CHAPTER ONE

       Two Weeks Earlier

      It was more or less a day like any other when it all went wrong.

      My alarm went off, I got up, showered in silence and watched fifteen minutes of breakfast news with stuttering subtitles so as not to wake my flatmate. I got dressed, I checked my bag to make sure I had an adequate number of tampons even though my period was a good three weeks away, and after checking I’d turned my hair straighteners off twice, I left for the office. As usual, I was the first in. No one else made it in before ten on Mondays, but I was the kind of irritating person who got a lot more done without the clacking of everyone else’s keyboards to distract me. Early mornings and late nights were my friends. And given the frequency with which they occurred, they were pretty much my only friends. But on this particular Monday, I had good reason to be so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. After seven years’ hard slog, I was getting the promotion I’d been dreaming of. I, Tess Brookes, was about to become the youngest creative director in the history of Donovan & Dunning.

      Obviously no one was quite as excited about this as me, so it wasn’t exactly a shock that I was sitting outside the HR manager’s office before she’d even got off the Tube. It was fair to say I was dead giddy.

      ‘Morning, Raquel.’ I gave her a cheek-achingly massive smile when she finally appeared at the top of the stairs. It couldn’t hurt, I reasoned; after all, today was my day. Some girls had weddings, some had babies, I had my promotion. And that was only sad if you let it be.

      ‘Tess.’ Raquel, short, bleach blonde and dead-eyed, motioned for me to follow her into her office. She didn’t look surprised to see me. And why would she? We’d been discussing this promotion for the past six months; I figured she’d be glad to see the back of me. All that was left was for me to sign my new contract and then I’d be out of her way. For six months. I was ambitious.

      ‘OK, so let’s just get straight to this.’ She sat down behind a too big desk and smiled. ‘I’ve got some difficult news.’

      ‘Right.’ I sat up straight and put on my ‘I’m listening’ face. Difficult news? Was she leaving? Maybe she was leaving. I really hoped she was leaving.

      ‘As you know, the company has gone through quite a lot of changes in the past twelve months,’ Raquel said, folding her hands in front of her and leaning her head to one side. Such a serious soul was Raquel. Probably because she fired people for a living and everyone hated her. ‘And as such, we are having to undertake some necessary measures to ensure a successful restructure.’

      ‘OK,’ I nodded. This was a very funny way of giving me a big hug and a key to the executive bathroom. Of course I knew there was a restructure. They were restructuring me into a corner office and a big fat pay rise. Which was much needed to pay for the ridiculously expensive Promotion Shoes that were currently rubbing the fuck out of my feet.

      ‘As you know,’ she repeated, ‘the original plan for the business was to move you into a creative director role, with the copy and design teams reporting directly to you.’

      ‘The original plan?’ I was starting to feel a fraction less giddy.

      ‘The original plan,’ she confirmed, never taking her eyes off me.

      This didn’t sound wonderful. Why wasn’t she squealing and giving me a present? And why was she smiling? Raquel never smiled.

      ‘Unfortunately, due to the new restructure, we will not be moving ahead with the original plan. The creative director role you were moving into is no longer part of the planned downsizing of the company.’

      Words I officially did not enjoy. Unfortunately. Restructure. Downsizing.

      ‘And as such, your role has been restructured out of the business.’

      I was definitely ready for the hug and the present.

      ‘The creative director role –’ my voice did not sound nearly as steady as I would like – ‘has been restructured out of the business?’

      After seven years of overtime, evenings and weekends, I was being stiffed out of my promotion by an HR demon with a gob full of business jargon and clichés.

      ‘Yes.’ Raquel gave me the same look you might give a small child who has just successfully worked out that cows go moo.

      ‘So I’m not going to be the new creative director?’

      ‘You are not.’

      Poof. There it went. Bye bye, promotion. Hello, God knows how many more years back at my old desk. Hello, shit-ton of overtime I was going to have to do to pay for my new shoes. I stared at an Oxford University mug sitting right on the edge of her desk and fought the urge to move it out of harm’s way. Who went to Oxford and then ended up doing HR for an advertising company?

      ‘As you’ll see, we’ve put together a very fair redundancy package,’ Raquel continued, switching gears so fast I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right. She pushed a stiff cardboard envelope across the desk towards me and tapped it twice. ‘Given the circumstances, we understand if you would like to leave immediately. I can forward your personal effects. If you could just leave your phone and security pass with me, I’ll take care of all of that.’

      I looked down at the envelope and then back up at Satan’s minion.

      ‘I’m afraid I’m not following,’ I said as politely as possible. ‘Redundancy package?’

      ‘The company no longer has a position available for you.’ Raquel scratched her nose delicately. I resisted the urge to slap it. Only just. ‘At all.’

      ‘So when you say the creative director role has been restructured out of the business …’ I took a deep breath and tried very hard not to vomit. ‘What you are actually saying is that I have been restructured out of the business?’

      ‘The creative director role,’ she repeated with a nod, ‘is no longer viable in the current business plan. You are the creative director.’

      ‘But I haven’t even started the job. How can I have been restructured out of it?’ I was aware that my voice was starting to get uncomfortably high. I was even more aware of the fact that I was going to cry. I blinked twice and stared hard at the Oxford mug, trying to regain my composure.

      ‘I understand you are bound to have some questions.’ Raquel’s shark eyes had already glazed over. ‘Perhaps you’d like to schedule some time to go over them on the phone tomorrow.’

      ‘Or perhaps I’d like you to stop being a dick and tell me why I’m being fired?’ I shouted.

      There was no stopping the tears. Between the blisters on my heels and my blind rage, there was nothing I could do to stem the