Ruthless (30 page)

Was Precious on to something here? Was it because of her mother’s looks that she’d hidden herself away? Layla was so preoccupied by the thought she abandoned all resistance and allowed Precious to proceed with the transformation unhindered.

Aside from her mother, Layla had never come across anyone so confident in her femininity as Precious. She was intrigued, fascinated by this woman who could dance naked in front of strangers and think nothing of it. Layla couldn’t imagine what that was like. She longed to know how it felt.

By popping in and out of her room of an evening on the pretext of using the kitchen, Layla had discovered that the security guy on duty in the monitor room always took a fifteen-minute break at eleven. During that time one of the barmen was supposed to cover the monitors, to ensure the girls’ safety while they were alone in one of the private dancing rooms with a punter. This week it was Junior who was providing the cover while the security guy took his break, and she’d noticed that he wasn’t too diligent about it. Usually he’d leave the monitor room unattended while he loitered in the kitchen, making tea, or he’d be hanging around the dressing room, chatting up the girls. Tonight, she was planning to take advantage of his absence.

‘Open your eyes.’ Precious was screwing the cap back on the tube of foundation. Now she picked up a tub of translucent powder, opened it, and swirled a big brush around in there. ‘Close your eyes again . . .’

The brush was applied to Layla’s face. Layla sneezed.

‘I’m making this nice and easy so you can do it yourself next time,’ explained Precious, picking up a smaller brush and loading it with pink powder. ‘Blusher,’ she said, sweeping it along Layla’s cheeks. Next she took out a black pencil, outlined Layla’s newly defined brows. Then, using a fine brush, she applied eyeliner, sticking close to the lashes, flicking out and up at the end. When that was done she clamped Layla’s lashes into a little silver instrument of torture, held them there for thirty seconds on each eye. Then applied mascara. Dusted powder over that. Then another coat of mascara.

‘How much longer?’ asked Layla, restless.

‘Hush.’ Now Precious was holding various lipsticks against Layla’s skin. She settled on a wine-red one. ‘That’s just about the other side of the colour spectrum to your eyes, which makes it perfect.’

She painted the lipstick on with another brush, made Layla bite down on a tissue, reapplied it. Then she fluffed up Layla’s hair all around her face. Finally she stood behind her, grasped her shoulders, and studied her in the mirror.

‘OK. All done. What do you think?’

Layla looked in the mirror. Her mother was staring back at her.

‘
Holy shit
! ’ she said, spooked.

Precious was grinning. ‘Layla Carter,’ she said in measured tones, ‘you’re beautiful.’

‘Jesus H. Christ in a sidecar.’

‘Stunning, yes? But we’ve still got work to do.’

‘Like what?’

‘I’m going to teach you how to achieve the same effect. What did it take, five minutes? That’s all. Then we’ll go and get you some make-up of your own, and some brushes – you need good brushes, rollers for your hair, all that stuff.’

Layla was still staring at her reflection, amazed.

‘Oh, and we’ll sort your hands out. Get them neatened up.’

‘OK,’ said Layla, dazed.

‘And then of course, we sort out your clothes.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with my clothes.’

‘You must be bloody well joking!’

That night Layla was hovering by her bedroom door when Kyle left his post in the monitor room. Junior wouldn’t be up here for a good five minutes, and even then he’d make a detour to the kitchen first: she’d timed his comings and goings. She hurried along the hall, stepped into the monitor room, and sat down in Kyle’s vacated – still warm – chair. There was an emergency buzzer on the desk, so that whoever was manning the monitors could summon assistance from the bouncers at the front of the club. It was a neat arrangement.

Layla scanned the black-and-white monitors. One of them showed an empty room with a small dark silk banquette and an area big enough for a private dance. The second showed an embarrassed young man with a happy grin on his face watching Destiny dance in a pale-coloured thong and nothing else. The third monitor showed Precious and another middle-aged man, his arms folded, watching her gyrate in front of him. He had a look about him as if he’d been hypnotized.

Layla could
see
why he was so enthralled. Precious, devoid of clothing, was performing a sinuous dance, hips moving hypnotically, her breasts swaying.

‘Oh my God,’ murmured Layla, fascinated.

Precious was so comfortable in her skin that for a moment Layla didn’t realize that she was absolutely stark-bollock nude. But she was. Her bush was shaved, revealing everything. Her hair kept playing peek-a-boo with her breasts. Layla could only stare, transfixed. She had never seen anything so completely
seductive
in her entire life.

Maybe I’m a closet lezzer,
she thought.

