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to go ahead and say it anyway.” Daniel took a gulp of water. “Have you thought about moving? You’re not going to get far locking horns with Richard Jones.”
    “That’s your answer, run away?” she snorted humourlessly.
    “Well, yeah. What else are you going to do? Stage a coup like the one HR thinks you’re planning?”
    She laughed, slapping him on the arm. “You’re probably right. With Richard, and all that stuff about Simon, it’d be nice just to get away.”
    He smiled back at her, silently.
    “What?” she asked at last.
    He laughed nervously. “Would you like to go for a drink some time?”
    She looked at him. He was watching her expectantly. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Daniel. We work together. And then there’s Simon.”
    “Have you spoken to him?”
    “No. He’s been away for some sales roadshow since last week.”
    He looked at his watch. “I have to get back or Rich’ll be terribly upset.  He hasn’t seen me in two weeks.”
    She laughed, finishing her coffee. “So you think I should quit too, eh?” she asked, standing up and brushing muffin crumbs from her grey wool trousers.
    “I’m not the only one?”
    “My friend Grace is adamant that I should just leave. Volunteer in Timbuktu I think she said.”
    “It’s your call,” he shrugged, pressing the lift button. “But you have to do something, otherwise you’ll still be here complaining about Rich in twenty years time.”
    “You’ll be fed up of listening to me by then; you’ll end up punching me after five,” she laughed.
    “I’ll be CEO by then, I can just have you fired.”
    For the rest of the day she could think of little else: she knew she needed to make a decision and stick to it. She had gone back to her desk resolute, but self-reflection was much easier than action, and at two o’clock she was still sitting staring into space. Her black screen betrayed her inactivity.
    “On strike, are we?” Richard called as he blustered past on his way to the lifts.
    “Prick,” she muttered quietly. 
    Returning her attention to her screen, she opened Simon’s calendar, surprised that he hadn’t revoked her access. Seeing that he had meetings booked for that afternoon in London, she picked up the phone and dialled his extension.
    “Kirsty?”
    “Hi, yeah. I need to talk to you.”
    He sighed. “I just got back from Dubai. Didn’t you hear me when I said we should take some time away from each other?”
    “I know. And I’m fine with that. But I spoke to Daniel, he told me some things,” she raised her head and looked around the quiet office, stopping mid-sentence.
    Simon was silent on the other end of the line. “What things?”
    “You know,” she whispered. “Is it true? What he said?”
    He sighed again.
    “Simon?”
    “Yes,” he replied, and hung up.
    She replaced the receiver and tried his number again. It went to voicemail. She opened Microsoft Word. In a few minutes, she had composed a brief resignation letter, which she printed, folded, and placed on top of a teetering pile of documents on her desk. 
    Opening a new browser window, she selected travelpedia.com from her favourites. She tapped her chin, thinking, as the screen loaded. She could go anywhere. But where would she go first? She had been passively thinking about how she could afford to leave over the past two weeks, but the idea had now taken on a momentum of its own. She’d worry about the finances later; the immediate problem was deciding where to go. Impatient, her fingers flew across the keyboard as she keyed in different destinations and noted the flight times and costs. Kathmandu, Bangkok, Buenos Aires: they just seemed like abstract, colourful phantasms to her, not real places. Impulsively, she booked a one-way ticket to Singapore, typing her credit card details from memory.
    Now I have no choice but to do something , she thought, picking up the phone.
    “Grace”, she whispered, not wanting to attract the attention of her