Promoted: to Wife and Mother. Jessica Hart

that he was openly rude or even ignoring her, but she couldn’t shake the sense that he thought that she was a bit silly and superficial somehow.

      Perdita couldn’t put her finger on why she felt that. It might have been something to do with the arid edge to his voice when he spoke to her, or that disquieting gleam in the grey eyes that seemed to see much more than she really wanted them to. Whatever it was, Perdita didn’t like it one little bit.

      Naturally, she responded by ignoring him and sparkling even harder, and if that made Ed decide she was even sillier than he had thought, that was tough. She couldn’t care less.

      It didn’t stop her keeping a surreptitious eye on him as she held court, but for once it felt like hard work. When she saw him leave at last, Perdita should have been able to relax and be herself, but instead the evening seemed suddenly flat.

      It was time she rang her mother anyway. Laughingly refusing the offers of a last drink that were pressed on her, Perdita made her escape from the bar. It was a relief to stop smiling when she got outside and she frowned slightly as she walked along the long corridor to her room.

      What was the matter with her? She wasn’t usually like this. So Edward Merrick wasn’t that taken with her? It didn’t matter whether he liked her or not as long as they could have a good professional relationship. OK, that hadn’t got off to the best of starts when she had called him pretentious, but she had apologised, and he hadn’t seemed that bothered. There was no reason why they shouldn’t work together perfectly well, and if Ed didn’t want to be friends…well, she had plenty of friends already. She didn’t care.

      Much.

      Throwing herself on her bed, Perdita pulled out her BlackBerry and pressed the short dial to call her mother.

      ‘Mum? It’s me,’ she said when her mother answered. ‘How are you?’

      As always, Helen James insisted that she was absolutely fine, but Perdita couldn’t help worrying about her. It was hard to put her finger on why, but her mother seemed to have got older and a little querulous quite suddenly. She wasn’t as active as she had once been, and the house she had once kept so immaculately clean had begun to seem less well cared for, as if she couldn’t be bothered with dusting and polishing any more.

      Once or twice, Perdita had suggested getting her some help, but her mother refused point-blank to even consider the possibility. ‘I’m not having strangers poking around in my private business!’ she declared. ‘I suppose you’ll want to put me in a home next!’

      She got so upset if Perdita tried to pursue the matter that, in the end, Perdita had to let it drop and took to calling in every couple of days instead to help out as discreetly as she could.

      ‘Millie popped in to say hello,’ her mother told her. ‘She said she was just passing.’

      Perdita was relieved to hear no hint of suspicion in Helen’s voice. She had asked her best friend to look in on her mother while she was away on the course, but it had been a risk. If Helen had thought she was being checked up on, she would have been furious.

      ‘Oh? How was she?’

      ‘She’s put on weight since her divorce,’ her mother said disapprovingly. ‘She’ll have to be careful not to let herself go.’

      Millie had more important things to worry about than her figure, Perdita reflected as she said goodbye to her mother. Her husband had left her with a huge mortgage and the main responsibility for caring for two teenage daughters, and there had been times when her friend’s buoyant sense of humour had been severely tested over the last few years.

      Settling herself more comfortably against her pillows, Perdita rang Millie next to thank her. Typically, Millie brushed aside any gratitude. ‘It was fun,’ she said. ‘I always liked your mum. I created an elaborate charade to explain why I was passing in case she decided to interrogate me—you know how scary she can be—but she didn’t ask. I was quite disappointed!’

      ‘How did you think she was?’

      ‘She seemed fine to me,’ said Millie. ‘A bit older, of course, and I can see that she’s difficult but, let’s be honest, she was never the easiest of people in the first place, was she?’

      ‘No, that’s true.’ Perdita sighed. She loved her mother, but she had always been a rather prickly character.

      ‘Stop worrying about her and tell me about this course you’re on instead.’

      ‘It’s ridiculous,’ grumbled Perdita, obediently changing the subject. ‘They’ve divided us into personality types and they keep telling me I’m a peacock!’

      Millie hooted with laughter. ‘I could have told them that!’

      ‘You don’t think I’d be a good dolphin?’ asked Perdita, a little put out.

      ‘Nope, you’re definitely a peacock. Your new boss could have saved the company hundreds of pounds if he’d just asked me instead of forking out for a whole course.’

      ‘Oh, talking of my new boss…he’s here!’ said Perdita, who had had enough of people failing to recognise the easygoing, fun-loving, dolphin aspects of her personality. She had thought Millie at least would have known her better!

      ‘No!’ Millie was gratifyingly intrigued by the news. ‘What’s he like?’

      ‘Well, he’s…’ Perdita stopped, realising that she didn’t really know how to describe Ed.

      She knew what he looked like, could picture his face with alarming clarity, in fact: the cool eyes, the cool mouth, that unsettling gleam of humour. He had ordinary brown hair, greying at the temples, and that intriguing fan of laughter lines creasing the corner of his eyes. But she couldn’t tell Millie that.

      ‘He’s not what I was expecting,’ she finished lamely at last.

      ‘Oh?’ Millie prompted, drawing out the syllables with exaggerated effect. ‘Attractive?’

      ‘Not really…Well, sort of, I suppose…I don’t know!’ said Perdita, flustered when Millie started laughing.

      ‘He sounds gorgeous!’

      ‘He’s not gorgeous,’ snapped Perdita. ‘He’s just a sensible executive with greying hair who thinks I’m a bit silly.’ She told Millie about her faux pas and Millie seemed to think that was funny too.

      ‘It sounds as if you might have met your match at last, Perdita. Is he available?’

      ‘He doesn’t wear a wedding ring,’ said Perdita, and then was furious with herself for admitting that she had noticed.

      ‘Hmm…doesn’t mean anything,’ said Millie. ‘Find out more tomorrow and report back to me!’

      CHAPTER TWO

      ‘THIS morning you’ll all be divided into pairs and given a series of tasks to achieve.’ Perdita slipped into the dining room as the chief facilitator was making his announcement at breakfast the next morning. Her morning routine always seemed to take twice as long in an unfamiliar bathroom and she was running late.

      Grabbing a cup of coffee, she stood at the back and found herself scanning the room for Edward Merrick as she pretended to listen to the instructions for the day.

      ‘You’ve all been allocated a task to complete at first on your own, but over the course of the day you should meet up with other pairs and eventually you’ll form four large groups. It’s important that you check the list in reception for the location of your first task before you go outside.’

      Outside? Perdita grimaced. When she had pulled back her curtains that morning, she hadn’t even been able to see the surrounding hills for the heavy grey cloud. Outside, the tree tops were swaying wildly in the wind, and rain streaked the big windows of the dining room.

      She had been hoping that the facilitators would change their minds about running