‘You’re not serious?’
Delia and Joe stared at me from the other side of the boardroom table.
‘Pretty serious,’ I said. ‘It would be a really rubbish joke if I wasn’t.’
‘You’re not taking the job?’ Delia asked. She looked upwards as she spoke, as though she was trying to translate the words from another language. ‘You’re going to leave?’
‘That is the gist of it,’ I confirmed. ‘Yes. I don’t want to be Junior Global Brand Director for Women’s Lifestyle Brands.’
It had taken me all weekend to learn how to say that without looking at it written down.
‘You haven’t thought this through,’ Joe said, shaking his blond head. ‘Weren’t you at a wedding this weekend? Take a couple more days, there’s no rush.’
‘There is, actually,’ I replied. ‘I’ve still got all my holidays to take this year, and if I hand my notice in today, I can leave at the end of the day and that ties up nicely with the Christmas break, so yeah, it’s all very neat and tidy.’
‘You’re going to walk out on your magazine?’ Joe did not look impressed. ‘I thought you loved that magazine.’
‘I do,’ I said, wanting this part of the day to be over. ‘But the team will manage without me for a couple of weeks. They’re really good – you should keep that in mind before you go and fire half of them.’
‘Is this because you’re pregnant?’ Delia asked, lowering her gaze to my carefully disguised stomach.
‘You know?’ I asked, protectively covering my belly.
‘Everyone knows,’ she replied, looking slightly hurt. ‘I figured it out when I ran into you at the doctor’s office, and everyone knows you’ve been throwing up and skipping out on drinks. Plus, you have a huge bump, it wasn’t hard to guess. I thought maybe you would tell me at the wedding, but you were too busy avoiding me all night.’
It was fair, I had been avoiding her, but I’d also been trying to keep my dad off the Sambuca shots and Mum away from Sadie’s surgically reconstructed nose, so I’d had my hands full for most of the night.
‘She’s pregnant?’ Joe yelped. ‘Now?’
Well, at least I’d managed to keep it a surprise from someone.
‘Weren’t you the one who told me she was sick in your trash can?’ Delia asked.
‘Yes, but I assumed that was from the excitement,’ he said, throwing his hands up in the air. ‘And she said something about lactose intolerance. How was I supposed to know she was pregnant?’
‘You picked a real winner to be running women’s brands,’ I told Delia. ‘Good work.’
‘You don’t have to leave,’ she said, moving right past my snarky comment. ‘If you don’t want to take the director role, we’ll figure something else out.’
It was hard. Harder than I thought it would be. Gritting my teeth and closing my eyes, I shook my head.
‘It’s time for a change,’ I told her. ‘Spencer Media has been the most amazing place for me, and now it’s going to be an amazing place for someone else. It’s not that I don’t want to be here any more, it’s just that there’s something else I want more.’
‘And what’s that?’ Joe asked, his gaze turning steely next to Delia’s arch disappointment.
‘I don’t know yet,’ I said, standing up to leave. ‘But I’ll figure it out.’
‘Happy Christmas Eve,’ Alex said. ‘How did it go?’
He was waiting for me outside the office, all bundled up in his Brooklyn Industries padded coat, skinny black jeans, and a red and white Santa hat on his head. I bit my lip to stop myself from crying as he stooped down to kiss me.
‘Joe was confused, Delia was pretty upset, and everyone else cried,’ I said, tucking my Alexander Skarsgård poster into my tote bag. ‘Me included. Actually, mostly me. Alex, it was so weird. I can’t believe I quit Gloss.’
‘I’m proud of you,’ he said, taking a second Santa hat out of his pocket and resting it on top of my head. ‘Want to go for a walk?’
‘Why not?’ I said, following him up Broadway. ‘I’ve got nothing else to do, have I?’
Times Square was manic. There were always at least three times as many people as could comfortably fit inside one city block, especially when that city block also had moving traffic flowing through but Christmas was the exception. New York emptied out for the holidays: it was like Jenny always said, not many people were from New York, they came here to become someone new. At Christmas, they all went back to wherever they came from, either to play at being their old selves for a few days or to show everyone at home how much they’d changed, because that was a certainty. Everyone who came to New York changed, one way or another.
For the first time in months, there was room to breathe in the streets. I held Alex’s hand but walked in my own space, not huddled into him, trying not to be knocked over or pushed out of someone’s way. The city was mine again, if only for a couple of days.
‘Have you talked to Cici?’ Alex asked, flipping the white fluffy pompom on the end of his hat over to a more rakish angle.
‘I have.’ I tightened my glittery Marc Jacobs scarf around my neck. It was getting really cold. ‘We’re going to meet in January. She can’t really try to hire anyone away until Joe and Caroline have done their cull, but there are definitely a few people who are way too talented to be unemployed who are going to be looking for jobs. I would imagine the promise of a bigger pay cheque and health insurance will help them overlook the fact they’d be working for Cici Spencer.’
‘Technically,’ he corrected me as we crossed 59th Street into Central Park, ‘they’ll be working for you.’
‘Maybe,’ I reminded him, walking towards the ice rink. I could barely stay upright in regular shoes when I was on solid ground, but I still loved to watch other people skate. Everyone was happy when they were skating. ‘I still haven’t accepted her offer.’
‘And there’s no rush,’ he insisted, pausing at the top of one of the little stone bridges, looking down on the frozen pond. ‘I know you made the right choice.’
Alex moved behind me to cuddle me and the bump as we watched all the little kids skate by. Bundled up in hats and scarves and mittens, they whirled around the ice with grins on their faces and their arms flapping at their sides. One little girl with long blonde hair stuttered back and forth, stomping rather than skating as she chased a bigger boy in a blue hat. They were both laughing, not a care in the world between them.
‘I know I did,’ I agreed, leaning in for a kiss, revelling in our warm lips and cold noses. ‘And everything else will work itself out.’
It didn’t seem quite possible. If I could have popped back in time to give Past Angela a heads up, she would never have believed me. Sitting on the sofa with Mark, probably staring sadly out the window and daydreaming about a life so far away from her every day. But here I was, standing side by side with a man so wonderful you couldn’t make him up, walking out on one adventure, right into another and to top it all off, I was completely full of baby. It only seemed like two minutes since I’d arrived in New York with nothing more than a weekend bag, a broken heart and the four Toblerones I’d bought at the airport. And now … it really didn’t seem possible.
‘It’ll all be great,’ Alex promised, interrupting my thoughts with a squeeze of my hand. ‘Everything is going to be perfect.’
I took a deep breath and felt my waistband strain against my stomach.
‘Everything already is,’ I replied, meeting his eyes as I breathed out and smiled. ‘Everything already is.’