Finding grace, p.1
Finding Grace, page 1
About the Book
Addy really needs a raise, like yesterday. Thanks to a mountain of school debt, she’s heartily sick of being broke. So when she discovers she’s being considered for a promotion? She’s GIDDY.
Until she finds out that she needs to bring in accounts of her own, or she doesn’t stand a chance.
Unfortunately, the only person she knows who might need a PR company is her ex from high school. She’d almost rather die than ask for his business, especially given the mess he’s created. But when she finally steels up her nerve and asks Ben if her company can help, she realizes that she’s in trouble.
Many things have changed since high school, but their chemistry isn’t one of them. It’s as explosive as it ever was. Can Addy remember all the reasons things didn’t work the first time around? Or is history doomed to repeat itself?
Finding Grace
B. E. Baker
Copyright © 2022 by Bridget E. Baker
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
For my Dad
Thanks for always being there. And for the great moon boots that inspired this story.
Contents
1. Addy
2. Addy
3. Addy
4. Addy
5. Ben
6. Ben
7. Addy
8. Addy
9. Addy
10. Ben
11. Ben
12. Addy
13. Ben
14. Addy
Epilogue
15. Finding Faith Sample Chapter
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by B. E. Baker
1
Addy
As a kid, I spent more time clipping coupons than I did watching cartoons. Mom kept us on a tight budget, as in, we couldn’t afford a pack of gum, tight. It motivated me to study hard, work doggedly, and focus so I wouldn’t have to live in such a miserly way.
I worked part time for all four years of college, found the best-paying jobs I could every summer and holiday break, and I only took four days off between graduation and my first day of work. I told myself that once I graduated and started making money, I’d pay things off in no time. That’s when I’d live the good life—finally.
But I’ve worked full time for four years now, and I’m still flat broke.
After taxes and FICA come out—what the heck is FICA, anyway?—my paycheck barely covers my rent, my utilities, and my student loans. It leaves me with $885 each month for everything else I need. Food? Toothpaste? Toilet paper? Fast food? Yep, all of that comes out of the same tiny pile.
Depressingly, I’ve only saved $711 in the four years I’ve been working for the Princeton Public Relations Lab. I actually really enjoy my job—I just need it to pay more.
“Next Friday!” My friend Elana’s voice when she’s excited and reining it in is all high and squeaky. Like a Labrador retriever squeezing a tennis ball. “Next Friday they’re announcing which two account executives are being promoted to account supervisor.”
It’s a big promotion. . .and more importantly, it comes with a healthy pay raise. “Twelve days.” I groan. It’s too soon, and it’s too far away. How can it be both? “Do you know whether they’ve already decided?”
Elana scoots toward me, the wheels of her rolling office chair whizzing, crowding into my tiny cubicle. “For one of them, yeah.”
She’s talking about Victoria Marino, the granddaughter of our President of Client Services. She’s gorgeous, she’s brilliant, and she’s ridiculously lazy. “It’s so unfair.” I’m careful to keep my voice low. Grumbling about nepotism is a fast track to nowhere. No one seems to be paying any attention to us, but working in a fishbowl makes it hard to know for sure.
Elana’s voice is the faintest whisper. “I hear they’ve narrowed the other slot down to two top candidates.” She always does this—buries the lead. She thinks it’s charming. Usually, it makes me want to strangle her, even though she’s my closest work friend. This time, though, I’m desperate for the information her adept social skills have uncovered.
“And?”
“Yvette.” Her head whips the same direction as mine—toward the far wall. Yvette Morris is the worst. She reigns over her tiny corner of the office with total confidence, dispensing advice and condescension in equal measure.
“She has been here five years,” I grudgingly admit. She started a full year before I did.
But I work so much harder.
Long nights. Early mornings. Working from home. I take calls when they come in, sacrificing my plans to do whatever needs doing.
“You also take the hardest cases, and the ones no one wants. If you were a plumber, you’d be taking all the busted septic pipes and broken toilets.” Elana shrugs. “That’s probably why Lucas said that the other person being considered. . .is you.”
She did it again—saved that information for the end. All the air whooshes out of my lungs, making it almost impossible to get my words out. “Me? Are you sure?”
Elana bobs her head, and the corner of her mouth quirks upward. “Why do you think I rushed over?” She pulls a Snickers out of her pocket. “I was saving this for that mid-afternoon lull, when my blood sugar drops low and all I want is a nap. But I figure I should split it with you now as a mini-celebration.” She doesn’t even wait to ask if I want half—I always want half of any kind of chocolate.
“But there’s no way they’ll pick me between the two of us.” Yvette already acts and dresses like a supervisor. She’s a year ahead of me.
“It would help if you stopped wearing high heels you stole from your grandma.” Elana hands me half the Snickers.
