One More Kiss (A Too Many Men Romantic Comedy / Chick Lit Novel)

by Stephanie Rowe

  The food was amazing, the service fabulous, the room we were in looked out on the casino and had its own blackjack tables so we didn't even have to wait in any lines, or miss out on gambling even while we were eating. The attorneys were actually spending quite a bit of money, and the interns had all spent the twenty bucks I'd given each of them to entertain themselves.

  Who would have thought the attorneys at M&S would enjoy a casino?

  I picked up my glass of wine and surveyed the room. Dessert was pending. Some people were sitting at the tables chatting, while others were out on the balcony checking out the main floor of the casino. People had shed their jackets and ties, and I'd even seen a few sleeves rolled up.

  I was a goddess. I'd salvaged the evening and managed to get the attorneys to actually quit being uptight.

  I lifted my glass and toasted myself.

  "Ms. McCormick."

  Otto. I immediately stood up. "Mr. Nelson. So glad you could join us tonight." Wow. Otto was actually going to compliment me. I wondered if I could get a copy of the security footage from tonight so I could preserve the moment in immortality.

  "Are you insane?"

  I blinked. "What?"

  "Gambling? A casino? Handing out money to interns to bet? What in the hell is wrong with you?" He was shouting at me, his cheeks were blotchy, and his face was about a quarter of an inch from mine. "What kind of firm do you think this is?"

  Oh, God. I glanced next to me, and saw several attorneys staring at us.

  "Look at me when I'm talking to you!"

  Did he actually spit on me? Was that saliva I could feel on my face?

  "Do you have any idea of the number of generations that have put their soul into this firm to establish its reputation?"

  "Um..."

  "Answer me!"

  He was screaming at me in public. Unbelievable. "Mr. Nelson—"

  "Yes or no?"

  "The firm has been around for one hundred and eleven years. Founded on September eighth, by two Harvard law graduates who were from elite Boston families." The advantage of being the social director: I'd learned the history of the firm so I could bore the interns with it on their first lunch.

  "That's right. Harvard. Elite families. The foundation of this firm is reputation and prestige. Not something to be bandied about by you. If you can't respect this firm and what it stands for, then I want you to resign right here and never walk in our halls again."

  Holy cow. I was being fired. In front of everyone. Not just fired. Screamed at. Humiliated. Destroyed. I bit my lower lip and ordered the tears to stay out of my eyes. I would not give him the satisfaction.

  "Well? What's it going to be?" He was screaming at me. Screaming! Like he was completely insane! "Can you respect this institution, or should I fire you right now?"

  I had a choice? "I'm sorry, sir."

  "That's not an answer!"

  "Yes, I can respect it." I couldn't believe my mouth was actually functioning. My tongue felt like it had swollen up to about a zillion times its regular size, and my head felt like it was going to explode.

  Otto glared at me, and I saw sweat dripping down his temple. He was insane. Crazed. A madman. At any second, I was going to find a butter knife sticking out of my neck as I fell to the ground in the throes of death. And I'd lie there until everyone had used up all their cash on gambling, until people had nothing better to do than deal with the body of their social director.

  "From now on, every single event must be pre-approved by me."

  "Yes, sir." Pre-approved? I had four events each week. I'd been at the firm for three years, and doing a kick-ass job as social director. The firm had been ranked number one in the polls for summer interns every single summer since I'd taken over. And suddenly I wasn't capable of making any decision on my own? It was like I was five years old. Incompetent, needing parental supervision.

  "And I want a meeting with you every Monday to discuss every plan for the week."

  Oh, God. A weekly meeting with Otto.

  "Got it?"

  Do you think I'm deaf or something? My ear is about one inch from your mouth and you're still screaming at me! "Yes, sir."

  "And don't ever defame the firm like this again!"

  Perhaps you could scream a little louder? Not sure the people in the parking lot could hear you clearly. "Yes, sir."

  He glared at me for about another ten minutes, his mouth churning like he was spewing silent epithets at me, then finally he turned away and walked out.

