On Monday morning, all Kellington’s staff convened as usual on the ground floor for the morning briefing. Emily’s absence was glaring.

‘As you’ll see, no Emily this morning,’ Josh said matter-of-factly. ‘Sadly, she has now left the company. She handed in her notice late on Friday.’

There was a collective gasp as everyone glanced at each other and a second or two of awkward silence ensued. Josh didn’t fill in the blanks; instead he simply launched into the day’s new products overview.

After the briefing, everyone disbanded and Josh went straight upstairs to Mr Kellington’s office.

Holly stood in her usual area of the showroom.

She realised that under Emily’s ever-critical glare, she’d subconsciously defaulted to the rear of the space. Now she walked forward and stood in what had been Emily’s hallowed spot.

The March sunlight that usually lit Emily up like an archangel flooded in through the enormous window and did the same to Holly. It felt so good that it was now she whose face was turned towards the rays.

She found she couldn’t stand in the sun for long, though. She still had a dull headache from her drinking binge at the weekend.

She had quickly polished off the bottle of wine she’d brought with her from Manchester, and when Cora had run short of milk on Sunday morning, she’d taken the opportunity to pop to the local shop, where she’d invested in another two bottles.

She’d told Cora she felt under the weather and had spent most of the weekend in her bedroom, cowering from the sound of the telephone ringing or a loud knock at the front door.

But neither had happened. It seemed as if she’d done a good job of scaring herself senseless over nothing again.

Still, it was wonderful to feel so relaxed at the beginning of the day, instead of focusing on keeping out of Emily’s way and trying to avoid annoying her in some inconsequential and unavoidable way.

Ben and Martyn were chatting at the top end of the showroom in their usual spots and the atmosphere felt so… well, nice.

‘Hasn’t taken you long to jump into Emily’s shoes, I see!’

Holly spun round to see Josh approaching, a teasing grin plastered on his face.

‘I wasn’t… I mean, I’m not…’

‘Hello? It was a joke.’ He shook his head. ‘If you hadn’t been standing in her plum spot when I came down, I’d have asked you why not.’

‘I’m shocked she isn’t here,’ Holly said. ‘I didn’t think she’d get fired for what happened.’

‘What she did, it was pretty serious, considering.’ Josh shrugged. ‘Damaging an exclusive piece like the Lalique vase and then trying to pin the blame on a colleague. You’re very generous, Holly. If she’d accused me, I would’ve demanded she get fired.’

He checked the price of a standard lamp next to him and ticked it off on a clipboard he held in the crook of his arm.

‘Anyway, she wasn’t fired. Mr Kellington was willing to issue her with a final written warning, but she took it upon herself to resign. Told him to stick his job where the sun don’t shine… charming, eh?’

‘Wow.’ Holly took in this new information. ‘She wouldn’t want the stigma of it, I suppose. Colleagues and customers gossiping about her.’

Josh pulled the corners of his mouth down and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Dunno. She said she had something far more important to do with her time, and that…’ he affected a sinister tone, ‘we’d all find out soon enough. Creepy!’

‘What did she mean by that?’ Holly asked faintly.

‘Who knows what anything means with Emily?’ He grinned. ‘Good riddance is what I say. No place for that sort of underhanded business here at Kellington’s.’

Holly stepped back and leaned against the heavy glass dining table behind her.

Emily’s comments had sounded like some sort of veiled threat. And Holly had been on the receiving end of her threats before.

‘What happened to the girl who had the job before I came?’ she asked. ‘Why did she leave?’

The grin slid from Josh’s face. ‘Why do you ask?’

She told him what Emily had said about her, and her subsequent warning in the staffroom.

‘Oh God, I had no idea she’d been so bad with you.’ He swallowed. ‘You should’ve come to me, Holly, you should’ve—’

‘So how did Emily get rid of the last girl?’

Josh was silent for a few seconds before clearing his throat.

‘I’m sorry, I can’t discuss private staff matters.’ He took a step back from her. ‘Confidentiality and all that. I know you’ll understand.’

Holly’s interest was immediately piqued. Whatever had happened to the last member of staff Emily hadn’t liked might have well happened to her too. Irritation with Josh squirmed in her throat.

‘Anyway, cheer up,’ Josh said brightly. ‘Mr Kellington’s in no rush to take someone else on, so he wanted me to ask if you feel confident enough to look after Emily’s regular customers.’

