My breasts are crushed against his hard muscles, but I don’t attempt to struggle. I have grown up with three brothers so I know how useless it is to fight with people who are bigger and stronger than you are. Instead I fix him with a venom-filled glare. He brought a fucking woman with him.

‘Let go of me.’

‘Scared?’ he taunts, his voice rich and smooth.

‘Of you?’ I scoff sarcastically, as if even the idea is incredible.

He laughs. It comes from somewhere deep inside him, a wicked rumble. But I like it. I like it a lot.

‘Yeah me,’ he says. ‘I like to tie girls up and suck their pussies until they scream.’

I feel my belly contract. How different this laughing man is from the one who shared a flame with me outside the barn. ‘Oh, you are disgusting.’

He holds me at arm’s length and lets his eyes travel down, deliberately lingering on my breasts before coming to a stop at my bare belly.

‘Will you freaking stop staring at me like that?’

He grins and a dimple pops up in his chin. It makes him look edible. ‘If you don’t want men to look at you like that, why do you dress like that?’

‘You’re an asshole, you know?’ I huff.

‘And you’re seriously fuckin’ hot.’

My eyes widen. ‘Are you fucking serious?’ I gasp.

‘My balls are already aching.’

‘I don’t believe this.’

‘What sounds do you make when you come?’

‘What?’ I sputter. This is too much. It’s outrageous. He’s flirting with me and he has a woman waiting for him upstairs. What an arrogant bastard. ‘How dare you?’

He smiles slowly. The slowest smile I’ve seen in my entire life. ‘If you don’t tell me, I’m gonna assume you want me to find out for myself.’

My palm swings upwards furiously, but his hand shoots out and catches it. Bending my fingers inwards he lifts my knuckles up to his lips. I try to jerk my wrist away, but it doesn’t move at all. My breathing is erratic and my lips are trembling.

He smiles down at me, his eyes black and frighteningly unknowable.

‘You want to expend some energy, wildcat? Give me your address and I’ll come around later.’

My chest puffs out. My blood is pounding with fury and lust. I feel as if I am about to explode in his face. I don’t know why this man can get me in this state with just the lift of an eyebrow. I shake my head. ‘I can’t decide if you are thick or just plain stupid. Read my lips. I. Don’t. Want. You.’

‘My, my, what a little liar you are. That’s not at all what your delectable body is telling mine.’ He runs a callused finger along the bare skin of my arm. It is not a particularly intimate or sexy move, but the way he does it makes me shiver. I freeze and hold my breath. When he reaches my wrist, he catches it and brings it up to his nose.

‘You’ve never changed your perfume, have you?’ His voice is quiet, reflective, but there are black fires burning in his eyes.

My breath comes out in a whoosh. He noticed! I don’t tell him that this perfume was the last gift from my father. I had come back from a day of horse riding and my father had given me the box and said, ‘A flower shouldn’t smell like a donkey.’

‘It suits you,’ he says, looking at me as if he is drinking me in. I stare up at him stupidly. I am very tall but even in my high-heeled boots he still makes me feel tiny.

The music changes. Chris Isaak’s sex anthem, Wicked Game, comes on.

‘They’re playing our song, Layla,’ he says in a smoky drawl.

‘We don’t have a song,’ I tell him, but my voice is weak

His eyes gleam with amusement. He bends his head and I jerk back. ‘Who told you that?’ he whispers, so close to my ear I feel his breath hot and smelling of mints.

Deftly, he whirls me around twice so I am suddenly thrust onto the edge of the dance floor. Isaak’s yearning vocals fill the air and I feel something melt inside me. The pulsating bodies around us melt away and we are inside the sexy black-and-white Herb Ritts video. A dreamy place where everything happens in slow motion and I am frolicking with the most gorgeous man on earth.

When Isaak’s voice slithers, ‘What a wicked game you played to make me feel this way.’ I feel as if BJ is singing it to me. His arms envelop my body tightly, we fit together perfectly. We stare into each other’s eyes. Lost in the dream world he has created, I lace my fingers around the back of BJ’s powerful neck. The thick muscles contract under my hands. My fingers sweep and tangle in his hair.

