Times Like These Read online

  The effort she had put into Stella’s mansion in the Hamptons had even earned the home a feature on Cribs!

  See, she wasn’t irresponsible. She sort of worked. A lot of wealthy women didn’t work at all. Most of her friends didn’t. Other than a few years of modelling, Mommy hadn’t worked a day in her life but Rosalie had. It might not be traditional hours but not everyone had the great eye for colours and placement that she had.

  And frivolous? How could she be guilty of throwing away money if it was her own money?

  She never asked any of the men she was dating for a dime. The trust fund she gained access to fifteen years ago, when she was twenty-one, had been invested and earned a small fortune. She didn’t need to be supported, it would just be nice if someone wanted to support her, that’s all.

  She didn’t wait much longer before her father came through the door to the restaurant, dapper as ever in a sharp blue suit and crisp white shirt.

  ‘Sorry, kiddo,’ he said, kissing Rosalie on both cheeks.

  She beamed. ‘It’s no problem, Daddy. Is work busy?’

  ‘When is it not? It might have been nice for you to cross the river into Brooklyn just one time,’ he said without malice.

  ‘But this is our favourite and, well, Daddy, I’ve been dumped.’

  Mauricio topped off Rosalie’s glass and poured one for her father, who audibly appreciated his first mouthful. ‘By the man you brought to dinner the other night?’

  She nodded. ‘Mmmhmm. What’s wrong with me, Daddy?’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with you, kiddo. You just know what you like and it intimidates men, that’s all.’

  She smiled. ‘You think so?’

  ‘I know so. What are you ordering?’

  ‘The usual.’

  ‘See. A woman who knows what she likes,’ he added with a wink.

  Rosalie chuckled. Her father always knew exactly the right thing to say. ‘I got a new dress today for the memorial concert for Sir Presley John next week.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘Yes. I think you’ll like it. It’s blue, your favourite.’

  ‘Kiddo, anything is my favourite on you. Just make sure you coordinate with your mother this time. We don’t need a fall-out.’

  They ordered food and talked about the usual things, his work, her social calendar. They ate their food and drank their wine. Rosalie loved their lunch catch-ups. Her father had so many stories and even the ones he repeated she never got tired of hearing. He was intelligent and funny, not at all the shark CEO the media portrayed him to be. He was gentle and kind, a real family man. He was the kind of man Rosalie wanted by her side but just couldn’t seem to get, or keep.

  As their plates were cleared and after they had turned down the offer of the dessert menu, Rosalie asked, ‘Daddy, do you think I’m irresponsible?’

  ‘Irresponsible? Why would you ask that?’

  ‘Well, George basically said that’s why he was breaking up with me. And, you know, some of my friends have busy jobs, like Andrea, or have kids, like Hannah.’

  Her father dabbed the side of his lips with his napkin then set it down on the table, all the while seeming to think of his next words. ‘You have plenty of friends who don’t have full-time jobs or kids, Rosalie.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘All they want to talk about is clothes and shoes and who’s screwing who. Do you think I’m like them, Daddy? Do you think George is right?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  She sighed. ‘He is, isn’t he? I mean, Hannah has just had a third baby and you just promoted Andrea to CEO of her own label. I mean, she’s a woman, I’m a woman. We’re practically the same age. Am I not as capable as someone like that?’

  He paused for a moment and shuffled awkwardly in his seat. ‘Andrea has had a very different upbringing to yours, Ros. She works hard but she’s doing something she loves and she hasn’t ever known anything different.’

  It was true, Andrea had lost her mother when she was just a girl. Her dad had started the Sanfia Records label when he moved home to New Jersey after her mom, who had been a singer-songwriter, had died months after giving birth to Andrea’s younger sister, Sofia. Her father was always at the record label he had founded and by all accounts Andrea and Sofia’s education had been sitting in the production booth at Sanfia Records, eating take-out and hanging with budding rock stars. Rosalie had actually met Andrea, Hannah and Sofia six years ago when she was briefly dating one of their artists, who had gone on to make the big time with his band. They had split but she got to keep the friendships, so in all, she won. She had loved how refreshing Andrea and Hannah, who was working at Sanfia Records as an administration assistant back then, were. Even Sofia and her quirkiness, though she was more the younger sister of the group with her own friends. They were just so ‘down-to-earth’ and different from her usual girlfriends. But…

  ‘That doesn’t exactly answer my question, Daddy.’

