Wryly she said, ‘You’re going to tell me next that you’re a good listener.’
He laughed. ‘It has been said,’ he responded wryly.
‘You’re also a professional, and I’m not sure I want to be analysed.’
‘I’m also a stranger with no agenda of my own, no reason to judge or even advise, or to hold anything against you later. But that sounds as though I’m exerting pressure, so maybe we should talk about something else?’
Given how desperate she felt to talk to someone, to offload everything that was building up inside her, to release at least some of the conflict, if not the heartache, she decided to begin with Kinsley’s offer.
He listened quietly, attentively, as she explained how much she wanted to seize the opportunity, how excited she felt at times about rising to the top with the backing of her old mentor. She told him how deeply she hated herself for even considering abandoning the people she cared about so much, who’d invested their loyalty and trust in her and whom she couldn’t bear to hurt or betray. She covered everything, including the wonderful prospect of being close to her brother again in London, the possibility of working with Andee Lawrence, even the horror of Molly Terrance being part of the deal, although she hoped that might have gone away by now.
‘I’ll have to make a decision soon.’ She sighed, bringing her rant to an end. ‘He’s not going to wait forever. He sentme an email earlier with two links – I haven’t opened them yet, but I can see that one is to premises that could work for the new company, the other to a riverside apartment that his wife, who I love, thinks would be just right for me.’
She looked at Meier and almost groaned at how pathetic he must be finding her, especially after all he’d revealed about himself and Nicole today. However, his expression, though attentive, was unreadable. She started to apologize, yet again, but he got up to go and refresh his drink. When he came back, he handed a second glass to her before returning to the sofa.
‘You are seeing your conscience as your worst enemy,’ he told her, making himself comfortable, ‘but why not turn it around and try to view it as a friend?’
She frowned, not quite following.
‘I heard the change in your tone when you talked about leaving loyal colleagues and friends behind, and my thoughts, as you spoke, were that letting them down, perhaps diminishing yourself in their eyes, matters more to you than achieving an ambition you weren’t even aware of until this offer was made.’
She took a moment to connect with such a rapid and clear-eyed assessment of where she was in her head. ‘So, you’re saying I should turn the offer down and carry on the way I am?’ she countered.
He shrugged, sipped his drink and said, ‘How did it feel when you spoke those words? “I should turn the offer down and carry on the way I am?”’
She thought about it, trying to isolate her reactions. ‘Not bad,’ she said, ‘but … defeatist? Cowardly?’
‘You’re a successful woman; you enjoy what you do. Why would continuing on this course be defeatist or cowardly?’
Realizing they might not have been quite the right words, she said, ‘Maybe I want to prove to myself that I can take on something that big and make a go of it.’
‘But you already know you can – you wouldn’t be tormenting yourself like this if you seriously doubted it, but that doesn’t mean it’s right for you.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Are you talking me out of it?’
‘Playing devil’s advocate.’
‘I’m not sure that’s helpful.’
He smiled, and she decided, in that moment, that she really liked him.
‘You don’t want to let your old mentor down,’ he said. ‘I think that maybe, on some level, you feel you still owe him. On another, your deeply forged loyalties with the people you live and work with are probably telling you all you need to know. You want to stay in Bristol with the team you trust and respect, the friends you know and love and the life you treasure.’
Taking the words in, she said, ‘Are you telling me that, or was it a question?’
‘Take it whichever way you like. Just ask yourself how you felt when I painted that very simple picture.’
She almost wanted to laugh. ‘I guess relieved was the first thing,’ she admitted. ‘It was like being given … a get-out-of-jail-free card?’
‘Then you have your answer.’
She frowned. ‘You’re making it sound so easy.’
‘Because it is, unless you want it to be complicated, and that’s always an option too.’
She smiled and drank some of the brandy, allowing several minutes to pass as she continued assessing his words, testing them with her instincts and her heart, still searching for a sense of what did and didn’t feel right. She was surprised, embarrassed, when she realized tears were rolling down her cheeks. She couldn’t even say why she was crying or when it had started, only that sadness was coming over her in waves, and for some reason, she was unable to stop it.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, using her fingers to wipe away the tears. ‘I’m not sure … It’s not like me to do this …’