‘I’d never dreamed I’d love somebody like you’.

I rest my cheek on his chest and listen to the swaggering, strut-worthy tempo of his heart. Everything about him is so macho. Even his heartbeat has attitude. I close my eyes. His intentions are delicious and unapologetically impolite. I don’t want to admit it, but some part of me aches for him.

‘No IIIIIII don’t want to fall in love… with you.’

He lifts me by my waist. I don’t scream or yelp. My brothers have been doing it to me for years. When my throat is at his mouth level, he kisses it and I throw my head back and shudder at the warmth. He carries me higher still. I place my palms on his massive shoulders and look down on him. He stares at me, his eyes black and voracious. Slowly he twirls me. Round and round. Our eyes lock on each other. Then he moves his head forward and licks my belly button, like an animal. The carnality of the gesture makes me gasp.

Around us the music begins to slow down.

Isaak says, ‘Nobody loves no one.’

‘I’ve tasted you and you are a meal I wish to devour,’ he growls in my ear on my journey back to the ground. My feet touch the ground and my knees feel shaky. This is not a dance. This is a seduction, a kind I have never experienced. Primitive, raw, irresistible.

Dazed with hypnotic lust and mesmerized by his eyes, I gaze wordlessly up into his harsh face. A seduction is a promise of pleasure and release. I’m waiting. I guess I’m waiting for him to deliver. His head swoops down and his mouth captures mine. He kisses like a bandit. A time thieving bandit. Time slips away from me. The kiss goes on and on. I never want it to end. How long I stand within the circle of his arms while his mouth plunders mine I don’t know.

Heat and fire flood my belly.

My entire body is a river of sensations. Nothing in my life has ever felt so good. With his hand on the small of my back he presses me even closer into his body as if he wants to meld me into him. As if he wants to completely crush and dominate me.

It is as if there is something inside both of us that is fighting to get to the other. My hips thrust into his thick hardness and I lust for him. The craving for him is like a fever. When he raises his head, I am such a mess I can do no more than blink stupidly.

Fall Out Boy’s Centuries comes on around us and Patrick Stump is screaming, ‘Remember me ... for centuries.’

He lets go of me, his eyes narrowed. As ever, a sense of danger, something taboo, lingers around him. ‘Meet me tomorrow,’ he says. There is a thread of urgency in his voice.

The burn of his kiss lingers, and his scent is clinging to my skin like a touch. Nobody has ever kissed me like that. ‘I can’t. I’m going back to London tomorrow night.’

‘Come for dinner on Monday.’

‘Dinner,’ I repeat stupidly.

‘At Pigeon’s Pie.’

Pigeon’s Pie is one of his pubs. I hesitate.

‘You can bring Ria with you,’ he urges persuasively.

I shake my head and start backing away from him. ‘No,’ I whisper. I don’t want to be another girl he’s fucked and kicked to the curb. It would kill me.

‘I’ll be waiting for you,’ he says.

I turn around and run into the crowd of people.

Up on his high station the DJ yells, ‘Show some fucking mercy. Put your hands up,’ and starts playing my most favorite song in the whole wide world. Are you with me?

* * *

I watch her run away in those crazy boots, boots that make me want to suck her cute little princess toes. I bet they smell like flowers. ‘You can run little Sapphire Eyes, but you can’t hide.’

This is the most exposed, terrified, and exhilarated I’ve ever been. It feels as if all the blood has drained from my head and gone into my cock. Across the crowd I spot my manager and walk over to him.

‘Hey BJ,’ he greets politely.

I nod curtly. He’s good at his job, but I keep the demarcation clear at all times. We’re not friends. He works for me. I’m his boss. This way nobody oversteps the mark.

‘There’s a girl with a red beret, white suede boots, and a white dress who is here for Ria’s party. Find her and watch her like a hawk. Anyone that tries to chat her up, throw them out.’

His eyes bulge. He has never received an instruction like that from me before.

‘Got that?’ I ask, a little more aggressively than I had intended.

‘Yeah, yeah, I got that,’ he replies quickly, his hands coming up defensively.

