The Law of Attraction: An Absolutely Perfect, Feel-Good Summer Read

Chapter 1

One

Whitney Winters stepped out of her condo building onto the sidewalk with a light sweater draped over her arm. This was her favorite time of the year. Early May, when the Richmond, Virginia, weather was almost mild and the humidity not yet unbearable. Living only a couple of miles from the office, she enjoyed the walk, especially when she got an extra early start, like today.

The brisk morning air invigorated her. Finally, the last of the pink and white cherry blossom petals that had littered the city had been washed away by the recent precipitation, and the streets were clean again. Longer days were on the way.

She slipped on her sweater and shoved her hands into the pockets, lifting her shoulders and enjoying the sun just beginning to peek above the horizon, casting a beautiful glow across the horizon.

Across the road, a man jogged alongside a shiny Irish Setter. It was unclear who was leading whom, but neither flinched as a tractor trailer rumbled by, interrupting the quiet morning.

Ahead, the offices of Barron, Winters Wall still impressed her as much as they had when Mom would bring her to visit Daddy. The four-story building was small compared to the tall buildings that now flanked it, but its grand, palazzo-style architecture with large arched windows, and the way the red brick contrasted with the natural stone still made a statement. With a sense of pride, she approached the tall double doors. Her keys jingled as she pulled them out of her purse to open up the building and turn off the alarms. Moments like this, where only memories hung in the air, enveloped her and felt as comforting as those quiet days with Uncle Blake on his farm. Back then, when she’d fed and watered the horses in the early mornings, she’d dreamed of being a veterinarian and living in the country.

She took in the grandeur around her.

This is about the furthest thing from my childhood dreams.

But she was walking in the footsteps of her father, and this place was a living testament to her roots and being a part of upholding legal excellence for the community for four generations.

Once the alarm disengaged, she headed for her office. Her heels echoed against the gleaming white marble floors.

For a brief moment on her way to the break room to get a cup of coffee, she let her mind go back to those mornings on the farm when the hay smelled sweet, and the horses nickered with excitement at the sound of her muck boots hitting the alleyway in the barn.

The only warm nuzzle she’d get today would be from her coffee mug. She made her coffee and went to her office. Her computer started up as she took her first sip of coffee and settled in to get a head start on this week’s caseload.

Over the next two hours, the office came alive. Phones rang, people talked in the halls, and the rustle of papers filled the air.

She’d been plowing through case files for a while when a deep voice at her door caught her attention.

“Did you see it?” he said, his voice tight.

Her brother William stood in the doorway to her office, business-ready in his signature black suit and designer tie. However, his reaction was noticeably agitated, his mouth twisted as if his morning coffee had been spiked with prune juice.

“Your head isn’t spinning, so I’m going to guess you haven’t,” he said.

His mocking tone hadn’t gone unnoticed, and to be honest, it wasn’t a welcome interruption. Beside him, her sister-in-law and best friend, Carina, had just stepped in from behind him. With her chin tipped downward and lips pressed together, she was clearly amused by whatever had William so shook up. Even though William and Whitney were brother and sister, Whitney and Carina were more often on the same page, so Carina’s reaction tempered her own.

Whitney leaned back, distancing herself from the computer screen that had commanded her attention for the past two hours. “See what?” She blinked as her eyes readjusted.

William marched over and shoved his phone toward her. “Look.”

She fumbled with his phone, but it only took a moment for the picture to come into focus.

“Where did you find this?” She laughed at the picture of a billboard with the firm’s slogan in shiny eighteen-carat gold, and her father from the chest up looking remarkably young. The way his partial image hung against the background gave him sort of a King-Kong-on-the-side-of-the-Empire-State-Building look. “Hysterical. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this one before.” The laughter was a pleasant reprieve from the work she’d been concentrating on, but when she handed William his phone, he wasn’t laughing.

He leaned forward, tightening his grip on the phone. “That’s because it’s new. I just took this picture ten minutes ago.”

“Wait. You’re telling me this is a new billboard of Dad?” She got up from her chair and snatched the phone back to get a closer look. She glanced toward the open door, then stepped closer, lowering her voice. “Did he have them airbrush his wrinkles and darken his hair?” She turned the phone toward Carina. “He looks twenty years younger.”

“Oh, I already saw it in the bigger than life-size version on the ride into work. Trust me, it’s obvious he looks younger.” Carina’s lips pursed, a sure sign she was getting ready to say something sassy. “I see more of a likeness between William and your dad now.”

William glared at Carina.

She shrugged, clearly enjoying poking fun at her husband. “Just saying. Don’t take it the wrong way. Your dad is a handsome old man. You will be too.”

