Page 3 of Her Surrender

A pause travelled down the line. Emily had the most articulate pauses of anyone Serena had ever known.

"Well then," Emily said.

"Don't enjoy this so visibly."

"I'm not saying anything. I'm sixty miles away, saying absolutely nothing."

Serena picked up the wine at last, mostly for something to hold.

"It's a temporary placement. Until I rebuild the desk properly. If she's wasted where she is, she can be wasted here at a better salary while I see what she's made of."

"That's all I'm asking. You'll want her CV. I'll send it on Sunday, I want to write the note myself."

"The note."

The smile sixty miles up the coast was audible.

"Goodnight, Serena. Drink the wine, it's better than whatever you're punishing yourself with instead."

She rang off. Serena sat in her quiet, expensive living room and looked at the phone in her hand. In twenty years Emily Altford had given her contacts, credibility, two interventions she hadn't asked for and one she had, and had requested nothing in return. The ledger between them was so lopsided it had stopped being a ledger and become something Serena didn't examine.

And now, the same day a six-year employee walked out of the building with a security escort, Emily wanted a stranger installed at the desk outside her office.

She drank the wine. It was, irritatingly, excellent.

"Her name is Charlotte Phillips," Serena said the next morning. "She starts Monday. Temporary placement on the EA desk. Arrange her access, the onboarding, the works. Emily Altford's contact."

Peter wrote the name down, then stopped writing.

"Emily Altford asked you for a favour?"

"She did."

"In twenty years, has she ever asked you for anything?"

Serena had run the same arithmetic at midnight and again at six, and it had come out the same way every time.

"No."

He looked at the name on his pad as though it might explain itself. "Then she must think very highly of this woman."

"Or she's cashing in years of goodwill, which is also information."

Serena handed him the visitor form she'd already signed.

"Either way, the question's worth the cost of a temp salary. Standard access on day one, nothing elevated until I say."

"You'll want the investor dinner brief as her first piece of work, I assume."

"I want to see what she does with a deadline nobody warned her about, yes."

Peter tucked the form into his folder and took his time about it, which from Peter was commentary.

"You're a warm and welcoming employer."

"I'm an accurate one." She turned back to her screen, and then, because it was Peter, gave him the rest. "Diane asked me whether six years counted for anything."

Peter took a moment with that.