‘Good. Did you see the woman I came in with?’

‘Yeah,’ he admits warily.

‘Call her a taxi when she’s ready to go home.’

‘Okay,’ he says, with a smile of relief.

‘Any problems with red beret call me on my mobile regardless of the time.’

‘Got it.’

‘Good. Have a good night.’

‘Goodnight and thank you, BJ.’

I turn around. ‘Oh, one other thing, make sure you escort red beret to her taxi.’

THIRTEEN

Layla

By the time I wake up light is filtering in all around the edges of the curtains. I peer at my bedside clock and see with surprise that it is almost eleven. I must have been more tired than I realized. Strange my mother didn’t come to wake me up. I’d told her I wanted to help prepare Sunday lunch. I stretch luxuriously in the dim coolness of my childhood bed. And then the memory comes rushing back and my hand reaches for my mouth.

He kissed me!

A smile creeps onto my lips. I sit up and grab the teddy bear sitting on the shelf over my bed. I slide back under the warmth of the duvet, hugging my bear tightly. His name is Graystone and he is nearly 20 years old, but he has been well cared for and looks exceptional for his age. He smells of lavender. Once a month my mother opens his neck and stuffs him with sachets of dried lavender flowers. When I was very young, I used to have conversations with my bear and I honestly believed he would reply.

‘Don’t tell anyone, Graystone,’ I whisper into his sweet-smelling head. ‘But it was mind-blowingly hot, like nothing I have ever experienced. It almost made me dizzy.’

Graystone stays silent.

I sigh softly. ‘I know. I know. He made it abundantly clear that it’s just sex he’s after, but so what?’

Last night I was a bit tipsy and had persuaded myself that I didn’t want to be just another notch on his bedpost, but in the cold light of day, why not? This is the new, adventurous me. Besides there’s always been this thing between us. Why not give in and just let it burn itself out. I’m not in any danger. It’s just a physical thing. I know I won’t fall in love with him or anything crazy like that. I mean I don’t really even like the man.

I replay the dance, the kiss, the extraordinary way he had licked me as if he was claiming his territory. I touch my belly button and feel an immediate reaction between my legs. Wetness! It was never like this with Lupo or anyone before him.

I put Graystone back on the shelf and roll out of bed, determined not think of BJ until tomorrow when I’ll decide whether or not to turn up at Pigeon’s Pie. I open my bedroom door and hear the sounds of my brothers’ voices downstairs. Still in my pajamas and without going to the bathroom first or making myself look presentable, I run down the stairs and into the living room. My mother is sitting in her armchair and my three brothers are sitting on the long sofa talking to her.

They all turn towards me.

‘Sleeping Beauty is awake,’ Shane says.

‘Hello, sleepyhead,’ Jake greets. I go over to the sofa and standing at the armrest, let myself fall like a felled tree into my brothers’ laps. Just like I have been doing since I was a child.

‘Timber,’ Dominic calls and they catch me, laughing.

‘Layla, you’re not a little girl anymore. You’re far too old to be doing such unladylike things,’ my mother disapproves.

‘No, she’s not,’ Shane rushes to my defense.

‘Stop spoiling her,’ my mother scolds him, but her voice lacks any real conviction. Secretly, she is proud of how close her family is. ‘She’s old enough to be a mother herself,’ she adds grumpily.

‘Perish the thought. She’s still just a baby herself,’ Jake says lazily, gently sweeping hair out of my face.

‘She’s never going to be too old for this even when she is 90,’ adds Dominic, who is sitting in the middle. With a growl he begins to tickle my belly. Suddenly all of them have gotten into the act and there are hands everywhere, in my armpits, my ribs, my belly. With a yelp I try to wriggle and evade their roaming hands, but their grip is steel-like and there are too many hands coming from all sides. Helpless, I laugh until I am gasping for air and my stomach hurts.

‘I haven’t been to the toilet yet. I’m gonna wee on you,’ I splutter desperately.

It works instantly. They stop immediately and I worm off them and land on the floor on my back, breathless and panting.

