Susanne was starting to understand how the cat that had visited her last night must have felt—like an unwelcome intruder.

Anja Lamm stood behind the cash register and watched her every move while pretending to flick through a magazine with a red-and-gold fountain pen on its glossy cover.

God, get over yourself. I’m not trying to steal your precious notebooks or pens. I’m here to help! Susanne tried to ignore the gaze following her as she went from product to product, entering data about prices and other details in a note-taking app on her iPhone. So what if Frau Lamm didn’t like her? She didn’t care. In her old job as a business consultant, she hadn’t always been greeted with open arms either. When she had been sent out, it usually meant the company was in trouble, so very few people were warm and fuzzy toward her.

But somehow this seemed different—more personal—and that was why working with family members or someone you were close to was a bad idea. Her mother wouldn’t listen, though, and her uncle was obviously just as bad.

Why the hell was he paying someone to stand around and read a magazine? Granted, she was good with customers. Susanne admitted to herself that she wouldn’t have been so patient with the people who took forever to check out every item in the store or asked endless questions, only to leave with a couple of cheap ballpoint pens.

The amount of money they made from sales like that didn’t even justify having an employee.

Susanne picked up a leather-bound notebook from the center island to look for the price tag. When she found it, she nearly dropped her phone. A hundred euros for a journal? No wonder they hadn’t sold any of them all day!

When she carefully put down the expensive notebook, an almost inaudible sigh of relief drifted through the store.

God, the woman really made her feel as if she were out to harm her beloved notebooks. “Is that price tag correct?” Susanne asked, pointing at it.

“If it says ninety-nine euros and ninety-nine cents, it is.”

At least she seemed to know the prices of the products they sold by heart, so she wasn’t totally useless.

“It’s refillable,” Frau Lamm added in a defensive tone.

“So is my smartphone,” Susanne muttered. With a shake of her head, she moved on to the display case of fountain pens. She leaned forward and peered through the glass to make out the tiny price tags placed near each pen. The tag next to the pen in the middle—a midnight-blue-and-silver pen with engraved letters of alphabets from all over the world—caught her attention.

Two thousand euros? What the hell? She whirled around.

Frau Lamm quickly averted her gaze as if she’d been caught doing something forbidden.