  Her father rubbed his chin and said, ‘I think that not having an awful lot of responsibility doesn’t make you irresponsible. How’s that?’

  Rosalie scowled. ‘You don’t think I could do it, do you? You don’t think I could run a business like Andrea.’ And for the first time ever, Rosalie felt bitter with envy.

  Her father shook his head. ‘I think you could do absolutely anything you set your mind to, Rosalie.’

  She watched him, her mind speeding through a thousand thoughts as she sipped her wine. Then she set the glass down on the table, folded her arms across her chest and sat up straighter in her seat. ‘Prove it,’ she challenged.

  Her father chuckled. ‘Waiter, can we get the check, please?’

  ‘Daddy! I mean it. Give me a label at XM.’

  He coughed into his napkin and she knew he was attempting to disguise laughter, which made her endlessly more determined. ‘I’m serious. I’ve been around the music industry for years. I love music.’

  ‘Rosalie, you have no experience of running a business.’

  ‘Not true. I run design projects.’

  ‘You decorate your friends’ homes very occasionally and when you feel like it.’

  She blew breath from her nostrils. ‘I manage my investments.’

  Her father dropped his napkin to the table in a move that reflected Rosalie’s own exasperation. No one ever took her seriously. Well, no more.

  ‘You have no experience in music production, Ros. Designing interiors based on Elvis Presley’s jungle room and dating rock stars really doesn’t count.’

  She gasped. ‘You came from Wall Street!’

  ‘Rosalie, I can’t just gift you a record label. You have to earn a position like that.’ His tone softened. ‘Look at Andrea. She has been a producer as long as she’s been adult. She’s won countless awards. That’s experience.’

  ‘But you think I could do it if I had experience, don’t you, Daddy?’ she asked sweetly.

  He reached out and took her hand atop the table. ‘Sure I do, kiddo.’

  Rosalie snatched her hand back petulantly. ‘Fine.’

  ‘Fine?’

  ‘Yes, fine. I’ll get experience, then you can give me a label.’ She stood from the table and gathered her bags excitedly. ‘I know exactly what to do.’ She bent and kissed her father’s cheek. ‘Thank you for always believing in me, Daddy. I won’t let you down.’

  And she turned on her heels and strutted out of the restaurant, leaving her father to pick up the check and his bottom jaw.

  4

  Hannah

  ‘It’s four fucking a.m. in the morning,’ Rod grumbled, rolling over and slamming his pillow down across his ears.

  ‘I guess it’s my turn again then, huh?’

  Hannah tossed back the bedsheets and staggered to TJ’s nursery, feeling her way rather than opening her eyes. He was four months old and had been sleeping in a cot in his own room for two, very long, weeks. They had originally moved him from their bedroom and into Jackson’s room but their eleven-year-old had tried
to silence the baby on their second night together by throwing Buzz Lightyear at him as he wailed. So, Jackson was now in the ‘big boy bedroom’ with their eldest, seventeen-year-old, Luke, who basically wanted to kill him all the time – a little to do with personal space and a lot to do with raging hormones, she figured.

  Opening her eyes as far as was strictly necessary, Hannah picked TJ from his crib and held him to her chest.

  ‘Are you hungry little fella? Shhh. Mommy’s here. There now. There now.’

  The ear-piercing, satanic screaming relented to more of a painful, body-chugging sob, as they made their way downstairs to the kitchen of their modest New Jersey home. Hannah warmed milk as she tried to convince TJ to be quiet for just a second, before he made himself sick again. Minutes later, she sat down onto a kitchen chair and turned TJ onto his back in the crook of her arm. He latched onto the bottle teat and gulped down milk.