  All I wanted to do was cry. Then I looked around the room. Every single attorney and intern was staring at me. Even the people who'd been out on the balcony were inside now.

  And everyone was silent. And staring. At me.

  Even the serving staff from the casino were staring at me, the dessert trays motionless in their hands.

  So, I had two choices: burst into tears and make even more of a fool of myself, or pretend nothing had happened and awe everyone with my emotional strength. I'd had enough humiliation this evening, thank you very much.

  I didn't even have the privacy to close my eyes and count to ten to regroup. I simply smiled and clapped my hands together. "Glad I have everyone's attention. Dessert is ready to be served. We have decaf or regular coffee. After dessert, you may continue to bet up here, or you can go downstairs into the public areas. One bus will leave at nine thirty, and the other one will leave at ten o'clock. Enjoy the rest of your evening." I clenched my lips together and nodded at the wait staff to start handing out the desserts. I needed to get out of there. Alone. I couldn't keep it together any longer.

  But everyone was still gawking at me, and no one had moved.

  So I turned to the server nearest to me. "Serve the damned dessert already," I muttered.

  "Oh, yes, ma'am." The man immediately ducked forward with his tray, and I instantly felt like queen bitch.

  How dare I swear at the wait staff? Great, nothing like self-hatred to add to my emotional burden at the moment.

  But his movement propelled others and within five seconds, the room was beginning to move again, person by person, like slow motion in a bad movie. Except the interns. They were all still gaping at me, but now they were whispering. No doubt wondering how a person as incompetent as I was could possibly be in charge. Would it ruin their careers to be associated with me? Should they petition for a new social director? Perhaps a mutiny would be in order. Save yourselves! Protect yourselves from Shannon McCormick!

  Fresh tears battled for freedom, and I turned and walked out of the room. Not to the bathroom, because other attorneys would be in there. I shoved open the door to the back stairs and walked down to the casino floor.

  Just get alone. That's all I needed to do. Then I could fall apart in privacy.

  "Shannon! Shannon! Wait up!"

  Dammit. Why did Hildy have to go and be herself now? Didn't she know that humiliation of that magnitude could only be dealt with in private?

  I started running down the stairs, and I heard Hildy running after me. "Shannon! Stop!"

  Cursing, I stopped on the landing and waited for her. It was one thing to slink off in private and cry, but it was something else to actually be caught doing it. So I waited, and ground my fingernails into my palms to distract myself from the burning need to throw myself over the railing and see how many bones I could break in the fall. "Yes, Hildy?"

  "Are you okay?" She finally caught up, breathing hard from the effort of chasing me.

  "I'm fine."

  She peered at me. "Are you sure? Because Otto really went off on you."

  "Did he? I didn't notice." Ow. I wondered if I was drawing blood in my palms. Sure felt like it.

  She actually laughed. "That's the right attitude. He's like that to everyone. Don't take it personally."

  "Hah. As if I'd let that bother me. I know what he's like." Did I sound flippant enough? "I was just going to check on the situation on the casino floor."

  "Oh, good. I wanted to come down here,
too." Before I could think of a valid reason why Hildy shouldn't accompany me, she tucked her arm through mine and started walking down the stairs with me.

  What was up with that? I mean, I'd always known Hildy was nice, but chummy was a whole new level. Partners, even junior ones, didn't get chummy with social directors. Perhaps she was secretly working for Otto and was luring me to a back corridor, where three huge guys would jump out and shove me in front of the armored truck that would crush me into a pulp. "Hildy..."

  "Let's go down to the high roller tables. I want to see them up close."

  See? I knew it. She was trying to set me up to be killed. "Actually, I need to go back upstairs."

  "Yes, you do."

  I eyed her. "What do you mean?"

  "You can't hide from everyone. The longer you wait to go back in there, the harder it will be."

  "I have no idea what you're talking about." Why wouldn't she leave me alone?

  "It's all part of the game, Shannon."

