Which was fair enough, Ed had to admit to himself. It wasn’t likely that Perdita herself would ever be interested in a dull, middle-aged widower with three teenagers in tow.

Was it?

CHAPTER FOUR

ED CLEARED his throat. Well, no point going there. He’d better begin.

‘So, did it take you long to recover from the leadership development course?’ he asked. It felt pretty lame, but he had to start somewhere. This was the kind of meeting he could do in his sleep normally, but somehow everything felt different with Perdita.

‘It wasn’t too bad,’ she said. ‘It took me some time to catch up with things afterwards, and I got very sick of my colleagues screeching and pretending to be peacocks whenever I appeared,’ she added tartly, ‘but, apart from that, it was OK.’

He was leaning forward, resting his forearms on his knees and letting his loosely clasped hands fall easily between them as the penetrating grey eyes rested on her face. ‘What did you think of the course?’ he asked.

Realising that she was fiddling with the file on her lap, Perdita made herself stop and rest her hands on top of it.

‘Honestly? I thought all the animal stuff was a bit silly, but it’s been quite useful in trying to recognise that different members of my team have different strengths. And I learnt how to build a pontoon bridge, so it wasn’t all bad!’

He smiled in a way that did horrible things to her heartbeat. ‘You never know when that will come in handy! You weren’t that impressed by the course when you were there, as I remember, but I’m glad you got something out of it.’

He paused and his expression became more serious. ‘I do have some feedback from the facilitators for you but, before we discuss that, I’d like to know how you envisage your role at Bell Browning developing.’

‘In what respect?’ asked Perdita cautiously. She didn’t like the sound of feedback.

‘Are you happy as Operations Manager?’

‘Yes,’ she said, suspicious about where all this was going. ‘Is there a problem with my performance?’

‘On the contrary,’ said Ed, picking up a file from the seat next to him and scanning it. ‘Operations have an excellent reputation for delivering on time and under cost. Congratulations. The Board are very pleased with what you’ve done since you took over.’

‘It’s not just me,’ said Perdita quickly. ‘Everyone on the team has worked really hard-and that’s in spite of me being a peacock,’ she couldn’t resist adding.

The grey eyes glinted distractingly. ‘Clearly your leadership style works. What was it again? “I tell my staff what to do and they do it”?’ Ed’s voice was threaded with amusement.

Perdita had the grace to blush. ‘I do try and be a little more tactful than that most of the time.’

‘And your staff speak very highly of you too.’ Ed closed the file and dropped it on to the table between them. ‘The question is whether you want to stay as Operations Manager or if you’d like to develop your role further.’

‘In what way?’ Perdita’s gaze sharpened with interest and she sat up straighter.

‘I’ve been in discussion with the Board and we see the potential to expand internationally,’ he said. ‘We’d need someone with a specific responsibility for liaising with prospective clients overseas, and your languages and experience of working overseas make you the ideal candidate. This is still at the discussion stage, of course, but it would be useful to know if you would be interested in principle.’

Ed was somewhat taken aback to see Perdita light up like a candle with excitement. For a moment she seemed 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.’