Chapter Two
Victoria Sullivan had always believed that if you worked hard enough, if you were smart enough, if you said the right things and wore the right clothes and made the right connections, the universe would reward you accordingly.
It was a philosophy that had served her well through Cambridge, through her graduate scheme, through six years of climbing the banking ladder with the sort of methodical precision that made senior partners nod approvingly and mutter things like "management material" when they thought she wasn't listening. But she was always listening.
Which was why sitting in Jeremy Whitmore's corner office at half-past ten on what had started as a perfectly ordinary Tuesday morning, Victoria found herself staring at him with the sort of blank incomprehension usually reserved for abstract art or her brother Ambrose's attempts at cooking.
"I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" she said, her voice sounding oddly distant even to her own ears.
Jeremy shifted uncomfortably in his leather chair, not quite meeting her eyes.
The morning sun streaming through his floor-to-ceiling windows was merciless, highlighting every bead of sweat on his receding hairline.
The air conditioning was fighting a losing battle against the July heat, and Victoria could feel her carefully ironed blouse starting to stick to her back.
"Company restructuring," he repeated, each word dropping into the silence like a stone into still water.
"I'm afraid your entire department is being made redundant.
Effective immediately. It's nothing personal, Victoria, you understand.
Market forces. Changing priorities. The board felt that consolidating the investment advisory services would create better synergies with our European divisions. "
Victoria nodded as if this made perfect sense, as if she hadn't spent the last three years building this department from the ground up, as if her client portfolio wasn't consistently one of the highest performing in the bank, as if she hadn't canceled dates and missed family dinners and worked through weekends to make herself indispensable.
Apparently, no one was indispensable. What a revelation.
"There'll be a generous redundancy package, of course," Jeremy continued, sliding a thick envelope across his mahogany desk. "And excellent references. With your track record, I'm sure you'll land on your feet in no time."
Land on her feet. As if losing her job was some sort of minor stumble rather than a complete earthquake that had just shattered the carefully constructed foundation of her entire adult life.
"Right," she managed. "Of course."
"You'll want to clear out your office today. Security will escort you out once you've packed up your personal items. Standard procedure, you understand."
Victoria understood perfectly. She also understood that she was expected to leave now, to shake Jeremy's sweaty hand and thank him for his time, and walk out of his office with her dignity intact.
She'd seen other people get fired over the years, quietly, efficiently, with the sort of corporate politeness that made brutality seem civilized.
She just hadn't expected it to happen to her.
Twenty minutes later, she was sitting in her office staring at six years of her professional life spread across her desk: awards, commendations, client appreciation letters, photographs from company events where she'd smiled and networked and played the game exactly as she was supposed to.
Outside her window, London shimmered in the oppressive heat, the Thames looking sluggish and brown in the distance.
"Ms Sullivan?" Chloe, her secretary, peered around the door frame, looking stricken. "I've brought some boxes. I'm so sorry, this is absolutely awful. I can't believe they're doing this to you."
Victoria looked up at the girl. Though Chloe was probably only a few years younger than her, Victoria had fallen into the habit of thinking of her as impossibly young and na?ve.
Fresh out of university, eager and optimistic, still believing that hard work and talent were enough to guarantee success.
It seemed like a lifetime ago that Victoria had felt the same way.
"Thank you," Victoria said, accepting the boxes. "That's very kind."
Chloe hovered in the doorway, clearly wanting to say something more. "What will you do now?"
"Find another job, I suppose." Victoria began methodically removing photographs from their frames, stacking them in neat piles. Organization was always the key to managing a crisis. "There are plenty of opportunities out there for someone with my experience."
"But maybe this is a chance to do something different?" Chloe ventured, her voice tentatively optimistic. "I mean, you work so hard. You're always here late, always on calls with clients. Maybe now you'll have time to, you know, have a life? Date someone? Take up a hobby?"
Victoria paused, a silver-framed photo of herself shaking hands with the Chancellor half-way to the box. "I have a life."
"Do you?" Chloe asked, then immediately looked horrified at her own boldness. "I mean, I just… when was the last time you went on a date?"
It was a fair question, though not one Victoria particularly wanted to examine too closely.
When was the last time she'd gone on a date?
Six months ago? Eight? There'd been David from Mergers and Acquisitions, but that had fizzled out when she'd had to cancel three dinner dates in a row for client emergencies.
Before that, there'd been someone from her university alumni network whose name she couldn't even remember now. And that woman who worked in… advertising? Catering? Something that didn’t involve finance, anyway.
The truth was, dating required time and energy and emotional availability, and Victoria had been investing all of those resources in her career. It had seemed like a sensible trade-off at the time.
"I've been focused on my professional development," she said, which sounded much better than admitting that her last meaningful relationship had ended two years ago when her boyfriend had accused her of being married to her job.
He hadn't been wrong. And she hadn’t been offended at the accusation.
"Well, maybe this is the universe telling you to try something new," Chloe said brightly. "You know, work to live instead of live to work?"
Victoria smiled thinly and continued packing.
Work to live. What a charming concept. Unfortunately, living required money, and money required work, and work, at least, the kind of work that paid enough to maintain her Chelsea flat and her lifestyle and her ability to hold her head up at family gatherings, required the sort of complete dedication that left very little time for dating or hobbies or whatever it was that people with more balanced lives did with their evenings.