  I stopped and removed my arm from hers. "What game?"

  "The game. How you survive at a place like this. You take the shitty treatment, and then just keep quietly doing a great job and making it impossible for people not to respect you." She sighed. "You can't fight the system. Just go along with it and shrug it off."

  Shrug it off? I'd just had my guts ripped out and shredded in front of everyone at the firm. Was she kidding?

  "How do you think I made partner, Shannon? By fighting? No way. By blending in and playing the game."

  "But that's..."

  "Success." Her tone warned me not to insult her. "Look around at the people here tonight. See what it takes to get ahead and do it."

  Get ahead? As if there was anywhere to go from social director.

  "Come on." Hildy turned us toward the stairs. "Go back up there and show people you've got what it takes."

  She wasn't going to leave me alone. She was going to stalk me until I went back upstairs and faced everyone. What was her problem? I'd just been humiliated. Destroyed. No job was worth this.

  But I followed her up the stairs and walked back in. I saw a few people glance my way, but no one came up to me or said anything.

  "Pretend it never happened," Hildy whispered. Then she walked off and left me alone.

  So.

  Well.

  What was I supposed to do now?

  "Shannon?"

  I looked to my right to find Missy, the timid intern, standing by my side. I forced a smile to my face. "Yes, Missy?"

  "Can I talk to you?"

  "Sure. What do you need?" This was exactly what I needed. Some stupid intern crisis to distract me. Hell, I'd even like to have Jessamee come over and demand a new office. Anything to find an outlet.

  "Alone." She turned away and walked over to a table in the corner.

  I followed her. Or rather, I dragged my feet across the floor. If I was about to get a pep talk from an intern, I was going to go home and cry.

  On the plus side, Blaine wasn't here tonight, so that was something positive, right?

  I sat down across from Missy. "Yes?" How was I possibly going to make it through another two hours? I couldn't deal with this world, with this life. A place where you were expected to accept that kind of treatment? Where it was okay?

  It made no sense.

  "I'm quitting," Missy said.

  "Quitting what?" I tried to focus on her, tried to make myself care about her problems.

  "My job." She looked surprised, like how could I not have figured out what she was talking about.

  "Oh." Wait a sec. "Your job at M&S?"

  "Yes. Can you pack my desk? I don't want to go back on Monday."

  Oh, hell. This was all I needed. If Otto found out I had interns quitting on casino night, I'd be in even worse trouble than I currently was. "Why are you quitting?"

  Her eyes widened. "Because of what just happened."

  Great. "You mean with Mr. Nelson?"

  She nodded. "I can't work somewhere like this. I'd never survive."

  Not that I could conscientiously disagree with her on that one. As I'd mentioned before, she was about the meekest person I'd met in my entire life. She did, however, have the highest GPA in her class at Yale and was a third-generation attorney. A good catch for the firm, and Otto would have my head if I let her leave. "That was an aberration, Missy." Good Lord, I was going to be struck down for lying to an intern. "I screwed up."

  "By taking us here? This was a great night. Everyone had fun."

  Bless this woman. "It was more than that." Wait a minute. What was I doing? Trying to make it sound like I'd really deserved being yelled at, so I could keep Missy here? I mean, it was one thing to work hard, but it was something else entirely to take the blame for something I didn't deserve.

  Missy folded her skinny arms across her chest. "Do you know what I'd do if someone yelled at me like that? I'd die."

  I'd die. That's what I felt like doing. But it wasn't my job to die. It was my job to make Missy think she wanted to work at M&S for the rest of her life.

  But I looked across the table at her worried eyes and hunched shoulders, and I wondered how I could do anything but tell this woman to run away as fast as she possibly could.

  Chapter Fourteen

  "Missy."

  "What?" She looked at me, and I saw trust in her eyes.

  Oh, great. That's all I needed, to have her trust me. Like this wasn't hard enough already.

  "I think you should stay at M&S." I felt horrible, awful, terrible lying to her, when all I wanted to do was grab her hand and drag her from the building, telling her not to leave a trail that they could follow. Run away! Run away!

