Page 6 of Burning Love
“It kind of is,” her mother said. “Typical Talia scenario.”
It always fell this way. She rarely got taken seriously, even though she’d proven herself in the past several months with her family.
She’d like to think she’d been doing it for the past year.
“That’s not nice, Mom.”
“Don’t get defensive,” her mother said. “You always did. But it is typical of you. You come in the house and have a one-track mind. You thought of cookies and decided to use my oven over yours. I’ve been putting meat in the oven your entire life to thaw. Correct?”
There the twisting of her lips went in frustration again. “Yes.”
“It falls on you to open the oven to check before you turn it on. Why use my oven over yours?”
“Because you’ve got two and they are bigger. I could have cooked the whole batch at the same time.”
“It looks to me as if you still managed to do it,” her mother said. Her mother’s eyes landed on the remaining cookies on the counter.
“Nope. The sexy fireman that stayed to help me open all the windows in the house and turn the fans on suggested that I get DoorDash. That’s what I did.”
Her mother rolled her eyes. “You told him you wanted cookies?”
“I didn’t want him to think I was stupid enough to cook chicken in the plastic wrap. I think they thought that.”
Her mother snorted. “I’m not sure what is worse. Thinking you’d do that or turning an oven on without looking inside of it first.”
She marched over and picked up another cookie. She’d had two already, might as well have a third.
“It’s going to be pick on Talia day, isn’t it?”
“Come here,” her mother said gently. “Do you need a hug?”
Her bottom lip came out. “I wouldn’t mind one. I had a horrible flight and I’m PMSing. Thankfully my cramps were under control before the plane took off. Two hours late.”
Her mother stepped back. “I know you get bad cramps. And you’re not a fan of traveling.”
“I don’t mind traveling,” she argued. “When it’s not running around and catching last-minute flights.”
She didn’t know how her sister, Laken, did this all the time. The last-minute flights seemed to be the ones having the issues.
“Two of your last three flights had delays, didn’t they?”
“Yes.” She sat down and sulked for a second. Might as well get it out of her system, since her mother would be the only witness. “They overbooked my flight a few weeks ago and we couldn’t leave until enough people were off. No one volunteers. I sure the heck wasn’t. I was lucky my name wasn’t drawn. Thistime we had to switch planes for some mechanical issue. I wish I could use West’s jet.”
Her mother burst out laughing. “Now I know you’re having a pity party. He doesn’t offer his jet to anyone other than me or if he’s going somewhere. Otherwise the family only uses it in large groups. It’s not like borrowing a car. Besides, it’s housed in New York.”
“I know,” she whined. “But there wouldn’t be any of these problems and he’s the one sending me on these trips.”
Three months ago, she’d sat down with her billionaire oldest brother and pitched her business plan. More like her career plan.
She didn’t want to run a business like some of her other siblings. She didn’t know if she wanted to manage staff either.
It took her two years to figure out what she finally enjoyed doing.
Helping people.
West had been impressed with her passion for charitable donations. She’d rather just hand the money out but was told it didn’t work that way. She had to gather it too.
Since she’d had enough marketing and business classes, and she did enjoy people and the fund-raising events she’d worked at in a few of her temporary jobs the past year, she agreed.
