“Nice try, Hobbs, but no chance.”
For the next half hour, Helen stuck dutifully to Sebastian’s side, mingling with guests, laughing at their jokes, and answering the odd question about herself. Thankfully, her supposed poetry-writing hobby didn’t come up, but a few times she spoke about her website work, keeping the name and nature of Alexa’s business quiet, and definitely not mentioning the coding work she’d done for Jaxon. Computer programming was her passion, but she happily buried her geekiness deep here, in the sporty, glitzy, corporate glamour of Sebastian’s world.
Eventually, the dinner came to an end and it was time to head to the club, after which Sebastian had said they’d need to swing by the hotel to pick up the car and his stuff before heading home. Helen couldn’t wait to lock up her chickens. They’d be roosting in the coop by now, quite safe in their enclosure but still, she didn’t like leaving them for too long. And she was desperate for some time to herself so she could figure out what to do with her new houseguest.
Outside, she waited for Sebastian to finish saying goodbye to George Hampton and a few other official looking people. She gazed at the bridge, now illuminated against the darkened sky. Two lads eating junk food out of paper bags staggered by on the other side of the street. Sebastian came up beside her, the low light bringing out the dark shadows under his eyes. She yawned again, and so did he.
“I promise we won’t stay long at this club.” He glanced over his shoulder to where Nadine and Ashley were saying their last goodbyes to Brenda and George. “Let’s get in the car, see if they take the hint.”
As they stepped toward the waiting car, Helen noticed that the two lads across the street had stopped to stare.
“The Nads and Ash fan club are congregating,” she muttered.
But then she looked again at the rowdy pair.
One tall, the other short.And there was something familiar …
Her stomach dropped to the floor. “Oh, no. It’s Raz.”
“Who’s Raz?”
“He’s—”Looking straight at me!
“Oi! Slag!” Liz’s ex-boyfriend shouted from across the street.
“Helen?” Sebastian moved in front of her. “Do you know that guy?”
There wasn’t time to answer. Raz and his mate—whom Helen may also have practiced her kick-boxing skills on that night—shot toward them, pelting junk food like grenades, hooting like maniacs. Helen took cover behind the car, yanking Sebastian with her. Raz and his mate fled down a side street before the hotel’s security guards could give chase.
Helen and Sebastian straightened. Then her hands flew to her mouth. Sebastian’s left cheek was pockmarked with chili sauce, his nostrils flaring like a wild bull’s.
“Sebastian, I can explain.”
But he wasn’t looking at her.
Slowly, Helen followed his eyeline to the people behind her. There’d been so much squealing and shouting during Raz’s fast-food attack that Helen hadn’t made out any particular sound.
Until now.
She surveyed the carnage; Brenda Ellis, lost for words, picking shredded onions out of her hair. George Hampton, eyes wide, flicking lumps of greasy meat off his jacket, and The Wags—oh, god, The Wags!
They were hyperventilating, their breath coming in short, sharp squeaks of outrage and humiliation as globs of mayonnaise dripped off their once flawless faces.
Helen winced.
So that's a big, fat no to Weston-super-Mare, then.
Seb shouldn’t be driving. Adrenaline was the only thing keeping him awake—and a life-and-death determination to stick to the wrong side of the road. Why the fuck the English insisted on driving ass-backward was beyond him.
The way his luck was going, he’d probably veer the car off these damn curving, narrow lanes and end up in a deep, dark ditch, stranded in this unknown land. His only companion the devil woman beside him, who—of course—really did have to live in the middle of a frickin’ field in the middle of frickin’ nowhere. His only consolation? She looked just as miserable as he felt.
“Sebastian, I really am so sorry about Raz,” Helen said for the twelve hundredth time.
She’d told him the guy—Raz—was her best friend’s ex-boyfriend, a prick to say the least, who’d tried to knock her friend around until Helen had stepped in, which is why he’d grabbed his opportunity for revenge tonight. The guy was obviously deranged, and Seb knew his walking by had been a case of severe bad luck, but that was just the thing about Helen Hobbs, wasn’t it? She’d become his unlucky charm.
“I had no idea Raz was still around,” she went on, repeating what she’d already told him. But hearing it for the second, third or fourth time didn’t make the outcome any better. “Liz said she’d heard he was moving back to Birmingham so this must’ve been his last night out with his Bristol mates.”
They’d already agreed to keep Raz’s identity to themselves and go along with the common assumption that tonight’s assailants were just some drunken kids looking for a little Friday nightfun. Telling everyone the junk food had been intended for Helen would only make her—and therefore Seb—look bad, and bring on a whole load of questions that neither he nor Helen had the desire to answer.
