Chapter 20

Emmanuel’s vote of confidence carries me through the week, pushing my nagging exhaustion to one side. Things seem to happen very quickly: I receive my programme information by email, then a date is set for an induction day that I’ll attend alongside some other company colleagues. Between this and the flirty, stomach-swirling messages torpedoing back and forth between me and Matt, I keep thinking this is all too good to be true. Even Danielle doesn’t rattle me, though she keeps popping up, armed with some snarky comment or other.

Friday is no exception to this. As we’re parked in our usual meeting room, having our weekly project meeting with colleagues from our international offices joining through Zoom, Danielle decides to throw in yet another of her grenades.

‘Sorry for keeping you a couple of minutes late – especially on a Friday.’ I start to wrap things up. ‘That was really useful to work through the specific stakeholder issues we’re experiencing. Before we sign off, does anyone have any final questions or concerns about what we’ve discussed and agreed today?’

There’s a collective ‘no’ in response.

‘I’m just concerned it’s 4:32 p.m. on a Friday and I’m not in the pub yet,’ Dhruv jokes.

‘Shall I add that to the issue log?’ I throw back.

There’s a smattering of laughter in response to our regular double act. I’m about to wish everyone a good weekend when Danielle pipes up.

‘Actually, I have a question.’

‘Sure, Danielle.’ I smile easily at her, but I’m wondering why she feels the need to hold everyone up even longer and what kind of shit she’s about to try to stir up. ‘What’s on your mind?’

‘I was just wondering… if you’re going to have less time to manage the project now, have you put plans in place to cover some of your responsibilities?’

‘Sorry, Danielle. I’m not sure what you’re referring to?’

‘Oh, you know, because you’re on the Future Leaders programme now. That will take up quite a bit of your time. Congratulations, by the way.’

I blanch internally, but ensure I keep my face poker-straight. How the hell does she know about that? Emmanuel and I were keeping that between us until next week, when she was going to announce it at the quarterly departmental meeting. Emmanuel has already warned me that this kind of internal success can cause resentment among colleagues who have not been successful – Felix, our change manager, being one who didn’t quite make the cut – which is why the announcement was to be carefully managed.

I take a moment to consider my response, so I can ensure that I keep things as smooth as possible.

‘Thank you, Danielle. Everyone, this news was supposed to be shared next week. I haven’t yet had the chance to digest it myself.’

‘So, will you be delegating some of your responsibilities?’ Danielle asks, before anyone else can get a word in.

‘We’re still working things through, Danielle. I expect I’ll keep the majority of my workload, but I may need support with some of the project governance activities.’