Chapter 1
Emilia. Rule No. 1: Don’t End the Day by Quitting.
I rush out of the Blake & Rowe office, weaving between men in suits hurrying home just as quickly as I’m used to running for coffee for my Boss. Except this time, I’m not rushing for him. I’m rushing for myself.
Across the road is the salvation of every workaholic in the area: the Subway on Canada Square, open from seven in the morning until late at night. A place where every sandwich feels almost like a tiny breather in the frantic rhythm of the day.
It always smells of freshly baked bread in here, and the queue of colleagues feels less like an exhausting wait and more like a brief ritual: breathe out in relief, spend an extra minute choosing the perfect filling, smile at the barista, then charge back into battle.
My phone vibrates in my hand, and I glance quickly at the screen as I speed up.
Oliver. My boyfriend.
More accurately… my boyfriend for now.
‘Liv, hi!’ I burst into the café and immediately spot him at a table by the window. ‘I’m so sorry. I really am…’
‘Sorry? You?’ He gives a short laugh, leaning back in his chair. ‘This isn’t funny any more. Do you even remember what yesterday was?’
‘Sorry, yesterday I…’
‘Emilia, you seriously don’t remember what yesterday was?’
My internal calendar, which normally runs better than a Swiss watch, comes up blank.
‘Er… Wednesday?’
‘Our anniversary, Em. Six months. Six months together.’
Six months? Does anyone actually celebrate that? That’s the shelf life of Belgian waffles, not a relationship.
‘Liv, I’m sorry. I really…’
I reach for his hand, but he quickly pulls away, rolling his eyes.
‘I’m tired of hearing that every time. All you care about is your job, your Boss and getting promoted. That’s what you live for. Not your own life.’
Without meaning to, I look towards the glass tower of One Canada Square in the heart of Canary Wharf.
My dream.
My hope.
And the cage I keep chaining myself to.
Right. Guilty.
‘I just forgot to charge my phone,’ I say automatically, reaching for an excuse.
‘You didn’t come. You didn’t text. I sat alone in the restaurant all evening.’
‘Liv…’
‘I don’t want to be the person who always comes second.’
I bite my lower lip, nervously squeezing my fingers together beneath the table. My palms are slightly damp, and a hard knot tightens in my chest.
‘Are you breaking up with me?’
‘No, Em. You left on your own. You just didn’t even notice.’
His words hang in the air like the full stop at the end of a story I never had time to live.
‘Oliver…’ My voice comes out quieter than I want it to. ‘I really didn’t mean to hurt you…’
He slowly gets to his feet, takes his jacket from the back of the chair and drops a couple of notes onto the table. For the sandwich he never even touched.
‘You know, Em, this isn’t about one forgotten anniversary. It’s that you’re always somewhere else. Even when you’re sitting right opposite me, your mind is anywhere but here. At the office. In reports. Planning how to get your promotion.’
I look at his tired, disappointed face and know with painful clarity that he’s right.
How many times have I checked my emails over dinner? How many ‘just one minute’ visits to my laptop have turned into hours?
But instead of guilt, something strange rises inside me.
Relief.
‘Goodbye, Em.’ Oliver pauses for a second by the door.
I don’t run after him.
I don’t call out.
I don’t try to catch him.
I just sit there and watch him disappear into the stream of people outside.
‘Next!’ The barista waves a hand. ‘The usual, Emilia?’
‘Yes, please. Double flat white. And… something sweet. At least that’ll stay with me until the last bite.’
While I wait for my order, my phone vibrates again. I swipe across the screen even though the voice inside my head is screaming: don’t you dare.
‘Em?’ She doesn’t even bother saying hello. ‘Where were you?’
‘Where… when?’
‘At dinner! Tonight!’
‘Tonight?..’
‘Right now! I cooked! I set the table! I even lit candles!’
‘Lil, I’m sorry, I…’
‘Don’t. This is too much now, Em. You can’t keep disappearing all the time.’
I bite my lip. Everything inside me tightens, but I hold myself together.
‘I’ll make it up to you. I promise.’
‘I don’t want promises. Just… show up when your little sister asks you to.’
She hangs up.