  And there it was, the best sound in the world. Silence.

  Her eyes opened wider as the sky outside became lighter. Her baby boy pinned her with his big teddy bear brown eyes that were a match with his dark skin, like his daddy’s. Her exhaustion was momentarily forgotten as she stroked his tight black curls and smiled at her boy.

  ‘You’re a pest. Do you know that? But I wouldn’t change you.’

  TJ had been almost as unexpected as Luke. You might have thought she’d have learned her lesson when the star of the college football team knocked her up at twenty-one. Or again, six years later, after that same football star had recovered from his broken back enough to walk but never play again and gone through a phase of needing to have a second child to reaffirm he was a man. But no, despite having no space for a third child, no money to buy enough space for a third child and both parents working their butts off to make ends meet, Hannah had fallen pregnant for a third time – not quite an accident, since she and Rod were being sporadically lackadaisical when it came to protection, but far from planned.

  TJ drained his bottle and gave her an almighty belch across her shoulder before she took him back to bed. It was now four forty-five and she would have to be up in a little over an hour to sort out the kids and commute into New York, where she had, barely two weeks ago, resumed work post-maternity leave as Andrea’s executive assistant at XM Music Group.

  Rod had told her to find another job after her short maternity leave, to lessen her commute but the fact was, she couldn’t earn as much with her experience and skillset as she could in the city. Plus, she liked working in the city. It made her feel like there was more to her life than just being a mom.

  Lately, she had felt increasingly like she did need more. And, truth be told, she wasn’t sure she could ever leave Andrea to her own devices. Her friend liked to play tough but Hannah might be the only person in the world who knew that sometimes, being called a cold-hearted bitch by asshole men in the industry who were jealous of her success could actually pierce that harsh exterior Andrea showed to everyone else.

  With her slippers scraping the carpet as she dragged her feet along the hallway, Hannah let her eyes begin to close again and felt her way to the bathroom. Half-asleep, she lowered herself to the toilet and…

  Her butt sank into the toilet. Water sloshed up her cheeks and thighs. ‘Mother effer! How many times have I told you to leave the goddamn seat down, Rod?’

  She wiped off her skin with a towel, which she threw into the wash basket as she attempted again to take a pee. She sank down, this time onto the toilet seat, and from nowhere, tears pricked her eyes. As water came out of her down below, it poured out of her up top too. She covered her face in her hands and sobbed. ‘I just want to sleep.’

  Going back to work was already proving harder with child number three than it had been with either of the others.

  * * *

  Coffee. Just one strong coffee and she was sure she would feel human again.

  Hannah dumped her purse in a drawer underneath her desk outside Andrea’s office, one of a pod of four connected desks where she sat with the other assistants.

  A number of XM Music Group’s labels were housed in the Williamsburg high-rise across various floors of the building but all of the executives had offices on the twelfth floor, ergo, so did their assistants.

  Since Andrea’s promotion to CEO of Stellar label, she and Hannah had been relocated. Andrea now had a large, plush office and Hannah had a shitty desk with no view to the outside world except via the glass walls of Andrea’s office. Still, it was the prestigious twelfth floor and no one was crying, or sticking putty in her hair or chocolate fingerprints on her blouse, or leaving up the toilet seat when she had repeatedly asked them not to. Plus, the twelfth floor came with a pay rise and she could certainly use one of those.

  Hannah was shortly followed into the office by the three other assistants.

  ‘Ladies, I’m going to make coffee, anybody want one?’ she asked.

  She received three resounding yeses and was handed three mugs, which she popped on a tray to take to the kitchenette. Sanctuary was near.

  ‘Oh, good, you’re here.’ She turned to see Andrea coming out of her office toward her and in a split second was able to read the look on her friend’s face that said ‘I’m in a take-no-prisoners kind of mood.’