William’s jaw pulsed as he turned his attention back to Whitney. “I thought we convinced Dad that billboards are outdated?—”

“And embarrassing. From what I see there, he took it to mean we thought he looked outdated?” Whitney said.

Carina laughed, and William flashed her a warning look. “I’m sorry.” Carina’s softened Puerto Rican accent pulled the words into a lingering melody. “Your father has been doing that schtick for twenty-five years. It shouldn’t surprise you.”

“For a man who is always worried to death about the firm’s reputation,” Whitney air-quoted the word, “I wonder why he thought faking his hair color and hiding wrinkles would show integrity. It seems a little insincere to me.”

“If one of us did something like that, he’d flip his lid.” William straightened, then marched around the room impersonating the speech they all knew too well. “We must adhere to a higher set of moral standards and practice with integrity. We owe that to our predecessors and our clients.” William tugged on the lapel of his jacket for dramatic flair.

Carina folded her arms across her chest. “Be thankful he didn’t put your face on that billboard.”

William spun toward her with a finger in the air but withheld whatever was about to roll off his lips.

Whitney jumped in before he could. “I guess we weren’t as convincing as we thought. You might as well laugh, William. It’s not like we can do anything about it.” Even as far back as their college days, before they began practicing law at the firm, they’d begged their father to pull those horrible billboards down.

“Where’s the billboard?” Whitney almost hated to ask, but a little piece of her prayed for poor placement.

The sarcastic crook in William’s smile said it all. “On top of the new condos, coming into the city, right where traffic crawls to a stop. Everyone will see it.”

“Dad may not have the right approach, but he knows a good location. All we can do now is start practicing the grin and bear it face in response to all the ribbing we’ll get over this one.” Whitney pushed her hair behind her ear, plastered a fake smile on her face, and recited the well-practiced phrase she hadn’t needed to use in a couple of years. “Dad is such a hoot. Gotta love him. You can do that kind of thing when you’re the best in the field.” She tossed her hair and laughed, lifting her shoulders to make it look genuine. She’d mastered it over the years. “See. Still works.”

William finally lightened up, even laughing with them for a moment.

It was true. Dad was over the top when it came to how focused he was about people recognizing them as the best traditional law firm.

William dropped into one of the leather chairs opposite Whitney’s desk.

Carina stepped behind him and rubbed his shoulders. “Look. We knew when we all decided to practice law in the family firm, there were going to be some hurdles.” Always the voice of reason, Carina didn’t let emotional things like this ruin her perspective. “It won’t hurt business. Not saying it’ll help, but we’re just going to have to do like Whitney said. Play it off.”

“I’ve got three new tech companies onboarding,” William said. “All my talk about being up-to-date and eager to earn new and innovative clients is going to look really out of place next to marketing like this.” He pointed at the phone and pulled the trigger on his right hand, pretending to blow up his phone.

Whitney felt bad for him. He was tied closer to Dad on the business side of the firm. At least with she and Carina on the much smaller family law side, there was clear separation. “They are hiring you, not the billboard, and you’re everything you’ve sold them,” Whitney reminded him. “Dad’s billboard may not be hip, but the legacy of our firm is still a selling point for Barron, Winters Wall.” Whitney walked back over to her chair.

“So I guess you don’t think I should try to get Mom to talk sense into him?” William looked hopeful.

Carina and Whitney stood shoulder-to-shoulder, heads shaking in perfect unison. “Not a chance.”

Whitney continued, “Dad can do whatever he thinks is best for the firm. We don’t get to play the family card when it comes to business. Case closed.”

“I hate it when you’re right,” William said.

“I know.” Whitney patted his cheek as she walked by on her way back to her desk. “But being right brings me great pleasure. You’d think I’d be used to it by now.”

The intercom on Whitney’s desk phone buzzed. She pressed the button. “What do you have, Olivia?”

“Jen Proctor on line three.”

“Perfect. I’ll take it.”

William got up. “It hit me wrong when I saw that thing. Thanks for talking me down.” He pecked Carina on the cheek. “Sorry I didn’t listen to you in the car. I know I was a pain.”

“You were a?—”

“I know. Thanks for putting up with me.” He turned to Whitney. “I have the best wife in the world.”

“I know you do. So don’t be a jerk on the commute.” Thank goodness he was laughing when he walked out of her office. She looked over at Carina. She had the patience of a saint, and as William’s sister, Whitney knew he wasn’t always the easiest to deal with. “I bet that was a miserable drive to the office.”