I collect my coffee, nod goodbye to the barista, breathe out and step back into the cool London evening. A red bus glides past me around the bend in the street like a shot from an old film. A misty haze hangs in the air, softening the sharp edges of the skyscrapers. People walk quickly with their heads down.
So do I.
In time with this city.
In time with its pulse.
The lift carries me up to the thirty-seventh floor — home to Blake & Rowe. Open-plan office, glass, metal, perfect order. And the feeling that if I disappear for even one day, the whole thing will collapse.
I drop into my chair, set down my coffee and open my laptop.
Twenty-three unread emails flash across the screen one after another, followed by seven Slack notifications and three messages from Jessica, our project manager.
Jess: Have you seen the revisions for the Harper&Co campaign?
Jess: Em?
Jess: EMILIA???
No, Jessica, I haven’t.
I’ve only seen my life falling apart.
Me: Working on it.
And I work.
Three hours.
Without a break.
Without air.
Blake & Rowe is an agency that handles branding for major companies, from cosmetics to banks.
And I happen to be the person keeping all of it moving.
Today, I’m putting together the report for the Harper&Co campaign: timelines, budgets, visual concepts, risks, the presentation for investors.
Work that should be done by three people.
But I’m doing it alone.
When I finally click Send, I feel my shoulders drop of their own accord. I even allow myself to stretch — a luxury I rarely permit.
The email goes to Adrian Blake.
My Boss.
The man who can ruin my entire day with a single word.
I take a sip of coffee. It’s gone cold, but it still tastes good.
Six seconds later, the reply arrives.
Adrian Blake: Redo it.
‘Of course. Of course, Adrian. Why not? Today’s the perfect day to finish me off.’
Boyfriend gone. Sister furious. This evening feels like it’s never going to end.
I close my eyes, count to three, then open them again.
I stare at the email.
At that one word.
At this corporate slap in the face.
And something inside me begins, slowly, carefully, almost tenderly… to boil.
The office is empty.
EMPTY.
Thirty-seventh floor, glass walls, immaculate desks, and me — the only idiot still here.
Where is everyone?
At home.
With their families.
Their dinners.
Their anniversaries, which, unlike me, they actually remember.
‘Why am I the only one here?’ I say aloud.
The echo answers with silence.
‘Why am I the one doing everyone else’s work?’ Louder.
‘Why do I have to redo it?’ Louder still.
‘Why the hell do I even work here?!’
I get to my feet, and my chair shoots backwards so sharply it nearly tips over.
‘Three years!’ I pace in circles like a lunatic. ‘THREE! YEARS!’
‘Three years without a proper holiday!’
‘Three years without proper weekends!’
‘Three years without sex!’
I stop.
‘Bloody hell…’ I whisper. ‘I genuinely can’t remember the last time I had sex. What did I even have a boyfriend for?’ I ask the ceiling. ‘To tick a box? For the statistics? So Mum wouldn’t worry?’
Six months of a relationship I somehow managed to cock up because I was writing a report for a man who doesn’t even know I have a personal life.
‘That’s it. Enough. I quit.’
I sit back down at my desk, open my inbox and start a new email.
Subject: Resignation.
My fingers fly over the keyboard.
Mr Blake, I can no longer work in an environment where people’s hard work is treated as worthless. Where my nights, weekends and personal life have become disposable resources, and one word can wipe out three weeks of work. I’ve stopped being a person and turned into a function!
This email is a tiny work of art.
A manifesto of freedom.
I raise my finger to click Send.
And freeze.
‘Why should I be the one who quits?’ I demand of the monitor. ‘Why not him? Why not someone else? Why is it always me?’
I close the email.
I don’t delete it.
Just close it.
Then I abruptly shut down the computer and slap my palm against the desk. Hard enough for it to feel like a symbolic act of revenge.
I shove my phone, charger and notebook — half its pages filled with someone else’s life rather than my own — into my bag, throw the strap over my shoulder and shoot out of the office like a champagne cork.
Downstairs, I hail a taxi.
The first one that stops outside the entrance.
‘Where to?’
’Kensington. Palace Gardens Terrace.’
The part of London where people who have everything live.
