Page 22 of In This Together

Hannah and Andrea worked the room, slowly, one air-kiss at a time. Since Hannah had worked with Andrea for practically her whole career, her face was just as familiar to most people as Andrea’s. They didn’t treat her as a nobody but as an essential part of the clockwork that was Andrea and her artists.

People greeted her, kissed her cheeks, flirted with her, offered to get her drinks and congratulated her on the birth of TJ because for most people it was the first time they’d seen her since the baby bump.

She had eyes on Andrea, in case she was needed, but otherwise had a drink too many and was enjoying herself – not as a PA or a mommy but as Hannah, just Hannah. And it felt good. Her life had been going just fine. The boys were getting bigger, childcare cheaper. Then she’d fallen pregnant with TJ. She adored her baby but hadn’t been ready for her life to be commandeered by children for a third time.

And as she thought that, she felt a pang of guilt. She shouldn’t be happy to be free of her family but damn it, sometimes she needed a break from nagging and tears and her husband leaving the toilet seat the effup.

Thankfully, she didn’t have time to get bogged down in her personal dilemma because a bigger problem was about to unfold.

Rosalie stepped into the room, drawing the eyes of admirers, both men and women alike, as she managed to shine in a floor-length gold dress that not even Carrie Bradshaw would have been able to pull off. As soon as Andrea noticed her, she made a beeline for her. After all the help Rosalie had given Hannah lately, she wasn’t about to let Andrea tear strips off her about her outfit selection.

Both women came in and out of view as Hannah worked through the crowd, arriving at Rosalie’s side at the same time as Andrea.

Andrea had a face like thunder. Hannah watched Andrea open her mouth to speak but her jaw stayed loose and no words came out, her focus no longer on Rosalie. Hannah followed her gaze and realised that Andrea’s eyes were trained on the man behind Rosalie, who was holding a woman’s – his wife’s – hand and pressing his lips to her temple. That man and his wife were Rosalie’s parents, Hunter and Loretta.

There was a beat of awkward silence that was not lost on Hannah.Why?

She hugged Rosalie, then Hunter and Loretta. Eventually, Andrea followed suit, hugging Rosalie, then kissing Loretta on each cheek whilst holding her at arm’s length. Then Hannah observed as Andrea lengthened her spine and rolled her shoulders back, puffing out her chest like a lioness might to mark her territory in the wild.

Andrea held out her hand to Hunter, who had gone in for a hug, such that the pair ended up in a strained embrace, holding hands.

Hannah asked Loretta, ‘Where is that dress from? I love it!’ but she kept her eyes on her best friend and Hunter. She watched as he ran hungry eyes over every part of Andrea that was displayed to its best advantage in that dress. She watched as his eyes grew darker, heavier.

And in that moment, she knew.

As if the way they addressed each other and couldn’t tear their eyes from each other wasn’t confirmation enough, the uncommon flush of Andrea’s skin and the way she fidgeted as she exchanged pleasantries with Loretta were also fairly damning evidence.

Andrea promptly excused herself from the group, grabbing a glass of champagne from a waiter on the way out of the room, downing it as she moved quickly into the corridor.

It was the nail in the coffin. Hannah was 100 per cent certain that her best friend was having an affair with her other best friend’s dad.

‘Holy mother of fuck,’ she whispered under her breath, meeting Hunter’s nervous gaze.

On wobbly legs, Hannah excused herself, told Rosalie she would find her in a while, and went in search of Andrea, not sure whether she wanted to kill her first and reason with her later, or the other way around.

How could she do this? How could she lie about this? How could she cast aside Rosalie’s feelings, as if years of friendship stood for nothing?

She pushed through the door into the ladies’ restroom and saw Andrea, braced with her hands on a wash basin, looking at her own grey complexion reflected in the mirrors. The picture Hannah found told her the answer to all her questions, and it was worse than she had first thought.

She stared at her friend, not the powerhouse music exec but the vulnerable woman, who had lost her mother as an eight-year-old girl and brought up her younger sister whilst her dad found solace at the bottom of a whisky bottle. The woman who had grown up hiding her emotions and didn’t know any other way, but who, deep down, was compassionate and complex and had spent her life caring for others – her friends, her sister, her dad, her musicians – without ever asking for the same in return. A woman who could be promiscuous but who was afraid to ever let her guard down because she had been terrified for thirty years of getting her heart broken. A woman who had just seen Hunter, her lover, with his daughter and wife, and endured the agonising reality that she was thatotherwoman.

‘Oh, God,’ Hannah said. ‘You have feelings for him, don’t you?’

Andrea heaved in a breath.

‘How could you do this, Andi? How could you do this to Ros?’

‘I don’t know, okay? Damn it! I didn’t mean for this. I just… don’t seem able to stop it.’

Hannah shook her head, refusing to feel sorry for Andrea. ‘Of course you can’t stop it. This is perfect for you. A man that you can’t ever commit to. It’s signature Andrea. Except this time, you’ve crossed the line, and you need to stop it. Or maybe that’s your master plan? Push the few people you have let close to you away, one by one.’

8

ROSALIE

Rosalie was midway through telling Tommy Dawson how to feng-shui his new city apartment. Tommy had been on and off the scene in the past, having had numerous flings with Andrea. She had first met Tommy shortly before he and his band were plucked from Andrea at Sanfia Records by XM Music Group. Funny, because she always thought when Andrea and Tommy were working together they were perfect for each other, but it had never come to anything serious.

Tommy had bought a flashy penthouse apartment in a sought-after building in the city, and it was the kind of project even Rosalie would end her sabbatical for.

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