I tuck my feet, encased in blocky black heels with a fair share of scuffs and dings, underneath my chair. “I’m sure they’re not making decisions based on our clothing.”
“It’s a Public Relations firm,” Elana says. “Of course they’re basing it on how you present yourself. Duh.”
“She’s right, though.” Harriet slides past Elana and perches on the edge of my desk.
My heart hammers in my chest—at least it was only Harriet who overheard us. She’s the director I’ve worked with the most and my only friend in management, really. “Your intel is good.” She nods at Elana. “But you missed the critical point.”
My throat feels dry, so I clear it. “Which is?” The Snickers is starting to melt in my hand, but I can’t very well stuff it in my mouth now, and I don’t have anywhere else to put it. I shift my hand so she can’t see it.
“I wasn’t strictly authorized to share this with you.” Her shoulders hunch and her voice drops a hair. “But we all agreed you’re the better choice. You handle difficult things with grace, and you work harder than anyone else. Those two things alone would have secured you a promotion if you were going up against anyone but Yvette.”
“I don’t get it. She’s not that hard working,” Elana says. “Why is it a toss-up?”
“She brings in business,” Harriet says. “Quite a lot of it, for a plain Jane account exec.” She flips her hair. “And by our count, you’ve brought. . .exactly one client.”
She doesn’t mention that the client I brought was neither lucrative nor glamorous. It was also more of a fluke that I brought them over.
The grooming place where I take my Pomeranian, Foxy, used muzzles. It’s kind of standard practice. Who takes their pet to a groomer if they’re easy to brush? It’s mostly the snarling, snapping, biting dogs that need to go to professionals, so, muzzles are kind of necessary. But a pet owner caught one of their employees screaming at a dog—it was pretty bad. They almost went out of business when clients all started dropping. As a Hail Mary, they called me and I did the whole case myself and applied the optional thirty percent family and friends discount.
“One of the important things a supervisor does is manage the account executives and interface with existing and prospective clients. But another important task is being able to grow our client roster. If she can do that more effectively, then. . .”
“You’re saying that unless I bring in more clients, I’ll stay where I am?”
Harriet shrugs. “That’s basically the answer, yeah. It’s not personal, but you’re only doing one half of what you need to do in order to succeed here.”
“How much time do I have?”
She shrugs. “This week, if you want to be safe. They don’t wait to make the decision until the day they announce it.” She spins on her heel and walks toward the private offices.
“Easy,” Elana says. “Just magically bring in crap tons of money.”
I snort. “Right? Gosh, if only it had occurred to me to contact some of my über rich friends before now.”
“Yvette’s parents are realtors and they move a lot of houses. That means they meet a lot of people. I hear all her referrals have come from them.”
Meanwhile, my mom’s the assistant manager at a grocery store, and I haven’t seen my dad since my brother Scott dumped an entire bucket of paint on my stepmom’s brand new rug at Christmas more than a decade ago. “I’m totally screwed.”
Elana doesn’t even argue with me. She likes the idea of having a friend who’s a supervisor, but it’s just not realistic, apparently. I sigh dramatically. “How am I ever suppose d to replace my grandma shoes when I’m stuck eating ramen the last week of every month?”
“Maybe you stop going out to lunch the first two weeks of every month. Then you’d have enough left over to eat something nice, like a peanut butter sandwich.”
We both laugh at that one.
I say, “I’d rather deal with the lows than never enjoy the highs.”
Harriet walks back over, glaring at Elana as she approaches. “Your hovering isn’t helping her.” She drops a newspaper on my desk. “If you don’t have any connections to play on, search through that.”
“I didn’t even realize they still printed those.” I glance at the title, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. That’s about as pretentious sounding as it gets.
“Old people like me still like to read on paper.” Harriet pauses. “When I was in your shoes—”
“You wore old, clunky grandma shoes too?” Elana asks.
“Old and worn? Yes.” Harriet’s face softens. “I had no one powerful or important to help me find clients, but they expect you to bring people to the table. I cold-called hundreds of people before I got lucky, but it could have happened at any time.”
“But how does a newspaper help?” Elana asks.
“They don’t report on kittens and rainbows,” Harriet says. “Most of the companies and people mentioned in this paper will need some help.”
She’s brilliant.
“Now get to work, Elana, and let Addy start making some calls.”
The front-page article is on toxic mold, but the damage isn’t anyone’s fault in particular and unless there’s some kind of mold federation, there’s no one to pay for our services. I don’t have to look very far to find something promising, though. On the front of page two, above the fold, a gorgeous face that I’ll never forget stares back at me.
* * *
NEWBERG AUTO REPAIR IN MAJOR DISREPAIR
The office manager of Newberg Auto’s corporate office, located in Centennial Hill, filed sexual harassment charges today against Benjamin Newberg. Faith Johnson alleges that the owner of the large and prosperous Atlanta auto repair chain lured her to engage in sex acts with monetary incentives and coerced her when such measures failed. She claims that such behavior was ongoing—lasting more than a year. It wasn’t until she became pregnant and he insisted on an abortion that she decided to take legal action.
