Jake hesitated and leaned back slightly to look at me behind Hayley. I couldn’t fathom his expression but he seemed to be looking at me for some kind of cue. I was still stunned at what Hayley had said but she had pointed out she was Jake’s agent, not me, and that we would discuss my career after this meeting. Did I actually have any other choice here but to sit and listen to Hayley bigging herself up? Wasn’t that what she had basically told me she would do, and it would be for the purpose of Jake getting the best deal? I knew that was in all of our best interests so I gave Jake a firm nod, hoping he would take that as encouragement to tell the story Hayley wanted him to.

Jake seem to hesitate but finally, he cleared his throat and looked across the table. He began the story of what happened in New York and as he told it, he made it sound like we had planned it all along and we hadn’t had a disastrous first couple of days at the conference. Jake was, of course, a brilliant storyteller so everyone was in the palm of his hand.

‘And Jake was the talk of the conference after that,’ Hayley said triumphantly after he had finished. ‘Wasn’t he, Freya?’ She looked across at me.

I nodded along quickly. ‘Everyone was talking about it and so many readers came up to him asking about when there might be another book out,’ I said, relieved I didn’t need to lie about that. It was just frustrating that Hayley wasn’t telling anyone that I had been the one to encourage Jake to be honest. I wouldn’t have minded her taking the credit exactly if she had at all been supportive at the time but she had wanted Jake to keep lying, and had been really unhelpful when things had gone wrong at first, basically telling me I’d failed. Then she’d turned up and almost fired me, tried to take over but when Jake had done what I suggested and it had worked, she had changed tack completely. Now we had been successful, it was like she couldn’t remember not being on board.

Or was hoping that we wouldn’t remember.

But I did.

‘And they would be thrilled to know that he has a book all ready to go,’ Hayley said after beaming at me like she was really proud.

I had looked up to her but now I wasn’t sure I could trust her. First Jake, now Hayley. My head and heart hurt.

‘When I Met You, as you all know, is Jake’s best book so far. It’s bound to be a bestseller,’ Hayley added.

Again, her words galled me. Just an hour ago in her office, she had dismissed my praise of his book.