With a sigh I put my phone back into my purse and start the car. I reach Silver Lee in about 40 minutes. The gates are wide open and I drive through. It is the beginning of spring and there are daffodils all along the road up to the house. It looks beautiful. And somehow that makes me feel sadder. Will I see them next year or the year after? I park my car and walk along the side of the house. One of the French doors is open and I slip in and lock it.
I know Marcel would have taken Jeremy and the house feels silent and totally empty without BJ. My heels are loud on the floor. I go to the kitchen and open the fridge and smile. Marcel made a jar of mojitos before he left. I pour myself a tumbler and go into the vast, open living room. I sit on the long lilac sofa and gaze out into the countryside.
I’m surprised to hear BJ’s car roar up the driveway a few minutes later. I put my drink on a nearby table and go to the front door. He opens it as I get there. The moment is rare. I’ve never opened a door to him before. It’s nice. It makes me feel like we are a normal couple.
‘You got here fast,’ I say softly.
His eyes are dark and searching. ‘I drove fast.’
I take a step towards him. He pulls me hard into his arms and kisses me.
‘Come on. Marcel has made us mojitos,’ I say breathlessly.
He looks down at me and nods.
We go to the kitchen where I pour a glass for him and we walk out together to the sofa. We chink glasses.
‘Here’s to the new aunt,’ he says.
I smile. ‘And the new baby.’
‘And that,’ he adds.
We both take a sip. He eyes me over the rim of his glass. ‘My poor Layla,’ he says quietly.
‘I’m sorry I’m being such a baby, but I can’t bear the thought of disappointing them all, especially Jake.’
‘He has to know, Layla. Sooner or later. We can’t carry on like this.’
‘I know. I know. I will.’ I drop my face into my hands. ‘I just don’t want him to hate me.’
‘He’s not going to hate you. This is your life. Nothing would have stood in the way of him being with Lily. He has no right to stop you from seeing anyone you want to. You’re a grown woman.’
‘It’s just feels as if I have betrayed him.’
‘The longer you leave it, the worse the betrayal will be.’
‘‘Maybe I’ll tell him after Ella’s wedding. You’re going too, aren’t you?’
He grins. ‘Only to look at you.’
I blush. ‘Really?’
‘Abso-fucking-lutely.’
‘Anyway,’ I say, suddenly feeling all shy and awkward. ‘I’ll be staying over at my mother’s that night and I’ll break it to all of them at the same time.’
‘Do you want me to be there?’
‘No.’ I shiver at the thought. ‘Definitely not.’
‘OK.’ For a moment we are both silent. He takes a sip of his drink. ‘Have you heard the story of Layla and Majnun by Nizami?’
I shake my head.
‘It’s about a moon-princess who was married off by her father to someone other than the man who was desperately in love with her. It resulted in his madness.’
I bow my head. It would be all so different if he wasn’t a criminal.
THIRTEEN
BJ
I know so little about you, BJ,’ Layla complains as she locks her arms around my waist and angles her head back to catch my eyes.
God, she’s so fucking sexy, I just want to fuck her every time she comes near me. She’s got about ten minutes before I fill that honey mouth of hers full of cock.
‘What’d you want to know, Princess?’
‘Tell me why you became a criminal?’ she asks.
I shrug carelessly. ‘Why does anyone?’
She gazes up at me, her beautiful blue eyes narrowed. ‘Is it for all the power and respect you command: men shaking in their boots, women worshiping at your feet?’
‘I followed in my father’s footsteps, Layla,’ I tell her. An early memory of my father floats into my mind. He is sitting on a barstool flexing and unflexing his bulging arm muscles just before a fight. There is loud music in the background and on the table in front of him, two pints of Guinness are lined up.
‘Your father?’ she says softly. ‘He must have been quite a character. Your mother showed me her wedding photograph and he looked very handsome. It was so sweet to hear her describe him as a “rakishly dreamy charmer”.’
I remember Lenny Pilkington differently. The charm was long gone by the time I knew him, and my young self saw only a giant of a man, with a flattened, boxer’s nose, shrewd eyes, and a savage temper. My jaw stiffens unconsciously.
‘What’s wrong?’’ Layla frowns.
I block the thoughts immediately. ‘Nothing.’
Her eyes narrow suspiciously. ‘Did he force you to become a criminal, BJ?’ she demands.
I let my facial muscles relax. ‘Of course not. I desperately wanted to follow in my father’s and my uncles’ footsteps. I guess I was impressed by their big, flashy cars and their jacked-up pick-up trucks.’
‘So how old were you when you joined them?’
‘Eleven.’
Her eyes become saucers. ‘Eleven? I was still playing with my dolls when I was eleven.’
Seems so long ago and yet the day I accompanied them on my first job is as vivid as if it happened yesterday.
‘You were just a kid. What did they make you do?’
I laugh at her belligerent expression. ‘Relax. All I had to do was stand casually outside the gates of an industrial site and hoot twice like an owl if anyone, especially the pigs happened along while my father and two of my uncles filled their truck with scrap metal.’
‘I still think you were far too young to be involved in something like that,’ she says, her voice full of disapproval. In her world fathers protected their sons.
