“Maybe, but I can’t shake the feeling I’ve had enough of being here. I was doing this only until Daniel’s next book comes out. Then we’d have a bit of financial room for me to start my catering business. I can’t do all that with a massive mortgage and expect to sleep at night.”

“But you’re so good at this job, and you’re such a people person.”

“It’s not where my heart is. And now Milly needs me. I’m not providing what Daniel needs either. I’m sick of always feeling like I should be somewhere else.”

Jasmine looked over Kelly’s shoulder and talked into the cup she raised to her lips. “Keep your voice down. Tarquin is on the floor.”

Kelly turned to see the CEO, hands in jeans pockets, strolling between tables.

“Jasmine, I can’t keep this up.”

“Fine. Then quit.”

“We’d lose the house. I think I’d die if I lost that kitchen. That would be the end of my catering dream.”

“Lose the house? Isn’t your husband a rich and famous author?”

Kelly let out a long breath. “Bestseller might mean famous, but it doesn’t automatically mean rich. We couldn’t afford to buy our dream home without the advance for his second book.”

“So what’s the holdup?”

Staff chattered under plastic palm trees twenty feet from them. “I don’t know. He should have written it by now, but every extra day is another day I have to be pushing drugs, however good they are. It’s great we help so many families, but what about these side effects?”

Jasmine tapped her cup on the arm of her chair. “It’s just shades of gray, isn’t it? You put your product out there, and then people make their own decisions.”

Kelly shrugged. “Their decisions are based on my information.”

“Maybe you’re just frustrated at how things are between you and Daniel. Things still bad at home?”

Kelly heaved a sigh. “Yes. And Milly’s been getting quieter for months. She won’t talk to me, and Daniel keeps trying to fix her, so she won’t talk to him either.”

The pack of excited staff crept closer to them. “She sounds like a lot of other kids.”

“But I’m Mom to only this one.” Kelly gave a heavy sigh. “Daniel’s just on all the time. I wish he’d stop trying to fix us and just be us.”

“Seems weird that a marriage counselor would have a bad marriage . . . unless . . .”

“Unless what?”

“Well, if his receptionist looks like that new blonde . . .”

Kelly’s eyes grazed across the atrium. She hoped no one had overheard the state of her marriage being broadcast at work.

“And what do you call his business partner again? The ‘work-wife’?”

Kelly didn’t know whether to rage or cry. She couldn’t do either here.