Because she’d loved him all her life. But
not the way he loved her.
‘Layla?’ he said.
Layla lifted her gaze. Alberto was staring at her. He had Constantine’s eyes, she remembered them even now – eyes of a bright, armour-piercing blue. Like his father, he was tanned, strong, authoritative, startlingly good-looking – and probably had about a million women queuing up to date him.
‘What?’ she asked, dry-mouthed.
‘What the fuck have you done to your hair?’
Layla raised a hand self-consciously to her head. ‘Um, nothing. Just primped it up a bit.’
‘Right.’ He was still staring. ‘Well… I’ll see you then. Layla?’
‘Yeah?’
‘It’s… nice,’ he said, staring at her quite oddly. Then he leaned in and kissed her cheek.
Layla pulled back as if she’d been burned. ‘OK. Thanks,’ she said, and turned quickly away, went back into her room.
Precious was there, with China and Destiny. They were all grinning.
‘What?’ asked Layla sharply.
‘He noticed the hair!’ they chorused.
But Layla’s expression was gloomy.
‘So he noticed it. He’d be hard put not to, wouldn’t he. Suddenly I’ve got big hair, of course he notices it. So what?’
‘So what?’ Precious was looking at her like she’d gone mad. She pulled Layla into her arms and hugged her. ‘Layla. Honey. This is what is called making progress.’
‘It’s a shit-hole,’ said Max succinctly.
They were sitting around the table upstairs in his old mum’s place. For sentimental reasons, he’d never been able to get himself to sell Queenie’s gaff; so it had stood empty over the years, serving only as a quiet, private meeting-place for the boys.
The gang was all here – what was left of it. Max at the head of the table, and that ugly little cigar-smoking goblin Jackie Tulliver on his left, with whip-thin, blond and mean-eyed Gary Tooley on his right, along with bulky dark-haired Steve Taylor.
There were others here too tonight. Alberto Barolli sat at the other end of the table, a couple of his goons close by and Sandor at the door. Annie Carter sat beside Alberto.
‘It’s a crappy little club in Soho. And I do mean crappy. It’s run by one of the Delaney leftovers – a cousin called O’Connor. Pretty tough bastard, by all accounts.’
‘I thought the Delaney clubs were burned out years ago,’ said Alberto.
‘The good ones were,’ said Annie.
Feeling restless, she got up and moved to the window. It was getting dark outside and the rain was pouring down, the streets were slick with it, cars hissing past, headlights flicking on. People were hurrying along under umbrellas.
‘This is just a remnant,’ said Max.