She caught Destiny’s chin in one hand as Destiny tried to turn her face away. Stared at Destiny’s blackened eye. ‘What the hell happened here? Walked into another door, did we?’
‘Ellie…’
‘Take a couple of days out,’ said Ellie. ‘You’ll frighten the fucking punters, looking like that.’
‘Oh, come on,’ pleaded Destiny. ‘I can’t afford to skip work.’
‘No.’ Ellie released Destiny’s chin with a sigh. ‘But you can’t work marked up either. Give it a couple of days, we can cover what’s left of it then.’ She turned to Layla. ‘Visitor, Layla. Your brother again.’
Shit, thought Layla. Her heartbeat accelerated. She wasn’t ready for this.
‘How many times? He is not my frigging brother.’
Layla pushed her way out through the throng. Alberto was there, Sandor looming beside him.
Alberto smiled, came forward, hugged her. Seemed not to even notice her bloody hair, she realized. All that effort, and for what?
‘Hi, Layla. How are you?’
‘Peachy,’ she snapped.
‘Your mom told me about the business at your office. You’re getting tired of sitting around here, I guess.’
‘You guess correctly.’
‘Can’t you give Ellie a hand with the accounts?’
And do poor old dried-up Miss Pargeter out of a job she loves? ‘No, I can’t.’
The tetchiness of her tone was starting to penetrate. ‘Something wrong?’ he asked.
‘Nothing.’ Layla folded her arms, looked at the floor. Anything was better than looking at him, he was just too damned handsome.
‘I wanted to see you, to assure you that we’re going to sort this out.’
As if this could be ‘sorted out’. She’d killed someone. Layla shuddered again at the memory.
‘We’re tracking down the twin, Redmond Delaney,’ said Alberto. ‘The woman’s off the scene, but we want to be certain he is too. Until then…’
‘Until then, I’m stuck here,’ Layla finished for him. Off the scene. That was one way of putting it. Very decorous. So much better than dead as a doornail.
‘Yeah. You are. So try not to give your mom a hard time over it. She’s looking out for you, doing what she thinks is best.’
Yeah. By sending me away.
‘Well…’ Alberto paused. Sandor shifted subtly. Layla was still looking at the floor. ‘If you need me for anything, just pass the word along.’
‘OK.’
He was going. She wanted to fling herself at him, to feel his arms holding her. She remembered him lifting her up when she was little, twirling her around the room while she shrieked with laughter. She had never felt so safe, so loved, as she had in those moments with him.
But now she was grown up and her feelings were more complicated. And this was too damned