“Is that really your job?”She asks.“I don’t think anyone is after me.Georgie in class 4 keeps trying to kiss me since I was on T.V.but most people treat me the same as before.”
“It’s some of what I do.Did you know Livia before?”
Her nose wrinkles again, and she gives her head a concise shake.“I don’t know if I want to be in a film if I have to have her looking after me.”
“Maybe that won’t be the case.If you talked to your mum…”
“She thinks Livia’s nice, and that I should do what she says ’cause she knows all about the business.I don’t think she knows anything, and she spends all her time looking at stupid pictures on the internet.”
“Pictures?”
“Of boys with their shirts off, showing their tummies.I don’t get why that’s so interesting.I think boys should keep their clothes on.Do you think so too?”
Depends on the boy.
“It’s less distracting if they do.”
She nods sagely.“Some of them are all hairy, like there’s big spiders crawling across them.”She raises both hands and curls and wiggles her fingers imitating spider movements.“Livia likes the ones who have lumpy fronts.”
I’m starting to think it’s time to have a chat with the local safeguarding officer, until it occurs to me that she’s referring to pecs and a six-pack, and not bulges of a more snake-like variety.
“I can manage myself,” she insists when we reach theLADIES’.
There’s only one exit.“Okay, I’ll wait out here.”
I figure my sassy little charge is going to take her time, so I keep one eye on the door and another on the nearby window onto the street.There’s a sports car parked by the meter right outside the door.Johns would tell me the exact make, model and other tedious stuff like the engine size.I notice it because there’s a couple standing right by it having a heated argument, and I keep thinking she’s going to shove him, and as it’s an open top, he’s going to wind up on the back seat.
In my mind it’s Dylan I see in that compromised position, limbs akimbo, ruffled enough that he doesn’t give a damn when I climb in alongside him and goad him into making out.
It’s only when the man below turns that I recognise him.It’s Adam Bask, and the woman is a zillion times familiar too, although I don’t recall her name.She was at the dinner the other night with the dark haired girl with the attitude.The one convinced Dylan was some sort of bogeyman who’d shagged her dad.I’m actually surprised when neither of them claims the car and zooms off.They head in different directions, Bask towards the riverbank and the woman into the bakery across the street where she chats to the dark-haired serving girl in her candy-striped cap.
The hinges on the restroom door creak returning my focus to where it should be, but it’s the door to theGENTS’that swings open and instead of Zsofia reappearing, it’s the all too familiar face of Dylan Drake I find myself looking at.He’s dressed in a dark blue suit with taffeta-like sheen to it, combined with a snowy white shirt that’s unbuttoned to the top of his pecs.There’s a heavy watch on his wrist, and a single diamond glinting in one ear.
On seeing me, he instantly stills, and his features take on a frown.
“Dylan,” I say, nodding in acknowledgement.
I wish I could say there was even a glimmer of pleasure in his expression.Okay, so maybe there’s a slight upwards quirk to the side of his mouth.
“Why are you here?”he says.No,Hey,orHow are you?Only a demand to explain myself, as if he imagines I’m stalking him.
“I’m working.You?”I can do short and to the point too.
He gives an odd sort of shrug that’s more about his hands than his head and shoulders.“Eating, or I was.”His table must have been up here; if he’d been downstairs where we were seated I’d have noticed him.
How’ve you been, I want to ask.Have you thought about me, about us?Maybe he only looks back and wonders what the hell I slipped into his drink.Not that I did—slip anything into his drink.Nor was I the one really responsible for us doing stuff, not really.He’s the one who texted my boss to engineer a booty call.Howard would have sacked the hell out of me if he had the merest smidgen of an inkling that’s what happened.Thankfully he doesn’t.Also, yes, I’ve started thinking of him as Howard in my head, though he’s always Mr.Falchard to his face.
“Any more threats, or has it been quiet?”
I expect him to bark back something about my boss keeping me informed, but instead Dylan digs into the pocket of his tailored trousers and draws out a crumpled note.I know before he hands me it that I’m not going to like the contents.Hell, I shouldn’t even be touching it.This should be in the hands of the police.
I read it quickly and return it.
“Have you shown Falchard this?”If he’s not got the sense to consult the constabulary, then I pray he’s at least shrewd enough to have notified security that things are escalating.
“And have him multiply the number of minders I have tailing my every move from two to two dozen… Not bloody likely.”
“I’m not seeing any of my colleagues hereabouts.”
