Page 8 of In This Together

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 a production booth, eating takeout 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 had worked 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 head 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 fucking four in the morning,’ Rod grumbled, rolling over and slamming his pillow down across his ears.

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