And suddenly, shewantedto share it, because sharing it with Ryan now seemed like the most natural and logical thing in the world. As they walked along the winding trail across the beautiful countryside and with the sun shining down from a summer blue sky, she realised this was the perfect place to bring such a sad story out into the light.
“The truth is,” she began, after drawing in a deep breath, “ever since I was in my mid-teens, all I wanted was to get outinto the world and find a job and make a career for myself and build some security in my life. Growing up, things rarely felt secure at home.”
Ryan said nothing, just nodded for her to continue.
“We didn’t have much money when I was a kid,” she said. “My father ran his own businesses but none of them ever did particularly well. I love my father, of course I do, but he made a lot of mistakes and did a lot of stupid things that caused our family endless financial trouble. We always seemed to be stumbling from one disaster to another.”
Grace frowned as she thought about to explain it all.
“Dad was always an optimist and always believed the next big opportunity was just around the corner,” she continued. “He tried just about everything over the years. He ran a market stall, opened up his own café, set up a mobile DJ business, started a company importing wholesale beauty products, and then another company offering party planning services, and then he got into the special occasion car hire business. And those are just some of the things he took on.”
Grace sighed, remembering those unhappy days of her childhood. “Each failed business meant yet another pile of debt left behind in its wake. When I was younger, my mother worked alongside my father, helping him in these businesses he set up, but eventually she had to get a job as a primary school teaching assistant in order to keep a roof over our heads and put food on the table. They split up when I was fifteen. I think my mother just had enough.”
Her parents painful separation was one of the worst times of Grace’s life, and talking about it was never easy, which was why she never did it.
“My father wasn’t, and isn’t, a bad man, but he was… misguided. Maybe if he’d stuck to one business and made a go of it, things might have been different. But as soon as he hit arough patch and couldn’t figure out how to solve the problems he was having, he just gave up and moved on to something new. Meanwhile, mum and I were living hand-to-mouth, and she was the one scrabbling to make ends meet. I know she loved my father while they were married, and tried to make him see sense, but he was like a magpie, always dazzled by the next shiny thing.”
“I’m sorry,” Ryan said. “That sounds like it must have been tough.”
“When I was very young, I didn’t know any better. It was only once I was older that I started to notice there was never much food in the house, and there always seemed to be a worry about how the rent would be paid, and we never seemed to have any nice holidays like my friends in school. When I was fourteen, we had to leave our house because my father spent the rent money buying stock for whatever new business venture he’d dreamt up the night before, and we had to go to my aunt’s house and live in her guest room for two weeks, the three of us crammed together in one space and with me sleeping on a fold-out bed while my mother searched frantically for somewhere new we could afford. With all the debt my father constantly had hanging over his head, it wasn’t easy convincing a landlord to take us on. Things fell apart between my parents after that.”
“What does your father do now?” Ryan asked.
“He works night shifts as a security guard. He’s in his late fifties now, so it’s not an ideal job at this point in his life, but he doesn’t have many options open to him. He still struggles with money. I try to help him out when I can. My mum works in childcare at a nursery school and eventually remarried to a really nice man who dotes on her and who doesn’t plunge her into financial disaster every other week. She’s happy and she deserves a quieter life now.”
Grace realised how much she’d been rambling on. The peaceful walk across the open grasslands with the summery breeze blowing around them and the comforting presence of Ryan listening quietly as she talked had made it too easy to spill her heart out.
“Anyway, that’s my sob story,” she said with a self-conscious laugh. “And that’s the reason I never considered going to university after I left school. The idea of all that student debt hanging over my head was too frightening after growing up with my father’s financial antics for all those years. I wanted to get out there and start earning a living, and that’s what I did.”
Ryan nodded, as if this all made perfect sense. “And now you want the big promotion that will give you the career security you crave.”
“Exactly. Look, I know there is no such thing as a completely secure job. I’m not a fool. But once I get that promotion, it means that if the worst comes to the worst and I suddenly need to start looking for another job, I can put on my CV that I had a full manager’s role at a five-star hotel. That counts for something.”
“Of course it does.” His gaze slanted towards her as they continued along the trail. “But from what you’ve told me, this whole promotion process is now out of your hands and the fact that it has all ground to a halt isn’t because of anything you’ve done.”
“Well, yes, that’s true.”
“And yet your first instinct was to spend your days off doing even more work and even more studying.”
“I’m a glutton for punishment, I guess,” Grace laughed. Tilting her head towards the sun, she let her eyes drift closed for a second and breathed in the sweet countryside air. “But this is just what I needed. I’m sure tomorrow when I sit back down at my laptop, I’ll be recharged and ready to work.”
Ryan’s expression shifted into a baffled frown, and as they walked the trail side-by-side, he watched her for a moment, seemingly weighing his next words.
“You said you were off work now for seven days straight,” he said. “So, take them all off. Take a proper break. Forget about work or studying. Just relax and enjoy yourself. Maybe you could even spend more time with me?”
“I thought you were supposed to be enjoying your grandmother’s company?”
“Grandma was the one who sent us off on this little adventure together. She has an agenda, clearly, where the two of us are concerned. I doubt she’ll mind if you tag along again. We’ll have fun.”
He laughed as he said this. Grace realised he made it sound so easy. She had time off work, so why not spend it doing something fun, whatever ‘fun’ turned out to be.
Yet the idea of further gatecrashing this valuable time Ryan was supposed to be spending with his grandmother, who’d been through a terrible ordeal and who deserved to enjoy her family now, didn’t sit well with her.
“Let’s see how it goes,” she said vaguely. “I’m having such a nice time right now, and we’ve got the rest of the day ahead of us, too. Maybe by the end of it, you’ll be glad to see the back of me.”
“I doubt that very much,” Ryan said, and pulled her close to brush a kiss against her cheek.
She caught the spicy scent of his aftershave, and felt the way he squeezed her hand as he kissed her and how her heart fluttered at his touch, and realised that an entire week of this sort of thing would be very hard to resist.
Stanley let out a bark, urging them to catch up. Laughing, they picked up their pace and followed the little dog along the trail and back towards the village where they’d started.
