Page 6 of Surprise Me Tonight
"Fran!" I scold her again before promising to think about it… the job not about him being Mr Right. I hang up before she can push the joke any further.
I stare at the phone, then back at my notes. It’s ridiculous. Completely, utterly ridiculous.
Still, the idea plants itself. Quietly. Uninvited.
I’m not finished with the course. I haven’t even submitted my final assessment yet. And I haven’t worked in eighteen years. Not properly. Not in an office. Not under someone who might actually expect things from me that aren’t just school run logistics and dinner on the table by six.
But.
If Iwasworking again, I could finally stop depending on Jeremy’s money.
The thought alone is enough to make my stomach twist. Every month, the spousal maintenance shows up in my account like a silent reminder that I’m still tethered to a man who made me feel invisible. A man who told me, more than once, that I’d be lost without him. That I wouldn’t survive a month on my own.
And yes, maybe that was true at first. When Vicky left and the silence in the house felt like it might swallow me whole. Back then I was terrified and rusty, unsure I even remembered how tobeanything other than a wife and mother.
But I’m not that woman anymore. Not entirely.
I’ve done the work. I’ve studied. I’ve started rebuilding. Bit by bit.
And if this Callum Wright is hiring, and no one else in the village wants the job, then maybe... maybe it wouldn’t hurt to at least to ask. To find out what he needs. To see if I can fit that shape again.
I tell myself it’s just curiosity. That it’s nothing more than a passing thought. That I’m still in control.
I reach for my phone again. I don’t text Francesca. Not yet. But I hold it in my hand a while, just in case.
Just in case I decide to say yes.
Chapter 3
Callum
The office is amess. Nothing’s where it should be. Boxes lined up like a failed logistics exercise. Half a desk in place. Tools scattered. Paperwork shoved wherever I could find space. I don’t like it. I can’t think in disorder. Can’t breathe properly in it either.
The router’s still temperamental. I check the connection for the third time, waiting for that steady green light. It blinks, slowly, as if unsure of itself.
The doorbell rings.
I push up off the floor, my back protesting. I haven’t had time to stretch in days. There’s a box underfoot, and I kick it out of the way without thinking. A stack of reports slides off the top. I leave them where they fall.
A glance at my watch tells me it must be the woman I’m supposed to convince to become my assistant. Suzie…? Stella? No idea. Her CV’s somewhere on my desk, quietly judging me for not reading it properly.
Jess scheduled her in for a ten o’clock interview. Without checking with me, naturally. She only sent me the CVaftershe’d already booked it. Apparently, she’s “promising.”Former executive assistant. Calm. Local. Good head on her shoulders. Jess said it like she was describing a Labrador.
Eighteen years since she last worked. That stuck with me.
Jess wasn’t bothered. Thought the gap didn’t matter.
“She won’t be intimidated,” she’d said. “Not by the work. Not by you.”
That was meant to reassure me. It didn’t.
I’ve built this business from the ground up. I’ve run every part of it. I don’t need someone who’ll try to manageme. I need competence. Clarity. Precision.
Someone I don’t have to second-guess.
Still, we are short on options. No one wants to come out to Little Hadlow. They take one look at the postcode and stop replying. Stella agreed to come. That’s something.
I brush off some dust from my jeans before opening the door.