Strange, even after all these years I still feel the burning need to defend my father. ‘The truth is, Layla, it felt fucking great. From that first time I was hooked on the mix of adrenaline and excitement that pumped through my body.’
‘What did you guys do with the scrap metal?’
‘Dropped it off at my uncle’s yard.’
‘And after?’
‘Afterwards, we drove to the local pub. It was a winter’s night and I sat in the beer garden and froze my ass off while my father went in and bought me my first pint of ale. It was fucking terrible, but I drank it all up. I can still remember putting my hands into my armpits and in a drunken haze soaking up their tall tales.
‘So the little gangster learned quickly?’ she says sadly, dropping her head.
I put my finger under her chin and lift it up. ‘Why so sad? My father and uncles prepared me well for a life in the underbelly of society. They taught me to see the world the way it really is. As a sort of jungle where the human race can be divided into three categories: gazelles, lions, and hyenas.’
She looks at me curiously.
‘The gazelle is the food of both the lions and hyenas. However, contrary to perceived wisdom, it is not the hyena that steals from the lion, but the lion that will snatch from the mouth of the hyena its hard-won kill. In every place where the lion dominates, the hyena must hunt in packs and use its cunning—or perish all together.
‘Am I a gazelle in your world, BJ?’
I shake my head slowly.
‘What am I then? Explain the inhabitants of your jungle to me, BJ.’
‘The lions are the captains of industry, the bankers, the politicians, the landowners. They wear the mask of nobility. Normal society is represented by the gazelle. They register their births, work all their lives to pay countless taxes, obey even the most idiotic laws, and exist purely to fatten the predator lions. But we Gypsies, you and me, are different. We are the hyenas. Meekness and slavery are not for us. We have, and always will, survive and prosper on our own terms, using our specific talents and wits.
‘Now, you sound like Jake.
He is always going on about greedy bankers and lying politicians too.’
‘That’s because he sees through the illusion. And that’s why we, Gypsies, have travelled incessantly through the centuries never stopping long enough to put roots. We did it so no one could count us, corral us, educate us, tame us, or enslave us.
She frowns. ‘But your father sent you to school?’
‘My father was a very shrewd man. He understood the changing times meant we would soon be forced to play their game, anyway. He decided that I would be the first one of us who would have two educations, ours and theirs. So by the time I left school I could read and write as well as the next boy, but my true specialty was numbers. I excelled at them. I didn’t even have to try. They just came naturally.’
She smiles for the first time. ‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah. I was so fucking good I could walk into a scrap yard and in less than thirty seconds, I would have picked out everything of value. I knew where it was going and exactly what it all was worth.’
‘You make it sound easy.’
‘It was. Money poured in. By the time I was eighteen I got my first shiny new car. A glorious Aston Martin. Paid for in cash.’ Those were the days when no one frowned on you for paying in cash. Even now I can feel that rush of pride and possession I felt when I drove that beauty off the forecourt.
‘I wish I had been your girl-friend then,’ she says softly, and presses her face into my chest.
I don’t tell her that was the point in my life when I got into the business of grass. Selling grass to the gazelles.
FOURTEEN
LAYLA
I wake up early in my bed at my mother’s house. The house is quiet. I pull Graystone from his shelf and bury my face against his fur. Today is the day I promised BJ and Dom I will break the news to Jake. And today is also the day I break my great secret to BJ. With a heavy sigh, I get out of bed and open my bedroom door.
‘Is that you, Layla?’ my mother calls from the kitchen.
‘Morning,’ I yell back from the top of the stairs.
‘Brush your teeth and come down for breakfast. Your ride will be here in an hour.’
Even the thought of breakfast makes me feel sick. ‘I don’t want breakfast, Ma.’
I hear her footsteps come from the kitchen. Her face appears at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Are you sick? Why don’t you want breakfast?’
‘I just don’t feel like it, Ma. I think I’m nervous about today.’
My mother frowns. ‘Nervous about today? Why? You’ve been bridesmaid loads of time. Besides, it’s your cousin Ella.’
‘Yeah, you’re right,’ I concede.
‘Hurry up then. I’m making you pancakes.’
I get ready and go downstairs. My mother puts a plate with two warm buttery pancakes in front of me. I spread Nutella on one and eat it slowly. It settles like a heavy stone in my stomach. The car arrives and I am borne away to my cousin’s house. Fortunately, her house is in such a flurry of hectic activity that I quickly forget my worries and morph into the role of bridesmaid. The flower girls make me laugh. They’ve overdosed on spray tan and they all look as if they have been thoroughly shaken inside a Doritos bag.
Soon it is time for Ella to get into her wedding dress. It is a monster meringue affair, weighing a staggering 90 pounds. There are 520 Swarovski crystals on the bodice and more than 100 rings to puff the skirt out to over eight feet in diameter. Someone fits the veil on her head and she turns to us with shining eyes.
‘You look like a fairy tale princess,’ I tell her. She really does.
‘I feel like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White all rolled into one,’ she says with a catch in her voice.
