Free Losing Lila by Sarah Alderson Page B

hips disappeared into his shorts, causing a flutter in parts of my body that up until three weeks ago had been flutter-dormant. Alex’s hands dropped to his shorts and he started undoing his belt.
    I reassessed the swimming option. I could definitely do swimming.
    He shrugged off his shorts, but before I could catch an eyeful of anything, he was off, jogging towards the water. I paused for a nanosecond, weighing up my embarrassment at stripping naked over my desire to follow him. With a deep breath, I tore off my dress then kicked off my underwear and started running towards the sea, praying Nate wasn’t doing a fly-by.
    The water was warm and flat as a bath. I could see Alex in the distance, his skin gleaming in the now inky moonlight. When I got close to him, his hand snaked under the water, wrapped round my waist and pulled me towards him. I didn’t resist because I’d forgotten in that instant how to swim. And then he kissed me and I prayed silently and fervently that he took my shudder to be the effect of the cold water.
    I tried sticking myself onto him like a barnacle, but eventually Alex managed to pull himself free, holding my wrists in his hand so I couldn’t reattach. His resolve was as solid as a nuclear bunker’s walls. Alex had said there were always chinks. But I couldn’t seem to find the one in his armour. He swam two long strokes away from me. I trod water and stayed where I was, feeling confused, glad that the night was dark enough to hide my expression.
    ‘I’m just trying to protect your honour,’ he said, guessing it anyway.
    I groaned and rolled my eyes. When was he going to understand that I was happy for him to protect every other part of me, just not my honour?
    He swam silently back to my side.
    ‘I know we have to leave,’ I sighed, ‘but it feels like this is the only place in the world right now where we’re safe. Where nothing bad can happen.’
    ‘We’ll come back,’ Alex said, his hand reaching under the water to stroke down my back.
    ‘You think?’ I looked at him hopefully.
    ‘I know so,’ Alex said, pulling me close once more. ‘I’ll bring you back here. It’s inevitable.’
    I couldn’t work out if it was the salt water that was making me float like a jellyfish on the water or him.

11
    ‘I like it. Lila, it’s a genius idea.’
    I hadn’t said anything. I’d just been thinking idly, following random ideas this way and that in my head while the others talked about Stirling Enterprises and how we were going to destroy them – as if bringing down global corporations was as easy as knocking down a house of cards.
    ‘What? What idea?’ I glanced over at Suki. She was bouncing on her heels and clapping her hands.
    ‘Carlos. The Mafia man.’
    Carlos? What? ‘I didn’t have an idea. I was just thinking,’ I blurted, suddenly fearing where this might be heading.
    ‘What were you thinking?’ Demos asked, swivelling to me.
    ‘You were talking about how we needed to bring down Stirling Enterprises,’ I said, squirming in my seat. ‘Not just destroy the Unit, but the whole company, and I was thinking about how to do that.’
    ‘And she thought about this man.’ Suki bounced forward. ‘This Carlos. With the bald skeleton head and the mean eyes and the baddie tattooed bodyguards. I like this plan.’
    ‘It’s not a plan,’ I almost shouted.
    ‘No, there’s something there. Wait,’ Alex said. He took a few seconds to think. Everyone waited.
    ‘It was stupid,’ I interrupted before he could think any further. ‘I just thought that the only way to really hurt Richard Stirling and destroy his company would be if we could set him up somehow.’
    ‘And she thought drugs,’ Suki said, still bouncing on the balls of her feet.
    ‘I thought about drugs and money,’ I corrected her. ‘Which made me think of Carlos. But not seriously. It was just a random thought. It wasn’t meant for public consumption.’
    ‘This Carlos guy – he’s the guy you got