By noon, her office was empty, and Victoria was standing on the pavement outside the bank with a box of personal belongings and a growing sense of unreality. The heat was sticky, making the air thick and difficult to breathe. Tourists wilted in the shade, and even the pigeons looked listless.
She couldn't go home. Not yet. Home meant thinking, and thinking meant confronting the enormity of what had just happened. Instead, she found herself walking aimlessly through the city center, past shops and cafes and groups of office workers grabbing lunch in whatever shade they could find.
Her phone buzzed with a text from her mother: Looking forward to seeing you this weekend, darling. Grandmother is particularly excited to hear about your latest promotion.
Victoria stared at the message, her stomach churning.
The Cornwall trip. Two weeks of family togetherness, of her parents' quiet pride in their eldest daughter's success, of her grandmother's approving nods when people asked what Victoria did for work.
Two weeks of being the golden child, the one who had everything figured out.
Her stomach felt funny. She couldn't do it. She couldn't sit through family dinners and pretend everything was fine. But then she couldn't bear the thought of their faces when they found out that their perfect daughter had been unceremoniously dumped by the career she'd sacrificed everything for.
She also couldn't not go. The Cornwall gathering was sacred, a Sullivan family tradition that stretched back decades.
Missing it would require explanations, and explanations would lead to questions, and questions would lead to the truth, and the truth was exactly what she couldn't bear to tell them.
Screw it. She had to go. She'd smile and deflect and pray that no one looked too closely. And maybe, if she was very lucky and worked very hard, she'd have a new job lined up before anyone had to know what had really happened.
THE TRAIN TO Cornwall was, mercifully, air-conditioned, though Victoria still felt like she was slowly melting into her first-class seat.
She'd been applying for jobs steadily for the last three hours, her thumbs flying across her phone screen as she crafted cover letters and updated her CV and tried to project confidence she didn't feel into every carefully worded message.
Her laptop was open on the table in front of her, three different recruitment websites running simultaneously.
"Busy day at the office?" asked the woman in the seat across from her, nodding toward Victoria's array of devices.
Victoria looked up, realized she probably looked slightly manic with her intense focus on her screens, and managed a tight smile. "Something like that."
"I know the feeling," the woman said sympathetically. "I don't think I've taken a proper holiday in years. Always something urgent that needs doing."
Victoria grunted in response. As of Tuesday morning, she had no urgent business that needed doing, no clients who required her attention, no meetings that couldn't be missed. The revelation was oddly vertiginous.
Her phone rang. Her mother again.
"Darling! I just wanted to check what time your train arrives. Your father wants to know if he should send Davies to collect you from the station."
Victoria glanced at her ticket. "Half past five."
"Perfect. And how are things at work? You sounded stressed when we spoke last week."
Because I was about to be fired and didn't know it yet, Victoria thought. "Fine," she said aloud. "Just busy. You know how it is."
"I do indeed. Your father says you work too hard, but I tell him that's what success requires these days.
Not like when we were young and people had time for proper courtships and long engagements.
" Her mother's voice took on the slightly wistful tone it always did when she started thinking about Victoria's non-existent love life.
"Speaking of which, Archie's bringing someone again.
Another one. I do hope this one lasts longer than a month. "
"Mmm," Victoria murmured, only half-listening as she scrolled through another job listing. Senior Investment Manager, competitive salary, excellent benefits. She began mentally drafting her application.
"And Ambrose says he might bring someone too, which would be… lovely. It's been far too long since we've had a proper family gathering with everyone paired off nicely."
That got Victoria's attention. "Ambrose is bringing someone?" She wondered if her little brother would finally stand up to the rest of the family and bring a man. She rather hoped he would, it would take the attention off her, for a start.
"Apparently so. He was rather mysterious about it, but you know how he is." Her mother paused. "It’s, well, I think it’s a girl. Which is…"
"Confusing?" supplied Victoria. So not a man then. Still, at least her father would be happy. He was the one that insisted on keeping Ambrose’s sexuality on the down low. Afraid he’d lose the financial part of his inheritance, Victoria thought.
Distasteful, but then, she’d just had her financial security pulled out from under her, and she sympathized with her father more than she might have before.
"Exactly. Still, I suppose Mama will be happy, and that’s what counts these days, isn’t it?"
Victoria wasn’t so sure about that. She had her suspicions that her grandmother wasn’t as delicate as everyone led her to believe. And she had definite thoughts on hiding things, but then, she supposed all families hid things.
She made appropriate noises until her mother rang off, then stared out the window at the countryside flashing past. Fields and villages and the occasional glimpse of the sea in the distance, all of it bathed in golden afternoon sunlight that would have been lovely if it weren't quite so relentlessly, stickily hot.
Her reflection in the window looked pale and strained, her carefully applied makeup beginning to show the effects of heat and stress. She looked, she realized, like exactly what she was: someone whose life had just fallen apart and who was trying very hard to pretend otherwise.
The train began to slow as they approached the next station, and Victoria felt her chest tighten with something that might have been panic.
In less than two hours, she'd be back in the bosom of her family, surrounded by people who loved her and believed in her success and had absolutely no idea that the life she'd spent years building had just crumbled into dust.
She opened another job application and began typing with renewed desperation, as if the perfect position might materialize if she just worked hard enough to find it.
Outside the window, the countryside stretched endlessly under the unforgiving summer sun, and Victoria had never felt less ready to go home.