At that moment I feel a faint sensation of unease. Will I ever be such a happy bride? And then it is time to pick up her 20-foot long train. It takes us more than an hour to stuff her and her dress into the white limo.
Somehow we make it to the church on time.
It is not until later at the church that I spot BJ. He’s standing at the back wearing a white shirt, a dove grey jacket, and black trousers. He doesn’t smile and neither do I, but my breath catches. I quickly look away from his seductively dangerous eyes.
Sweet Jesus. I’m in love with the guy.
The wedding goes without a hitch. Of course, I don’t catch the bridal bouquet even though Ella deliberately aims it in my direction. A woman I don’t know lunges in front of me and catches it. She seems so excited, I can’t even be annoyed with her.
Afterwards, when we are taking photographs, I manage to catch Jake.
‘Where’s Lily?’ I ask him.
He tells me that she is observing the Chinese confinement tradition that doesn’t allow her to leave the house for a whole month.
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really. She has to be on a special bland diet of soups and rice. And there is whole list of forbidden foods: raw fruit, vegetables, coffee, seafood, or anything cold.’
‘Oh my God!’
‘You think that’s bad,’ Jake says. ‘Poor thing is not even allowed to bathe. All that’s allowed is wipe-downs twice a week using washcloths steeped in smelly herbal medicine.’
‘Well, she’s made of sterner stuff than me then,’ I say.
With a sigh Jake tells me that her grandmother, a woman that he describes as “formidable,” is staying at the house overseeing to the torture. After the possessive kiss I saw Jake give Lily, I can only imagine how happy he will be once the 31 days are up.
‘Can I speak to you later tonight at Ma’s?’ I ask casually.
‘Is anything wrong?’
‘Not really.’
He frowns. ‘Do you want to talk about it now?’
‘No, no, it can definitely wait.’
The reception is held in a large banquet room at the same venue. There are speeches and toasts. BJ is only a table away, but Jake is at the same table as me, so I dare not even look at him. Then the couple stands up to have their first dance. I turn my head towards the door and freeze.
Lupo is standing there.
He is browner than everybody else in the room and he is staring at me. I stand up as inconspicuously as possible and casually head towards him.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ I whisper fiercely.
‘I’ve come for you, Bella.’
‘What?’
‘I realize now what a big mistake I made, what a stronzo I have been, so I have come for you. I’m in love with you, Layla.’
My mouth drops open. And then I remember where I am. I grab his arm and drag him down the corridor. I open the first door we come across. It is a slightly smaller reception room with red carpets, rows of stacked chairs, and a musty smell.
I close the door, putting some distance between us, and look at his handsome face. I didn’t notice it before, but he looks a lot like Enrique Iglesias. But what is really surprising is that I feel nothing. Not even rage. In fact, I am shocked that I ever thought he was worth climbing into bed with. Other than his looks, he has nothing. There is not even sexual attraction.
‘How did you find me?’
He shrugs. ‘I asked your mother, no?’
‘You went to my ma’s house?’ I wail in dismay.
‘Of course. Don’t worry. I told her I was your friend.’
I breathe a sigh of relief. ‘I’m sorry you’ve come all this way, but I’m not in love with you,’ I say coldly. I need to get rid of him as soon as possible.
‘No, you are just saying that because of what Gabriella told you. It’s not true, you know. I was never in love with her.’
‘I found someone else.’
‘Who?’ he demands angrily, his chest puffing up like a fighting cockerel’s.
‘Does it matter?’
‘Yes, it matters. You are my girl. Who is this man?’
He takes a step forward and tries to put his arm around me. I pull away and he tightens his hold.
‘Let go of me,’ I say with gritted teet
h.
‘Don’t be like that,’ he cajoles and moves his face forward. I am just about to knee him in the balls when the door crashes open and BJ stands there, rigid with fury. His face is a thundercloud. His eyes are dangerously narrowed and cold, the whites laced with red. A muscle in his face twitches madly. I have never seen him in such a state. Not even in the pit.
He snarls more than speaks. ‘Take your hand off her.’
Lupo shrivels before him. He looks like a man about to vomit. He looks at me and back to BJ and the penny drops. He starts backing away with his hands raised in the air. ‘I want no trouble,’ he mumbles. What a coward.
When he is closer BJ leans forward slightly and, perfectly composed, utters, ‘Don’t ever come back.’
The door closes and we stare at each other. Then he walks towards me and pulls me into his solid muscles.
‘What the fuck was my woman doing with that spineless little cunt?’
I look up at him. I can feel the aggression radiating off him. ‘He’s my ex.’
I twine my fingers in his hair, rising up on my tiptoes to gently place my lips on his. His hand snakes around my body and his mouth claims me. It is a demanding, aggressive, passionate kiss. I get so lost in it I don’t even hear the door open until Jake’s voice is upon us like the crack of a whip.
‘What the fuck?’
I pull away from BJ’s lips and still in his embrace, turn towards Jake. He is staring at me in disbelief. I feel the blood drain from my face. I open my mouth.
‘Step away from him,’ he says clearly, staring at BJ with murderous fury.
For a second I think about disobeying him, but I know that I need him on my side. I quickly squeeze BJ’s hand and move aside.
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