mull

verb

1. think about deeply and at length

We settled with Fredricks as Wallace suggested. Once Freddy realised how stupid he'd been, he apologised. When I had asked him to his face why he did it, he said he got suckered in by a pretty face and the lure of hard cash. I snorted and said something sarcastic about thinking with the wrong head.

Freddy agreed to accept a decrease in pay in-lieu-of taking this to court. We had new remuneration contract written up and signed. After he saw all of my company documents and video evidence of the crime, the police reports and insurance statement, I think he began to realise that Eyva had nothing to do with my company and the project that I'd asked Freddy to work on for me. That I hadn't set him up and was for real.

We left it at that. I left Wallace's office with Patricia and Freddy left with his older brother who had come as his support. I could tell by the way he read everything, all the evidence given to him and my company materials, that he had a lot to mull over in the next little while.

I arrived home to Eyva screaming at her dad in his office. The maids and estate staff had all disappeared – no one was at the entrance to meet me, and when I hobbled to the kitchen for a snack, the kitchen staff had all be sent home for the night.

I saw Mrs H wave from the end of the staff corridor while she wrangled Grant into a back room. I decided that I needed to make myself scarce as well.

I took a snack up to my room, and worked on list of investments that Mr Anderson had set up investments in for me. He had emailed me this afternoon with the letters of acceptance. I really should be going through a broker, but Mr Anderson said he'd be happy do take care of it for me, and under the company business, he felt better for having actually worked for the business.

Four offers had been accepted by the various companies I'd invested in, and another one was being looked over. It would probably go through too, but at this stage I was almost out of cash. I needed something to line up next for when the Arts and Antiques app went public and sold.

I downloaded from my cloud storage my material for my business class project. Having looked at it, I decided that fashion was going to be my next big project. The nightgowns, I really loved these. Paired with lounge ware, dressing gowns and socks-slash-leg warmers, I felt these would really sell.

With an Asian flower print in silks and satins, yes, I could really see them.

I pulled out the patterns I loved and developed them further. From there I found a few fabric printing firms, mostly overseas, that could create any printed design on any type of fabric I would need. This delighted me as I couldn't see anything in their catalogue that came anywhere close to the styles that would be in vogue in the next year.

I drew some more designs, ate some more snacks, decided on the look, feel and designs for the next four seasons of sleepwear. This would be my new line for the next year. I could have these printed, made up and packaged before the new App would be ready to sell. Hmmmm, that was a lot of work to do, especially since I didn't have a retail outlet store to sell them in at this point in time.

I wrote more lists, details more requests, set up more meeting appointments with my team, then sent them all off to Patricia. I also asked her to find an advertising agency that we could use for a month to get the A&A App off the ground once it was complete. More to add to her list. That would keep her busy for the next week.

I then designed a little silver outlined stylised crystal pear as a label for my clothing line. These would also need to be sewn and embroidered and purchased in bulk for each piece of clothing, leg wear and accessory.

"This should be fun!" I said out loud as I leaned back after finishing my little logo design on my laptop.

"What should be fun?" a voice asked.

"Aaahh!" I screamed and nearly fell out of my desk chair. "Mum! You nearly gave me a heart attach." I held my hand over my beating heart.

"Hmmm-mmm. I called out to you for a while there, then just sat on your bed and watched you work. This looks interesting." She pulled out a few of the nighties and dressing gown ideas that were based on decades past fashion. She also tapped on the fabric design and colours she loved. "These. I want to be your first customer, please have this design done in this fabric. I'd like it in silk." She smiled.

"OK, I can do that." I nodded and smiled at her in excitement.

"I've never seen you get interested in this kind of thing before." She commented.

"In what, art?" I asked.

"Oh, well I guess it is kinda arty. But I just assumed when you used to talk about going to art school, you meant painting or drawing or some sort of fine arts." She looked worried, like she had made some sort of mistake somewhere and viewed my life choices all wrong. She wasn't wrong though, that was what I ended up going to college for the first time round.

"I had an assignment at school that lead me into researching nightgowns through the decades for the last hundred years. I found some amazing gowns and I decided I'd like to have a few of them made. But looking at all of this, I realised that there was a lot more to this project that drew me in. I want to design a whole range of night wear and lounge wear in a bunch of similar designs but different fabrics and prints."

I pulled everything out to show her and we went over everything for the ten minutes. When Wallace came in, looking a little haggard from his earlier blow up with Eyva, he listened again to my shpeal and was impressed at the thought I'd gone into everything. Of course, I had shown much more of the business side of things that I did my mum, but it was all really exciting all the same.

"Can I invest in this with you?" My mum asked but I frowned at this, then shook my head.

"I know you mean well, Mum, but I really want to do this for myself. Can you let me do this – get it started and running, before getting involved, please? I want to see if I can make a go of it, without you or Wallace helping me out."

I hoped she understood where I was coming from. Again, I didn't want anyone saying I took Overmeyer money to get anything in my life. I just hoped they understood.

The wonky smile said she understood, but really wanted to help.

"How about this. When I have my first season all printed, sewn and packaged, you become my first customer and we throw a product party here at the estate for all of your family and friends?" I asked.

"Oh, what a splendid idea, Lily. Thank you. That would be great!"

My first customer, already happy making plans to promote my stuff. Made me really happy.

"Then what about me? can you have any men's nightwear designed for me too?" Oh, dang. Men's wear, I hadn't even given it a single thought. I looked at Wallace with a stupid look on my face then grinned a huge grin.

"Yes. Yes I can." I nodded and got right on it.