Chapter 12 #2
‘Yeah. Yeah, it was. But, you know, you went on to bigger and better. And I did more and more of the business side of things at Sanfia and, now here, that’s pretty much all I do at Stellar. I guess we can’t have it both ways.’
He nodded, watching her a beat too long, until she squirmed in her seat. ‘So… you wanted to see me about…?’
Shifting his body to face her, he pulled a knee up to the cushions. ‘First, I want your view of the music. Honestly, what do you think of the sample track?’
Even Tommy Dawson has doubts, she thought.
‘Honestly? I’m blown away by it, Tommy. It’s stripped bare, it’s raw.
It’s heartfelt and you’ve kept that… edge, or…
electricity you have these days. It’s like early-days Tommy Dawson, pouring his heart into his lyrics with not two dimes to rub together, meets a seasoned artist, accomplished and fine-tuned. I… I love it.’
He didn’t smile or even seem to react; he simply kept staring at her.
When eventually he spoke, he said, ‘Have dinner with me tonight.’
It took Andrea a second to get over the flattery of Tommy asking her to dinner.
Not because of who he was but because he had never asked her to dinner before.
In the past, they’d ended up in bed after a long day in the studio, and later, they’d met at shows, shared impromptu drinks and screwed.
Then, he or she always left and it would be months before they next saw each other.
She scoffed and brushed invisible dust from her skirt as she stood, walking toward her desk and coming to stand behind it, physically shielded from the man on her sofa. ‘No.’
He followed her, standing across the desk from her, his arms folded across his chest, his bottom lip almost protruding like a petulant child. ‘Why not?’
She matched his stance. ‘For one thing, you don’t mean dinner, you mean sex.’
‘Huh. Someone has a big opinion of herself, doesn’t she?’
Andrea raised an eyebrow incredulously.
‘Okay, I take that back. But I asked you to dinner and I meant dinner. At my new place, not a hotel, and I’ll cook.’
Now she laughed. ‘You cook? Since when?’
‘All right, I’ll order in. But I’ll order in nice. I’ve told you, this is a new me. New home, new music, maybe even a few morals. It would just be nice to… hang out… talk music, catch up.’
She smiled. That did sound nice. But… ‘No.’
‘Why?’
‘Let’s suppose you really mean dinner. So we’ll eat this great food you order in. We’ll drink some single malt on the rocks. We’ll sit by your open fire.’
‘I live in a penthouse apartment.’
‘Fine. We’ll sit by your electric fire. We’ll get talking. We’ll laugh. We’ll flirt. We’ll dance. Then we’ll sleep together.’
‘I mean, that kinda sounds… No, no, I’m just playing with ya. I promise no sleeping together.’
She smiled in response to his hands held out in surrender. ‘No, Tommy.’
‘You’re a hard woman to crack. Look, I’d really like it if you were involved in the new album, whatever way they’ll let you be, but I get if you can’t make that happen. I just miss the old days, you know? Anyways, you’ve got my number. The offer stands.’
He started to walk away and Andrea said, ‘For how many seconds?’
She heard him laugh as he walked out of her office. She watched him lean on Hannah’s desk and say something to her, then tap his hand down and walk away.
‘Probably giving her his number,’ she mumbled, but found herself laughing.
If nothing else, Tommy’s visit had taken her mind off Hunter.
Who happened to be walking past Tommy in the opposite direction… toward her office.
What did he want? She’d already said everything she had to say to him. Now, what she really needed was space to get past him. Oh, but he was wearing her favourite light grey suit.
‘Psst, Hannah. Hannah. Hannah!’
Hannah jumped on the final shout, turning in her desk chair positioned outside Andrea’s office. Andrea ushered her in subtly with her hand.
Hannah glanced in the direction of Hunter then looked around her desk, grabbed a bunch of papers and hurried into Andrea’s office.
The women stood on either side of Andrea’s desk, staring and pointing at the paper stack between them. Andrea dared a discreet glance and saw Hunter was almost upon them.
‘You need to call, erm… ah… Sean Deacon, over at ah… the… ah…’
Hannah’s nerves were making Andrea more nervous. ‘At Platinum Management?’
‘Yes,’ Hannah said. ‘And don’t forget about the thing… the, ah, erm, urgent thing.’
‘The urgent thing?’ Hunter’s voice was as smooth and assured as ever. Clearly breaking off their affair hadn’t made him flounder at all. ‘Now that sounds very important.’
Andrea stifled a nervous laugh when Hannah said under her breath, ‘Dick.’
