Page 29 of One Week With You
“But you like PR.”
“What makes you say that?”
“You light up when you talk about your work. If you’ve found a career you enjoy, don’t let that demon put doubts in your head.”
“Demon,” I repeated with a smile. “That’s an appropriate name, I think.”
“I’m serious. Don’t let her shake your confidence.”
“Too late.” I cracked and whisked six eggs into a bowl, adding milk and seasoning. “You know, the first few days here I kept imagining Nadia calling me out of desperation to come back. What a joke.”
“That’s understandable,” Rafe said, probably trying to make me feel better. “What did you imagine saying to her?”
“I didn’t reach that part. It was always the validation I felt at hearing her beg for my return, that I was irreplaceable.”
“You are.”
“Ha! She was right in some ways,” I carried on, scooping butter into the saucepan and flicking on the heat. “There’s always someone better or younger, ready to climb the ranks and take my place. I needed to remember that. Maybe she did me a favour.”
“Bullshit. Experience is just as invaluable.”
“It didn’t help me keep my job though. Now I’m faced with the possibility of being blacklisted. Who’s going to hire me now?”
“Then become your own boss.”
I paused in reaching for a wooden spoon from the utensil holder. “What?”
“You’re worried about getting rehired… Become your own boss.”
His tone was a mix between confident and blasé, as if it was no big deal, as if people randomly decided to start their own business every day. But the idea felt monumental and something about it snagged on something in my brain. I trusted my gut instinct about most things and an immediate no was just that. Immediate. End of discussion. But this… this had the potential to ruminate.
“You like the sound of that, don’t you?” Rafe said knowingly, his tone tinged with amusement.
I’d gone quiet, too quiet, staring unseeing at the wall.
Was I actually considering this?
“I mean, sure,” I admitted and, oh my god, I was. Five minutes ago the thought hadn’t even crossed my mind and now my pulse thundered in my ears at the potential, the possibilities. “I don’t know if I have the means to start my own PR business. I wouldn’t know wheretostart. There’s a lot to consider. Why did you put this idea into my head?”
He chuckled. “I can set you up with my business manager to give you some ideas. If you want.”
“I couldn’t ask you to do that.”
“You didn’t ask. I’m offering. Think up some questions, pick her brain. No strings.”
“Can I think about it?”
“It would be weird if you didn’t.”
I knew for the rest of the day I wouldn’t be able to think of much else.
* * *
After breakfast Rafe made some calls from his temporary desk at the kitchen table while I went in search of the box of decorations.
“I found them,” I called out ten minutes later, carrying a battered cardboard box labelled “XMAS DECS” down the stairs. I set it down on the sofa, blowing across the layer of dust on top before thinking better of it.
“Bless you,” Rafe shouted from the kitchen at the sound of my eye-watering sneeze.