  She pushed back from the table, shaking her head frantically. "No. No. No. I thought you'd understand. I mean, I saw your face. You can't possibly think I should stay."

  I don't exactly have a good poker face. If she saw my misery when I was being yelled at, then so did everyone else.

  Screw Otto. How dare he humiliate me like that! I'd worked my butt off for the firm, and I did a great job. He was lucky there was an event at all. If not for me, they'd be back to the pre-Shannon days, when the firm was ranked last on the list of firms for happiness quotient for summer interns. But no, he didn't care if anyone worked hard for him. He was a spineless bully who beat up on all the hard workers who weren't in a position to tell him that he was really a vicious bastard who deserved to have all his fingernails pulled off and his tongue chopped out and...

  "Shannon?"

  I looked at Missy. She deserved the truth. And I deserved to keep my job. "It's like this. If you can make it through the summer and get an offer from the firm, then you can use that as leverage when you interview at other firms in the fall."

  Missy frowned. "What are you talking about?"

  "Most people get offered permanent jobs at the end of the summer. They accept those jobs with a starting date twelve months out. If you interned here and then interview elsewhere, the first thing they're going to ask you is whether you got an offer. If you say no, then they figure there's something wrong with you, even if you explain that you quit on your own. If you say yes, then they'll believe you chose not to go back."

  Missy wrinkled her nose and looked very unhappy with the news.

  "All you have to do is make it through the summer. It's only ten weeks. Surely you can survive for ten weeks." It was all true. It was to her advantage to get an offer. And I wasn't acknowledging anything bad about the firm, and I wasn't lying to her that she really would be happy dumping her pride at the door and coming to work for M&S.

  "I don't think so..."

  I patted her shoulder. "Give it until Monday to decide."

  She frowned. "But he was such a jerk."

  "It wasn't to you, was it?" A good thing, too. If Otto chewed out Missy, I'd probably have to intervene. But he'd never yell at an intern. Not because he treated them differently, but because I was careful never to let an intern work with him on an ass
ignment. As long as you weren't doing a project for him or in any way crossing his path, he could be fairly decent. Of course, Jessamee might end up tangling with him, but hey, I just couldn't drum up any regret about that one. "You can quit at any second, Missy. Why don't you just take it one day at time? You have the added benefit of getting paid very well."

  Yes, she did, didn't she? Maybe if I was making Hildy's salary, I wouldn't feel bad about selling out and accepting being treated like scum. However, my unimpressive salary would hardly cover the extensive therapy bills I was sure to accumulate. Which left me where? With the only option of leaving the firm? And do what? Go to law school? Admit failure? Admit my parents were right, that I sucked so badly I couldn't even hold down a support position at a law firm?

  No thanks. I was going to stick it out and prove to everyone I had what it took.

  "I don't think I want to stay around," Missy said. "My grades are good enough to get me another job even if I didn't stay here."

  Which was true. Ah, the luxury of having that sort of background. Not like the rest of us, who actually had to fight for a job and suck it up even if it was miserable. I could just hear my mom laughing in the background. "See, Shannon? See what happens when you don't get a graduate degree? If you had one, then you too could pick and choose where you went."

  Shut up, Mom! I'm not going to be a lawyer!

  "Tell you what, Missy. Do whatever you want. But come October when you can't get a job, you're going to look back at this summer and think that it couldn't possibly have been so bad that it was worth throwing away your future." I stood up. At least she was getting paid a lot of money to suffer. And she wasn't going to suffer anyway! Not this summer. Not with Auntie Shannon looking out for all the interns. I'd just spread my wings around them and protect them from real life and nasty lawyers.

  Yep. I'd take a bullet for each of them. Already took one tonight. Still wasn't sure whether it had killed me or not. Perhaps I was suffering a slow death, the blood slowly leaking from my body and...I caught a glance of Missy's face. She looked rather shocked and upset by my words.