Promoted: to Wife and Mother

to shimmer with such energy that he actually blinked, but the next moment the expressive eyes were clouding over. ‘In principle, yes, of course I would be interested,’ she said slowly, ‘but it depends how much travelling would be involved.’

‘I imagine you would need to make some visits overseas,’ Ed said carefully, and saw her face fall. ‘Why, would that be a problem?’

‘It probably would be.’ Perdita struggled to swallow her disappointment. It wasn’t fair! Her dream job, dangled in front of her and then whisked away before she even had a chance to fantasise about it! But there was no point in not being realistic. ‘I may not be a parent,’ she said, ‘but that doesn’t mean I don’t have other responsibilities. I have to consider my mother. I don’t think I could go away and leave her on her own now.’

‘Even if you had care arrangements in place?’

Perdita shook her head despondently. ‘She won’t accept anything like that, certainly not at the moment.’ From somewhere she mustered a smile-cool, professional, not at all the smile of someone who felt like bursting into tears and wailing, It’s not fair! At least she hoped it wasn’t, but she had never been renowned for hiding her feelings.

‘Thank you for thinking of me,’ she said, just like a real grown-up, ‘but I have to be honest with you. Obviously, I would love the challenge of a job like that, but I don’t think I would be able to take it on right now.’

‘That’s a pity,’ said Ed, meaning it. ‘Still, we’re only at the planning stage and it may be that things will change. We don’t need to make any immediate decisions in any case.’

There was a tiny pause. Perdita was having a job to keep the smile on her face. Disappointment gnawed at her. She had been feeling restless recently, and the prospect of a new and interesting job would have been just what she needed to banish the increasingly suffocating feeling of being trapped in Ellsborough. It wouldn’t be fair to blame her mother. She was the one who had chosen to come back home and she had tried to make the best of it, making a place for herself at Bell Browning. Without Nick, her career was really all she had, Perdita realised, and now it looked as if even that would have to take second place to her other responsibilities.

Suppressing a sigh, she began to get to her feet. ‘Well, if that’s everything…?’ she said, smoothing down her skirt, but Ed held up a hand.

‘Not quite,’ he said, and Perdita subsided back into her seat at the note in his voice. ‘We still need to discuss the feedback from the leadership development course.’

‘Oh, that.’ She had a feeling she wasn’t going to enjoy this.

‘Yes, that,’ Ed agreed, a suspicious glint in his eyes. He pulled a sheet of paper from the file on the table and skimmed through it. ‘It makes for interesting reading! There’s no doubt about your abilities, Perdita, but your approach to both clients and colleagues can be-how shall I put it?-let’s say a little forthright. Not to put too fine a point on it,’ he said, ‘the feeling is that some of your sharp edges need to be knocked off.’

‘What sharp edges?’ demanded Perdita. Sharply, in fact.

‘Perhaps you need to be a little bit more aware of how other people are reacting in certain situations,’ he said carefully. ‘You’ve got a great ability to enthuse people and sweep them along with you, but sometimes-especially when you’re communicating with senior executives-situations require a certain sensitivity. Those are the times when telling people what to do and then expecting them to do it just won’t work!’

Perdita opened her mouth to snap at him, and then closed it again just in time. ‘What exactly are you proposing?’ she asked coldly instead.

Ed leaned back in his chair and scrutinised her indignant face. ‘Bell Browning is an important employer in Ellsborough,’ he said, ‘but as far as I’m aware the firm hasn’t shown much awareness of corporate social responsibility. I want to get everyone more involved in the community, and there are a number of projects that I think we can be usefully associated with.’

‘Right,’ said Perdita, who was beginning to get impatient. She hated long discussions and liked to get immediately to the point, but Ed clearly wasn’t going to be hurried.

‘One of those is an urban regeneration scheme that’s just starting on wasteland in Booker Street, just down the road from here.’

Perdita only just forbore from glancing at her watch. What did all this have to do with feedback? ‘Is that building affordable housing?’ she asked, belatedly realising that Ed was waiting for her to pretend an interest.

‘Partly, yes, but an important part of the project is creating an environment that is part park, part community garden, where people can grow vegetables and fruit, or just enjoy their own green space with trees and flowers. The idea is that it will be a place where the whole community can come together eventually, and it’s hoped that as many as possible will be involved in transforming the wasteland into something beautiful. In particular, it will be an opportunity for teenagers who have been in trouble with the police for one reason or another-petty crimes or antisocial behaviour-to put something back into the community.’

‘You mean it’s a kind of community service?’

‘In some ways. Most of them will probably be sentenced to work a certain number of hours in the garden, but by doing that they’ll have the opportunity to learn about teamwork and the satisfaction of creating something out of nothing.’

Perdita couldn’t imagine any of the teenagers she knew finding much satisfaction in gardening, but she wisely kept her thoughts to herself. She had been rather too free with her opinions with Ed in the past, and look where it had got her-a reputation for ‘sharp edges’!

‘I haven’t heard of this project,’ she said to show that she was still listening.

‘You will,’ said Ed. ‘It’s the brainchild of an Ellsborough garden designer. I met her a couple of days ago. Grace is an inspiring woman,’ he told Perdita thoughtfully. ‘She can’t be much more than thirty, but her husband died tragically last year and she’s decided to set up a trust in his memory to develop the garden project. She’s passionate about plants and what working on the land can teach all of us, and about the need to give some of these troubled kids a sense of being rooted in the community.’

Poor Grace, being a widow so young, Perdita thought, although she wasn’t convinced about her gardening obsession. Surely there were easier ways to remember her husband? Perdita herself had never had any interest in gardening and didn’t propose to start now. Plus, she couldn’t help feeling a bit miffed that Ed had taken the time to meet ‘passionate’ Grace rather than his sharp-edged Operations Manager. He certainly seemed very taken with her.

Perdita’s lips tightened. What or who was Ed passionate about? Nothing, probably, she thought huffily, still sulking about being passed over in favour of the oh-so-inspiring Grace.

Then her eyes dropped to his mouth and she changed her mind. She didn’t know what would stir him to passion, but there was something about that cool, quiet mouth that made her wish that she did. Just looking at it set a dangerous warmth spilling through her, and she wrenched her eyes away with an effort.

Enough. Whatever made Ed passionate, it certainly wasn’t her.

‘What’s all this got to do with me?’ she asked, more brusquely than she had intended.

‘I want you to spend a couple of hours every week working with these kids on the garden project.’

Perdita stared at him, aghast. ‘Me? But I don’t know anything about gardening! Or teenagers, come to that!’

‘You won’t be there to teach them. It’ll be a learning experience for you too.’

‘But-’

‘I know it’ll be a challenge, but you’re someone who responds to challenges. I saw the way you pulled everyone together on those team tasks in the rain that day. This will be harder, but I think you’ll get a lot out of it.’

‘Oh, do you?’ Perdita’s eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘And if I tell you that I haven’t got time to mess around in a garden with a lot of antisocial kids?’

Ed’s cool grey gaze met her angry brown one quite steadily. ‘I need you to make time,’ he said quite quietly, but there was a note of finality in his voice and an uncompromising set to his mouth that gave her pause.

She scowled, sensing that she was beaten but unwilling to admit it. ‘I hate getting my hands dirty,’ she grumbled. ‘And I just don’t see that this project of yours will make any difference at all to how I work. Either you think I can do the job or you don’t! Ken Fowler would never have bullied staff into doing something that they didn’t want to do,’ she added unwisely.

‘Ken isn’t Chief Executive any more,’ Ed pointed out, an edge of steel in his voice. ‘I am. And I want a team