Page 68 of In This Together

Finally. The crux.

‘She doesn’t need to agree because I’m not offering to buy Sanfia Records, I’m offering to buy your shares in Sanfia Records.’

And the proverbial light bulb…

‘You want to buy me out.’

‘Yes,’ she said, crossing one leg over the other, relaxing minutely now that the proposition was out in the open. ‘I want to buy you out and I want you out of my sister’s life.’ She stood, knowing her answer would not come today. ‘It’s a great offer. And when you take it, you’ll take it subject to one condition.’

‘What?’

‘You’ll file for divorce. You’ll let Sofia move on without you.’

He stared at her, not displaying shock or anger, or hatred even. Nothing she might have expected. He considered the cheque again.

‘Wouldn’t it be nice to have money for a change?’ Andrea asked. ‘Rather than taking loans and remortgaging the apartment when a potential star comes along? Wouldn’t it be nice to take the money and start up as a producer, working on the kind of stuff you want to do? I’d be paying over the odds for your shares, in the circumstances.’

He scoffed. ‘Enlighten me.’

‘Sanfia is mortgaged up to the hilt. I know Sofia has put everything on the line for Seth Young.’

Jay’s eyes shot wide. As she suspected, he’d been out of the decision-making loop of Sanfia Records for some weeks.

‘One of the producers is an addict,’ Andrea continued, sealing the coffin. ‘If you love her. If youeverloved her. Do the right thing by Sofia.’

‘She would hate you more than she already does if she knew about this.’

Andrea’s stomach sank.Hate?But there was every chance his words were true. Regardless, she loved Sofia and this was for her.

‘Lucky for me, a good person like Sofia can only have so much room in her heart for hatred, and she’s used a whole load up on you and your habits.’

She started walking away, weaving through the tables on the lawn, and she heard Jay call out… ‘Sofia is right, you never do anything if there’s not something in it for you.’

His words made her freeze.Sofia said that?

‘I suppose it hasn’t occurred to you that you’d get one of the biggest indie labels on your books, huh? You’d get the so-called star-in-the-making on your books.’

She spun quickly, aware that the centre’s staff were closing in on her. ‘If I wanted to bring Seth Young over to Stellar, I would.’

They glared at each other as a woman in a black uniform – tunic and pants – took hold of Andrea’s arm. ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave,’ she said.

‘Don’t worry,’ Andrea said, her eyes still locked on Jay’s. ‘I know the way out.’

* * *

She clenched her jaw as she wound her way out to the car park, swallowing down emotion that threatened to break from her throat. Inside the car, she pulled down the visor, looked at herself in the small square mirror and said, ‘No! He doesn’t get to upset you.’

Except, it wasn’tJaywho had upset her; it was his declarations. Did Sofia hate her? Was she a bitch?Those were the questions she played over and over in her mind as she drove back in the direction of the city.

Was her motivation for trying to buy out Jay solely Sofia? She couldn’t deny that getting Sanfia Records on the label’s books and, in particular, Seth Young, if things kept showing as much promise as they currently were, would be good for her reputation. It would, undoubtedly, stop her peers thinking she’d slept her way to the top. It would silence their wagging tongues when, or if, herthingwith Tommy, whatever it was, came out.

Tommy.

She swung off the road at the next opportunity and wound up parked outside a pharmacy. She took three pregnancy test kits from the shelves and smiled awkwardly at the cashier as she paid. Next door to the pharmacy was a coffee shop. After purchasing a bottle of water, she went to the bathroom and did the deed on all three little white sticks. She jammed them back in their holsters, dropped them into her purse and washed her hands.

Back in the car, she counted down the seconds as she continued the drive back to the city, waiting the allocated time before looking at those little sticks again as they taunted her from her purse on the passenger seat.

A mother, Andrea?

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