And Adrian Blake happens to be one of them.
Me: What was wrong with it?
Read.
No reply.
I clench my teeth and type another.
Me: Can you explain?
Read.
Silence.
Me: I worked on this for three weeks.
Read.
Nothing.
Me: Mr Blake, answer me.
The fury rises again.
Hot.
Sharp.
The kind that makes you take decisions you’ll either regret later… or be proud of.
I’ll show you who Emilia Harper is.
The taxi brakes sharply outside Palace Gardens Terrace, one of the most expensive streets in Kensington.
‘That’s twenty-eight.’
I pull out cash — a rare occasion when I actually have any — and practically throw the notes onto the front seat.
‘Keep the change, thanks.’
‘Have a good evening, miss.’
Oh, if only he knew what kind of evening I’m having.
I jump out of the car and hurry towards the entrance.
There’s a small, perfectly maintained area in front of the building, with neatly trimmed shrubs and a couple of old-fashioned gas lamps designed in the Victorian style.
The façade is classic London townhouse architecture converted into luxury apartments: cream-coloured stone, tall dark-framed windows, wrought-iron detailing above the entrance. An enormous glass door, brass handles and a carpet that looks more expensive than my rent.
I press the intercom.
Silence.
I press it again.
And again.
‘I know you’re home!’
I take out my phone and call him directly.
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
‘Are you taking the piss?’
I call again.
And again.
And again.
‘Brilliant. Just brilliant. Ignoring me? Seriously?’
I take a step back.
Then forwards.
Then back again.
Maybe I’m losing my mind? Maybe he’s just asleep? Maybe I…
I enter the code.
The same code he gave me a year ago when he asked me to collect some documents because, in his words, ‘the courier’s being useless and I can’t wait’.
And now here I am, at night, entering that code because he won’t answer my calls.
Click.
The door opens.
I slip inside before the mechanism can lock again. The concierge gives me a brief glance but says nothing.
I look up at the broad staircase stretching ahead of me, complete with carpet runner and wrought-iron banisters. I hurry up to the fourth floor and find myself in a narrow corridor with muted burgundy carpeting.
I reach the right door and knock three times.
Loudly.
Clearly.
Without hesitation.
‘Mr Blake!’
♪ Sabrina Carpenter — Diamonds Are Forever
I press my ear to the keyhole but hear nothing.
Of course. It’s not as though he’s obliged to sit around waiting for me to turn up.
And at that exact moment, the door swings open.
Naturally, I lose my balance and tumble inside like the heroine of a cheap romantic comedy who, according to the laws of the genre, is supposed to begin her new life at precisely this moment.
‘Oh!’
I grab the first thing my hand finds, but I still crash to my knees directly in front of him.
In my hands is…
a towel.
The towel that had been clinging to my Boss’s hips with all the enthusiasm of the British economy after yet another political crisis.
My Boss, who has apparently just stepped out of the shower and looks as though someone assembled him using a build-your-own dream man manual and then decided to throw in every premium upgrade at once.
‘Emilia,’ he says evenly, as though I’ve turned up for a team meeting rather than deprived him of his final item of clothing. ‘What are you doing here?’
I blink.
Then blink again.
And then, with horror, realise that I’m staring considerably lower than eye level.
Much lower.
And, apparently, for far too long.
‘Bloody hell…’ escapes me before my brain manages to activate its self-preservation mode. ‘That’s… big.’
He slowly raises one eyebrow.
‘What exactly has impressed you so much, Miss Harper?’
‘Your cock,’ I continue shamelessly, as though I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing. ‘It’s so… huge. Is it real? Can I touch it?’
At the last word, I clap a hand over my mouth to stop anything even worse from escaping, then bite my tongue, silently cursing both him and myself for what I’ve just said.
That’s it.
It’s over.
My career is going to end right here, on the perfectly polished parquet floor of his penthouse, beside a fluffy towel and the remains of my dignity.
I jerk my gaze up to his face, feeling my cheeks flare as though someone has decided to heat the whole of London using nothing but my humiliation.
‘Is that so?’
The faintest smirk appears on his lips.
That smirk.
