What She Wants (7 page)

up your year travelling for some crappy job without talking it over with you first!’ she’d raged. ‘Marriage is about give and take,’ Hope had countered. ‘What percentage applies to each person?’ Sam had demanded. ‘You give ninety-five per cent and he takes ninety-five per cent? Is that the way it breaks down?’ ‘You don’t know anything about marriage,’ Hope had replied, stung by the unfairness of her sister’s comments into saying something sharper than she’d ever normally say to Sam. Her sister was quiet for a moment. ‘Neither do you, sis,’ Sam remarked sadly. Unspoken between them was the knowledge that happy families was a game they hadn’t grown up with. Brought up by their strict, middle-aged maiden aunt who thought that children should be seen and not heard, their vision of happy families came from watching Little House On The Prairie. ‘Penny for them?’ Matt put an arm around her shoulders. She leaned her head against it. He was so demonstrative with her, a fact which had thrilled her when they’d first met. Matt linked his arm through hers from the first date, squeezed her fingers affectionately just for the hell of it. Hope, brought up in austerity where hugs were for Christmas, had loved his touchy-feelyness. After six years of marriage, he had been as affectionate as ever. They had slept spooned together and on the odd occasions Matt was away working, Hope found it impossible to get any sleep without the sensation of his body next to hers. Until the past painful few months. Hope remembered the sheer fear of thinking their marriage was over. She adored Matt, she couldn’t live without him. Now, relief that he still loved her too was flooding through her limbs, filling her with the sweet sense of release that all her worst nightmares weren’t coming true. ‘I wish you wouldn’t make decisions without consulting me,’ she said, head still resting against his arm. As if sensing that the worst was over, Matt stroked her hair with his other hand. ‘I am consulting you,’ he said.

‘Only after you’ve talked about it with other people, including Jasmine.’ She was still hurt that he’d talked about something so personal to a woman he barely knew. Jasmine had learned all the facts while Hope, whose life it involved, was still ignorant of them. Despite her relief, that still rankled. ‘We can’t have a very good marriage if you never discuss the big issues with me, Matt. Why couldn’t you tell me what you were thinking in the beginning? I couldn’t begin to tell you how awful it’s been for me, knowing there was something wrong but not what.’ She didn’t want to mention her affair fears again. It sounded so stupid now she knew the truth. ‘It was only an idea then …’ ‘That was when you should have talked it over with me, then. What am I? Your wife or your landlady?’ Matt moved his arm away. ‘I thought you’d jump at the idea. You’re forever going on about how you never get to spend time with Toby and Millie, how they’ll grow up thinking Your Little Treasures is their real home and we’re the night-time babysitters. And you hate your job.’ ‘Sometimes I do but that doesn’t mean I want to stop doing it,’ Hope protested. ‘And I doubt very much if I could get a sabbatical; I’m hardly a top flight executive they can’t do without. So you’re asking me to dump a good job. And all our friends are here,’ she added, ‘not to mention the children’s friends. Toby’s only just settled properly into the nursery and I have to drag him out again.’ ‘It’s only for a year, not forever. Unless of course, I get a good publishing deal…’ Matt’s face lit up at his daydream but Hope was even more horrified. Perhaps the move would be forever… ‘What if I don’t agree to it?’ she asked. Feeling a bit guilty about blackmailing her, Matt launched his final, lethal weapon. ‘Don’t be angry, love. Think of what it could mean to us. We could bring the children up as a real family, in a real community environment. Not with both of us working so hard that we’re too tired to get

involved with the outside world. Wouldn’t you love to live in the country and be a part of the children’s lives?’ Hope wavered. Family: that was her Achilles’ heel. Aunt Ruth had been the most unmaternal person on the planet and Hope had longed for a family atmosphere like something out of a Disney movie. Picnics with homemade sandwiches, walks along the sea shore, great excitement hanging up stockings over the fireplace at Christmas. She and Sam hadn’t experienced any of that, which made her all the more keen to give it to her children. ‘We could look after the kids ourselves, not work each other into the ground,’ Matt said fervently, warming to his theme. ‘Think of it, fresh air, no pollution, good food …’ ‘Bath is hardly covered with industrial smog,’ she pointed out. ‘I know, but this would be different.’ ‘What about our families? We’d be so far away from everyone.’ ‘I never see my lot anyway - you know we’re not close - and Sam can fly over and see us in Ireland. They all can, it’s not a million miles away. Besides, my parents haven’t been to Bath since the Christmas before last, they’ll hardly miss us.’ Hope knew what he meant. Matt’s parents were chilly and reserved, and not too interested in spending time with their only son and his family. Since his father had retired, his parents had spent much of their time travelling, saying that they had neither the time nor the money to travel when they were younger. ‘Sam jets off all over the world for work,’ Matt added, ‘it’ll be easy for her to hop on a plane and visit us. The trip would be an hour and a half, max.’ Hope thought about it. Imagine being able to take care of the children, giving them quality time, learning tapestry, sitting in a rural garden with butterflies dipping in and out of the flowers, birds singing and not a sound of cars roaring up and down the motorways.