My brothers look down at me indulgently, but my mother is tutting away. I turn my head towards my mother’s upside down face.

‘I thought you were going to wake me up and let me help you with lunch.’

‘I heard you stumbling around at two in the morning. I wanted you to have a good rest. You look better for it. Anyway, everything is done. Go and make yourself presentable. Lunch is in an hour.’

‘Thanks, Ma.’ I grin at her, then I turn my head back towards Jake. ‘Where is Lily?’

‘She was feeling a bit tired. She’s lying down in Ma’s room.’

I frown. I really like Lily. There is something so delicate and sweet about her. ‘She’s okay, right?’

‘Yeah, she’s fine.’

I sit up. ‘OK, I’m going to go say hello. See you guys after I have peed.’

I run up the stairs towards my mother’s room. Outside her door I knock softly and call, ‘Lily?’

‘Come in,’ she says instantly.

I open the door and she is trying to sit up. She is already eight months pregnant and her belly is quite big for her tiny frame.

‘Don’t sit up,’ I tell her and she lies back down.

I go up to her. ‘Can I listen?’

She smiles.

I crouch next to the bed, put my ear against her stomach, and listen to my niece. For a few seconds everything is quiet. Then I distinctively hear a noise.

‘What can you hear?’ Lily asks.

‘I think she just hiccupped,’ I tell her.

Lily laughs. ‘You’re as bad as your brother. He swears he can hear her laugh.’

I look at her incredulously. ‘Really?’

She looks at me and shakes her head. ‘Through amniotic fluid? Very doubtful. But, to be fair, when he puts his head on my stomach she will shift around excitedly and kick hard. As if she recognizes her father.’

I look at her in wonder. ‘Wow, how amazing is that?’

She chuckles softly. ‘It is when you think about it.’

I sit cross-legged on the floor with an elbow resting at the edge of my right knee and my chin in my palm. ‘Tell me about the day when you found out you were pregnant. I want to know everything. How you told Jake. And then what he said and did.’

She smiles with the memory. ‘Well, I guess I knew I was pregnant two days after I missed my period. I’m like clockwork. So I bought a couple of pregnancy tests and both were positive. The funny thing is, it was one day before the first anniversary of the day we met, so I decided not to tell him until our anniversary night. We were going to spend it in Paris and I wanted to tell him at the hotel before we went to dinner.’

She looks away from me, a dreamy, far-away look in her eyes.

‘He had booked us this beautiful hotel suite in Paris. It had one of those impossibly glamorous interiors, you know, the ones you see in movies. With tall, gilded ceilings, wall paneling, antique wooden floors, and a massive, intricately-carved gold bed. It had a three balconies and palm trees in Chinese pots. That’s where I told him.’

She pauses and there are tears in her eyes.

‘Oh Lily, you are crying.’

She shakes his head. ‘It was just so beautiful. I had bought these little yellow shoes. They were the tiniest pair of knitted shoes you ever saw. They came in a white cardboard box and I had asked the girl in the shop to gift-wrap them. I still remember the wrapping. Yellow with red balloons. So just before we left for dinner I put the box into his hand. “For you,” I said. He frowned, holding the small box in his hand as if it was the most precious thing in the world. “For me?” he asked as he did not quite believe it. You see, until then I had never given him anything. What could I give him? He was the man who had everything.’

She smiles, a glowing secret smile.

‘He opened the box. For a while he simply stared at them incredulously and then he fished them out between his thumb and forefinger and looked at me. Oh Layla, you should have seen the expression on his face. It gives me goosebumps even now. He was so happy, but he didn’t dare believe it, just in case it was a stupid joke or it meant something different. “Are you trying to tell me what I think you’re trying to tell me?” he whispered.’

‘I just nodded and watched as he carefully put the shoes back into the box, and put the box on the side table. Then, with a crazy, small boy whoop of pure joy, he lifted me up into the air and whirled me round and round until I was quite, quite dizzy.’

‘Oh Lily,’ I breathe. ‘What a lovely story.’

‘It was an unforgettable night,’ she says softly, and strokes her belly with a contented sigh.

