As far as Laura was concerned, nothing had changed between them apart from one thing. Mia. And now she had no idea how to get Harry to listen to her any more. But by the following morning, when Laura walked into the office and saw Mia’s shiny young face smiling back at her, she’d already decided she wasn’t going to take this. Somehow – and whatever it took – she was getting her account back.

Laura held her gaze for a moment longer, wondering if Mia was looking forward to the weekend as much as she was making out. ‘Bryony,’ she said as she started walking towards her desk, ‘have you got the direct-mail packs back from the studio yet?’

‘No.’ Bryony shook her head and started to follow Laura across the floor.

Laura glanced in the direction of the creative studio as they passed, where their art director, Mike Lewis, was hunched over his oversized screen, a large mug of coffee gripped in one hand. He was always in early because he always left by four, but he couldn’t make it through the morning without at least five cups of coffee. She watched him push his thick grey glasses up his nose and squint at whatever he was poring over. Mike had a mop of dark hair that sprang out of the top of his head and, combined with his unironed shirts and rolled-up sleeves, he never looked remotely neat.

‘They were due back yesterday. Have you chased them?’ Laura asked her.

‘Yes, I spoke to Mike this morning,’ Bryony said. ‘He told me he’d look at them next week.’

‘Next week?’ Laura stopped, the muscles in her shoulders tightening. ‘So he hasn’t even started them?’

‘No.’ Bryony paused. ‘I didn’t think it was that urgent?’ she went on, wide-eyed, wondering if she’d missed a deadline.

She hadn’t, but that wasn’t the point. Laura’s name was on it, and Mike would have always got to it by now. ‘Did he say why?’

‘Well, yeah, it’s the TV-campaign pitch,’ Bryony answered, as if everyone knew that. Which of course they did. And of course everyone also understood that its work was to take precedence. And if Laura was running it, she would happily have shifted the direct-mail packs for the local estate agency to the following week. After all, they brought in less than ten per cent of her own targets.

But she wasn’t running it.

‘That’s not good enough,’ Laura snapped and even though her anger was directed at Mike, she knew it might sound like she was taking it out on Bryony. But in that moment she didn’t particularly care. ‘Mike, I need a word with you,’ she called, as she left Bryony and paced over to him.