“Success. The difference is mine is money. Greed, if you like. You’re only addicted to the recognition. And Michael is very good at manipulating you with it.”
I scoff. That’s not right. That doesn’t happen. And that’s not the only reason I love my job. Sure, the recognition is nice. Michael always compliments our team on our design, press releases and radio advertising. I have a clever team underneath me who support all the challenges I face with fast-thinking, proactive and creative abilities. I can’t say I don’t enjoy that part of my work. Working with people.
“He doesn’t manipulate me,” I say quietly, partly because I’m busy juggling every memory I have of Michael and wondering if maybe I’ve missed something.
From the corner of my eye, James frowns, passing me the bottle again. This time I take a bigger swig.
“Didn’t you want to go to university?” I ask, because it felt like the thing everyone was aiming for when I was at school. We went from this tight-knit friendship group to a loose-fitted version, scattered across the country, barely staying in touch.
“Never really thought about it. Wasn’t an option.”
“But you’re smart,” I say, despite myself.Is he?
“Not all smart people go to university, Felicity.”
I roll my eyes at the use of my birth name. “Are you ever going to just call me Fliss? Everyone else does!” I huff.
“No, I prefer Felicity.” He winks. I roll my eyes.
“What would you have studied had you gone?” I ask.
“Hmm, I guess I’d have studied sports science, or something to do with sport.”
I give him a full body scan. He’s certainly got a sporty physique. Although I’ve never actually seen him doing any sport. He’s tall, lean and muscular, and wears a suit in the way you’d expect a professional sportsman to.
I close my eyes, looking away. For some reason, James talking about the human body has inspired a very naked image of him in my head. I will the image away but it’s not leaving quickly.Nope, must not think about him naked. I haven’t even seen him fully naked. How the hell has my brain jumped here?
By the time my eyes open again, I’m warm, and I can’t tell if it’s from the vodka or my dirty thoughts.
“What would you do? If you could do anything in the world?” he says, slightly changing the subject.
God, why are we talking about this! This is a scary question for me. I take a moment to consider it. I’m a very important, driven businesswoman, but there’s always been a part of me who’s imagined the home life I’d want. There’s an image that finds me from time to time. I’ll be sitting on my comfortable, expensive high-backed sofa in a Victorian-style front room, with pastel-coloured patterned wallpaper, and tall bay windows. I hold a book in my hand, occasionally peeking out at the green, leafy street I live on. He (whoever he ends up being) calls my name from the kitchen at the back of the house asking if I want a hot drink. Sometimes there’s a dog, a small one with a long snout, cosied up by my feet. I imagine my cream-painted fireplace. The open shutters. The light breeze that tangles in the curtains. And that’s my happy place.
The issue is that isn’t myrealhappy place. It’s not an attainable thing. And that brings with it this overwhelming sense of failure.
I’m thirty. The longest relationship I’ve ever had was ten months and he left me for a career move. I said at the time I couldn’t go with him because of my own job, but the reality is he didn’t even ask.
I should have a happy place in my current world. But I don’t. So maybe I do numb it by making myself busy. Marrying myself to my work.
“Felicity?”
“Huh?” I start, realising I’ve been daydreaming.
“What would you do?”
I squint across at James, who’s watching me closely, as if he’s trying to record my reaction. I look down at my hands, fiddling with my laces, to escape his gaze. “I’m not sure, really. Think I want what most people want. A sense of commitment from someone else. A place to call my own.” I shrug. “I’m happy with my job. I don’t see me going anywhere else.”
James sighs deeply, rubbing his chin in his hand. “You probably shouldn’t put all your hopes into becoming a director though.”
His comment is like a punch to the gut. I’m instantly on the defence. “Why not? We’re both here, aren’t we? Doing this challenge Michael set us?”
He makes a face, looking away. We watch a large black crow hop along a grassy plane, pecking the ground. “I just don’t think you’re getting the respect from Michael that you think you are. I mean, look at where we are now,” he adds, raising his hands as if to demonstrate his point.
My heart drops. I’m not sure what James is doing but it feels like some form of trickery. “Right,” I say with a touch of venom, rising to my feet, shrugging my bag onto my aching shoulders and striding in the direction of this bloody castle again.
Chapter Nine
The path alongside the river rises and falls. When inclining sharply, it forces our heart rates to increase as we battle with the hill, dodging saplings, thorny bushes and fallen branches. James steps over them with ease. Sometimes I have to take off my bag, throw it to the other side, then straddle the thing to clear it. Occasionally, he stops to offer me a hand, but I hiss at it. I don’t need his help. I never have before, and I don’t need it now.
