‘Not surprised after what happened,’ Ellen said, shaking her head.

‘I know, right? I’ll see you at lunch,’ I told her, walking on into our open-plan office, looking over as Hayley stepped out of her private office to greet Jake. She gave me a quick wave before disappearing in there with him and closing her door.

I headed to my desk and hoped that Jake had more things to worry about than my lack of a love life and would forget everything he might have heard by the lifts. I wanted to be my most professional self when dealing with him, but my rant this morning had completely obliterated any success I might have had so far at doing that.

Smoothing down my summer dress, I sat down at my desk and thought about Jake’s latest book. I had begged Hayley to let me read it. I had genuinely loved it but I wasn’t sure if it would, or should, be published. Three months ago, an article had circulated like wildfire after Jake was overheard talking about the fact he hated writing romance. He was quoted by the journalist as saying, ‘My readers are stupid for believing in happy ever afters. But I’m happy to take their money anyway.’ His fanbase had rightly been furious and his publishers were now being cagey about offering him a new contract. I knew Hayley was meeting him this morning to discuss how they could fix the fallout and get him a new book deal.

But did he deserve a new deal?

His words had stuck a knife into my heart, confirming what I’d said to Liv about modern men having seemingly lost the romance gene. It was like Jake Richards had destroyed all the happy ever afters he had written in one fell swoop. It had made me question whether happy ever after could ever exist in real life. If my favourite romance writer didn’t actually believe in love then maybe I needed to give up on finding it for myself. And that was an incredibly depressing thought.

Hayley’s office door opened then and she leaned out and called my name. ‘Freya, can you come in for a sec please?’

I turned around and swallowed hard. ‘Uh okay,’ I called back, wishing I could refuse. I really didn’t think I could look Jake Richards in the eyes right now. I prayed he hadn’t told Hayley about what I’d said in the office. Surely, he wouldn’t do that? I really didn’t want to have to find out but Hayley was waiting for me so I stood up, took a deep breath, and walked into her office.

As I closed the door behind me, I hoped that I wasn’t about to be sacked from my dream job.

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