"He is a billionaire, an art collector, and a real estate developer," Merla Vee continued. "His hotels are impeccable. Have you stayed in one?"
"I can't say that I have," I replied, starting to wonder if I could legally throw her out of my business. Maybe if I said it was for insurance purposes?
"Archer needs a woman he can show off, who he can take to a fancy party and make all the men envious. You"—she looked me up and down again—"don't fit that bill."
"Why are you telling me this?" I demanded. "Why do you even care?"
"I'm not doing this to be mean," Merla Vee said, widening her eyes. "I simply want to make sure you aren't hurt. It's clear to me what Archer's doing."
I tried to keep the shock off my face. Merla Vee looked at me in wide-eyed sympathy. "I'm his mother. I know him better than anyone. You're allowing yourself to be used. He clearly has no intention of anything serious with you. How could you possibly think you were worthy of my son, with your terrible art and your failed café?" She laughed.
"I have some work I need to finish," I said weakly. Archer's mother breezed out of the café, and I had to sit down.
I know Archer isn't close to his father, but maybe he is close to his mother.
If so, where did that leave me? I had heard horror stories about crazy mothers-in-law.
You're jumping the gun,I admonished myself.It's not like Archer's proposed.
I opened my laptop, hoping to find something to distract me. All I saw was a stack of angry messages from creditors. At least my utilities hadn't been shut off. With the last bit of money Archer had sent me for cooking, I had paid off my utility bills for the next month. After that though? Who knew? The money I had from Archer hadn't gone far. By the time I spread it around to my various creditors, it was like the money never existed.
"Who am I kidding?" I groaned. "I'm not a boss babe. I'm a dumb girl who can't get her life together." I stood up and went to the fridge. "Time to eat your feelings."
The raspberry fruit leather was sitting on the glass shelf, taunting me. It looked dumb. Archer wouldn't be excited by that. I grabbed the milk, butter, and eggs then slammed the door.
Pushing aside the thoughts that this may be one of the last times I made a meal in my building, I set out making raspberry bomb muffins.
First I made a glossy chocolate fudge sauce, mixing good dark chocolate, butter, evaporated milk, and a little sugar over the double boiler. I set it aside to cool.
Then I sifted the flour, baking powder, and sugar then mixed in cream cheese, a little cream, and eggs. Working carefully, I folded the last few handfuls of raspberries into the yellow batter. The fudge wasn't quite as runny, and I used a small ice cream scoop to place a bit of fudge in the middle of the half-filled muffin tin then covered it with more batter.
The muffins rose beautifully. That was the nice thing about muffins. They cooked quickly. I took pictures for Instagram while they cooled. Then I took a bite of the raspberry cream cheese muffin. The chocolate fudge in the middle exploded in my mouth. The sugar hit my system, and I started to feel better.
"Be optimistic," I ordered myself. "No hurdle is too high for my heels! Even if I'm not actually wearing any."
Shaking off the lingering webs of self-doubt, I took the large platter of muffins upstairs to continue planning for the Art Zurich Expo. Harrogate needed to be as artistic as possible. Hopefully it would be enough for our city to win and, more importantly, enough for me to win the grant to save my business.
42
Archer
As much as I wanted to spend the rest of the day with Hazel, I needed to solve the McKenna problem. I needed the conference center, and I needed the strip mall site for the hotels for the conference center.
Mike's text message had said to come meet him at Svensson PharmaTech. He was sitting in Garrett's office. Garrett was behind his desk, tapping it with his pen.
"You're late," he said in a flat tone.
"I was busy." I grinned at my younger brother. When we were kids, I like to tease him until he freaked out. One day I pushed him too far, and he put a snake in my bed. Ever since, I tried to steer clear of the bright-yellow line Garrett had painted in the sand. Though my younger brother was strange, he was remarkably effective. Which was why I was hoping I could convince him to solve my problem.
"We need to discuss the McKenna situation," Garrett said finally.
"Garrett's helping," Mike said to me.
"Did you have to sell your soul?" I whispered to Mike.
"Stop being dramatic," Garrett said. "Of course I'm helping. The McKenna situation should have been dead and buried long ago"—I wondered if Garrett meant literally—"and yet here we are."
"I'd like all ideas on the table. McKenna cannot be underestimated."
