She felt bad, then, realizing how worked up he was. After all, if this didn’t pan out, he might soon be out of a job. It was one thing for her to be blasé about losing her position, given the hefty severance package she would get, but another thing entirely for him. Of course, she would hire him, if he wanted to work for her, at whatever came next, but that wouldn’t necessarily help him in the interim. She leaned forward and patted his knee.

“Have I ever let you down?”

He smiled and relaxed a little more, sinking back into his luxurious leather seat. “No. Of course not. You always know how to bring old men to their knees.”

She laughed. “I do, at that. And I’ll do it today.”

“I know you will.”

“Good. Now be a pal and find us something to drink that will knock out this headache.”

He dug around in the little leather-topped icebox and handed her a bottle of water. She glared at him—ineffectively with the sunglasses—and he pretended not to notice. Still, he was right, of course. She needed to be running at full capacity. If she meant to really try to win this thing, more alcohol wouldn’t help. The “if” gave her pause, the bottle of water stopping halfway to her lips. Of course I’m going to try, she told herself. Why wouldn’t I?

She watched the cars driving on the other side of the highway, a sight always disconcerting and incredibly strange the first few days here in the UK, more so now as she was so exhausted.

She glanced at Ted, who was staring at his phone and grinning again, texting like mad. Probably a new boyfriend, she thought. He’d been dating Rick from the art department somewhat recently, but she’d been led to believe that was over a while ago. Must be someone new.

Ted had told her about every boyfriend he’d ever had, and so had Stuart, for that matter. Yet she couldn’t remember the last time she’d even mentioned a girlfriend to either of them. Not because she hadn’t dated—she did, on occasion—but because each and every one of those women wasn’t worth talking about. How pathetic was that? And now here she was, wanting to talk about Maddie, desperate to talk about Maddie, and she couldn’t, or at least wouldn’t.

Ted seemed to realize he was being rude and put his phone away.

“Sorry. It’s Bill,” he explained. “I was telling him we made it.”

Ryann let the little white lie pass. They’d clearly had more to talk about than that. Maybe they’d only recently started dating. He was being awfully coy.

“Bill?” she asked. “The CFO’s assistant?”