  ‘I need you to bring me the sales figures for every artist at the label. I also want to see a list of the best-performing artists for XM in Europe who aren’t currently being pushed in the US. Rock only. Preferably country rock. Oh, and I need you to find me a dress for the Presley John commemoration concert at Madison Square Gardens on Thursday. Something sophisticated with an air of sexy but nothing revealing. I’m happy to try on up to three outfits. I don’t have time for more. Can you bring my schedule for the rest of the week, too?’

  Hannah raised one brow. ‘Morning, Hannah. How was your weekend? The family okay?’

  Andrea smiled. ‘Morning, Hannah, and please and thank you.’ Then she turned and walked right back into her office in her perfectly tailored and expensive looking pantsuit.

  Hannah took a breath. Andrea had become very different to work for since they moved to XM Music Group two years ago, increasingly so since Hannah had returned from maternity leave. It was as if she had more to prove than ever before. She smiled less, snapped more, and often forgot that she and Hannah were friends first and colleagues second. Hannah wasn’t sure if she was simply noticing it more since returning to work, if her tiredness meant she was less willing to overlook it, or if the promotion to CEO had gone to Andrea’s head. Regardless, it certainly felt like something was more off than usual.

  Hannah looked to the other assistants. ‘Anyone else want to get those coffees?’

  She handed off the tray of empty mugs and pulled her blonde hair – dark roots starting to show – into a messy knot on top of her head. There really had been no point spending time straightening her hair this morning. Humidity had made her frizzy and there was little chance she was leaving the office today in any event.

  * * *

  An hour and two sips of coffee after taking instructions, Hannah walked into Andrea’s office with a bundle of papers. She found Andrea staring out of the swanky wall of windows she inherited with her promotion.

  ‘Hey. I have everything you asked for.’

  Andrea let out a short shriek as she spun quickly to face Hannah, spilling coffee from the mug in her hands. ‘Jesus, Han, you scared the life right out of me.’

  ‘Sorry, I’ll just leave everything here.’

  Andrea crossed the room to her desk to grab a tissue and rubbed the coffee from her blouse. ‘Thanks.’

  Nothing like sincere and high praise, Hannah thought. From anyone else, she might have struggled to hold her tongue but Andrea was her friend and, despite her quirks, their years of friendship meant a lot to Hannah. Andrea had been there for Hannah in her darkest hours.

  Hannah had been in her penultimate year of college when she fell pregnant with Luke. Everyone, her own parents included, told her to g
et rid of the baby. But she and Rod hadn’t wanted to. They knew it would be hard but they decided to marry anyway.

  She hadn’t anticipated her own father kicking her out with a newborn baby because he just couldn’t stand the crying. Hannah was alone, penniless and homeless, whilst Rod was still trying to make it at college.

  For the next six months, it was Andrea who took in Hannah and Luke. She had a one bedroom rental in Brooklyn where the three of them lived, plus Rod, when he was home.

  So, people could see Andrea however they wanted to but Hannah would only ever see her as her very best friend and she was certain nothing could ever change that.

  ‘Andi, are you okay? I know you hate heart-to-hearts but you seem your worst combination of cranky and on edge since I came back from mat leave.’

  Andrea stopped fussing her blouse and paused long enough for Hannah to know there was something up with her friend. But Andrea’s mouth opened and closed without words. Taking a document from the top of the pile in front of her, she turned her back on Hannah.

  ‘It’s just the new role. There’s a lot to be done.’

  Hannah waited but Andrea offered no more explanation. ‘Okay, well, you know where I am if you want to talk or drown in tequila. God knows I wouldn’t mind a few child-free drinks.’

  She made to leave and had reached the office door before Andrea said, ‘Hey, do you want to come to the concert on Thursday?’

  Hannah’s lips curved into a smile. ‘Honour the legend that was Sir Presley John? Hell, yeah, I’m in.’

  Andrea smiled. ‘My closet is yours, if you want to borrow something.’

  Hannah nodded. ‘That’d be great.’ Though Andrea was slimmer than Hannah, her shoulders were broader than Hannah’s and Hannah had an extra couple of inches on Andrea, which meant they averaged at around the same size eight. ‘While we’re on the topic, any specific requests for your dress?’