Free The Make by Jessie Keane Page B

sharply formed, anxious of expression. Her pale denim-blue eyes stared at him with something like panic.
    ‘Hey, it’s me,’ said Harry, beaming.
    ‘Um . . . hello,’ she said uncertainly, ‘How are you?’
    Another woman came up beside her. This one was large, hard-faced, dark-haired and wearing a Burberry trench. Harry had thought the cougar was alone.
    ‘Jack darling, I don’t like the red,’ she said in a hectoring tone of voice. ‘I much prefer the cream – so much softer, don’t you think?’ The brunette’s eyes, full of curiosity, were now resting on Harry. There was a predatory half-smile on her crimson-painted mouth. ‘And who’s this?’
    The cougar’s cheeks flushed the same hectic red that Harry had found so charming on the night they’d spent together.
    ‘Oh, this is . . .’ she hesitated.
    ‘Harry,’ he supplied for her, shaking the woman’s hand.
    ‘He’s a friend of my daughter’s,’ said Jackie quickly. Harry glanced at her. The blue eyes looked back at him without expression. ‘They were at uni together.’
    Harry felt a stab of hurt at that. Like he was a dirty secret. Then he remembered her pushing him out through the door into the dawn, and realized that was precisely how she saw him – as something shameful and disgusting, to be concealed.
    He shouldn’t have touched her shoulder. Shouldn’t have smiled at her. Shouldn’t have breezed over here like she’d be pleased to see him. It was patently obvious that she wasn’t.
    Of course she wasn’t. Why would she be?
    ‘This is Camilla,’ said Jackie formally. ‘A client of mine.’
    He understood that Jackie was marking out her territory, drawing boundaries. Jackie was an interior designer. She was posh. She spoke like thet. Like one of the nobs. She was way above him in the social scale of things; he was nothing but a good-looking chancer, living on benefits and selling his nubile young bod for undeclared amounts of money. He felt he’d made a major error, made a complete bloody fool of himself. He should have been more careful, more discreet.
    ‘Well, it was nice seeing you again, Mrs Sullivan,’ he said.
    ‘You too, Harry,’ she said, very polite.
    Harry looked into her eyes again. Saw nothing there, no small spark of the connection that had been there on the night he’d stayed. He nodded once, then turned and walked away.
    ‘Emma’s a very lucky girl,’ said Camilla, her eyes following Harry as he walked off. ‘What, darling?’ asked Jackie vaguely, looking with intense concentration at the cream-coloured blooms that Camilla favoured.
    ‘What an exquisite young man.’ Camilla was still watching Harry, admiring the luscious fall of his shoulder-length auburn hair, his wide shoulders beneath the black leather bomber jacket, the tight fit of the stonewashed jeans on his long, long legs. Finally he was lost in the crowds. Camilla gave Jackie a louche look. ‘Imagine waking up to something as wonderful as that in the morning.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Jackie with a cool smile. ‘Imagine. A mixture of the gerbera and the roses, do you think? Yes?’

Chapter 14
    ‘Lefty in?’ Stew asked Gordon, who was policing the door of Deano Drax’s fetish club in Soho. Stew had nipped over from the strip joint over the road. They were both doormen, and they had become pals, so they often stood out in the alley beside the industrial-sized wheelie bins and had a smoke and a chat.
    The immaculately attired Gordon ushered in a few more punters, stopping a couple, giving them a quick frisk. Perversions were all very well, but weapons were a no-no inside Shakers. Satisfied, he motioned the punters through into the dark, pulsing body of the club.
    Gordon gestured for another of the bouncers to take over the door. He moved to one side, taking Stew Baker with him. Stew was a solid man, in build and in character, one of the best, a good mate to Gordon – and to the hapless Lefty, too.
    ‘You mean you ain’t heard about Lefty?’