Page 56 of The Life-Changing Magic of Falling in Love

And Hildy.

And the reading programme at the hospital.

And Zach.

My life is filling up again…

And the guilt is crippling.

Chapter Sixteen

FEELERS, EGGS, AND IRONS

George

‘You’ve reached the voicemail for Anya Richards, please leave a message…’

Damn it.

No sooner have I put down my phone than I’m picking it up again to contact the one person in the company with total access to the diary management system and able to get through to anyone … our Departmental Overlord, aka, our Departmental PA. As soon as she answers, I say, ‘Kate, it’s George. I see that Anya’s booked solid but I need the next available five minutes of her time. It’s urgent,’ I tack on, although it’s entirely probable Kate’s worked that out from the tone of my voice.

‘Let me take a look … okay, yes, I see where I could carve out the fifteen before 2pm. Is that okay?’

I glance at my watch. One whole hour from now. ‘I guess it will have to do.’

‘Do I need to book a meeting room?’

I’m tempted to have Anya summoned to my office but I know exactly how that would look to Kate, so I say, ‘I’d appreciate it, thank you.’

The first time Anya made it up to see my office, well, blink and you’d have missed it. She was right, of course. It would look weird to staff if she was suddenly seen up here a lot. Despite us having the same job title these days, being the boss’s daughter is something she’s careful not to shove in anyone’s face and also why she chooses to stay with her team in the open-plan area.

Should I have turned down the corner office when I was promoted? I mean, if HR was asking what I thought about hot-desking, my answer, of course, would be “Hot-desking? Soooo many benefits. What’s not to love?”. But as anyone who’s ever remembered halfway into their commute that they forgot to book a desk for the day will actually tell you, hot-desking sucks!

‘Okay,’ Kate says. ‘I’m seeing the main pod is free and I’m booking it now. What shall I title the meeting?’

I’m tempted to call it the Actual Shit Hitting the Actual Fan meeting but instead I say, ‘Perfect Pies Update.’

‘Of course. Nice talking with you, George.’

The moment Kate ends the call I go back to giving the email on my screen my full attention.

The longer I stare, the faster my heart races and the more my breathing can’t quite catch onto a regular rhythm. I don’t understand how it could be that the contract I’ve been chasing for months is now dead in the water.

Except of course, I do know. I know exactly how and why the Perfect Pies account is dead in the water. The feeling of it all is sitting on my shoulders like a piece of prime real estate called Missed Opportunity.

What happened is that we went the wrong way with it.

Then nosedived.

Crash landed.

And flatlined.

I’m so angry about it all.

Furious even.

Especially as I’d been so sure about the direction to take.

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