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“You lost your temper. Again. With the son of a very important client.” Darren held up both his hands, palms outward. “Just let me do what I can to mitigate this. You’ll come in with me, but you’ll sit there and stay quiet until I tell you not to.”

“I—”

“I will fire you myself if you so much as utter a syllable without my permission.”

She clamped her mouth shut.

“Better,” Darren said. He looked her up and down, obviouslyfinding her presentable. “Right, let’s get in there then.” He took her arm and stopped her for a second. “Listen, I’ll do what I can, but no promises.”

Her mouth went dry and her stomach flip-flopped. She wasn’t sure how it had all come to this. How had she gone from a normal day to suddenly having the threat of losing everything over her head? It seemed like such an over-reaction.

Darren let go of her arm and she followed him into the room.

IT HELPED IF she looked at the table. It helped if she tried to block out what was being said. But then, she’d always had good hearing, and Darren wasn’t exactly keeping his voice low.

“Ms. Williams has proven results,” he was saying now.

“There’s no room for a loose cannon,” said Hawkins, Darren’s boss and a man that Alli rarely saw.

“Ms. Williams has been putting a lot of work in and a lot of hours in,” said Darren.

“And now she’s having a mental breakdown?” asked Hawkins.

Alli looked up at this, ready to jump down his throat, but she caught Darren’s eye and saw that he was about to grasp what he saw as a lifebelt. She cleared her throat. Screw this, no one was about to throw her under the mental health bus, she wasn’t going to stand for this, she—

“Perhaps we could ask Ms. Williams to wait outside for a few moments?” Darren said.

Hawkins grunted, but Alli stayed where she was. Darren kicked her under the table. “Al, if you wouldn’t mind?”

She very much did mind. She minded so much that she thought she might burst with it. But she looked at his face and then she looked at Hawkins’ face and Halen’s face and, god help her, Colman’s impassive face, and she froze.

“We’ll call for you when we’re ready for you,” drawled Colman. A partner. The man who controlled everything. Well, half of everything.

Ali found herself standing up and walking out and closing thedoor and collapsing into one of the waiting chairs outside.

This couldn’t be happening. Not over a mistake. She’d be the first to admit that she’d lost it a little. Okay, she could probably be a bit more patient. But how was she to know who the damn man was? It wasn’t like she wasn’t polite to his father.

He’d been asking stupid questions and she had a limited amount of time.

Still though, she couldn’t lose it all over this, over something so small that it practically wasn’t anything at all.

Apart from anything else, what the hell would she do all day? She tried to imagine a day without an office to go to and couldn’t.

Of course, there were weekends. But she mostly worked. Or did laundry. Ordered her shopping in. That was pretty much it.

How was she supposed to fill hours and hours without going to work?

Her stomach felt acidic again and her mouth tasted bad and the more she thought about things, the more angry she got. This was all a stupid mistake and now Darren was in there calling her a hysterical woman and pretending like she had mental health problems and…

And then the door was opening and the men were walking out. Colman and Hawkins didn’t look at her. Halen gave her a sympathetic glance. Darren waited for them to leave and then slumped into the chair beside her.

“You can thank me by taking on my shittiest client,” he said.

“What?”

“I’m kidding. Sort of.”

“Thank you?” she said, seething. “Thank you for what, exactly?”