‘I don’t know if I’ll ever find the kind of love you have.’

She looks me in the eye. ‘Sometimes the man for you is closer than you think.’

BJ’s face flashes into my mind. How would such an obviously cold and hard man react to the news he is going to be a father?

‘One day you’ll be pregnant and when you tell your man you’re carrying his child you will know exactly what I mean. A light, a special light, comes into his eyes.’

For a while we stop speaking. Each of us lost in our own thoughts. Then Lily breaks the silence. ‘Your mum said you went to a party at Laissez-faire last night.’

‘Yeah,’ I admit. ‘It was Ria’s birthday party.’ I briefly consider telling her about BJ, about that slow-motion, sex-drenched dance and the drug-like kiss afterwards. Then I decide not to. Nothing has happened yet. Nothing will if I don’t make it to Pigeon’s Pie.

‘Was it good?’

I grin. ‘It was brilliant. The music was great and we danced all night, but there was a big fight at the end. A guy almost crashed into me, but I was lucky. The manager of the club appeared out of nowhere and pulled me out of harm’s way. He immediately called a taxi and insisted on putting me into it. Very decent of him, I thought.’

Lily’s eyes have an oddly knowing glint and she looks as if she is about to say something, but at that moment Jake enters the room, and I run off to the toilet. After I brush my teeth and hair, I dress in a pair of old jeans and a huge, comfy jumper. Then I run downstairs to join my family.

Lunch is fun. It always is when my brothers are around. Jake is the oldest and he took on the role of breadwinner when my father died, making him the lucky one I run to when I am in trouble. Then there’s Dominic. He is a hothead with a hair-trigger temper, but he has a soft spot for me, so I can generally get away with murder with him. He’s the one I go to when I’ve done something I shouldn’t have and need to be forgiven.

Shane is only a year older than me. He’s the coolest of my brothers, I can totally relax with him and say and do anything I want. He is also the most classically handsome Eden brother and the playboy of the family. He’s got girls everywhere. When we go out together I get a ton of venomous and jealous looks from women. I almost pity the woman he will end up with. It must be hell to be with such a player.

Shane catches my eye and taps the handle of his knife so it hits the table surface and expertly flicks a pea in my direction. I open my mouth and in it goes.

‘Stop it, both of you.’ My mother looks at Shane sternly. ‘Layla is not a child.’

Both of us erupt into irrepressible laughter.

My mother turns to me. ‘By the time I was your age I was married with four children.’

‘Shane started it,’ I say.

‘This is not proper behavior for a lady. Do you want people to think I raised a hooligan?’ my mother asks.

I cast my eyes down.

‘Let her be, Ma,’ Dominic, ever the gallant, comes to my rescue. ‘When she was away you were always moaning that it was like the life and soul of this family went away. All our meals were proper and dull. Now she’s back and you won’t let her have a bit of fun. She doesn’t behave like this when we are out. This is our family meal. Let her have her fun.’

I look at Dominic with astonishment. My mum said that.

To my surprise Jake cuts in. ‘It’s true that we spoil Layla rotten, but she hasn’t turned out so bad. She knows right from wrong. She’s never ever mean to anyone. She’s generous to a fault. She wouldn’t hurt a fly. She’s not stubborn or selfish or bossy or bitchy. Quite frankly, she makes me proud of her.’

‘And she knows how to catch flying peas in her mouth,’ Shane adds with a grin.

Everybody laughs. Even my mother smiles.

I gaze around the table at all their faces, even the latest addition, Lily, and my heart brims over with love. At that moment I think I am the most blessed person in the entire world

‘How’s the job search coming along, Bear?’ Jake asks.

‘I’ve got an interview on Wednesday. Fingers crossed,’ I say and stuff a chunk of roasted potato into my mouth so that he can’t ask where it is. Jake is such a control freak, he actually paid the people living in the flat next to me in Milan to keep an eye on me and make sure I was all right! God knows what he will do if I tell him where my interview is.

‘Mmmm … delicious, Ma,’ I say around my food.

