‘Hello, Lily,’ Andrea says, turning her empty eyes toward me, except they are no longer empty but precise and direct, like a key turning in a lock. She perfectly understands what has not been spoken.
I force a smile. ‘Please excuse me, I need to find a washroom.’ As I turn away, Shane’s hand falls on my wrist. ‘Are you OK?’
I look into his eyes. Already I can see the weight of responsibility he has taken for my well-being. It warms and saddens me. ‘Yes. I’ll be back soon.’
I don’t have to look at his brother to know he is watching me. I feel it like a dagger in my back or an act of fate.
I don’t find the washroom. Instead I drift inconspicuously into an adjoining room. It seems to be a salon of some kind. As with everything else in the house it is beautiful. There is nobody in there. I close the door and lean against it.
The attraction is so inconvenient, so absurd that I had never even considered the possibility. And yet here it is. I want him so bad it is like an ache. I push away from the door, put my glass of champagne on a low table, and walk to a tall window. I stare out of it into the dark and see only my ghostly reflection.
A dozen thoughts come and go. I know I should be going back to Shane, but the part of me that loathes to see them together is the stronger. My thoughts are interrupted by a sound at the door.
I whirl around in surprise.
For God’s sake! An emerald suit and a diamond encrusted ring on his pinkie! He should have looked ridiculous, but he does not. He starts walking toward me—sure, confident, leonine. Dazzling.
There is an arrogance and authority to the set of his jaw that is not at all to my liking. His gaze is aggressively bold and virile. His eyes travel down my body.
‘Lost?’
‘No, I was trying to be alone.’
His eyes dip down and linger suggestively and I am certain deliberately on my breasts. The mental disrobing is meant to unruffle me.
‘Positively breathtaking,’ he murmurs softly, but with a hint of sardonic amusement.
‘Insufferably arrogant, aren’t you?’
‘It has been said,’ he concedes with a wry grin.
‘What do you want?’ I ask. My voice rings out like a bell in the vast room. I hear the panic in it, the revelation that I do not trust myself.
He stands in front of me, his cheekbones flushed with sexual heat. ‘Isn’t it perfectly obvious what I want?’
‘Not to me.’
‘I want you to stay away from my brother.’
I blush. Then I laugh mockingly. ‘You’re a gangster. Don’t act high and mighty with me.’
He smiles slowly, his eyes crinkling with amusement. ‘Say that word again.’
I blink. ‘What word?’
‘Gangster.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you make it sound so sexy I want to go out and become one.’
‘Am I supposed to believe that you’re not one?’
He shrugged disinterestedly, but his eyes take on a new glitter. ‘I can be if you want me to be.’
Suddenly I feel so flustered I can’t even look at him. I drop my eyes.
‘Is that what you really want…Lily? A gangster?’
‘It’s the last thing…’
He moves, and fast. ‘So what the fuck are you doing playing nice with his brother,’ he snarls and gripping my forearms pushes me roughly against the wall by the window.
I do what I did when I was nine years old and I opened the front door of my nan’s house and there were two unsmiling skinheads outside. One of them was holding a hammer. I didn’t pause or consider. I simply reacted.
‘Let loose the two Alsatians, Nan,’ I screamed.
For a second the heavily tattooed heads looked at each other, and then they bolted away so fast there was not enough time to say skin. My nan didn’t have a dog.
Again I let my instinct guide me.
I grab Jake’s surprised face and, pulling it down, kiss him hard on the mouth, except, unlike the skinheads situation, the problem does not run away.
His mouth opens to mine. The kiss sears my lips, shocking. I stagger and grab a handful of dark hair. Supporting hands come around my waist like bands of warm steel forcing me into his unyielding body, and I melt into it, fuse with it. My insides turn to fucking mush and my toes curl in my shoes. Thick juices leak into the gusset of my panties. For those few seconds I even stop breathing!
Then, without warning, he tears his mouth away from mine, and coiling strong hands around my forearms pushes me back against the cold wall. He stares at me with these wild, animal eyes, the pupils so huge it is as if he has been running or has come out of a dark room. Mesmerized, I gaze up at him. I have never seen anything like it. Anything so feral and beautiful. He takes a deep breath.