The Passion Play Read Free Page B

furiously and Felicity absorbed the small impact against her abdomen. His eyes were fixed on her face, very wide and wondering, and his mouth was open as he quested towards his own fist and its treasure. "He's so precious." She whispered it, and now she felt a pressure like a balloon filling inside her chest and suddenly she was blinking back tears. She lowered her head to hide them, kissed that squishy little fist and yearned with all her being.
    "You and Dan don't have any kids, do you?"
    "No." She heard the thickness in her voice.
    "You should. You'd be a great mom. Though it's hard to fit it in around work, I know. There's never a good time. If Adam hadn't made up his own mind to come I might have gone on putting it off forever. And now," she gestured at the toy-strewn carpet, the drying rack with its burden of little clothes and the burp cloths draped over the arm of the nearby couch, "sales is like a whole other world. I can't even imagine being in the midst of that. The money's not important. You just have to prioritize, you know?"
    Felicity nodded, her head still down, not ready to trust her voice again.
    "After all, what else is it for? What's the point of saving it up just to be rich someday? I can't replace this, can I?"
    Felicity shook her head.
    "That's what I think, anyway. Though of course it's different strokes for different folks. And I'm sure you've worked really hard to get to where you are today and it seems too hard to give it up or even take a break. It can't have been easy to do what you do. I know I- I hope you won't take this the wrong way – but I wasn't sure I should work with you to start with. I mean, you hardly look like my idea of a finance whiz. Gosh, that sounds awful, but I mean as pretty as you are. I suppose you get that a lot."
    She paused, anxious and expectant, and after a moment Felicity nodded again. Not that many people said it in so many words, but it was true her client list had built slowly and on the basis of solid results, not automatic trust generated by the sight of her.
    " Which is obviously really stupid, because you've been so incredibly helpful and you certainly know exactly what you're talking about. I've learned so much just doing what we have. You make everything clear and you're so helpful-"
    "It's my job."
    "I know. I know. But it's meant a lot to me, to have someone I can trust take care of all this. I wouldn't even have an income right now if it wasn't for you. I couldn't be at home with Adam. I wouldn't even have the choice. So thanks. I owe this to you."
    " It was you who earned the money to make the investments."
    "I did. And I'm proud of what I've built. But I wouldn't have known where to start. It's been great, is all. I was telling Tanya so the other day." Tanya was a mutual friend, the wife of an ex-player from Dan’s team. "I didn't know you worked with them too."
    "I've helped a few of the players."  She always wanted to sit footballers down and give them a stern talking-to about the shortness of their career, the relative length of their life, and get them into a good investment plan. With a couple of them she had managed it, but most shuffled away uneasily as if from a mother's boring lecture, avoided her with guilty looks, went and wasted it all. But Joe had Tanya to take firm hold of their finances and insist they see a professional to make the most of his seven-figure income. Felicity had been her choice.
    She balanced Adam as he leaned away from her to look at something on the floor that had caught his eye. A moment later he squirmed for release, and she lowered him with more care than necessary, keeping her hands on him for as long as she could justify. He was oblivious, reaching for his new prize, a striped ball. His hand batted it out of reach and she put him down and brought the ball back to him, h eld it until he had a firm grip. He tried to get a mouthful.
    "Five months old now?" she asked.
    "Almost."
    "Another couple of months and he'll be