7. Cara
CARA
The new articles about Liam had begun to pop up at about two in the morning.
Cara had still been awake, miles from sleep given the fact that she knew she had to put together a pitch by the following day.
That was bad enough, but when she saw the photo of him baring his teeth at a woman in a bar, she began to seriously wonder what she had gotten herself into.
What kind of man is he, if this is how he acts when he already knows he’s in trouble?
And yet, sitting in the office, she found that she was actually looking forward to seeing him again.
She’d enjoyed their meeting yesterday, had enjoyed the way he had fired back at everything she said.
It was as if he was challenging her, as if he wanted her to prove that she was good at her job.
Which is the same thing I want. In a way, Liam and I are on the same side here.
He was definitely the most difficult challenge she could imagine facing, but there was a thrill in that.
It was like skydiving, a hobby she had once thought she would cultivate in her twenties before realizing how expensive it was every time you went up.
But even though she couldn’t go regularly, the single time she had been lived in her mind.
It had been daring and exciting and she hadn’t known what to expect from any given moment…
and that was how working with Liam Sims made her feel.
Her excitement deflated somewhat when Alastair joined her in the conference room. She hadn’t expected to have to do this with him looking over her shoulder, and suddenly the plan she had slapped together in the wee hours of the morning didn’t seem so clever. “I can handle this,” she told him.
“I want to see what you’ve come up with,” he said. “I know you’ve been waiting to prove yourself here at the firm, and I want to give you that chance.”
As if he was being so generous. “Let me see what I can do and then I’ll report back to you on how the meeting goes,” Cara suggested.
Alastair cocked his head. “Is there some reason you don’t want me in here?”
Of course there was. She was willing to bet that he knew perfectly well what that reason was, too.
It was hard enough getting Liam to take her seriously when he knew she was a junior partner.
If there was a senior partner in the room, she was liable to just get boxed out of the conversation altogether.
Well, I’ll just have to make sure I don’t let that happen. I can stay in control of things.
The door opened, and Liam Sims walked in looking worse for wear.
He had dark circles under his eyes. Cara was even more sure today that he had benefitted from an expensive hair treatment, because his blond curls were intact even though they looked as if they’d been slept on. He fell into a chair opposite Cara.
“Any chance of that coffee you were offering yesterday?” he asked.
She jumped to her feet, eager to make a good impression. If Alastair was going to be in the room, it was that much more important that she look good. “How do you take it?”
“No, sit down,” he said. “Ward can get it for me.”
Alastair frowned. “That’s more Cara’s job,” he said. “She’s awfully good at making coffee. You wouldn’t want to miss out. And I’m hopeless at it.”
“You can’t manage to brew a pot of coffee?
” Liam asked him. “You really are hopeless if that’s true.
And as for Cara, you assigned her to come up with a PR plan for me.
I assume that was because you thought she’d be the best person suited for that job, and I want to hear what she came up with.
Why don’t you go and get drinks for all three of us, Ward, and Cara and I will start talking about the plan she’s come up with while we wait for you to get back. ”
Cara felt giddy inside. It was amazing to see Alastair ordered around like that.
She’d never have dared to speak up to him that way herself.
What was more, he didn’t seem to feel as if he could tell Liam no.
Yesterday he had had been on the verge of dismissing Liam from his office, but something had shifted in his demeanor.
He opened and closed his mouth several times, and then he hurried from the room toward the kitchen to fetch coffee for the pair of them.
He’s changed his mind, Cara realized. He doesn’t want to lose Liam as a client after all.
Maybe he even regrets letting me take on the account.
Her excitement subsided a little. Alastair would be looking for her to fail so that he could take Liam back from her.
She would have to do even better than she’d believed she needed to.
She looked down at the sketched-out notes she’d written last night. They seemed horribly subpar all of a sudden.
Liam was watching her. “I hope you came up with something good,” he said quietly.
She cleared her throat. “The situation has…changed a bit since you and I last spoke.”
He groaned. “You’re talking about the incident at the bar last night, aren’t you?”
“I am,” she said, holding his gaze. She wasn’t about to let him control the way this meeting went, even though she was pleased with him for sending Alastair out of the room.
If he could, she thought, he would probably minimize what had happened last night and act as though Cara ought to be able to handle it without much trouble.
The truth was that it was a big shift in terms of what was expected of her.
They had gone from spinning an isolated incident to a pattern of behavior.
