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together myself and I don’t have much experience with it. I don’t have a

business degree—”

“Stop,” Christina said firmly. “That’s only making things worse.”

“I could make it work if you’d just give me a chance,” Taylor

begged again. She blinked hard. Her lashes were sandy hued, like her hair

and eyebrows. All that rich gold in her silky looking hair was obviously

natural.

“It’s not just my decision to make. I just pass things up the pipeline.

Even if I pushed this through, it would be denied at the next stage.”

“What should I do then? Tell me where I can go to get help. I’ll

work on my proposal and I’ll come back and try again. I’m not going to

take no for an answer, because I know that this could make the world a way

better place and everyone needs more of that.”

“Whether it’s the project of your heart or not, passion only takes you

so far. You need solid proof. Projections. Hard evidence. This needs a ton of

work and I don’t really know where you can go to get it without having to

fork over a bunch of money for someone’s time. If I were you, I would sit

down and do some more research. Find out what makes a good proposal.

Maybe there’s some business students at one of the colleges here who

would be willing to help you for not a lot of money. I would take some

more time and, I’m sorry to say because it’s going to sound rude, put in a

lot more effort.”

Taylor studied Christina. She alternated between blinking hard and

fixing those wild green orbs on Christina’s face. It made her want to shift in

her seat or offer further condolences. She never did either of those things.

She just about did something unprecedented by offering to go through her

business cards and see if she had a contact who would help, but that would

have been crazy. She didn’t make offers like that to clients. They either

came prepared or they didn’t. Plus, most of her contacts were from New

York, and if they weren’t, they didn’t live in Austin.