“If someone needs to preface a sentence like that, they usually are about to do just that,” Anja muttered.

Susanne gritted her teeth so tightly that her jaw started to ache. “Listen,” she repeated, pronouncing the two syllables carefully in an attempt not to shout. “Loving stationery is nice. But it’s a hobby. And this,” she pounded the desk, “is a business. It can’t survive on love alone.”

Anja stared at her and opened her mouth as if to argue back but then closed it and lowered her gaze to her notebook.

Damn. She had been a bitch, hadn’t she? Yeah well, so what if you were? Knocking some heads was the only way to wake up people who didn’t want to see reality. As much as she had enjoyed spending the day with Anja on Saturday, she wasn’t here to make friends. But the internal monologue that usually guided her well didn’t feel right this time, so she added more softly, “Not if we don’t find a way to share that love with potential customers—and have them back up that love with their wallets.”

Anja slumped against the back of her chair. The fight went out of her eyes, and that was worse than when she’d practically accused Susanne of being a bitch.

Susanne fought the urge to take her hand. “Don’t worry.” She allowed herself a quick pat to Anja’s shoulder. “All the social media stuff only takes up a lot of time in the beginning. Once we have everything set up and you get the hang of things, it should only take you about an hour a day. We’ll prepare plenty of blog posts and a few newsletters ahead of time so we can send them out once the website goes live. Those are the two most important things.”

Anja nodded, but the overwhelmed expression on her face didn’t fade. She picked up her fountain pen and clutched it as if it were a lifeline keeping her afloat.

Genius. You shouldn’t have mentioned the blog and the newsletter. For Anja, they were probably just two more things that she didn’t know how to handle yet. This was getting them nowhere. Susanne closed the laptop, pulled the fountain pen from Anja’s grasp, and screwed on the cap. She slid the laptop, Anja’s pen, and her notebook into her laptop bag. “Come on. I think we need a change of scenery.”

“Working on the sales floor isn’t going to help us focus,” Anja said. “We’ll have to take a break each time a customer comes in.”

“Then it’s a good thing we’re going somewhere else.”

Uncle Norbert looked up when they left the back rooms. “Are you calling it a day?”