Her innards were churning with the intensity of her hurt and disappointment, she could feel her eyes brimming with tears.
‘You cruel bastard,’ she said shakily.
He was silent for a moment. ‘Yeah. That’s me.’
Layla put the phone down. Her whole world was collapsing around her. That awful night when she’d shot Orla, the red-headed man who’d pursued her, losing her job, the fire in the office, and now… ah fuck, now Alberto had blown her out. After all that trying, all that hard work, it had all come to nothing.
‘Everything OK?’ asked Ellie, standing in the open doorway with a steaming mug in her hand.
‘Fine,’ said Layla, brushing quickly at her eyes.
Ellie looked at Layla. She could see that things weren’t fine, far from it, but it wasn’t up to her to pry into Carter business. ‘I’ll be downstairs if you need anything,’ she said, and went off along the hall.
Layla came out of the office, trembling, swiping angrily at her tears. She passed the monitor room: it was empty. She stumbled inside. She wanted to talk to Precious, but of course she was busy downstairs. Perhaps she’d be able to see her on the monitors…? Kyle was on his break, it was quiet in the monitor room, dark, Kyle’s fill-in was nowhere to be seen. She heard the loo flush along the hall.
Feeling as if someone had scooped out her insides and filled the void with anguish, Layla slumped into the chair and stared sightlessly at the screens.
Alberto had dumped her, even before anything had begun.
She couldn’t believe it.
Tomorrow, Precious would come hurrying into her bedroom all fired up for the big night, and Layla would have to tell her that he’d called it off.
‘Bastard,’ she muttered, rubbing her hands over her face. Why couldn’t he have said this at the start? Instead of giving her hope, only to dash it away.
She stared at the screens with sore bleary eyes. Wished Precious was up here with her, so that she could talk to her, cry on her shoulder.
There was Opal, gyrating in a silvery bikini in front of a man with the flushed face of a heavy drinker.
On the next screen was China, topless and sinuous, wearing a dark-coloured G-string, her long black hair swirling around her semi-nude body as the grinning man on the couch watched her.
Layla, trying to choke back tears, looked at the third monitor. She hitched in a startled breath as every nerve in her body froze into ice. The man in the private dancing room was standing up, not sitting down. He was bending, leaning over something on the floor.
Layla blinked, squinted, trying to see what was going on. Nothing seemed very clear in black and white. She was sure something was on the floor. She thought she could see something pale, maybe skin. She thought she could see dark hair. She thought – oh