But now Laura could see a flare in Harry’s eyes, showing he’d had enough, and he went on to say, ‘I’ve made my decision. This is the way it’s going to be, and you’re going to have to find a way to deal with it.’

He continued to hold her gaze before eventually turning back to his cabinet. Laura’s blood pumped furiously through her veins. She could feel the tips of her fingers tingle as if they were no longer attached to the rest of her.

Before, she would have told Harry she didn’t care if he’d made a decision – he was going to have to change it. But then before, this particular problem wouldn’t have happened. And before, Laura wouldn’t have felt the prick of tears jabbing at the corners of her eyes.

She hated that she wanted to flee Harry’s office and keep running. For every time she convinced herself she would get back what was rightly hers, a curveball like emotion would come and knock her off her feet so quickly she didn’t even realise what was happening.

Maybe the sleepless nights weren’t helping. Nate had suggested that she slept in the spare room, which seemed a rocky path to tread, but she couldn’t keep coming into work an emotional wreck.

‘Seriously, Laura, it would be great if you could just work with Mia on this,’ Harry had said.

That night Laura had called her friend Deborah, who worked in HR for a financial-services company in Reading. ‘Can he do this to me?’ she’d asked.

‘It’s a difficult situation,’ Deborah told her. ‘There are no material changes to your role or your pay. Your status is still the same. To be honest, I don’t think you’d have a case, if that’s what you’re after.’

‘That’s what I thought.’

‘I thought you had a great relationship with your boss?’ Deborah went on. ‘I can’t believe he’s doing this to you.’

‘Neither can I,’ Laura murmured. In the five years she’d been working for Harry he’d never once treated her like this. Even when things with Saskia got bad, Harry had always stood by her, and Laura knew well enough that he needn’t have put his neck out for her.

Saskia, her once-friend, had tried to destroy Laura’s career, though not everyone saw it that way. Even Laura could now admit that she’d reacted too quickly, too defensively. But still Harry had taken her side.