‘Ladies, how are you both?’ he said, swaggering into the room. Andrea had never noticed the familiarity of his swagger before. But it came to her now. It wasn’t sexy, at all. It was Liberace.
‘Very busy, Hunter, I’m afraid. Did you need something?’ Andrea spoke with her shoulders back and her chin high because, yes, finally, she was doing the right thing and taking the moral high ground.
He slipped a hand in the pocket of his tailored slacks, drawing Andrea’s gaze to his crotch. Damn it!
‘Right. With very urgent things. I do need to speak with you and this is urgent too.’
He eyed Hannah in a way that said, I don’t care if you’re my daughter’s friend or not, get the hell out.
Ultimately, he was the big boss so Andrea knew that Hannah could do nothing more than offer an apologetic look and pick up the math homework pages she had printed using the work printer, probably for her middle kid, from the desk between her and Andrea.
Hannah kept the office door open, which Andrea silently thanked her for.
‘What can I do for you, Hunter?’
‘I saw Tommy Dawson leaving your office.’
She folded her arms across her chest. Jealous, are we? ‘He had a meeting about his new album.’
‘In your office?’
She smiled at him in a way that told him she was on to him. ‘Was that all, because I really do have work to do.’
He exhaled heavily, the way a flame-breathing dragon might. Then he extracted a familiar velvet box from his inside pocket and set it down on the desk. Andrea glanced to the corridor outside her office, thankfully finding no one was watching them.
She nudged the box back to Hunter. ‘We’ve discussed this and I have nothing more to say on the matter.’
His lips curled up like a cunning fox. ‘You’re still taking a tantrum then?’
Her hands trembled with fury she couldn’t unleash. ‘I’m not a child, Hunter.’
‘Then stop behaving like one. Take the gift.’
‘Have your circumstances changed since the last time we spoke?’ Damn it, why was she even asking this? But she waited for the answer, holding her breath, her stomach tied up. What if he said yes?
His silence was the only response she needed, and she found herself relieved.
‘If there’s nothing else…’ She looked toward the exit.
‘I’ll come to your place tonight and we can discuss this like adults.’
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘No. Even if I wanted to, which I don’t, I’m busy tonight.’
He snorted. A grotesque sound. ‘What, like, washing your hair?’
She scowled. Didn’t she have anything else in her life besides work and her illicit affair with her boss? Was she that predictable? ‘Yes, I will be washing my hair, right before I go out. See, I have a date.’
‘A date? With who?’
‘It’s with whom. ’
‘Touché. With whom do you have a date?’
Oh God, she was such a shitty liar, except, apparently, when it came to banging Hunter. ‘A man.’
He laughed in a way that made her want to bring her trembling hand across his cheek. ‘Which man?’
‘You don’t know him.’
‘Okay, Andi. Well, if your date doesn’t transpire, I’ll be at your place around eight.’
She watched him leave. Fuck him. Fuck him so. Damned. Hard.
Urgh, she was so angry her eyes were stinging and her body was shaking.
He was so… arrogant. What had she ever seen in him?
Maybe Hannah had called it spot on. Andrea went with Hunter because he was off limits and now, she realised, not a man she could have ever fallen for seriously enough to get her heart broken.
She stomped to her window, hoping if she watched the Hudson for long enough she would calm down.
And all she could think about was how, all her life, men had been telling her what to do.
That it didn’t matter whether she was now a CEO of a label, because her ultimate boss and ex- lover still held the power.
That it hadn’t mattered when she was running her own indie recording label because she was the one who was told to look after the business – by her father, even by her sister’s new husband.
That it hadn’t mattered when she was just a girl who deserved to have her own independence; that she had been told to look after her kid sister and take her everywhere.
‘So, you have a date tonight, huh?’
Hannah’s voice was tentative. She could read Andrea as easily as she could read a highway sign.
Andrea kept watching the Hudson and the ripples that followed a power boat. ‘You heard that?’
‘Yes. But I was intentionally eavesdropping and the other girls have their headphones in, so they didn’t hear anything.’
Andrea nodded once, sternly.
‘You did good, Andi. I’m proud of you.’
Her porcupine prickles softened slightly. ‘I don’t think proud is a word you could use in the same sentence with my name and Hunter’s.’
Hannah came to her side. ‘You’re doing the right thing, now. Here.’
Andrea looked at the small piece of paper Hannah held out with a phone number on it. ‘What’s that, the number of a good therapist?’
Hannah smiled. ‘Tommy left it on his way out. In case you changed your mind and don’t have his new number. I figure, since you need a date tonight…’
* * *