Page 1 of Betrayal

CHAPTER ONE

Clutching a champagneflute of mineral water, Anna Turner turned away from the bar to face the marketing conference party crowd.Her penance, as representative of Changing Minds—Creative Solutions, at this exclusive venue overlooking Sydney Harbour, was to observe competitors and promote the superior skills of Changing Minds in brand management and product promotion across traditional and social media platforms.

“Ditch the scowl, Anna,” her friend Beatriz Gomez whispered.“We’re here to soothe, not rouse the savage beast.”

“Idon’tscowl.”Anna beetled her brows.“Remember that exercise at last year’s conference with the face-reading experts?”

“Theyclaimeda company could increase client signups with the right smile.”

“They rated mine as winning.”

“Emphasis on the smile, girlfriend.”Bea looked her up and down.“And they didn’t see you in that dress.”

“This old thing?”Anna shrugged, and the décolletage on the flaming-red, figure-hugging short cocktail dress slipped a half-centimetre closer to her navel.The dress was a crude but effective tool for identifying the obvious lechers without saying a word.

“Seeing the stunned disbelief on that company exec’s face remains one of the highlights of my short life.”Bea didn’t waste time on polite fictions, one of the reasons they were close friends.“He couldn’t believe you’d chosen that dress to tell him he didn’t have a chance in hell of scoring with you.”

“The sexist so-and-so deserved it.Claiming his company would cancel their brand marketing contract with Changing Minds because I wouldn’t sleep with him.Did he miss several centuries of female emancipation?”Anna infused scorn, disgust and I’ll-kill-him-if-I-see-him determination into her voice.Childhood drama classes had to have some benefits.

“There’s steam coming out of your ears.”

“I’m seriously pissed off.”Anna lacked the patience to deal with sleaze tonight.

“I’d never have guessed.”And a lot of people never guessed sweet-faced Bea did sarcasm.

“It’s worse than when that idiot threatened me.”Anna waved her drink in the air, and some sloshed over the rim, just missing her feet—her stilettos continued the blood-red theme.“His boss overruled him.Anyway, that was just money.”

“Ah!Money!”Bea sighed.“We don’t care about money.”Bea had to care about money, though, regularly helping her immigrant parents pay their bills.

“This is more important than money.”Anna curled her lip.

“Your childcare centre.”Bea leaned closer and dropped her voice.“I forgot.You were signing the lease for the premises today.Let me get you out of this crowd.”With a few words and a smile, Bea navigated a path through the mass of people away from the packed bar.She made a beeline for the windows overlooking the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge, then tucked the two of them into a corner.“This is quieter.Tell me.”

“I was meant to sign the lease before the entire building was subject to a hostile takeover.Some infantile troglodyte in a feud with his equally infantile father.”

I worked out too late that competition with some fathers is the first step on the highway to hell.

“Who won?

“The son.And he cancelled all pending leases.From the few business blogs I checked, if one of them sniffs out a distressed estate, the other tries to beat him to the purchase.About as logical as teenage boys in a pissing contest.”

“I’m sorry, honey,” Bea commiserated.“A new owner usually wants to negotiate their own leases.And if the original owner’s in trouble, your lease might have gone pear-shaped in a few months anyway.”

“That’s what Antonio said.”

Anna had been with her boss, Antonio Perez, CEO of Changing Minds, long enough that when she’d approached him about the need for better childcare options for company staff, he’d given her the lead on finding a solution.

“What else did Antonio say?”With four younger sisters, Bea listened to every version of a story before making judgement.

“Sleep on it.We’ll regroup in the morning.”A perfectly rational assessment.Antonio was better at rolling with the punches than Anna was.“Normally I love his positivity, but I’ve promised, Bea.”Although Anna’s original promise to help hadn’t been to the young mother currently on her team but to three other women two years ago, one of whom was now dead.Tonight’s dress was her roar of frustration at her failure.

“It’s unlike you to promise before you have everything stitched up and in triplicate.”

“A matter of hours before I signed the lease.Due diligence complete.I was as sure as I could be, and Nadia is holding on by the skin of her teeth.Even with Antonio providing financial help, Nadia’s childcare is at one end of town, her crisis accommodation the other, and commuting to the office is an isosceles triangle on steroids.The distances are killing her.”Anna was hoping for a miracle before she had to tell the newly single mother the bad news.

“You can’t save every woman trapped in an abusive relationship.”Bea’s pragmatism was as hard-won as Anna’s determination to make small differences.

“I’m not trying to save every woman.Or even most women.One childcare centre is not a solution to domestic or partner violence, it’s an option for a few women under pressure.Apart from Nadia”—whom Anna would lose if she didn’t pull a rabbit out of a hat—"we have two other employees looking for work closer to their childcare.We don’t want to lose them.”

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