Page 128 of Sunshine

Luca arched an eyebrow. “I was almost a year behind on filing before I decided to ask for help. This is nothing.”

“And by ‘ask for help’, he means had a nervous breakdown,” Julian added cheerfully.

Luca sighed. “Yeah. The only thing saving me was my hyperfocus on bits of cases allowed me to pull out clauses and other information that kept us winning big cases.”

Logan frowned at the notepad. “This is all perfectly doable. I can call Estelle tomorrow and ask about the flowers.”

“You don’t have to keep doing me favors,” I grumbled. “I’m a big girl.”

“You’re my beta,” Logan said. “I love you, and I’m going to help. This is easy.”

Luca gestured at my laptop. “Can I look at your lists? Sometimes having another set of eyes helps.”

I leaned back into Julian. My skin still felt clammy and twitchy. Julian was helping, like he was a walking, talking cuddle machine that would keep me from the worst of the panic.

“We got this,” Julian ran his hands through my hair again.

“I’m going down the list, and you tell me anything that has to be done by you and you alone.” Logan added, patting my knee.

“That helped me a lot,” Luca grinned. “Logan’s very good at priorities.”

Logan shrugged like it wasn’t a superpower. “Being a chef helps me learn how to focus on one thing until it’s time for the next thing.”

“I still freak out about work sometimes,” Luca said, tucking a long leg underneath himself. “I’d come home, have a little tantrum, and then Logan makes me go through my list like this.”

“I’m ready,” I said feeling cautiously optimistic.

One by one, Logan went through every single task on the list. He grouped them by action items like “appointment booking”, “in person event space”, and other things.

We also talked about when each thing was due. Luca helped with that, pulling dates out of my spreadsheets.

I was shocked that almost half of the things on my list, and most of the ones that were stressing me out, was stuff someone else could do.

“You need an assistant.” Logan tapped the pen against the notepad.

I shook my head no. “I can ask Holly to help me with appointments. She was great during Julian’s heat. I just need to be better organized.”

Luca arched an eyebrow. “Just because your siblings don’t need an assistant doesn’t mean you don’t. Luna does an amazing job with the landscaping, but she’s not juggling four or five events at any given time.Anyonewould need help.”

“But you think I have ADHD.”

Luca held up his hands. “I might be wrong. It might be stress. Either way, you need help and it’s not weak to ask for it.”

I frowned, thinking about how I was supposed to tell my family I couldn’t do my own job.

“Don’t give me that look.” Luca said, mock-stern.

“Think of it as a sous chef if you want,” Logan said with a smile. “Your time is worth a lot more than spending most of it scheduling flowers.”

“If I explain everything to Ember, Stella or Terran, I have to go through this long list of why they can’t let the McClellan’s book through Seiver’s Services, and to make sure the napkins are folded right.”

“Because you’re the executive chef,” Logan replied. “You’re doing quality control.”

“You don’t need one of your family to pitch in occasionally. You need one person who’s familiar with the business.” Luca added. “My paralegals only work with me. It’s too complicated to get anyone else up to speed on my cases, especially since they drag out for months.”

“I have someone in mind.” Logan looked thoughtful. “She’s young, and she hasn’t been doing events very long, but I think you’d prefer to train someone the way you wanted them to handle things rather than butt heads with someone who’s been doing it for years.”

“Shouldn’t she have someone with experience?” Julian piped up.

---