“The worst.” Carina ran her fingers through her jet black hair and blew out a breath. “He makes me crazy when he gets like that. I feel like I need to go home and start my day all over.”

“You can.”

“No. I’m fine. Besides, while he was huffing and puffing in the car, I did see something pretty amazing on the way in.”

“Not Dad’s floating head?”

“Oh, heck no. That’s terrifying. No, I’m talking about the guy painting the mural on the side of that building up the block?”

“I am not a fan of those. Why can’t people leave well enough alone? There’s beauty in these old buildings.”

“It’s going to look nice,” Carina insisted. “The colors really brighten up the area, and the picture is pretty. It’s way better than that chipped-up, ancient paint you could barely read anymore.”

“We’ll see about that.”

Carina did the flirty wiggle that no one else could imitate. “Well, you need to check it out. Besides, the guy doing the painting is fine.”

Whitney glanced up. Carina wasn’t the type to usually make that kind of comment. “You could tell that by driving by?”

“Yes. We got caught there at the light. I swear, I could barely take my eyes off him, and you know I’m not looking.”

Whitney knew that to be true. “Why couldn’t Mr. Fine have been cleaning the brick or painting them white? I’ve just never been a fan of graffiti.”

“It’s not graffiti. It’s art!” Carina pursed her lips. “You’re grumpy. It must run in your family this morning. Do your call. We’ll catch up later when you’re in a better mood.” Carina breezed out of the office.

Whitney dropped into her chair. “I’m not grumpy,” she said to herself, then pressed line three. “Jen? Hey, thanks for returning my call.”

The voice on the other end of the line was shaky. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes. This is good news.” The uncertainty in Jen Proctor’s simple response tugged at Whitney’s heart.It had been a complex divorce with an emotional property division and way too much unnecessary bickering. Jen and her husband just couldn’t quit sniping at each other long enough to let the lawyers handle the details. “I’ve got your papers with the judge’s signature right here in my hand. Your divorce is final.”

A whoosh of relief came across the line. “Are you serious? I was thinking this day might never come.”

“It’s here.” Whitney heard the gulp of a sob across the phone. Not a sad one, definitely the sound of relief. “I didn’t want to leave a message. I wanted to tell you personally.”

“Thank you so much. I’ll try to get by there tomorrow to pick them up. Do I need to sign off on anything else?”

“Not a thing. No need to drive across town either. I can overnight the papers to you.”

“That would be great.” Jen’s voice was lighter. “I don’t know whether to celebrate or cry.”

Whitney knew a little of both would happen. Even with ugly divorces, there was still a certain amount of grief that had to be processed when a marriage ended. “Press reset and don’t look back. I’m here if you need anything.” She’d already talked to Jen about drafting a prenup. It was so much easier to draft when someone wasn’t already emotionally invested in a new relationship. Most of her clients took her up on it, and she hoped Jen would too.

“I will never get into that situation again. I don’t even plan to date!”

Whitney ended the call politely, but there was a singsong, “famous last words,” playing in the back of her mind.

Even though she saw marriages dissolve every week, she still believed in happily ever afters. Not for herself at the moment, but maybe one day when she had time to give a relationship the attention and priority it deserved. A joyful marriage required work and equal input from each partner. She witnessed that on a daily basis.

Whitney pressed the button to call her paralegal’s phone. “Olivia, can you overnight these papers to Jen Proctor, please?”

“Got it, and Roger is standing here at my desk. Do you have a minute to chat with him?”

“Of course.” Whitney set the phone back on the receiver and tidied her desk, waiting for him. Olivia had been the best hire Whitney had ever made. She managed all the administrative and paralegal support for the family law part of the firm. She worked creative magic, fitting her and Carina’s work and family obligations into the week, and that was no simple task.

Roger stepped into her office. “Hey, Whitney. You’ve been hard to catch up with lately.”

“Sorry. You know how it is.” She faked a grimace. Not really sorry at all. She loved being busy and watching the family law part of the practice grow by leaps and bounds. It had been terribly neglected before they took it over, and she couldn’t wait to prove to her father that she could make it a financial success in the portfolio. She motioned to the stack of files on the corner of her desk.

“You got a minute?” he asked.

“For you? Absolutely.” They’d become each other’s plus-ones to work functions for a couple of years now. He was such a good guy, and with both of them laser-focused on their careers, boundaries were clear. Friendship and nothing more.“What’s up?” Probably a client dinner. It’s what usually prompted this kind of visit. They had that Casino Night fundraiser coming up soon too.

“May I?” He motioned to the door, wanting to close it.

A strange feeling washed over her. “Sure.”

He closed the door and took in a long breath before sitting in the chair across from her. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”