“Doing well.” She smiled. Turns out Tom was good at taking advice, the kind she was keen to deliver, and was much more deserving of the top job than she’d imagined. Turns out she was right about the type of consulting services Wentworth needed as well, not that Aaron was getting the benefit of her insight. Seems in a roundabout way he’d given her a lead on a job anyway. She really did owe him lunch.
“Now explain the name to me. Third Way. I was worried you’d gotten religion when you first mentioned it.”
She laughed. “Oh, it’s religion all right.” That’s exactly what the name of her new consulting practice was to her, sacred. “I could’ve had a corporate job, the big salary, the corner office, my old career. But I felt like it was a phase I’d worked through. The thought of doing that again.” She shuddered. The sacrifice, the half life, no amount of salary packaging made that desirable. In the wake of Mace leaving, faced with a new employment contract, it’d been a shock to realise how much she’d changed, how different the things she wanted were. “Or I could’ve sold up every share, every remaining asset I had and gambled the lot on being an artist. I wanted both, and this was the only way I could see I was going to get it. Be my own boss. I have my client portfolio and my art portfolio. I have two wardrobes of clothing and two sources of income. The third way is my way.”
“Very Frank Sinatra.”
“So you approve.” The old Jacinta would’ve prized Jay’s approval. The BLT cook didn’t give a squirt of mayonnaise for it and that was a much healthier position.
“Since I can hire you from time to time to work with start-ups, yes, I approve. But what about you?”
“I’m happy.” She’d done the right thing, not stepping back into her old way of living. It felt good.
He gave her the once-over. “You look well.” He apparently found that puzzling, but then he’d seen her doing so badly in those first days after Mace. “Tell me more.”
“I don’t feel blue anymore.” Her despair had hardened like eggshell around the liquid mush of her heart and she could go about acting normally now. “I’m challenged. I name my own price, my own hours. I can work from anywhere I want, and I don’t have to meet anyone’s expectations but my own.”
“It’s what you want?”
In the absence of what she couldn’t have, who she couldn’t have. “What I need. What I can make a good life from. One of the best decisions I’ve made.”
Jay waved a crust of toast at her. “And no regrets?”
She sighed. “You want me to ask about him.” She fisted hands to hips. “Has he asked about me?”
“After that one excruciating conversation where I thought he might punch me—me, the man who has financed his dream, rather than tell me anything, no, your name has not once been mentioned. Thank Christ. I’m too old to feel fear like that.”
She stifled a laugh. “Then I don’t need to know about him.” Because knowing about him was throwing the window open and letting the sights and smells of summer in when she was still wrapped in winter and needed insulation from wondering what if.
“Truly.”
Jay could be snippy; he only need say a single word to cut. She folded her arms. She needed to get him to change the subject. “Why are you being mean to me?”
“It’s BLT shock.” He was utterly straight-faced. “I can’t accept you don’t want to know.”
“You never wanted to talk about us when Mace and I were together, why would you want to now?”
“It was a conflict of interest then.” He shrugged.
And it wasn’t now. It was Jay looking out for her like he’d always done. “It’s been over a long time.” But not long enough to move past it. To forgive herself for calling it over.
“Time is a flexible concept.”
“Time is a limited commodity.” She’d relearned that the hard way.
“Yes, well, if you’ve got time, I’ll have another one of these.” He waved a hand over his empty plate. “I’m starving. And while you’re making it I’ll tell you about Dillon, because he’s a mutual acquaintance and you might want to know how he’s doing.”
“I haven’t heard from Dillon either.” Not that she’d expected to, he was Mace’s wingman through and through. The kind of friend she’d never been lucky enough to have. It would only have been horribly awkward if he’d tried to stay in touch.
Jay pouted. “Do you want to know about the most exciting investment I’ve made in my whole career or not?”
She made a show of reluctance then said, “Fine,” much like a sixteen year old would, complete with eyes raised to the ceiling.
He told her. He talked at length, through his second BLT, about premises and banking covenants, markets and legal and trading issues. Ipseity employed over a hundred people, and had a strong pipeline of projected revenue, and a final capital raising he had to fly back to manage. He thought they should be able to list, if the economy favoured it, in two to five years with one of those mind-boggling capitalisations. Meanwhile, there was plenty of money being made.
“I underestimated Dillon. Knew he’d be a good salesman, he’s more, a lot more. He’s a leader. Incisive, a quick study. Works damn hard. People like him, trust him and want to work with him and that’s half the battle.”
And only half the story. But she wouldn’t ask. To ask was to bring on the ache.