My mother makes the best roasted potatoes ever. Her secret is twofold. She strains the potatoes and gives them a good hard shake in a closed lid pot after they have been cooked to break up their edges. Then she drops them on a baking tray of very hot goose fat. Hot enough to make the potatoes sizzle. The result: crispy on the outside, billowy on the inside.

After lunch Jake and Lily offer me a lift back to London, a suggestion I quickly accept.

FOURTEEN

Layla

The journey is pleasant. The conversation is light and easy and it is only when Jake and Lily start talking about attending a wedding of a family friend that I kind of put my foot in it.

‘Do you want to go, Bear?’ my brother asks.

‘Will BJ be there?’ I reply.

Jake meets my eyes in the rearview mirror. He is frowning. ‘Why do you want to know?’

I shrug. ‘Just curious.’

‘Stay away from BJ, Layla,’ he warns in a steely voice.

I am immediately curious. ‘Why? I thought the feud is over and we are best friends with the Pilkingtons now.’

‘We’re not best friends. We’re friends,’ he corrects.

‘Ma said he saved your life.’

‘Yes, he did and I’ll be forever grateful for that, but I don’t want him anywhere near my sister. He’s a junkyard dog. He’ll fuck anything in a skirt.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Lily says. ‘I think BJ can be tamed. He is a bit of a beast, but a very seductive beast,’ she says and flashes a wink in my direction.

The car suddenly stops.

‘Out of the car, you,’ Jake tells Lily. His voice is deadly quiet.

She raises her eyebrows at him, then flicks her eyes in my direction, as if asking, You want to do this with you sister here?

‘I’m waiting,’ he says.

‘Are you serious?’ she asks incredulously.

I look from one to the other curiously.

Jake doesn’t reply. Instead he gets out of the car. As I watch totally bemused, he comes around to her side, opens Lily’s door, and takes her hand to pull her out and lead her around the back of the car. For a few moments I don’t turn around to look but then, oh fuck it, I have to know. I glance back, and my mouth drops open.

Whoa, Jake!

Lily is being crushed in Jake’s arms. He is kissing the shit out of her. The domination and forcefulness of his embrace is astonishing. I didn’t know he had it in him to be so intensely jealous and possessive. I swivel my head back quickly, not wanting to be caught staring like a half-wit at my brother eating his wife’s face by the roadside. I needn’t have worried though. It’s a good few minutes before he settles Lily back in the passenger seat. Her cheeks are bright red. And no wonder.

He gets into his seat and turns around to face me.

‘You’ve been warned. BJ saved my life. So I owe him big time, but if he hurts even a hair on your head I’ll have to break his fucking legs, and I really don’t want to do that. We’ve just made up with the Pilkingtons after centuries of pointless feuding. If you don’t want to start an all-out war again between our families, stay away from him. Can you do that?’

I nod slowly.

‘Good. He’s not the only man in the world. There are millions of good guys out there for you. You don’t need to pick a drug dealer.’ He pauses. ‘He’s a criminal, Layla. Don’t ever mistake him for anything else. You deserve better than him. Much better.’

‘Ok,’ I whisper.

He turns around and starts the car. We drive the rest of the way in complete silence.

* * *

‘Thanks for the ride, Jake. Bye, Lily,’ I say, opening the car door.

‘No problem. I’ll wait until you get in,’ Jake says.

‘You don’t have to, Jake. What can possibly happen to me in broad daylight?’

‘Layla,’ he sighs wearily.

‘OK, OK,’ I say and, slipping out of the car and shutting the door, I run up the steps to my front door. I love my family to death and all, but sometimes they are so overprotective I feel stifled. I close my front door and I hear Jake’s car drive away. My flat is quiet and still. So much so I jump when my phone rings. It’s Madison.

‘Hey, Maddy. How’s it going?’

‘Same old, same old,’ she says, sounding bored. ‘How was your party last night?’

I take a deep breath. ‘I kissed … someone.’

‘Wait one moment,’ she says and I hear her moving around, doing something. ‘Right. I’m back.’

‘What were you doing?’ I ask.

‘Getting a tub of ice cream out of the freezer. So … who, what, where, when? Spit it out,’ she demands bossily.

