Laura knew all this, and yet she still hadn’t said anything to Nate. Why is that? she thought on Monday night as she stood outside the offices, wrapping her arms across her chest. Maybe it was because she hadn’t wanted to hear him say that it was time to cut back her hours. To say goodbye to her career as she knew it. Maybe it was because she still wasn’t ready to do anything about it, when she still hadn’t found out the truth about Mia Anderson.

How far away any thoughts of Mia seemed now there were other thoughts tangling themselves around those, strangling them so that they could no longer breathe. Right now, it was Harry who filled her head; Harry who was filling Laura with such anger.

Earlier that morning, Laura had woken late. Her stomach still felt queasy, even though it was two days after the party, and so Laura had texted Harry and told him she would be working from home.

But by midday she couldn’t concentrate, when her unfinished conversation with Mia was spread like sparse pieces of a jigsaw in her brain. Laura had needed to put an end to it, so she had forced herself into work, head down to avoid the inevitable patronising glances as she searched out Mia, who was nowhere to be seen.

As she dumped her bag at her desk, she caught sight of Miles in Harry’s office and briefly wondered what he was doing there, when she didn’t realise they had a meeting. Harry’s face was impassive, but Laura could tell he was tense by the way he stood, one hand leaning rigidly on the desk in front of him. But she hadn’t hung around for long. Mia had been her main concern and so she’d continued to search the floor, peering into meeting rooms, stopping to ask Henrietta James if she had seen her.

By all accounts no one had, and neither did it seem Mia had called in. How much all the staff must have hoped that she and Mia would have some kind of showdown in the office, Laura had thought as she checked her watch. It was strange that Mia hadn’t turned up. There hadn’t been a morning yet when she hadn’t been there before Laura. For some weird reason, it was oddly unsettling.

By late afternoon Laura had given up hope of talking to Mia and instead had waited for Harry and Miles to return. They had been out of the office since lunchtime and she didn’t want to leave before they’d caught up. She didn’t want to admit she had been put out they hadn’t invited her to lunch, but she had been.