She found it far easier to bury herself in her work than to face reality and mourn the loss of the man she loved. Perhaps she was more like her mother than she cared to admit.
She’d just found her zone again when there was a knock on her door. Some stupid part of her brain wanted it to be Logan. But that was impossible. Even if he had dropped everything and rushed to beg her forgiveness and make amends, he didn’t know she was at work and even if he’d commandeered a jet fighter, there was no way he could have flown halfway across the United States in an hour. Unless Butch had invented a teleporting device at Logan’s request, the person currently interrupting her work wasn’t him.
Toni cleared her throat and croaked, “Come in.”
She was not fit for human company at the moment. When her mother opened the door and poked her head into the room, Toni groaned inwardly.
“Are you busy?” Mom asked.
Yes, she was fucking busy. Didn’t she look busy? Nothing made Toni crankier than being hungry, except being tired. She was currently starving and exhausted. Enter at your own risk, lady.
“I could use a little break,” Toni said.
Mom shuffled into the room and closed the door, placing a hand against it and taking a deep breath before turning to face Toni. Mom dropped her shoulders in defeat and lifted a trembling hand to her lips. Toni was too stunned by her mother’s uncharacteristic show of weakness that she couldn’t do anything but gape at her.
“I’m not sure how to tell you this,” she said. “I was downtown talking to my financial advisor.”
Toni scrunched her brow. And Mom was telling her this why? Toni had nothing to do with the business’s finances. That was what accountants were for.
“Is there a problem?”
Mom moved to a chair and collapsed into it. “Some of our big projects didn’t pan out the way we thought they would. Sales didn’t even cover the advances or that huge chunk of money I paid for the rights to publish the book you’re working on.” She shook her head. “I should have negotiated better. I didn’t have that kind of money lying around, so I borrowed most of it and . . .” She shrugged as if she couldn’t bring herself to say the words that came next.
“The business is going under,” Toni said flatly. The reality of it punched her in the gut.
“Not necessarily,” she said. “I still have one ace in the hole.”
“We can put the Exodus End book out early. I’ve been working on it most of the day, and it’s already coming together. I know it will be a best-seller. Exodus End’s fans will be rabid for it.”
“That might get us out of the hole next year, when cash starts flowing in, but that’s not what I was referring to.”
Toni tried to think back to their staff meetings and which books were being released in the coming season. Besides an interactive cookbook that gave video instructions with each recipe, she couldn’t think of any projects that were big enough to cover the million dollars they’d shelled out for the privilege of publishing Exodus End’s biography. “Then what?”
“We’ll have to sell the farm. There’s a developer—”
“No!” Toni shot to her feet, sending her office chair rolling back to collide with the wall behind her. “You absolutely cannot sell Daddy’s farm.”
“I didn’t want to buy it in the first place. That was your father’s dream, not mine. He’s been gone for almost a decade. It’s time we moved on.”
“What about Birdie?” Toni would be saddened if they sold the farm, but her little sister would be lost without the routine and comfort the familiar brought to her life.
“What about her?”
“She doesn’t deal with change, Mom. You know that.”
“That’s because you’ve sheltered her, just as your father sheltered you. Life is cruel and chaotic. The only consistency in life is that things change. There’s no permanence in anything. It’s better that she learns that now.”
“Don’t you want her to be happy?”
“Of course I do. But when’s the last time anyone considered my happiness? I’ve been doing that insane commute for fifteen years because I wanted your father to be happy and then I wanted you to be happy. When do I get my turn?”
“M-maybe I can buy the farm. You can move to the city and have the money from the sale to keep the business afloat, and Birdie and I and