Hope thought of the floral skirt she’d admired in Jolly’s and her plans to become the queen of her kitchen. And she and Matt would become closer than ever. After nearly a week of fear when she’d thought her marriage was over, she desperately wanted to work on it, to make sure they stayed together. She took a deep breath. ‘OK, let’s investigate it. But stop making plans without asking me, will you?’ ‘I promise.’ Matt buried his face in her neck, the same way Toby did. And in a rush of warmth she felt her objections melt away.

CHAPTER TWO

That same Thursday, Sam Smith sat in her office and put her head on her desk for one wonderful minute. Not on the desk, exactly: the bleached maple was hidden by layers of paper, mostly marketing reports, spreadsheets of expenses and letters she had yet to read. She had to clear it all before seven o’clock that evening, an impossibility since her assistant, Lydia, was off with flu. Sam’s own throat ached and a dull throbbing behind her eyes convinced her that she was next in line to get it. Only she simply couldn’t afford to take any time off. She had a gig tonight, one that would go on until the wee small hours, and an eight-thirty meeting the following morning, followed by a three-hour budget meeting. Illness, like tiredness, was not an option. Not when you were barely two weeks into the job, a job people would kill their grannies for. Sam rubbed her eyes, not caring for once whether she’d smudge her mascara and give herself racoon eyes. Why did she have to feel ill now? Everything had been going swimmingly for the last eight working days. She loved Titus Records, adored her new job as managing director of the LGBK label, got hugely excited at the idea of developing people’s careers and making them international stars. It was a huge step up from being director of marketing at Plutonious Records. Despite the long hours she’d been working, she’d gone home every night buzzing with an inner electricity at the thrill of the job she’d been fighting for every day of the past fifteen years. But Lydia had been snuffling and sneezing all day Wednesday and had given Sam her germs. Lydia, a carefree

twenty-five-year-old, could afford to take a few days’ sick leave. Sam, teetering on the abyss of forty and the most recently hired executive with a lot to prove, couldn’t. Illness in female execs was viewed with as much disfavour as working mothers racing home from important meetings to take care of toddlers with high temperatures. At least Sam, childless by choice, didn’t have to worry about the latter. The telltale click of her door handle alerted her to the fact that someone was about to enter the office. Immediately, she jerked upright, flicked back her glossy dark blonde hair, and opened her eyes wide to banish the exhaustion from them. The door opened abruptly to reveal Steve Parris. Sam mustered up her best, most professional smile. When the company chairman himself deigned to arrive at your office at half-past five on a Thursday evening, it was your duty to look alert, on top of things and enthusiastic. Not half-dead with flu symptoms. Sam shoved her seat back and got to her feet in one fluid movement. ‘Steve, what can I do for you?’ she said, hoping to infuse her words with the correct amount of deference. In her two weeks at LGBK, the biggest label at Titus Records, she’d divined that Steve Parris, no matter how much he slapped workers on the back and went about with his hailfellow-well-met routine, was a control freak who needed subservience the same way other people needed oxygen. Short and skinny, he was still a formidable presence in his black Prada suit. People who underestimated Steve because he was so physically unprepossessing rarely made the same mistake twice. With his shock of hair, heavy eyebrows and disconcerting habit of smoking a cigar the size of a nuclear weapon all along the no-smoking corridors of Titus, Steve was the sort of man who made people nervous. Sam was no exception. She was no coward but she knew Steve didn’t like her.

