‘Laura. It’s good to meet you,’ Miles said. His steely-blue eyes didn’t leave hers. They seem to twinkle as he smiled, and it was only after he finally pulled away that she told herself to get it together.

He offered to get them both a drink, but Harry insisted and she watched her boss walk to the bar. He was a good three inches shorter and, next to Miles, he looked slight – so different from his usual presence, which filled a room. Put them both together and you would automatically look past Harry, and Laura considered that Harry must know this. She wondered how he felt about it.

‘Have a seat,’ Miles smiled and pulled one out for Laura, his hand lingering on the back of it as she sat down. As soon as Harry came back to the table the two men began chatting easily, names thrown back and forth; some she thought she might have heard of, others she hadn’t a clue about, and at no point had she been able to do much more than sit there cradling her lemonade, listening to the conversation like a spare part they’d both forgotten about.

‘I’m so sorry, Laura,’ Miles eventually said, breaking off. ‘You must think we’re rude. I always hate it when my girlfriend gets together with her old friends from school and I can’t join in the conversation.’

Laura noticed the way he said ‘girlfriend’, like he was proud of the fact he wasn’t married, even though she figured he was easily in his late forties.

‘Only Harry and I haven’t seen each other in, what – what is it, Harry?’ he continued.

‘Five and a half years,’ Harry said without a beat, raising his eyebrows as he did so, which made Laura wonder if there was a particular reason why Harry knew it was exactly five and a half years since they’d last met.

Miles nodded. ‘Doesn’t time fly?’ His lips were pursed, his expression more sombre than it had been. Laura was desperate to ask what memory had flashed into both their heads, stopping them in their tracks, taking them back to a time she wasn’t sure either of them were keen to go.

‘So you’re looking for someone to launch your new brand,’ Harry said, pulling himself together, leaning back in his chair and crossing one leg over the other. He ran his fingers up and down the seam of his suit trousers, a habit of old, Laura knew, from the number of times she’d watched him do it.

‘That’s right, and so of course I thought of you.’

‘Miles here has broken out on his own.’ Harry turned to Laura.

‘And about time too,’ Miles laughed, causing Harry to laugh along with him, only she was more intrigued by their interchange now, and suddenly wondered how easy Harry actually felt in Miles’s company.