‘That’s good. Did he eat all his porridge?’

‘Most of it, greedy little man,’ Nate laughed.

‘He is,’ she smiled, closing her eyes and pressing her fingertips against them.

‘Laura, are you okay? You sound upset?’

‘No, I’m fine.’

‘Bobby’s all right, you know. I’ve been looking after him in the last hour and fifty minutes,’ Nate joked.

‘I know.’

‘Seriously, has something happened?’

‘Oh God, Nate. I don’t know what to do,’ she began, before telling him what had occurred.

‘And so what did Harry actually say was the reason?’ Nate asked.

‘That Mia had started, so she might as well see it through. He said something about easing me back in, and that there was something else in the pipeline.’

‘Okay.’

‘But it’s all crap,’ she cried.

‘What is? The thing in the pipeline?’

‘All of it. What’s she done that’s so special, Nate? She’s clearly done a better job than I have in the last five years.’

‘That won’t be true.’

‘It must be. I can’t think of any other reason why she’d be kept on.’

‘But maybe there is something else that Harry wants you to work on?’

‘Of course there isn’t,’ Laura protested as she paced to the front door of the empty foyer and then back again to the lift. Her head was spinning and she couldn’t clear it. Her stomach was a jumbled mess of knots at the thought of stepping back in that lift and having to face Mia again, because right now she would like nothing more than to run out of the door and not come back.

‘Well, maybe he’s right,’ Nate was saying, ‘and it’ll be good to ease yourself back in.’

‘I don’t need to do that, Nate,’ she said, her voice rising. ‘Harry knows what I’m like – he would never have thought I needed time to get back into it. No. I’m telling you, she’s clearly better than I am, and so I’m just going to have to accept that, aren’t I?’ she said, knowing there’d never be a day when that would happen.

‘Laura, you’re getting yourself worked up.’

‘Of course I am,’ she cried, splaying her other hand against her head. ‘Mia’s a bloody temp, Nate. And she’s stolen my job.’

‘No, she hasn’t, love. By the sound of it, she’s doing this one thing and—’

‘Oh my God, Nate, will you stop doing that.’

‘Doing what?’ he said. ‘I’m only trying to help you.’

‘I know you are, but you aren’t. I just want you to be on my side and not keep telling me it’s okay, because it actually isn’t.’