Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 82767 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82767 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Chapter 3
FREYA
“WHATEVER HAPPENS, we will get through this,” Drew was comforting my mom as I made my way through the studio, my hands tightly wrapped my third cup of coffee. I had crashed at my parents’ house that night, but none of us had had much sleep. I joined in the hug, leaning gently against them, and smiling reassuringly. Drew was like a brother to Beatrix and me. He had been part of Dynasty Games since we had moved into the studio at my parents’ place, and it wasn’t unusual to find him joining them for meals after a particularly busy day. He nodded towards the table in the middle of the room.
“You brought pastries?” I grinned and opened the box of sticky sweet doughnuts and shiny glazed danishes theatrically to get a laugh from my mom, who regularly despaired at my sweet tooth. “Have I ever told you how much I like you?”
“Not lately,” Drew said, smiling. He caught my eye, and I saw the familiar twinkle in his eye. Drew and I had been friends in high school, as we had met through the gaming club. I was the only girl in the group, but things had gotten awkward when he asked me out while we were still in school. I felt that we should always have just been friends, but there was an awkwardness between us for a while and I never told anyone – apart from Beatrix – about his interest in me. We had put it behind us and stayed friends. Fortunately, we’d long got over the awkwardness when he applied for a job with my parents. It was during a brief six-month period when I’d struck out on my own by living in the dorm freshman year. By the time I came back, a little older and a lot wiser, Drew was a part of the team. It made sense that he took a job with the family business to get him through college, and he’d been with Dynasty Games for almost five years. He had grown up a lot and lost the geeky look that had been so my type when we had been together. I had barely noticed that the hours he spent at the gym when he wasn’t working had paid off. Okay, so maybe I had noticed.
We sat down at the table and silently tucked into the pastries, knowing full well that the silence would be over when Beatrix made it into the office. We didn’t have long to wait. Clutching a coffee and pale without her usual makeup, Beatrix swept into the room in a flurry of questions and orders, which wasn’t that different to her usual style, but we could usually afford to ignore her bossiness. Not today.
“We need to be ready. We have an appointment with the lawyers at eleven, and we need to be prepared. Mom, if you can help me sort the paperwork that we printed last night. Drew, could you get back onto scanning every machine in this place. We still need to find out what happened, even if it turns out there isn’t anything we can do about it.”
“There will be something we can do,” I said, offering her the box of pastries.
“Right, and you know this how?” She pushed the box away and looked at me, her eyebrows raised and her mouth a tight line.
“There’s just got to be,” I matched the seriousness of her expression, but she rolled her eyes.
“Thanks for the optimism. I am sure that will be super useful when I can’t pay my mortgage,” she called as she flounced out of the room. I could hear her phone ringing as she disappeared into her office.
“Effie,” my mom used my childhood nickname. “She is worried. She doesn’t mean to be like that.”
“What can I do? Shall I come to the lawyers’ office?” I asked quietly, my cheeks flushed with embarrassment and annoyance.
“Nothing really to be done,” she said. “Help Drew if you like, but leave this to us, sweetheart. We know you have travel plans, and this shouldn’t stop you.”
“I want to help,” I answered, confused by this sudden closing of the ranks. Did they really expect me to continue with my plans while they all panicked about the future of the company that I had helped to build? Beatrix hadn’t spoken to me like that since we were kids. Sure, I had always been the dreamer while she was the practical one, but she had always respected the work I did for the company, and I was suddenly struck by how much I was going to miss collaborating with her.
“I know you want to help,” Mom smiled softly at me and left the room as Beatrix called her into her office. It was quite obvious that she didn’t think I had anything useful to offer.