‘Listen, we’ve had a bit of a shocker this end. I just got off the phone with the bank and they won’t extend our loan.’

‘I thought we had until next month to pay?’ Minnie said.

‘So did I,’ sighed Leila. ‘I thought if we could just get the subsidy funding through from the council and then push our deliveries this month, we’d be able to scrape by, but we won’t find out about the funding until February and we just don’t have enough orders this month to make what we owe. Everyone’s broke after Christmas. I can’t see a way around it, Minnie.’

Minnie sat down on the plush white sofa and hung her head in her hands. She and Leila had put four years of their life into this. They’d sweated, they’d worked seventy-hour weeks, they’d put in all their savings, and now what? They’d just close up shop, let their staff go, hand the kitchen’s lease over to the next naïve young fool who wanted to watch their dream slowly wither?

‘There’s nothing we can do to hold them off?’ Minnie asked, squeezing her eyes tight shut. Was she really going to lose her flat and her business in the same week?

‘Minnie, I just can’t see a way through this,’ Leila said quietly. ‘Every month feels like the Pamplona bull run, just madly dashing to stay alive and not to get gored by some raging bank bull. I’ve tried not to stress you out with the funding side of things, but I just can’t hold up the dam any more.’

Minnie could hear the stress in her friend’s voice. Leila took on most of the company’s financial responsibilities. Minnie hated that it was her dream to run a baking business that had brought her best friend this low. ‘Listen, let’s just meet at the office on Monday and go through how we’re going to manage this. I can’t do anything more this week, I’ve got Ian’s sister’s wedding tomorrow.’

‘Should I call the others?’ asked Minnie. They only employed Bev, Alan and Fleur part-time, so no one would be in until Monday now.

‘No, I’d rather tell them the bad news together, once we know what’s happening. We’ve got pre-paid orders we need to deliver, so we need them to come in.’

Once Minnie had put the phone down, she looked around at the enormous living room she was sitting in; the luxuriously thick cream rug, the plush linen cushions in perfectly coordinated duck egg fabrics, the enormous ottoman coffee table with a shelf beneath full of exquisite, hardbacked coffee-table books. She heard Tara laughing in the kitchen.

‘Everything OK?’ Quinn said from the doorway to the living room.

‘I need to go home, I’m afraid,’ Minnie said, taking a slow breath in through her nose.