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I held out my hand. ‘I’ll be the judge of that.’
She passed it over. I flipped it open, my heart racing as I perused the three neatly typed sheets
containing my packed daily schedule. There was nothing about a meeting or call with Jensen Scott.
Bleak disappointment thudding through me, I handed back the binder, aware Elsa was staring at me.
‘Is there something specific I should be looking at?’ she asked.
‘No.’
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Well...your first meeting is at nine. I’ll give you the usual ten-minute heads-up.’
She started to walk away.
‘Is Larry in? Do you know if he’s heard from Jensen Scott?’ I blurted before I could stop myself.
Elsa turned around, her eyes flaring with interest at the mention of Jensen’s name. I tightened my
fist in my lap, attempting to breathe calmly so as not to give myself away.
‘Larry left for Jo’burg last Thursday. He’s taking his annual leave before he starts the next project. I emailed you about it last week.’
‘Can you liaise with his assistant and let me know the minute Mr Scott gets in touch?’ I said briskly, partly because I didn’t want Elsa to linger, and slip into one of her girly chats about Jensen.
It worked, my solemn mood filtering through to her. With a nod, she left my office. My hands shook
as I laid them back on the desk.
Jensen had said he’d be in touch next week. It’d only been two days, for heaven’s sake. And yet it
felt like a lifetime. I turned back to the window, irritated the rain was still falling, that it hadn’t turned into snow while my back was turned.
I was still standing there, fighting a losing battle with dejection, when Elsa returned with the
promised ten-minute warning.
Get your head back in the game.
But my performance was perfunctory at best, only years of experience seeing me through the busy
day. The magazine I was so passionate about, nurtured from an often disregarded five-page newsletter into an award-winning mechanism for charity, had lost its lustre. And I wasn’t sure whether to be
terrified or shocked at my apathy.
In between meetings, I rabidly refreshed my inbox, hoping for an email from Jensen.
It didn’t arrive.
I held my breath each time Elsa entered my office with a message, each time a new email hit my
inbox and I experienced a bolt of excitement, only to deflate when it wasn’t the one I yearned for. By Friday afternoon, I wanted to hate him for sticking to his word. For cutting me off so clinically.
But how could I when nothing had changed for me, except the searing sense of loss every time I
thought about him? How selfish did it make me to long this desperately for a moment of joy on what
should be a conclusion to a business transaction for the sole purpose of alleviating my loneliness?