She wasn’t sure she could follow Emily’s Oscar-winning performances with Mr and Mrs Fenwick, but she felt delighted that Mr Kellington had displayed such faith in her.

‘I’d love to, thanks.’

She pushed Emily’s bitter words before leaving to the back of her mind. What could the woman do to her, really? Nothing. Unless she wanted to do time for it.

‘Excellent.’ Josh began to walk away. ‘I’ll tell him right now and you can thank me with a cream cake on payday… You’ve got to spend that enormous commission on something worthwhile, right?’

Commission! She reminded herself she’d be raking it in big-time now Emily had gone.

A pleasant place to work and a big fat pay packet… what was not to like?

---

It had been normal for Geraldine’s mood to be on the low side.

Holly had quickly come to realise that although Brendan popped in and out of the house most days, he stayed away from home a lot. Consequently, there had been an ongoing expectation for Holly to think of suitable ways to cheer his wife up.

It didn’t sound much, but Holly actually found it hard work to make suggestions and motivate Geraldine, particularly when she was feeling low. So it had made a pleasant change when Geraldine had approached her, upbeat, one morning.

‘Brendan is home for dinner tonight and I’m cooking him something nice. Let’s sit down over breakfast and discuss what needs to be done.’

Holly made skinny lattes at the coffee machine whilst Geraldine scribbled notes. She eventually decided on beef stroganoff with rice and a simple pavlova for dessert.

Holly had watched enviously as her employer scrolled through Google looking for suitable recipes. She’d almost forgotten what it was like to have your own phone to play with, swiping through the various screens.

She’d written Aunt Susan a short note as Geraldine had suggested, and the housekeeper, Patricia, had kindly posted it for her. But that had been a little while ago now and she’d had no reply.

It was at that point that Holly had realised that although she was out of the house a lot, shopping, at the cinema or restaurants, she was never out alone. Since she’d arrived, she had been constantly in Geraldine’s company in and out of the house.

There was nothing wrong with it; just a funny little fact, she’d thought at the time. And when she’d mentioned it to Geraldine, she’d shrugged and asked Holly coolly if that was a problem for her. Holly hadn’t mentioned it again.

‘I’ll help you get everything ready for the meal and then I’ll disappear upstairs to my room before Brendan gets home,’ she told Geraldine now.

‘No way!’ Geraldine had grabbed her hand. ‘The three of us will eat together, I insist on it.’

Holly had smiled and successfully hidden the uncomfortable stirring in her stomach. She certainly didn’t relish playing gooseberry to those two.

She had noticed that Geraldine was very touchy-feely with Brendan, on the few brief occasions he stayed at the house longer than ten minutes. It was as if she saw so little of him, she had to make it count when she did.

After an afternoon at Waitrose getting all the stuff, and then a couple of hours in the kitchen preparing the dishes, Holly had felt exhausted and sorely wished she’d got the night off.

In the last week or so, Geraldine had been proving to be very hard work.

On the face of it, Holly’s job sounded like every young girl’s dream. Lunching out in fabulous eateries, watching films, shopping, coffee and endless chats… but she had soon realised she could never be herself.

She hadn’t thought she even liked herself that much, but now that ‘new Holly’ was the only one around, she’d started to mourn the more relaxed, authentic version of herself.

The one that wasn’t always kowtowing to Geraldine, always down in the gym, always watching what she ate.

She could never complain that she was too tired for the next marathon shopping trip, or tell Geraldine that actually she didn’t feel like watching yet another episode of The Real Housewives of Orange County. She couldn’t decline Geraldine’s offer to accompany her to the nail and hair salon and say that she’d much rather stay in her bedroom and read, or go for a nice relaxed walk around the grounds for a bit of space and fresh air.

It was also a job that had no set hours. Holly was on call twenty-four hours a day. One time Brendan was working away and Geraldine had suffered a stomach upset in the middle of the night and been unable to sleep. Holly had also been roused from her slumbers and summoned downstairs to look after her boss as you would do a sick child.

It was times like this that she had known she must swallow down the resentment that clotted in her chest.

She’d still felt lucky to have the job, but with no contract to refer to, she didn’t know whether she’d actually signed up to such demands, so she couldn’t begin to do anything about it.

Maybe, she’d thought, when she had Brendan and Geraldine together at last tonight, it would be a good chance to try broaching one or two uncomfortable subjects again.

It had seemed like a good idea at the time.