Page 26 of Love In The Spotlight

She’d just given up at this point.

“It’s conversation,” she said. “I used it to my advantage like I do everything in life. You should be happy.”

“Laken knows what she is doing,” West said. “Let’s get back to work then if you’re going to be out of town for a few days.”

All conversations about Jamie ended and she and her brothers talked about work more than anything. When they finished she wound up listening to them talk about their significant others and she started to feel alone again when she hadn’t in so long.

8

A PEACE OFFERING

“Thanks for coming here,” Jamie said, opening his front door on Monday. “I know it’s out of your way.”

“It’s fine,” Laken said. “The plant isn’t that far from here and we can ride over together. But I was going to bring you the final designs for your daughter to pick out. I had marketing print them for you.”

“That was nice,” he said. “We can go into my office.”

“This is a big house,” she said. “I think it’s bigger than West’s weekend home in the Hamptons.”

“It’s more space than I need, but I wanted Penelope to have room to grow and move around.”

The house was six thousand square feet. Had a guest house that Janelle lived in, a pool, a tennis court, a basketball court, putting greens and a ton more grass for his daughter to run and play while he shot hoops or hit a golf ball and kept an eye on her.

“West had a nice big house built for our mother years ago. There were only a few of the kids left at that time, but he made sure they all had their own wings rather than just a room.”

“I’m sure they appreciated it,” he said.

“I like to think so, but Nelson and Talia—they are the youngest—never had the struggle. They’ve had everything handed to them. Nice house to live in, cars to drive, education paid for. But West made them work every summer once they got their license. He told them he didn’t care if they were flipping burgers, they were going to put gas in their own damn car.”

“Good for him,” he said. “We worked. I had no choice. I worked around the church growing up when I was younger and when I was older and could get a job that paid me, I did. But I still had to help out on the church grounds.”

She took a seat in his office. “Are we good now? I felt bad about what I said last week.”

He’d been pissed but realized she had no ill intentions with her question. If he was still carrying bad memories around from his past, that was his problem.

“No worries,” he said. “You touched a nerve, but you’re not the first person that has either.”

“I’ve been in Chicago for days freezing my butt off and thinking about a peace offering,” she said. “We have to work together.”

He hadn’t expected that and started to wonder if he’d judged her the same as she’d done him.

She opened her briefcase and pulled out a folder and put it on his desk.

He opened it and saw the printouts of the animals. Penelope was going to fall in love with these.

He was flipping through them all. There were fifteen of them.

“She’s going to want them all,” he said.

“I think it’s best to settle on no more than six to start. Adding some to the collection later on will help. Almost like limited editions. That is coming from marketing, not me.”

“I like it.” He was looking at other printouts. The bottles, sippy cups and cups with the straws.

“Once you decide on the final baby animals, they will work on bigger ones. To show them growing with their drink utensils.”

He laughed. “That sounds good,” he said. “I’ll have her look at them tonight.”

“She’s not here?” she asked.

---