He’d wanted a man for the job. The Titus European President, who was Steve’s superior, had wanted Sam. Steve had given in but he wasn’t happy about the decision. ‘Just dropped by,’ he said now, small black eyes constantly moving over Sam, her messy desk and the office, .which was still only half-furnished. Sam had dumped the previous incumbent’s furniture, an act designed to show people that she was the new broom. Sam smiled at him as warmly as she could manage. Steve never ‘just dropped by’. ‘You’re going to see Density tonight,’ he said, half-question, half-statement… That was it, Sam realized. Density, the band Steve himself had signed at huge expense, and who had just finished recording their first album, were performing in a small club in Soho. Sam, as head of the label they were signed to, would be very involved with their future, so it would be interesting to see them live for the first time. A future that would mean big trouble for Steve and Sam if they didn’t make it. He was in her office to make sure that she was giving his proteges every help, so that their album would be a mega success and he’d get the kudos for signing them. If it wasn’t, someone’s head would roll and Sam would bet her enamelled golly badge that it wouldn’t be Steve’s. For the first time, Sam felt the strain of being the boss. Suddenly she wondered why she hadn’t stuck with her enjoyable first job all those years ago in the film distributors where the biggest stress was looking after some neurotic movie star on a promotional tour who wanted Earl Grey tea and lemon in a motorway cafe where the only serious menu choice was what sauce you got with your deep fried chicken. But no, she’d wanted power and a fabulous career and had left the film industry to spend fifteen frantic years in the music business. Fifteen years of hard slog to end up with Steve Parris growling at her every day. Had it been ambition or masochism? It was the flu talking, she thought, angry with herself for such weakness.

‘I’m really looking forward to seeing Density live,’ she said now. ‘I love the parts of the album I’ve heard.’ Steve’s beetle eyebrows bristled and the small black eyes got smaller and meaner. ‘You mean you haven’t heard it all before?’ he barked. ‘I’ve heard most of the tracks but they’re remixing three. The producer is going to send the final version tomorrow,’ Sam said, trying to remain cool. ‘Jeez, you should have heard it before tonight. It’s out in a month. I’ll see you at the gig tonight and we’ll talk about the album tomorrow,’ he said, slamming the door shut on his way out. Sam sank back into her chair and automatically put one finger to her mouth to nibble the nail. Shit, shit, shit. She shuffled her papers again and then made up her mind. An executive decision. After all, she was a bloody executive, so she could make a decision. She was flu-ey, she had a gig to go to and she really needed to change her clothes if she wasn’t to look like a complete dork at the gig. The change of clothes she’d meant to bring was still sitting in the hall of the flat where she’d left it this morning. Wearing a suit, even if it was a pretty slick grey one with a discreet DKNY label, she’d stand out like an elderly sore thumb amidst crowds of combat-trousered trendies with Kangol hats and trainers. Bugger the paperwork: she was going home to mainline anti-flu products and to change her clothes. She locked her door and walked past the glass offices, and past the open-plan section of the fifth floor, LGBK’s centre of operations. Luckily, Steve’s office was on the seventh floor, with all the Titus presidents, vice presidents, and other assorted control freaks. She hoped nobody was looking at her, sure she had a guilty look on her face that said ‘Going Home Early’. But even though she didn’t know it, as she strode along the glass corridor, people were looking; people just looked at Sam Smith. Not that she was beautiful or supermodel-tall or startling in any movie star way. But because energy

emanated from her like electricity and because she moved like a dynamo. At five foot six, Hope was two inches taller, physically bigger, and yet when the sisters were together, Sam was the one people noticed. While her sister was a mixture of pale shades, with fragile colouring and a rounded, welcoming face, Sam was the opposite: all strong colours and strong features. Sam’s hair, mouse at birth, was long and a gleaming dark blonde. She had it blow-dried at a salon most lunchtimes and it fell in severe, gleaming straightness to her shoulder blades. It was a classy look, one which she’d deliberately chosen so that people would look at her and instantly know she was a player: a somebody. Her face was oval with a strong chin, a long straight nose and slanting eyebrows that showed up intensely coloured tawny brown eyes. Her skin was darker than Hope’s, almost olive. In the summer, she could pass for an Italian because she went a rich, golden brown. At school, people never believed she and Hope were sisters. Only their mouths were similar: they shared the same soft plump lips, a feature which made Hope look unsure and innocent and which gave Sam the look of a woman who’d had collagen injections. To counteract this model-girl plumpness, Sam drew her lipliner inside her natural lip line and only ever wore pale lipstick so as not to draw attention to her mouth. Hope’s mouth was vulnerable and slightly sexy, both looks Sam was keen to avoid. As far as Sam was concerned, once you let your hard-as-nails facade down, you were finished in business. Slim, due to hyperactivity rather than because of any time spent in a gym, Sam looked like the perfect career woman in her tailored grey trouser suit, with a sleek nylon mac, mobile phone and briefcase as accessories. Straight out of Cosmopolitan’s career woman pages, except that at thirty-nine she was a fair bit older than the Cosmo babes. The vibes she gave off said ‘unapproachable’ and that suited her just fine.