so eaten up with jealousy over you and Alberto? Answer me that.’
‘Because he’s an idiot,’ snapped Annie, pushing her scone aside.
‘And why’s he come running the instant you got trouble, fighting your corner?’
‘He’s not fighting my corner, Doll. He’s fighting Layla’s.’
Dolly shrugged. ‘Same difference. Yours, Layla’s, you’re his family, both of you.’
‘I’m his ex-wife, Doll. I’m nothing to him any more.’
‘Oh sure. I believe that. Would he pick up the sexual side of things if you let him?’
Annie sat back as if Dolly had struck her, her eyes widening in outrage. Dolly gave a laugh.
‘Oh, come on. This is me, remember?’
Annie shifted uncomfortably in her chair, thinking of the way he’d held her. The heat of his body, so hard against her own. It had shocked her, him doing that.
‘Yeah, I think he would. But I’m not going there.’
‘Although you’d like to…?’
‘I can’t, Doll. I can’t go through all that again. He broke my fucking heart…’ Annie’s voice trailed off. She blinked, swallowed. ‘I don’t know,’ she said quietly, after a long pause, ‘I just can’t think how to convince him that there’s nothing between me and Alberto. That Alberto isn’t Constantine. That he never will be. It’s useless.’
‘This ain’t the Annie Carter I know, talking like this, like some loser. You got a problem, you find a way through it or around it.’
‘Easier said than done, in this case.’
Dolly sat sipping her tea, eyeing Annie assessingly.
‘You think you might want him back?’
‘No. No way!’ Annie shuddered at the memory of the fights, the bitterness, the accusations. Would she really want to put herself through that again?
‘Because I think you could have him. If you played your cards right.’
‘Doll, he wants to keep me in a box. And I can’t do that, I can’t live within limits that he sets.’
‘That’s not an option. He’s going to have to be made to see that.’
‘He’s a fucking dinosaur.’
‘But sexy as hell, yes?’ Dolly smiled.
‘Jesus. OK. Yes.’
‘Now we’re getting somewhere!’
After meeting with Dolly, Annie went on to the Hart household, where the late and unlamented Dickon had his lodgings. The minute she stepped into Moira Hart’s abode, a shabby little Victorian terrace in a long row of identical houses, Annie knew the score straight away.
Girls scuttled on the stairs, looking her over. There was a grim-faced bruiser in shirtsleeves and braces sitting down the hall. Moira herself, a tall, bulky middle-aged brunette in a big-shouldered white silk blouse and a tight red skirt, eyed her with suspicion.
‘You say you’re a friend of Dickon’s?’ she asked, leading the way into an untidy sitting-room. Tony followed behind Annie, and Moira kept shooting him worried glances. ‘Well where