‘Who’s FireStarter?’

The slightly confused smile dropped off his face for a second, before he remembered that appearing to be confused might be the best way to play it. ‘Excuse me, darling?’

Ugh. I was too tired and angry and humiliated to faff about. There were times when being able to channel an alter ego superbitch came in handy. ‘She’s just sent you a pictorial recap of the other night.’

‘You were snooping on my phone?’ He stepped closer, ducking his head in an attempt to avoid a scene.

I took a step back. ‘You left it on the table. No snooping required.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘Can we talk about this somewhere else, please? Several of my associates are here.’

‘No. Who is she?’

‘No one,’ he snapped, rolling his eyes in contempt.

‘No one? No one, as in, you don’t even know the name of the woman you cheated on me with?’

‘Oh, come off it, Eleanor,’ he muttered. ‘What are you talking about, cheating? Please don’t start getting all possessive on me, it doesn’t suit you.’

‘What?’ I was the one to look confused, now. ‘What else do you call it if you sleep with someone behind your girlfriend’s back?’

‘I call it perfectly acceptable, if they aren’t exclusive.’

‘You specifically asked me to be exclusive! In August, before I went on the Italian Nonna’s food retreat!’

‘Well,’ he shrugged, glancing about the reception foyer, because it was apparently far more important that he maintained his reputation with his associates than with me. ‘You didn’t ask me back.’

So, I broke up with my non-exclusive boyfriend. Thankfully, he’d proven himself to be a total arse, so I wasn’t too heartbroken about it. Just a little bit lonely – Marcus had made me feel like a grown-up, who knew what she was doing, and had a semblance of a future up ahead. He’d validated my job, laughing off my concerns with comments like, ‘Lighten up, darling – you write humorous food reviews, you aren’t testifying in court.’ He made me feel a tiny bit less like an arse. Or, at least stopped me having so much time to worry about it.

But all that newfound empty time, the time that mattered, in between the fluff and the frippery of my increasingly ghastly job, was now time spent gradually facing up to the fact that I couldn’t keep going any more. The further Nora slipped down this one-way slope to Bitchiness Abyss, the more I loathed what I did. And it wasn’t ‘only a job’, it was my life, and if I had even the slightest modicum of self-worth, I had to acknowledge that how I spent my one precious life mattered.

Here’s a useful tip when deciding whether your chosen career is destroying you one torturous meme at a time: if you are too ashamed to allow your family to read the words you write, then for goodness’ sake, what the hell are you thinking?

I was free now though, wasn’t I? Here in the strong, ancient embrace of Damson Farm? Tucked away in between the gently rolling East Midland hills, amongst the bees and the sheep, the lights of Ferrington glinting through the orchard? After all, I’d had no more messages from the stalker since I’d left. Sure, I’d blocked them, but if they were that determined they’d have simply got another number.