Taking Back Control

Chapter 51 Helping Jess

**AN - my apology for my incorrect spelling of French words. My new laptop does not have a keyboard to place the correct marks over the words.

Chapter 51 Helping Jess

Rory walked into the Blue Slate Cafe and saw Jess sitting at a table with two mugs of coffee and a plate of chocolate cookies in front of him. She raised her hand, waving to him, then quickly walked towards the table.

"Sorry, I'm late," she said.

Jess immediately stood up. "Hey, you're fine. I haven't been here that long." Jess placed his hands on her shoulder, kissed her cheek, then pulled out the chair opposite him. "I ordered coffee and chocolate chip cookies for us."

As Rory sat down, she tilted her head and frowned at him. "Jess, is everything okay? You usually don't eat cookies."

"I don't, but this is a chocolate cookie type of day," he told her, pushing the plate towards her.

Rory lifted her cup and sipped the delicious dark roast coffee that was the signature blend of the Blue Slate Cafe. Picking up one of the cookies, she took a bite then said, "We could have gone to a pub," she told him.

"No, I want to be sober as I share this with you."

Rory looked at him and frowned. "So, these cookies are not in celebration for something," she said, holding up the cookie and taking another bite. "What's going on, Jess? Why are you bribing me with cookies."?

Jess folded his hands on the table and leaned forward.

"It's not a bribe, Rory. I know how the Gilmore Girl's mind work. If you have to tell them something, you give them food."

"Oh really? So, tell me, what kind of new are cookies good for?" she asked, chuckling and taking another bite from her cookie."

"I need you to listen to me."

"Okay," she grinned, "I'm listening."

"After we spoke, my partner, Chris Payne called and told me to watch for his email." Jess passed her his phone and showed her the email he had received. Rory took the phone and looked at the email from Chris.

Frowning, she handed it back to him. "What does this mean? Are you in financial trouble?"

"Not really, but we are leasing 34000 sq. feet of space so that we have room to expand."

"You moved the company off of Locust Street?" she asked him.

"Not completely, Matt found this greet space on Church Street that will give us the space we need to enlarge the store front and also to hire more staff. The business plan requires more capital, so Matt began to search for possible investors."

"One of these investors was HPC?" Rory asked. She picked up a cookie and took a big bite.

"Yes, HPC contacted us about the possibility of buying our small publishing company. I thought Matt turned them down, but apparently, he began talking to Mitchum Huntzberger about working as an Imprint under them. However, now we began receiving offers from two larger publishing companies."

Rory put her cup down on the table and stared at him. "Mitchum Huntzberger wanted to purchase Truncheon Publishing. When?"

"Last spring. Then Matt heard about the shake-up at HPC, so he contacted a close friend who works at Waterfall Assets."

"Wait a minute. What shakeup at HPC?" she asked him, surprised.

"I thought you knew about it, since it is in all the newspapers."