Mara shrugged, uncomfortable because he had just summed up her work habits perfectly. “Pretty much. The kitchen needs some updated appliances. I have to pull the taffy by hand, so my ability to make it in larger quantities is limited. I make as much as I can for the market.”
“Christ, Mara. You have this amazing ability, and you aren’t doing this in mass? What the hell are you thinking?” Jared asked harshly. “This is the money you live on, right? This is how you actually survive? I know damn well you haven’t kept yourself afloat on sales from your shop.”
“The doll shop is a tradition in my family,” she told him angrily. “And I hardly have the funds to start another business. The market works for me.”
“Bullshit. You could be making good money if you’d switch your product, put a store online.”
“That would require capital—”
“Which you’d probably make if you weren’t letting your funds get drained by keeping a losing business,” Jared interrupted.
She hated his words because he was absolutely right. “It was my grandmother’s store, and then my mother’s. Now it’s mine,” Mara answered stubbornly. “I know I failed and I’m losing the doll business. I went to a year of business school, Jared. I know it wasn’t a good business anymore, and I couldn’t really make money. But I wanted to hold on to a part of my mom. It’s all I have left.” Her eyes flooded with tears of frustration and leftover grief.
“You don’t need the doll store, Mara. You have your memories. What do you think your mother would have wanted you to do?” Jared asked in a much calmer, gentler voice. “She wouldn’t have wanted you to starve to keep the store going. I’m sure she wouldn’t have wanted you to be working every minute of the day to survive. Times change, progress happens, and tradition isn’t going to keep you in funds. You can’t sell enough dolls to make a living anymore. It would be an incredible hobby, but you can’t keep yourself solvent.”
Mara’s heart squeezed, the truth in Jared’s words hitting her hard. It was nothing she didn’t already know, but to hear it said out loud was painful. “My mom and I barely got by. When she got sick, I started doing the Saturday markets with some of the skills and recipes she passed down to me from my gran—making taffy, jams and jellies, relishes and sauces. It kept us afloat. I never knew things were as bad as they really were until Mom got sick and I took over the finances during the last year she was alive. I knew the outlook was depressing, but I wanted to keep it going for her.” Mara swiped at her tears irritably, hating her own weakness. “She sent me off to business school, and she didn’t have a penny saved. If I had known—”
“You didn’t know,” Jared growled. “Stop blaming yourself.”
Mara looked up at him in surprise, shocked that he was defending her. She’d made some lousy business decisions and she knew it. “I can’t help it. I was an adult. I should have known our situation. She never told me.” Her mom had never given her a clue that she didn’t have the money to send her only child to college. “I went for a year before she got diagnosed with cancer and I came back home. Seven years later, I’m still paying the student loans she took out to do it. And I never even finished.” Mara vented her grief and guilt to Jared as if she’d known him forever, realizing how good it felt to talk to somebody. Kristin was her best friend, but Mara had never wanted to mention her financial woes to her. Kristin would have wanted to help, and her friend had it tight herself.
“Are you about done beating yourself up now?” Jared asked her patiently, folding his arms in front of him and leaning a hip against the metal folding table. “Because if you are done blaming yourself for your past, which were entirely understandable actions considering you lost your mother only a year ago, then I’m going to make you a proposition.”
Mara brushed the last few tears from her eyes and stared at him blankly. His eyes were liquid and heated as he glared back at her. “What?” she asked curiously.
“I’m willing to put up the capital for a new business venture for you. I’ll provide the equipment, space, and start-up capital if you want to start a business selling your consumable products,” he told her briskly.
“You want to be an angel investor?” Mara folded her arms in front of her and looked him directly in the eyes. “You’re a billionaire. What interest can you have in a small business?” Even if she was successful, the money made on her business would be peanuts to him.
“First of all, I’m not what anybody would call an angel of any type.” Jared shrugged. “I like the products. One of the perks is I’ll get unlimited supplies.”
Mara rolled her eyes at him. “It’s not like you can’t afford to purchase them. Come on, Jared. You’re trying to help me, and I appreciate it. But I need to figure this out on my own.”