‘Yeah, I know.’ Filthy. Expensive. Deadly. But the spare pack in Rob’s top drawer had been calling to me ever since he left for lunch.

‘Doesn’t make me miss it any less,’ she added.

‘Does it get easier?’ I asked, hopeful.

She rolled her eyes. ‘God, I wish. Hugh turned into a complete evangelist after he quit. I think that’s the only way.’ Hugh was her husband. ‘But let’s be real,’ she said, ‘it’s all denial in one form or another, isn’t it? How’s the report looking?’

I pushed on the corner of my screen, angling it towards her. She came around beside me as I clicked off the web browser and back into Word. The flashing rectangle screamed at me from the side of the screen. ‘Good, I think.’

She leaned in over my shoulder, her blonde hair brushing my arm. ‘This looks great. When did we get the data in?’

‘Yesterday.’

‘Jesus,’ she sighed. ‘You make us all look bad. This is excellent work.’

I shrugged. ‘It’s really not that much.’

‘Stop, Caitlin.’ She straightened, studied me. ‘How many times do we have to have this conversation?’

‘Fine.’ I smiled. ‘Thank you, Annaliese.’

‘Better.’

She looked around, checking that the office was still empty—as though anyone was going to be back from lunch before three. ‘Have you given any more thought to what we were talking about last week?’

I bit my lip.

‘Carly’s got six weeks left. I don’t want to advertise. And Liv keeps asking me what I’m planning.’

I took a breath. Carly was our head of campaign strategy, several pay grades above me, and seven months’ pregnant. Liv was her assistant, which meant that in theory she was first in line to take over while Carly was on leave. But she just doesn’t have that spark, Annaliese had said to me a couple of months ago. Last week we’d been having lunch and she’d asked me if I’d consider stepping up.

‘Not really,’ I replied.

It was a lie. When she’d first mentioned it, it had seemed like perfect timing, too good to be true, but the more I thought about it, the more wrong it felt.

Once, I would have called Lina and talked it over with her, but I knew what she’d say—that I should do it, think of the money, that it would look amazing on my résumé, that I was worrying too much and I should just do it.

She’d say it was a sign. She’d probably say that first, before all the other things. I wasn’t sure I could handle it if she said it was a sign. I’d been telling myself the same thing; first Lina had bought a house, and now this—it was all part of the plan—but I didn’t want to hear it.