So I tell her.

‘No fucking way!’ she screams so loudly I have to hold the phone away from my ear.

I open the freezer and take out a carton of chocolate-chip ice cream and open it on the granite countertop.

‘Are you kidding me?’ she asks incredulously.

‘Nope,’ I say, getting a spoon out of a drawer and shutting it with my hip.

‘But you hate him!’

I sigh, plonking myself on a stool and stabbing my spoon into the ice cream. ‘I know.’

‘What do you mean you know? Is this like some sort of a hate fuck?’

‘I’m not sure I’m taking it any further than dinner.’

‘Liar,’ she accuses.

I slide the spoon into my mouth and let the ice cream melt on my tongue. Maddy is right. In my heart of hearts I know I’m not walking away.

‘So what are you going to wear tomorrow then?’ she asks.

‘I don’t know yet.’

‘Wear your red dress.’

‘No way. That’s a summer dress.’

‘You won’t be wearing it for long, anyway.’

‘Even if I do decide to go further, I’m not planning on sleeping with him tomorrow.’

‘Of course, you’re not. You’re just practically salivating through the phone and into my ear,’ she says with her mouth full.

I scoop more ice cream. ‘Want to bet I don’t sleep with him tomorrow?’

‘To be really frank, I’d sleep with him.’

The spoon halts mid-way. ‘What?’

‘Wouldn’t be the saddest day of my life.’

I lick the spoon. ‘Really?’

‘Yeah, he has badditude and that intense, laser stare going on.’

I grin. Badditude and a laser stare. That’s one description for BJ.

‘I like the way he fills out his jeans from the back too,’ she adds.

I laugh outright.

‘Oh! And I suspect he’ll be very good in bed. He looks like he gets laid often.’

That observation shouldn’t have troubled me, but it does. Which is strange because after Jake’s warning I am of the mind that even if I do sleep with him it will only be the once or twice.

‘So come on, what are you going to wear?’

‘Something subtle. Maybe a white shirt and my dark green trousers.’

‘Isn’t that what you were planning to wear for your job interview?’

‘No, I was going to wear my black trousers to the interview. I just don’t want to give the impression that I’m a slut.’

She laughs. ‘You? A slut? Pleeeease. You’ve got ‘Don’t Touch’ written across your forehead.’

‘I do not.’

‘All right, I’m wrong. You’ve got Don’t Fucking Touch Or I’ll Call The Police blazing from your forehead.’

‘Don’t exaggerate, Maddie.’ I sigh. ‘Actually, I’m a bit confused.’

‘About what?’ she demands.

‘I think I’m torn between excitement and panic,’ I reveal.

‘I get the excitement bit, but why the panic?’

‘Because I know it’s a bad idea.’

‘Why?’

‘Well to start with, Jake has threatened me off in no uncertain terms. Absolutely don’t go there stuff. Forbidden in capital letters. Huge family feud stuff. Jake actually called him a drug dealer and criminal. And he didn’t say it just for effect. He really believes BJ is a massive gangster.’

‘Ooook. You said to start with. What are the other reasons?’

‘I sometimes get the uneasy feeling that I am standing at the edge of a cliff and about to jump in when I’m with BJ. There’s this feeling of doing something deliciously destructive, but there is also the prospect of oblivion forever.’

‘Man, only you can make a simple fuck sound so dramatic.’

FIFTEEN

Layla

The moment Ria called to ask if I wanted to go to dinner with her at Pigeon’s Pie I knew. I was always going to say yes. So I did. Ria and I agreed to meet at a wine bar in Waterloo first for one drink and then take a taxi to Pigeon’s Pie.

I arrive first. Nervously I order a glass of white wine and find us a table. Ria is dressed in a skin-tight leopard print crop top and leather trousers. She looks sexy and carefree. Suddenly I wish I had taken Maddy’s advice, and not dressed so stuffily. We drink a glass of wine and chat about the people we know, then Ria looks at her wristwatch.

‘We should go. We don’t want to be late for dinner,’ she says with a smile.

‘No, we don’t want to be late,’ I agree nervously.

