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If this was anyone else, Christina would rush through the meeting,

give scathing, too direct looks, and make it obvious that neither she, nor her

company, would be lending anything anytime soon. She was too intrigued

by Taylor to do anything other than sit and stare at her blandly, waiting for

her to get her paperwork together.

Taylor retrieved a few pages from the floor, cleared her throat, then

shuffled through everything. When she looked up, her face was flushed. She

had a slight tan and a smattering of freckles danced over her cheekbones

and the bridge of her nose. Her bow lips parted, but she said nothing. She

passed over the stack of paperwork for Christina.

She reached across the table and swept the sheets toward her. A

quick flip through told her everything she needed to know.

“So. Your objective is to get funding for a building, which you don’t

have yet, to start an animal therapy program.”

“Yes.” All Taylor’s nerves were contained in that one word. “I

mean, it wouldn’t be professional therapy. I don’t have a degree in training

animals for that. It would just— be— more like— more like a nice place

where people could go to escape their problems. There’s lots of— um—

research that says that animals can— lower— blood pressure, stress, lots of

— uh— stuff.” Taylor’s face grew redder as she stammered.

Annoyance churned in Christina’s stomach, but then again, it might

just have been hunger. She herself never would have come to a meeting this

unprepared. She would have had a knockout presentation, a clear strategy, a

business model that had zero holes in it, and a building already picked out.

Christina didn’t have to look beyond the first couple pages of Taylor’s

messy paperwork to know that it didn’t contain any of that.

Honesty was often the best policy, and Christina adhered to that,

even when it was quite harsh. She didn’t mean for it to be delivered that

way, buts she also didn’t believe in giving people false hope. “Look,” she

started. “It seems like you were certain about your idea in theory, but now