“Here’s the thing,” she said, leaning across the table and bracing her elbows against it. “The plan I wrote up last night was designed around showing people that you’re a good man who was provoked into bad behavior by this other player…Sandusky, wasn’t that his name?”
“Yes,” Liam said. “And that is what happened.”
“All right. Maybe it is. But before we could even put out a press release, people got hold of this new article about you acting up in the same bar—and that other player wasn’t even there.
So everything I’ve put together goes right out the window.
I can’t say you were just provoked by a kid who wanted to get a rise out of you if you do the same thing when he’s not around. ”
Liam gritted his teeth. “It really was because of him, though,” he insisted. “I understand what you’re saying. Genuinely. But I wouldn’t have gotten so stirred up last night if it hadn’t been for everything Sandusky did to put me in this position in the first place.”
“Be that as it may,” Cara said, “the point is that it’s a lot more difficult to sell that story. It starts to look as though this is just who you are. You’re someone who gets angry and pops off whenever things aren’t going his way. And frankly, your archetype isn’t helping with that.”
“What does that mean? What archetype?”
The door opened and Alastair came into the room.
Cara got a surge of satisfaction out of the fact that he was struggling to carry the three coffee cups in his hands.
His breast pocket was stuffed with creamer cups and sugar packets, which he spilled out onto the conference room table after setting the cups down.
Liam took a cup without so much as looking in his direction.
Cara took her cue from her client. “I’m talking about the fact that you’re an athlete,” she said.
“A football player, specifically. I’m not saying you’re an angry guy, but people don’t exactly get shocked when they hear a high-profile football player is lashing out.
And the things some players have that mitigate that image don’t apply in your case. ”
“What kinds of things?” Liam asked. “Maybe they do. You don’t know me that well. I give to charity.”
She shook her head. “That isn’t what I’m talking about,” she said.
“I mean, that’s great, and we might be able to work it into whatever we eventually release, but you have to realize that for people living paycheck to paycheck, hearing that a rich athlete gives to charity doesn’t make you look especially good.
It’s almost neutral. It takes you from being a dragon hoarding your wealth to being a regular human being with empathy for others.
I mean, that’s something we should share about you, but it won’t save your image. ”
“Then what will?” he demanded.
“I’m talking about family,” she said. “You’ve seen the pictures of players holding their little baby on the field after they win a game.
A guy like that usually gets the benefit of the doubt in these situations.
People want to believe that a husband and father is a good person.
They’d look at you differently if you could show them you were a family man.
But since you’re unmarried, that doesn’t help. ”
“I can’t believe being married would make that much difference,” Liam said dismissively.
“Oh, it would,” Cara assured him. “I’m not just saying this stuff to be funny.
There’s all kinds of data backing me up on this.
Lots of records of football players who have gotten into trouble and then held press conferences to try to repair their reputations.
In almost every case, the guys who have a wife sitting by their side have their image completely restored. ”
Liam chewed on his lip. “I mean, it is an idea,” he said.
“What’s an idea?” She hadn’t been venturing an idea. She had just been pointing out a fact.
“I could get married,” he explained.
“Well…I mean, seriously? You’re willing to get married over this?” She had known he was desperate for a solution, but that seemed a bit far to go.
“It wouldn’t have to be permanent,” Liam said.
“I’m sure I could find a woman who would be willing to go along with a temporary marriage.
Just long enough to restore my image. Then we could get a divorce, maybe even an annulment.
She’d get some money out of it, and everyone would be on my side again because they’d feel so bad for me that my marriage had fallen apart. It could work.”
Cara’s head spun. On one hand, it was a ridiculous idea. She couldn’t believe they were even discussing it. But on the other hand, based on the research she had done last night, it probably would work. “Do you really think you could find a woman who would go for that?”
Alastair was the one who answered. “That wouldn’t be a problem at all,” he said. “Finding a woman willing to marry a rich football player? That would be easy. Especially knowing that the marriage didn’t have to last. You’ll have more potential brides than you’ll know what to do with.”
He leaned over and murmured in Cara’s ear, “I have to hand it to you. I never thought you were capable of coming up with something like this. If your idea works, this is the kind of move that could absolutely make your career.”
I didn’t come up with it, Cara couldn’t help thinking. She hadn’t been pitching this as an idea. It had been Liam who had decided to run with it.
But on the other hand, if it was going to advance her career, and if no one saw any problem with it, who was she to argue?