Page 39 of In This Together

‘You mean… have sex?’

‘That’s what I would call conventional. What I would suggest is that you include your preference in the values test I send you home with. There’s a section dealing with conception and gestational preferences. Of course, I’d encourage you to remain open to Daddy’s views, too. The one thing we can’t change for you is the gestational period, unfortunately.’

Rosalie laughed. Oh heck, did they just share a baby-making-agency joke?

* * *

Later that night, Rosalie poured herself a cup of rose tea and sat on her sofa with a hard copy of the Swans morals and values test.

Q: What environment would you like your child to be raised in?

A: In the city, perhaps with weekend trips out to the Hamptons. I would like to expose my child to Europe. Trips to Italy, France, Germany.

Q: How would you like your child to be educated?

A: Reputable schools. Ultimately college.

Q: How much screen time would you allow your child?

Rosalie paused with her pen between her lips. Screen time? How on earth was she to know the right answer to that?

She picked up the receiver of her vintage-style landline and dialled Hannah. After explaining the background, Rosalie asked, ‘So, what should I say? I don’t want to give a high number of screen hours so they think I’m not fit to be a parent and I never find a baby daddy. Equally, I figure they have to have some time for, like, development and stuff, right?’

Hannah laughed. ‘Hell if I know, Ros. I have a seventeen-year-old who only leaves his computer games for food and girls. My eleven-year-old stays quiet if I give him an iPad. Sometimes dinosaurs on television make TJ sleep.’

‘So what do you suggest I answer? As much screen time as they want so long as they’re quiet?’

‘If it’s meant to be an honest questionnaire, yeah.’

Rosalie laughed. ‘Thanks for the help, Hannah.’

‘Any time. And Ros, for all our sakes, don’t choose a baby daddy who answers “none” to screen time. In a similar vein, have you thought about how you would make a baby and a recording label work alongside each other? Oh, crap, I’ve got to go, TJ just face-planted trying to crawl.’

12

ANDREA

Andrea was sitting in on a marketing meeting being led by her head of marketing, with Tommy Dawson’s management team. Tommy Dawson, whilst publicly stating he wouldnotbe leaving his band, was taking some time to focus on a solo album. Andrea had heard some of the sample tracks, and what was lacking due to the loss of the band Tommy made up for with raw and emotional lyrics. In her opinion, it was a stripped-bare example of him and his music. She was more than happy to have him making the solo album under the Stellar label.

They were playing one of his new tracks in the meeting room. She took her coffee from the large oval table where his management team and several of her colleagues were sitting to stand in the window. She watched the clouds slowly glide through the horizon as Tommy sang about making changes to his life.

There had been a time she could have fallen for Tommy. They had always gotten along well, right from the early days. She’d enjoyed working with him. More than once they’d spent a few weeks ‘together’ and each time had been bliss between the sheets. He lived up to his reputation and then some in that department. When it was just them, lying naked in a hotel bed, their bodies entwined, his fingers gently stroking her skin as he spoke to her, there were moments of real soul to Tommy that did not present in the rock star version of him.

The problem was, Tommy’s rock star persona and Tommy’s real life were a blur, and Andrea hadn’t needed a man in her life any of the times they had been together, so she’d had no patience in waiting around for those fleeting moments of tenderness. Their random hook-ups since the last of those few intense weeks had been just that, hook-ups. Great sex until they were exhausted, then a test of will over who could politely leave quickest and get back to the important things in their lives.

But as she listened to his music now, the mellow beauty of the guitar, the slower pace of the tune, the soft husk of his voice, she wondered if he really did want to make changes. More than that, she considered whether it was time for her to make changes too. Starting with getting rid of Hunter.

As Tommy sang about being an innocent child before that innocence died, she asked herself how she had gone from being a happy young girl to a sometimes ruthless woman. A woman who was capable of having an affair with a married man, the father of one of her best friends?

Could people really change? God, she hoped so. Could she be that smiling little girl again?That, she doubted. Those happy days, before her mom left her, were nothing more than faint memories. Since then, she’d seen her father be a drunk, brought up her sister as best she could, taken control of the family business and now brought more responsibility upon herself as the CEO of Stellar.

There was a knock on the meeting room door, which interrupted her self-analysis. Hannah held it open.

‘Hi, everyone, this one couldn’t stand you all talking behind his back.’

Tommy Dawson chuckled as he stepped into the room in all black – jeans, leather jacket and shades – with two large suited security men in tow.

He glanced around the room, then his eyes fell on Andrea. He took off his shades and his cheekiness creased his bright eyes – noticeably brighter and cleaner than Andrea had seen them for a long time.

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