‘Doreen and I had the contract drafted ten days ago,’ Kerry pointed out. ‘You were the one who sat on it for a week and only noticed the errors yesterday.’

‘I’m busy, in case you haven’t noticed.’

Kerry snorted. ‘You left early to play golf two afternoons this week. I’ve been here until eight every night, trying to sort this leasing deal.’

Doug stood up and roared. ‘How dare you speak to me like that in my own office. You’ve worked here less than two years. I’ve had unpaid interns who are more effective than you.’

‘You’re a bully,’ Kerry told her boss, as he moved around the table and faced her off.

‘Sweetheart, if you can’t take the heat …’

‘Do you want me to try and find someone from another law firm, or not?’ Kerry asked. ‘And I am not your sweetheart.’

‘Whatever,’ Doug said. ‘You made the problem, you solve it.’

Kerry made a little grunt as she spun on high heels and left her boss’ office.

‘You OK?’ a colleague asked, seeing a tear in Kerry’s eye as she strode twenty paces to her windowless office.

‘I’ll live,’ Kerry said unconvincingly.

But the tears kept welling when Kerry reached her desk. Besides the contract her boss was yelling about, there were files for three more deals on her desk: finance for a soft drink bottling plant in Chile, a deal to lease trains in Russia and a Spanish billionaire who was planning to buy a Welsh furniture maker, fire all the workers and move production to a giant factory he was building in Romania.

If nothing happened, she’d get through all of her work by 7 p.m., but something always happened. Kerry groaned as her mobile buzzed, but smiled when she saw a picture message from James on the screen. It showed the peeling frontage of accommodation hut 32 at the CHERUB summer hostel.

Just landed. Remember what we got up to in here, back in Summer 08?

Kerry zoomed the picture message as Doug walked by, bawling out someone else. She could see a tiny James, reflected in the hut’s front window, with his camera phone in front of his face and the black skinny jeans that made his bum look good. She’d never wanted to hug him so badly and her fingers hovered over the keyboard on her screen, before typing:

2 late 2 join the gang?

James was online and replied instantly. Heck no!!! RU serious?

Deadly serious.

Kerry trembled as she opened her briefcase. She tipped all the work papers on to her desk, took out her work phone and laptop. Then she replaced them with a framed desk photo of James and the bobble head Elvis and Jesus figures stuck to the top of her monitor.