The taxi drops us across the road from Pigeon’s Pie. From outside it looks like an old fashioned pub; a place with fruit machines, patterned carpets, dark wood furniture, and horrible pub food.

‘You okay?’ Ria asks.

‘Totally,’ I reply and follow her through the double doors. Inside it is exactly as I had envisioned. Only it is surprisingly full of elegantly dressed, well-heeled people.

‘Come on,’ Ria says and leads me to a back room. She opens the door to a wood paneled room, and—oh my God!—It’s like I have been transported into an old gangster movie. This is the proverbial backroom where shady deals get struck. It even has another door, presumably a quick, back way escape door. BJ is sitting at a wooden table and there is a half-drunk pint of Guinness in front of him.

* * *

Oh Layla. Look at you. Dressed as if you’re going to a job interview at a bank. A pink and white striped shirt, a tailored, almost masculine black jacket, and the unsexiest article of clothing I’ve ever had the misfortune to come across: a below the knee, wrap around skirt in gunmetal grey.

Still, it’s shocking how relieved I am to see her. Some part of my brain can’t believe she came. Of her own free will. I rise to my feet.

‘Hey BJ,’ Ria calls out with a big, friendly smile.

‘Hey Wild Cat,’ I reply easily.

She pouts prettily and lifts her face up to kiss me on the cheek. While her lips are stuck to my face, I shift my gaze to Layla. Her teeth are sunk into her bottom lip. Fuck! What a great mouth. And there’s another inch in my pants. Ria dislodges herself with a wet sound.

‘Layla.’ My eyes take a lazy trip down her body. Jesus! I am crazy-lusting after her.

Color creeps up her cheeks, but her voice is cool. ‘BJ.’

‘Have a seat,’ I invite. ‘What do you girls want to drink?’

A waitress has already entered the room and is hovering nervously in the background.

‘Champagne,’ Ria says, perching delicately at the end of the chair opposite me.

I raise an eyebrow at Layla. ‘The same?’

She shrugs. ‘OK,’ she agrees and slips into the chair next to Ria.

‘Bring us a Bollinger,’ I tell the waitress.

She nods and scurries away as if I bite. I sit down and lean back, curling my hand loosely around my pint glass.

‘Do you still have Bertie?’ Ria asks.

‘Of course. She’s a dead woman if she leaves me.’

Layla’s eyes open wide.

Ria laughs. ‘Yeah right. You’re dead if she leaves you, you mean.’

Ria turns to Layla. ‘Bertie was a housecleaner in Florida and came here to visit her niece who was going out with BJ. The niece invited BJ to their home, Bertie cooked him a meal, and the rest is history. She’s amazing. She takes American comfort food and fuses it with European, Mexican, and Asian recipes. You won’t believe how good they come out. Hard to imagine, but all those posh people out there, they could go to the best restaurants in London, instead they come here for Bertie the housecleaner’s food.’

‘Wow.’

She turns to me. ‘But you prefer the plain comfort food though, don’t ya?’

‘Give me a plate of fried chicken and I’m a happy man,’ I say lightly.

Ria laughs. ‘I love coming here.’

The champagne arrives, gets poured, and the girls take their polite little sips.

There is the sound of birds tweeting. It has Ria reaching into her purse for her phone. She looks at the screen, frowns, and says, ‘Sorry, I have to take this.’

‘Of course,’ Layla says.

I gaze at her expressionlessly.

‘Oh no,’ she exclaims dramatically. ‘Noooo. Really? Do you want me to come over?’

I turn my attention to Layla. She is staring at Ria worriedly.

‘Don’t worry. I’ll take a cab. I’ll be with you in 20 minutes at the most. No, no, of course not. No, they won’t mind.’

She ends the call and looks at me then Layla. ‘I’m so sorry, but a friend of mine has just gotten some bad news. I’ve got to go and be with her. I hope you guys don’t mind.’

I shake my head.

Layla says nothing. Just stares at Ria.

Ria turns to me. ‘You will give Layla a ride back home, won’t you?’

‘Sure, I’ll give Layla a ride,’ I say.