The local magistrate found preliminary evidence compelling enough to set the case for trial. Ms. Johnson is represented by Axel, Knorr, and Hoff. When we reached out, Mr. Newberg had no comment, and his wife also refused to give a statement, but when our staff went by four different locations, business was booming. It appears that, so far, there have been no ramifications for what appears to be wholesale sexual misconduct.
* * *
For almost ten years, Ben Newberg, with his broad, winning smile, his track star physique, and his perfectly streaked blond hair has been ‘the one that got away.’ I try to suppress the twinge of jealousy I feel over him having a wife, because it’s ridiculous. Why would I be jealous of that poor woman?
I’m glad he dumped me back then—how much worse would my life be now if I’d been the one who married him? I tear off the page and fold it up to show my mom.
“Ooh, you found one?” Elana’s peering around the edge of our cubicle divider.
I shake my head. “Nah. Just turns out this guy I used to have a crush on in high school is a much bigger loser than I thought.”
“Whoa, something bad happened to someone you know?” Her eyes widen. “Isn’t that exactly what you need?”
I blink. “To feel better about losing, you mean?”
“No, that’s a connection, girlfriend. And you better use it.”
2
Addy
There is absolutely no chance that I’m going to march into Ben Newberg’s office, say, ‘Hey! Remember me? The girl you flirted with, took on one date, and then dumped?’
I shake my head. “I don’t have a connection. It’s more like a broken power line or something.”
“Girl. What did you think connections are? No one has people standing around, begging to help them out.” She laughs. “It’s someone you know, and when something bad happens, you’re there, offering to help.”
“This isn’t someone I know. I knew him, back in like, 10th grade, for a few weeks. We haven’t spoken a single time since.”
She snatches the paper out of my hand and unfolds it. “Oh my gosh, look at that jawline.” Her mouth drops open. “Actually forget the jaw. Look at those eyes.” She looks up at me, her fingers crumpling the paper. “This guy you don’t know is super hot.” She bites her lip.
“Did you even read the article?”
Her eyes focus and scan downward. “Whoa, a sex scandal?” She drops the paper on my desk. “Who needs a promotion. Just let him rot.”
But I really do need a promotion, and someone is going to get his money. It might as well be us, right?
Would the fact that he knew me a long time ago help me to get this horrible job? I mean, the last thing I want to do is bail out someone like this—or save his company. But I chose PR. This is kind of a big part of what we do, helping people improve their image when they’ve screwed something up royally.
Before I can second guess anymore, I search the company directory online, pick up my office phone, and dial.
“Newberg Auto Repair Corporate,” a woman’s voice says. “How may I direct your call?”
“Ben Newberg.” My hands tremble as I force the words out.
“He’s not here,” she says. “He’s preparing for a press conference. And if this is about—”
“A press conference? Where and when is that?”
She rattles off the information—a hotel not far from their office—and I glance at my watch. I have an hour and forty minutes. It’s just enough time to put together some preliminary ideas and a rough plan of action. I’m frantically slamming basic ideas onto a few diagrams and display maps when Elana bumps me.
“What?”
“I called your name three times, space cadet. What’re you doing?”
“They’re having a press conference, and I’m going to go pitch our firm’s services to him.”
“Who is this guy, anyway? An unlucky ex-boyfriend?”
I wish. Or, rather, now that I know the kind of person he is, maybe I don’t wish. Er, I definitely don’t wish. “He was pretty much the king of our high school.”
“Really?”
I shrug. “Maybe not the king, but like an earl or a duke or something.”
“Do you even know the difference between an earl and a duke?” Elana arches an eyebrow. She’s never without a romance novel to read—most of them featuring shirtless men on the cover.
I figured she’d appreciate the reference. I guess not. “That’s so not the point. He was super hot, rich, and a track star. He drove a brand new sports car and had a shiny black truck for outdoorsy stuff. And we met a long time ago, and I thought he liked me, but he never really did.”
“You’re missing the point. Which is, whether he will remember you.”
“Unless he’s done a lot of drugs in the intervening time, I’m sure he will.” I wish that were a joke. I’d have put money on the fact that the Ben I knew would never have harassed anyone in a million years, much less solicited anyone or threatened them. So, clearly, I don’t really know him either.
Elana starts shooting off pointers, and she takes it upon herself to put together two different scenario maps. Once we’re done, she brushes off the lapels of my petal pink business suit coat. “You’re going to march in there, leave this perverted loser’s jaw dangling, and land this account.” She beams. “And then you can fob him off on someone else if you want, but you’re going to manage all my projects from here on out. Because next Friday, they’ll announce you as the new manager, not Yvette.”
