‘Of course you can do it!’ Liv said firmly. ‘You’ll be amazing. And Hayley will have to suck it up. Don’t worry about her, only about yourself. You will be great at this. In fact, I’d love you to be my agent!’

I laughed. ‘Yeah, and leave Hayley when I move to Simon’s agency, can you imagine?’ She giggled along with me. ‘God, what would she say?’

‘I dread to think,’ Liv said. Then she eyed me across the table. ‘Have you spoken to Jake about it all? I bet he’d be chuffed to hear Simon has offered you this job.’

‘No, we haven’t spoken since the meeting. He was frustrated that I went along with what Hayley wanted. And he was right. I told him to be honest then did the opposite myself. I think he’d tell me to go for this new job like you have.’

‘I think so too,’ she agreed. ‘Does his opinion still matter to you?’

I had a sip of my wine as I considered that. ‘I don’t know. I want him to think well of me, I guess. We seemed so close for a while. I don’t like the idea of not seeing him ever again but if I leave Hayley, when will I?’

‘You could reach out and tell him about what’s happened…’

‘I have enough to worry about with telling Hayley. No, Jake and I are in the past. I need to look to the future now.’

Liv looked a little bit sad but she raised her wine glass. ‘And it will be a great future, I have no doubt. Here’s to your new opportunity.’ We clinked our glasses and both had a sip. I did feel a lot better now I’d spoken to Liv and she didn’t seem to think this was a crazy idea. She was encouraging. And my gut was telling me to go for it. Now I would have to talk to Hayley.

I hoped I’d make it through doing that in one piece.

* * *

After not sleeping and putting my dress on back to front, I eventually stumbled out of my flat and got the Tube to work. I had a large coffee on the way to wake up but that made my nerves about seeing Hayley double. I was a jittery wreck by the time I turned into the road where our building was. I was half-inclined to call in sick and try this another day but I had emailed Simon last night and told him I wanted to take him up on the job offer, and he’d been delighted and told me to let him know as soon as I had spoken to Hayley. I couldn’t chicken out now, as much as I really wanted to.