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‘He sounds like a first-class idiot.’
‘He is. I never really understood why Melissa hired him in the first place.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Of course, now it all makes sense. She must have planned him to buy her out all the way back then.’ She groaned. ‘I really don’t know how long I’ll last before I give him a piece of my mind and get fired.’
‘Why don’t you just leave then?’
‘Yeah, right.’
He paused. ‘I’m being serious. If you’re already worried about going back, why don’t you just leave? You could start your own law firm, or find another job.’
‘It’s not as easy as that, though, is it?’ She wiped a chip in the grains of salt clinging to the inside of the cardboard cone and popped it in her mouth. ‘Not in the real world.’
‘It was for me.’ He shrugged. ‘It wasn’t without its challenges at the beginning, but it’s a decision I have never regretted.’
They walked down the slope and onto the beach. Pausing, she watched the rolling waves encroaching up the sand. It wouldn’t be that easy. She had her apartment, her life. Okay, she had her apartment and her job. Every other aspect of her life had shrunk the more she’d worked. ‘I’ve put my whole career into that firm. My life.’
‘Maybe it’s time you made your career work for you instead of living to work.’ He stopped next to her, the sleeve of his coat brushing against hers.
‘That’s impossible.’
‘Not really. I didn’t ever think I’d start my own business, so if I can do it, anyone can. Besides, you’re in the perfect position to start your own firm.’
‘How do you figure that out?’ She looked at him and, reaching across, tucked his hair behind his ear.
‘You were ready to be promoted to partner of a huge law firm in the city. You would be standing here as a partner now if your boss hadn’t been haemorrhaging money from the firm. If you’re ready to be a partner of the firm you’re working at now, then how different would it be to start your own? You’d be starting from afresh, so you’d grow your business as and when you felt comfortable to. You wouldn’t have to answer to the likes of Steven or be played by people like your boss. You’d be the boss.’
‘Hmm.’
‘You could even start it down here. I hear Trestow needs a new law firm.’ He grinned at her and raised his eyebrows.
‘Oi! Are you just trying to get me to move here?’ Laughing, she threw a chip at him.
‘Oi yourself! You’ve got to admit it’s a good idea? You’d be the boss; you could start the firm anywhere you wanted. Just please try to keep it within, say, a travelling distance of six hours?’ He chuckled. ‘No, seriously. I’d come and visit you wherever you decided to base yourself. You know that.’
‘Even the Outer Hebrides?’
‘Even the Outer Hebrides, though I’d expect you to throw in a super thick, storm-resistant coat if that was the case.’
Taking a deep breath, she looked up and down the beach. With the row of shops and the bakery on one side and the lighthouse standing tall on the other, would there really be a better place to move to? It wasn’t such a bad idea. She had made friends here. She felt welcome, an equal. She could walk down the street and say hello or ask people how their day was going. She’d never done that in London. She’d never even thought to. ‘Do you know what? It’s not such a bad idea after all.’
‘You know I’d support you in anything you choose to do, don’t you?’ Scrunching up his empty chip cone, he drew her in for a hug.
‘I do, yes.’ Tucking her head between his neck and his shoulder, she held him tightly. There was so much pulling her to quit work and start afresh down here. Not that it would feel afresh, not with the friendship group, the bakery family and, of course, Jack by her side. There was more in the bay to keep her here than in London, in the city she’d lived in for all these years.
