Page 3 of Snug in Iceland
“Oh right. Date night, good idea.”
He did sound tired. Maybe she should leave it until tomorrow.
“And what are we celebrating?”
“I got a promotion,” she said, aware that it was a complete change of tone from when she’d announced it to Anna earlier on. Adam’s indifference to her obvious efforts had taken the edge off her enthusiasm along with her uncertainty that he would think it was as great as she did. She turned the curry down to a simmer and sat down opposite him.
“Wow,” he said, “that’s great. What’s the job?”
“It’s Head of European Development. Basically, Luisa doesn’t want to carry on doing the European roll-out so she wants me to take over. I know it needs a bit of consideration because of the travelling but it’s such a great opportunity.”
She paused to gauge Adam’s reaction but he just looked blankly at her so she carried on.
“The next store is in Reykjavik so I’d be away for a few weeks. I’d probably be able to come home at weekends, I mean, it’s not that far away. Only a three-hour flight”
Adam sat back, nudged his glasses up, sighed and looked at her with sadness in his eyes.
“Christ, Rachel, it’s a big deal. I know it’s a great opportunity for you, but it sounds like you’ll be away a lot. And what happens after this roll-out? You go back to your old job?”
“No, I mean that’d be my job and after this phase of the roll-out, there would probably be more across Europe, depending on how it goes. I don’t know, I suppose when I’m back in London it will be the same as normal, Luisa will still be my boss, but I want to take it. I’ve worked so hard on the stores here and never get to be on-site until the last minute and I’ve never been to either of the Scandinavian stores. The best thing about this is that I’ll be there for the whole thing.”
She watched him cautiously, then bit the bullet and asked, “What do you think?”
“What can I say? It has to be your decision but a few weeks at a time is a lot of time away, Rach. It’s wishful thinking to talk about coming back for weekends. Retail doesn’t stop at the weekend, you know that.”
Adam was right about that, but his lack of enthusiasm was prompting her to start thinking of ways she could start convincing him, andthatmade her realise that she had already made the decision. She looked down into her glass trying to think of something to say that would convince him, a good enough reason she could give to bring him around to her way of thinking.
“Rach, the rice…”
She jumped up and neither of them said anything else until she’d finished cooking and dished up.
“Thanks, it smells great,”
“I do want to take it, Adam. Once I’ve overseen this roll-out and whatever else is in the pipeline over the next couple of years, I’ll be in a great position to move to a bigger retailer.”
Despite what she’d just said, she had no major ambitions to be a high-flyer at a bigger company but she thought Adam was more likely to get on board if she said that it would be good for her career prospects than with any other argument she could make.
“If I don’t take the promotion, I will regret it, I know I will and I don’t want to end up missing this chance. And I’m the best person on the team for the job. I’m not sure I could carry on working on the team if I turned it down and had to work for someone else.”
As she spoke, it became clear to her that she was going to accept Luisa’s offer.
Adam put his fork down and leant back in his chair. “Look, I don’t want to stop you or ask you not to take it, but it does change everything. It could put back our plans for having kids, getting married.”
“None of that is happening now, though. By the time I’ve got fed up with all the travelling, I’ll be ready.”
Adam was ready now. That was part of the problem. He was where he wanted to be with his career and that was the difference. He was a senior associate in the mergers and acquisitions department at the City investment bank, Grainger Jones, and settling down properly was the next step for him. They had been together for two years and had been living together for most of that time, so to some extent, it was inevitable. But for all his talk of getting married, he hadn’t actually proposed.
“Do you still want all of that with me?” Adam asked.
“Of course I do but I don't want to regret anything. The whole reason I even have the chance is because Luisa doesn't want to be away from her kids. I need to take the opportunity before I feel like that too.”
His hand squeezed hers and he reached up and stroked her cheek.
“Sorry, Rach. I don’t mean to sound like it’s not brilliant, I’m happy for you, I’ll just miss you.”
“I’ll miss you too, but I think it will be good for us to miss each other, don’t you? I mean, sometimes we only see each other because we sleep in the same bed.”
“I didn’t know you felt like that, I thought we were doing okay?” He looked hurt. Maybe he hadn’t noticed that they had fallen into a relationship rut and if she was being honest with herself, perhaps that was the reason why she wanted to take the job. She wanted something to happen in her life, something new and something that she could be proud of.
