The strategy team is still putting the finishing touches to the high-tech slideshow that will accompany Brendan’s speech, but I’ve been working with them on compiling a briefing document for Brendan with answers to the most likely questions he’ll field.

I’ve also spent a large chunk of my time liaising with our in-house PR team to fill his schedule of press interviews and with our Commercial Director and her team on prepping him for meetings with various European governments who may be keen to commission Sullivan for overseas projects.

It’s a lot, and it doesn’t assuage my guilt about leaving Brendan in the lurch for the biggest event of his year, even if I tell myself that the majority of the work—and skill—lies in the pre-event organisation. By the time he rocks up at the conference, he should be fully prepped and ready to smash it.

After a couple of hours, I take a call from the console in the meeting room. It’s Brendan. ‘Come through for a sec, will you, love?’

‘Sure.’ He shouldn’t really be calling me love in front of his mates, but it’s not an uncommon term of endearment, so hopefully it’ll slide. I stand and grab my notepad and pen, heading down the corridor to the meeting room. I hear them before I see them—a rowdy, unintelligible jumble of male voices. And when I open the door, the odour of booze hits me. It smells like a brewery in here. The table is littered with empty champagne bottles and remnants of food, and most of the men have ditched their jackets and rolled their shirt sleeves up.

‘Here she is!’ Brendan shouts. ‘The woman of the hour.’ He leans back in his chair at the head of the table and grins at me. He looks gorgeous, if pretty dishevelled, and I smile back at him.

‘Come here, come here!’ He beckons me over in an exaggerated manner and I go to him. ‘Guys. Guys. This is Marlowe, my very beautiful assistant, who’s also incredibly competent at everything she does. Isn’t that right, baby?’ He clamps a hand to my bottom, and I freeze. What the hell is he doing?

There are disorderly catcalls at Brendan’s crude words. I feel like a stripper who’s been booked for a stag party. I stare down at him, willing him with my eyes to rein it in or let me go, but his grin has turned dark, and there’s a callous expression on his handsome face now.

‘Did you need something?’ I ask, hoping the stiffness of my tone tells him how low my tolerance level for this shit is.