“Why are you already awake?” Jake asked me the next morning when he emerged from upstairs.
“Working…” I muttered, not giving much more information but going back to stare at my graphs. I’d already been up for over an hour, sipping coffee and working through my plan to save the perfumerie.
“You’ve got to relax a bit,” Jake said, “You’re killing yourself over this.”
“Am not!” I defended, turning to look at him.
“You are.”
I rolled my eyes, but went back to work, letting Jake putter around in the kitchen and make breakfast as I continued working on a list of website ideas for my new plan to save the perfumerie.
“Listen, I’ve got to go show a place in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat in like an hour,” Jake said, “I thought I’d bring my swimming gear and hit that little public beach down there for an hour or so before coming back up here to get a few things done. You should come.”
“Thanks for the invite, but I should keep working on this,” I said off-handedly, not even looking up from what I was jotting down.
I could feel Jake come to stand behind me, looking over my shoulder as I scribbled the words ‘bright’ and ‘bold’ on the page.
“Lors…”
“Really, I can’t.”
“No, you’re coming!” Jake said definitely, snatching the pencil from my hand, “You need to take a mental break.”
“I don’t have time! I’ve got like a week to get this planned and pitched to Monsieur Dupont before he decides on a buyer!” I argued, standing up to try and grab the pencil back. It was no use, after just ten seconds Jake had it in his back pocket and I was standing with my arms crossed glaring at him.
“Lauren, I don’t think a few hours are going to hurt. We’ll drive over, it’ll take me a half hour to show this place, and then we’ll spend an hour at the beach. If you’re nice I’ll even buy you lunch on the way back here.”
“Jake!”
“Come on,” Jake said, “You can bounce some of your ideas off of me on the way there and if you really need to work on this, you’ve got that half hour that I’m showing the place.”
“But…”
“You need to get out of here for a little bit. Hell, I found you asleep at this table last night.”
“Fine,” I groaned, turning to stack a few pages together, “But it can’t be long.”
“Go get ready then,” Jake said, “I’ve got to leave here in like twenty minutes.”
I sighed deeply, heading towards the stairs. Quickly I slipped on a bikini and threw a sundress over the top, grabbing some things to take to the beach and then heading back downstairs. Jake was already there, all changed into some pressed trousers and a collared shirt, a bag of things on one of the stools in the kitchen.
“Ready?”
“Let me grab a few things,” I said, going over to the table I’d been working at and grabbing a few papers and sticking them in a folder. Slipping them into my bag with the pencil that Jake had obviously returned to my work area, I followed him out to his car, ready to head down to Saint-Jean.
“So… What’s your plan?” he asked as he started the car.
“Monsieur Dupont doesn’t have an online presence,” I said definitively, “So we start with a website and a shipping program. It’s simple enough.”
