Mia had told her in the interview that she was moving on, out of the area. Six months was supposed to be perfect because she wasn’t hanging around Lymington any longer. Laura hadn’t dug into what Mia was moving on from; it hadn’t felt relevant. But she’d been so adamant that she was going. ‘I cannot believe she has the experience to handle this campaign,’ she said now, shaking her head. ‘I mean, she came from …’ Laura gestured in the air, trying to recall Mia’s previous job. It had been with a marketing company in Southampton, but not one she had heard of. It was a short-term contract that had conveniently just finished, because it meant Mia could start the following week.

‘Are you actually telling me she’s doing a good job on it?’ Laura asked, though she didn’t want the answer. ‘Better than me?’ she went on. ‘Is Mia doing a better job than me, is that what it is?’

‘No, Laura, it isn’t. You know that’s not the case.’

She could laugh at the thought that she was once so worried about Patrick Carter covering her job. At least she would have known how to get Coopers back from Patrick. But Mia? She was an unknown entity.

Harry squirmed in his leather chair. The irritating squeak sounded loud in the silence between them.

‘She’s not replacing you,’ he said at last. ‘That’s not what this is.’

‘So tell me what it is then,’ she said through gritted teeth. She had to keep it together. With everyone milling about outside the window, she couldn’t let herself down, though she feared she might do so. ‘It sounds like you’ve taken my job away from me while I haven’t been here. I don’t actually think you can do that, Harry.’ She could hear the rise in her voice again, the way it was peaking, too high.

‘Okay,’ he said, leaning back, his face more rigid now, holding his hands up to stop her, like she had gone too far. ‘Let’s not get carried away. You know I would never do anything like that, Laura.’

‘Let’s not get carried away?’ she repeated. ‘Are you kidding me? This is not fair. What you’re doing to me isn’t fair.’ Laura wiped a hand across her eyes again, once more catching Mia in her peripheral vision.

She would not cry. The anger was burning her from the inside, but she would not cry.