‘I think I need a drink,’ said Anna suddenly, and couldn’t miss Todd’s look of surprise at her request. She, who normally took alcohol on high days and holidays only, and then in such tiny amounts that any more than a glass of wine could render her very tipsy indeed!
‘I’ll fetch us one,’ said Todd instantly, and escaped into the kitchen where he busied himself with opening wine and getting glasses out of the cupboard while he decided how best to continue a discussion which was not going at all the way he had intended.
Anna noticed that he had chosen a very expensive bottle indeed and raised her eyebrows as he carried the tray into the sitting room. ‘It must be very bad news,’ she joked darkly as he handed her a glass of wine.
Todd ignored that as he sat back down beside her and sipped at his drink, then put his glass firmly down on the table and turned to her. ‘It’s just that I don’t spend as much time with the girls as I’d always like, so on your birthday I told them that they could do exactly what they wanted to do—within reason, of course—as a special treat.’
‘That was very sweet of you,’ said Anna automatically as she tried her wine.
‘That’s when Tally told me, in the gloomiest voice imaginable, that it would be impossible for her to do what she really wanted to do, because she simply wasn’t allowed.’
‘This is all to do with horses, I suppose?’ said Anna slowly as she thought of Natalia, first-born of their triplets, who was completely and utterly pony-mad. She spent all her allowance on pony and horse magazines and every book she read for pleasure had an equestrian theme.
‘Yes, it is,’ Todd agreed, rather grimly. ‘She asked me rather plaintively why she wasn’t allowed to have a horse of her own.’
‘Because she knows as well as I do that horse-riding is far too risky,’ sighed Anna. ‘All three of them are aware that they cannot take part in any kind of dangerous sport—why, it’s even written into their contract! The casting director told her right at the beginning that if she breaks an arm or a leg, then it could spell disaster for the campaign.’
‘Which would be the end of the world, no doubt?’ questioned Todd slowly. ‘Disaster for the campaign?’
The mocking tone in his voice made Anna’s head jerk up swiftly, and something indefinable she read in his eyes made her put her barely touched glass of claret quickly back onto the table.
‘And just what is that supposed to mean?’ she asked him in a low voice.
Todd’s gaze was very steady. ‘It doesn’t mean anything, Anna,’ he responded softly. ‘I was just wondering if it would be so terrible if the girls stopped working for Premium Stores—’
‘Of course it would!’ returned Anna immediately. ‘You know how lucky they are to have that contract! Other children—more experienced by far than ours—would have absolutely leapt at the chance!’
‘You sound like a real showbiz mum,’ Todd told her critically, and Anna went cold with both indignation and fear because Todd never usually used that horrible, disapproving tone with her.
‘That isn’t fair and you know it!’ she retorted. ‘I never went looking for fame for the girls—fame found them! We discussed it carefully with all three of them before we let them go ahead with the advertisements—you know we did! And we both agreed that so long as it didn’t interfere with their school work they could carry on doing it. And it doesn’t interfere with their school work, does it?’
‘Not so far,’ answered Todd cautiously. ‘But—’
‘And they earn heaps of money for what they do,’ insisted Anna quickly.
‘But we’re hardly on the breadline, are we, sweetheart?’ he commented drily as he let his gaze drift around the elegantly proportioned room, taking in the high ceiling and the costly chandelier which glittered like a million rainbow icicles.
‘Okay,’ she conceded, with a shrug of her shoulders. ‘They aren’t doing it for the money! They’re doing it because they absolutely love it!’
Todd frowned. ‘They used to. I think they love it less than when they first started,’ he pointed out.
‘Do they really? That’s something else they’ve told you, but omitted to mention to me, is it?’ Anna knew that her voice sounded waspish and peeved, but she seemed unable to do anything about it.
She felt hurt.
Badly hurt.
She had given birth to the triplets when she was still seventeen—why, she had been little more than a child herself—and had always considered her relationship with her girls to be incredibly close. So it was something of a shock to discover that they had been grumbling to their father and completely excluding her!
Todd observed his wife’s white, angry face and wondered just why this discussion was going so disastrously wrong. The last thing he wanted was to antagonise Anna. He thought about how smoothly topics could be raised and discussed in the workplace and wondered why discussions at home always seemed to get fraught with emotion and lack of logic.
He decided to try again. ‘On that day you were away at the health club, the girls and I sat down and had quite a long chat,’ he admitted.
‘So it would seem,’ came her stony response. ‘And what exactly did you sit down and chat about?’
Todd took another mouthful of wine as he thought about how best to word his daughters’ complaints about a lifestyle which most of their peers envied. ‘They have loved working for Premium Stores,’ he told Anna with a placatory smile which chilled her. ‘As they themselves said—how many children get plucked from obscurity to star in a supermarket advertising campaign which fits in so well with the rest of their lives?’
‘Exactly!’ responded Anna triumphantly. ‘Plus they’ve got to meet all kinds of celebrities, done the sorts of things that most children only dream of...’ Her voice tailed off rather wistfully as she recalled the memorable occasion when Tally, Tasha and Tina had served a world-famous rock star with fizzy cola on stage, to launch Premium Stores’ new range of diet drinks. Why, the excitement at school had taken weeks to die down!
‘Nobody is denying that the job has given them opportunities that they would never normally have had,’ Todd said soothingly. ‘But they’ve been working for two years now.’
‘And Premium want them to carry on working for them,’ said Anna stubbornly. ‘Indefinitely.’
Todd decided that the time had come to stop pussy-footing around. And if his wife was refusing to listen, then he was going to have to make her! ‘Yes, I know that the company still want them, Anna. But the point you seem to be missing is that although the contract is both lucrative and exciting it is also very restrictive.’
‘It’s an exclusive contract,’ defended Anna. ‘That’s why.’
Todd shook his head. ‘I am not talking about the restrictive clause which prevents the girls from working for anyone else while they are contracted to Premium,’ he argued. ‘But restrictive in a much wider sense. Tasha is doing particularly well at school—’
‘I know!’ Anna beamed proudly. ‘And they want her to sit for a scholarship to her next school!’
‘But if she sits for a scholarship she’ll need to study, won’t she?’ said Todd. ‘And when will she find the time to do that, with all the demands that Premium make on her time?’
‘She could try watching less television, for a start,’ said Anna, echoing the words of mothers the world over, but Todd shook his dark head vigorously.
‘That isn’t fair, and you know it. She doesn’t watch much television, and she’s entitled to watch some, surely? If she can’t have any bona fide relaxation