‘Okay.’ She reaches into her box again and pulls out the shirt. I can hear the fabric snipping as I head past the cars and across the courtyard and press the buzzer to get out of the enormous brown wooden door.

And as I rush to the metro beneath a perfect blue sky, ornate black balconies decorated with red pot plants set against it, I think to myself, Thank god I’m no longer in love. And then I check my messages.

There’s one. It’s from Camilla.

I just got a screening call from Vogue! They want to interview me!

The elevator doors open, and I walk casually across the office floor, over to my desk like I’m not the last one here and sweating from the jog from the station. But I’m feeling righteous, like a modern-day fairy godmother, what with Camilla’s interview (I texted her straight back to tell her it was me who’d sent them her resume) and my being there for my neighbour. Not even the sight of twelve certain roses sitting on Claudia’s desk can fuck up my mood this morning. Everything is well in the world. As long as I don’t think about Noah, or Agnès Bisset, or Sabine, or that video…

I get to my desk, drop my bag on the floor, fire up my computer and sit down. Wesley is watching me with a smug I-got-here-before-you look on his face.

‘Hyacinth is looking for you,’ he says, a sort of glee in his eyes.

It’s probably about my article. Please let it be good.

And then I hear, ‘Harper?’

I look in the direction of the sound. It’s Hyacinth, standing in her open doorway.

‘Yes?’ I ask, my voice coming out a lot more self-assured than I feel.

‘You’re late.’

Shit.

‘Yes, I’m so sorry I—’

‘Can I see you for a moment?’

Let me repeat: Shiiiiiit.

‘Of course,’ I say, heading to her office. This can’t be good. If she loved my article she’d have just sent back a ‘Great!’ or ‘Better!’.

My heart is beating double time as I move through her door while my mind sifts through the changes I made to Noah’s article over the weekend: I spoke about his brother, his use of comics, his mysterious branding. I left out Sabine, of course. The last thing I needed was for her Vimeo account to blow up with new followers – if she posts that video of me and Noah I want as few people to see it as possible. But I’d cut my Berthe Morisot references in half, I thought I’d done well. Done exactly what she asked. So why is Hyacinth looking at me with an angry hyena glint as she sits down in her big black leather chair. ‘Sit,’ she says and so I do.

Oh god, I’m going to get sacked.

My legs are crossed, my hands clasped, my body leaning forward. I know enough about body language to know that I’m basically pleading, so I force myself to pull back and relax.