The one that makes junior analysts’ hands start shaking in the office, because it is usually followed by either a dismissal or an unscheduled seven a.m. meeting.
Judging by my current position on his floor, I could quite easily be facing both at once.
‘Miss Harper,’ he says with an icy calm that, for some reason, only makes me hotter. ‘That is an extremely unusual way to ask for a promotion.’
I make some sort of strange noise.
Something halfway between a squeak, a cough and the death rattle of my career.
‘That’s not what I meant!’
‘Wasn’t it?’
‘Absolutely not!’
He tilts his head slightly, looking down at me with the same flawlessly impassive expression that always means he has already understood everything, calculated everything and mentally prepared the report in triplicate.
‘Then perhaps you could explain exactly what you meant when you asked about its… authenticity?’
Oh God. Strike me down now.
I spring to my feet so quickly that I nearly fall over again, clutching the wretched towel in both hands.
It takes me another second to realise I’m still holding it.
The only barrier between me and a complete nervous breakdown.
His gaze drops to the towel.
Then to my fingers gripping the fabric as though my life depends on it.
Then back to my face.
‘Emilia.’
‘Yes?’
‘Give it back.’
‘What?’
‘The towel.’
I look down.
Then at him.
Then down again.
And it is at this precise moment that the full scale of the disaster becomes murderously clear.
I am standing in the middle of my Boss’s penthouse, clutching his towel like a battle trophy.
At least I didn’t have the bright idea to grab his cock instead.
‘Right. Of course. Yes. Makes sense.’
I take a step forwards, intending to ceremoniously return his property to its owner, but my heel catches on the edge of the rug.
‘Shit!’
He reacts instantly.
One arm catches me around the waist while the other snatches the towel before it can officially become the cause of an international incident.
I end up pressed against his steel-hard chest.
So close that I can feel the heat of his skin, smell his shower gel and something sharp, expensive and unbearably masculine.
My heart decides this is the perfect moment to run a marathon.
‘It seems,’ he says quietly, lowering his gaze to my lips, ‘that you’re particularly dangerous to my household linen today.’
I look up at him.
‘It’s not my fault.’
‘Really?’
‘Your floor’s too slippery.’
‘Of course. The floor is entirely to blame.’
A glint of amusement appears in his eyes.
‘Although, if I’m honest, Miss Harper, I’m beginning to think you were simply looking for an excuse to end up on your knees in front of me.’
‘That is an outrageous insinuation.’
‘Is that so?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Then why are you still here?’
I freeze.
Because he’s right.
Because his hand is still resting on my waist, and I don’t want him to move it at all.
Because there are only a few inches left between us, and I have the distinct feeling I’d happily close those too.
And because, for the first time in a very long while, the thought of tomorrow’s presentation at the office concerns me considerably less than what he’s going to do next.
TRANSLATOR’S NOTES
Boss is capitalised throughout to preserve Emilia’s recurring ironic treatment of Adrian’s role in the original.
Russian idiomatic phrasing was adapted where a literal translation would sound unnatural in British English, while preserving the original humour, irritation and emotional meaning.
‘Are you taking the piss?’ is used as the natural British equivalent of Emilia’s irritated «Ты издеваешься?» in this context.
CONTINUITY GLOSSARY
Emilia Harper — protagonist; employee at Blake & Rowe.Em / Emi — informal forms of Emilia used by people close to her.Adrian Blake — Emilia’s Boss.Mr Blake — Emilia’s formal address for Adrian.Miss Harper — Adrian’s formal address for Emilia.Oliver / Liv — Emilia’s boyfriend at the beginning of the chapter.Lil — Emilia’s younger sister.Jessica / Jess — project manager at Blake & Rowe.Blake & Rowe — branding agency where Emilia works.Harper&Co — client/campaign name.Boss — capitalised as a recurring stylistic designation for Adrian Blake.Canary Wharf — London business district and primary setting.One Canada Square — skyscraper in Canary Wharf.Canada Square — public square in Canary Wharf.Palace Gardens Terrace — street in Kensington where Adrian lives.Kensington — London district.Slack — Blake & Rowe’s corporate messaging platform.project manager — Jessica’s role.branding — Blake & Rowe’s field of work.
