Standing uncertainly, I wobbled my way across the room as The Songbird dipped and surged out of the harbour, the low hum of the engines vibrating through the soles of my bare feet. I needed to get out of the room, quite certain I’d feel better on the deck. A bit of fresh air, another look at Lenny and, if I could find my way back to the galley, perhaps half a packet of Hobnobs to soothe my frayed nerves.

But the biscuits were not to be. As I rushed out the door, I collided with an absolute Amazon. Almost six feet and swimming in scent, the glossy skinned goddess took a short step back as I gripped the door frame with both hands in an attempt to stay upright.

‘Oof, sorry,’ I said, my stomach lurching as the boat shifted under my already unsteady legs.

The woman glared down at me. She had a tumble of white-blonde hair piled up on top of her head and a pair of comically oversized sunglasses covering most of her face, which she slid up, taking me in with perfect almond-shaped eyes, before dropping them back into place. It was all of three seconds, maybe five, but I felt as though she’d stared straight into my soul and knew all my deepest, darkest secrets. She knew I’d carved equations into the lid of my calculator to pass my Maths GCSE, that I’d once put two Chocolate Oranges through the self-checkout but only paid for one, and that I’d snuck out to see the last Star Wars film without telling anyone the day it came out, then pretended I hadn’t seen it when Stew and I went together, three days later.

There was only one person she could be.

‘Hello,’ I said, trying and failing to keep the tremor out of my voice. ‘I’m Fran Cooper.’

‘Good for you,’ she replied in a low, rich voice. ‘I’m Juliette.’

CHAPTER SIX

Most assistant jobs ended up being more or less the same, whether you happened to be working for a multinational tech corporation or a family-owned box company run by idiots. I knew this because I’d done both.

But Juliette was not most people and this was not most jobs.

‘So …’ Juliette pulled her tortoiseshell sunglasses out of her hair and hooked one of the arms over her lower lip. ‘You’re the best she could come up with, are you?’

‘Looks like it,’ I replied with my head held high. Breaking in a new boss was a lot like breaking in a horse, you couldn’t show fear or they would never respect you. Also, many of them were appreciative of sugar lumps and I personally didn’t think riding them was a very good idea.