Page 7 of Safe Hands

“Barely.”

Carly walked to the sink and rinsed the cloth, using the movement as an excuse to breathe.

“Beth is on a fraction of what she used to earn,” she said flatly. They could do this argument with their eyes closed. “She just wants her life back. If you can’t be kind, be quiet.”

Samantha huffed, tutted and shuffled behind her. “Is that it, then? Five minutes of your time and a lecture?”

“You could have offered me a coffee.”

“Maybe I would have if you ever stayed long enough to drink it. But then it would be harder for you to decide everything behind my back.”

“I’ve decided nothing behind your back. Every account, every invoice, every decision I sign off—it’s all there. You can look whenever you like.”

“Looking isn’t the same as being asked.”

“You were asked.” Carly kept her tone even. “Dad offered you a directorship the same day he offered me one. Same room, same conversation.”

“He offered it to Beth as well.”

“He did.”

“Well. There you are.”

And there it was, the real grievance, sitting exactly where it had sat since the day he’d asked them. Not the paperwork. Not the responsibility. The fact that their father had put Beth’s name on the same page as theirs, as though a lifetime of keeping her at arm’s length had been a clerical error.

“You made her manager,” Samantha said.

“Of a gym you didn’t want anything to do with.”

“That’s not fair.”

“You told him the girls were too young. Fine. I understood that. Beth turned it down as well—she still had a career then, and she’s only managing a gym now because she thinks it’s a stopgap. Neither of you wanted the work. But you can’t opt out of the work and then complain that I’m the one doing it.”

Carly snatched Beth’s jacket off the chair.

She had visited. She had listened. She had promised to run the numbers.

If she stayed one minute longer, she might say something she couldn’t take back.

Worse, something she meant.

3

Lauren

Clutching a small rectangular gift box, Lauren squeezed through the crowd already packed into the clubhouse bar.

On the far side of the room, Paige stood with Becky and a cluster of committee members, sipping champagne or orange juice. The circle had closed a little tighter since last time, and Lauren was getting good at reading her own spot in it: near the bar, near the exit, a comfortable arm’s length from the conversation.

“I guess I should get used to this,” she said under her breath, scanning the bar for a friendly face.

“Get used to what?”

Lauren spun around to find Jenna in front of her, channelling peak Leah Williamson energy: bow tie loose, blonde hair slicked back, sultry eye make-up nailed.

“Nothing.” Lauren hid the gift behind her back, its edges battered from a week rolling around her car. “You look great. Very dapper.”

“Thanks.” Jenna dug her hands into her pockets. “Figured I’d make an effort. You only get engaged once, and I may have got carried away with the guest list.”