have been unwinnable for Jack,” he said. “And somehow, Beau Blackwell made that jury believe that I was the bad guy for not wanting a barnyard next to my home.”

“I agree I need help, but I was thinking more along the lines of one of those PR guys. The guys that make a cheating husband who knocked up his mistress look like a saint.”

He shook his head. “He’s good, Darcy. You don’t need a PR strategist. He knows how to sell a story. He has some magical power to make people believe what he wants them to believe.” He wiped his mouth. “If anyone can turn your image around, it’s him.”

“I don’t need my image turned around. I need people to forget this ever happened. Does he have a magic wand?”

I grabbed my beer and drained half of it in one go. Very unladylike.

Beau Blackwell. He had the audacity to laugh when I glared at him. He was everything I despised. All smooth, charming, and the kind of person who could talk their way out of anything.

And now my father wanted me to work with him to repair my very public mistake.

“There has to be someone else,” I said. “A PR firm. A crisis management specialist. Someone who doesn’t have a personal history with our family.”

“There are plenty of PR firms. None of them have what Blackwell has.”

“And what’s that?”

“The ability to make people love someone they shouldn’t.” Dad’s voice was matter of fact. “You saw what he did with Jack Montana. By the time Blackwell was done, the jury thought he was the victim.”

“So he’s good at lying. Awesome. Man of the year.”

“He’s good at telling stories. At changing the narrative. That’s what you need, if you want to save face.”

I didn’t need some slick lawyer to come in and fix my problems for me. I’d spent my entire life proving I could handle things on my own. I was capable and competent and worthy of the position I was about to inherit.

“You’ve got a few months before you officially take over as CEO of Corwin Gems,” Dad said, his voice gentle. “That’s enough time to turn this around. But you need to actually turn it around. The investors need to see that you can handle pressure. You have to prove you can face a crisis and come out stronger. Right now, all they’ve seen is you running away from a mistake.”

I groaned and dropped my head. “I know.”

“They need to be as confident in you as I am.”

He believed in me. Even after today.

“I need to think about it,” I said finally.

He nodded. “That’s fair. Sleep on it.”

We finished the pizza, talking about the latest Hollywood scandals and the nice weather. It was comfortable, familiar. The kinds of conversations we always had.

When he left, he hugged me at the door. “You’re going to be fine,” he said. “You’re a Corwin. We don’t stay down.”

After he was gone, I cleaned up the pizza box and the empty beer cans and tried to convince myself he was right.

I didn’t sleep well. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the press conference and the cameras capturing every second of my humiliation. It was going to follow me forever.

I tossed and turned until three in the morning, then gave up and went to my home office. If I couldn’t sleep, I might as well work. I’d wanted to run Corwin Gems since I was a little girl. I loved watching my father work and had decided I was going to be just like him.

And now, when I was finally about to reach the finish line, I’d tripped over my own feet. The worst part was I knew what I should have done. I’d replayed it a thousand times in my head. A quick correction and a pivot back to the script. Any decent public speaker could have handled it.