‘I heard him asking you to send flowers to someone today,’ I venture.

‘Yes. That’s very standard. He likes to follow up, keep them on the back burner. But he gets bored so easily, bless him. Variety is the spice of life where that man is concerned.’

Jesus. How long will I last? How long before he runs out of ways to fuck me in his office, before being with the same woman day in, day out has him running for the hills? I sigh. I may need to hit Athena and the other seraphim up for some tips on how to keep things novel, at least for as long as it takes me to pull together the vast funds for Tabby’s US trip and beyond.

The familiar spiral takes hold, the blind panic that her fate lies in my hands. That it’s down to me to pull this off when I’m more out of my depth than I’ve ever been. I feel like Anne Boleyn and every other wife Henry VIII ever had, desperate to keep her mercurial king happy and focused on her and her interests for as long as possible.

The anxiety is so forceful it almost drowns out Elaine’s next piece of advice.

‘And for God’s sake, don’t let him anywhere near that coffee machine.’

One of the rules Seraph is very big on is keeping strictly enforced business hours. Obviously, these EA positions are critical roles with a tonne of responsibility and, as with any other important role, work-life balance can be tricky to manage. It’s assumed that there will be evenings where we’re on our laptops late at night or can’t unplug from our email or have to juggle key deadlines. But here’s the crux of it:

We can’t do it from the office.

Camille drummed this into me on the phone call where she formally passed on Brendan’s post-coital job offer.

‘Being a seraph is intense,’ she told me in her calm, modulated tones. ‘Intellectually, physically, and emotionally. And the men who hire seraphim are usually powerful and often entitled. They’re used to getting whatever they want and they’re not used to hearing no. If you don’t leave that office by six each night, before you know it, you’ll be their arm candy at every function. You’ll be their fully fledged escort. If they want you at your best every day, they have to understand that you need to protect your downtime fiercely.’