But it wasn’t that. She had lived her life this far nonsexually, repressing any hint of the woman she truly was. Precious was right about that. She couldn’t compete with her mother, so she’d never tried. But now . . . she wished she could be like that, a siren, a beauty, able to summon men to her with a single glance. She thought of Alberto, just across town.

To have that power . . .

Wouldn’t it be wonderful?

Oh, it would.

She looked again at the monitor, at Precious dancing, and then she glanced at her watch. Realized her time was up. Junior would be here in seconds. She took one last look at her friend, who possessed a secret that Layla wanted – so much – to share. How to be a woman. How to
seduce.

With one last, enraptured glance at the monitor, she hurriedly got up from the desk and left the room, closing the door softly behind her.

67

‘You’re a crystalline winter, same as me,’ said Precious. ‘Thought so.’

Layla’d had her colours done. This was a strange process in Harrods, where a heavily made-up lady in glasses threw swatches of multi-coloured fabric over her shoulders and subjected her to intense scrutiny.

‘No, no,’ said the woman to teal, coral, peach and mustard.

‘I like coral,’ said Layla in protest.

‘Well, don’t dear. It’s
lethal
with your skin tone.’

‘Beige is safe isn’t it?’ asked Layla a bit wistfully as the colours were thrown over, this one, that one, then the next . . .

‘Safe? We’re not interested in playing “safe”! We want to find colours that will make your looks
sing.
Oh yes. Here we go. Much better,’ she pronounced, as she draped Layla in brilliant fuchsia pink, deep cherry red, burgundy, turquoise, rich royal blue and vibrant, regal purple. Then she suggested lip colours, foundation, eye shadows.

Layla was relieved when they paused in Harvey Nicks’ restaurant. Now she had a little purse-sized colour swatch all of her own, and a bag full of new make-up.

‘I’m knackered,’ she told Precious, kicking off her shoes discreetly under the table.

But Precious took no notice. ‘Now we know what flatters you, we’ll plough on. I could just see you in a power suit. And a red evening dress, something cut down to the waist.’

‘You what!’

‘Well, a bit low. Maybe not that low.’

Layla’s feet throbbed. Her head was starting to ache.

‘Why didn’t you tell me this was going to be such bloody hard work?’ she asked with a groan.

‘You know what drives me absolutely
nuts
about him?’ Annie asked her old mate Dolly as they sat in the Ritz taking afternoon tea – and a little champagne for Dolly, after which Dolly would probably become slightly tipsy. Or pissed as a rat, depending on her mood.

This was something they did on a regular basis. Two women who had been through a lot together, who trusted and understood each other, sitting on Dior chairs under the fabulous gold cupola of the Palm Court, listening to a gifted boy playing Cole Porter on the piano, being waited on by attentive staff in brass-buttoned tailcoats and white ties. Trying to resist going overboard on the scones, chocolate cake, sandwiches and raspberry tarts – and usually failing.

Two of the Carter heavies were sitting at a nearby table,
also
taking tea. Annie would have seen the humour of it – two big muscular guys drinking from bone china cups, their little fingers sticking out daintily as they drank – if she hadn’t been so stressed out about Max being back in her life again.

‘Can you guess? The thing that
really
drives me insane?’ asked Annie.

‘Got a feeling you’re going to tell me,’ said Dolly, wolfing down a finger sandwich stuffed with smoked salmon.

‘The way he tries to boss me around. The way he always has to be
in charge.
Do you know how crazy that makes me?’

Dolly gave her friend a long, assessing look.

‘I’m guessing that don’t
always
irritate you,’ she said.

‘Meaning?’ Annie sipped her tea with a quick, angry gesture.

Dolly let out a sigh.

‘Annie. I been your mate since God was a lad, haven’t I? I was a madam, in charge of a bunch of prossies. Now I’m in charge of the dancers at the Palermo. If there’s one thing I know, it’s
women.
What’s more, I know
you.
The real problem? You’re an Alpha woman. He’s an Alpha man. You clash. Everywhere, I guess, except the bedroom, where he can boss you around just as much as he likes, and you love it. Am I right or am I right?’

Shit, she’s right,
thought Annie. Max drove her crazy out of bed. The trouble was, he’d always driven her crazy
in
it too.

‘So what you going to do about it?’ asked Dolly. She selected a sandwich with egg-and-cress filling, bit in.

‘There’s nothing
to
do, is there?’ Annie turned sad eyes on her friend. ‘We’re divorced. It’s history. It’s over.’

‘Oh yeah. Eight years on. And how many men have you dated?’

‘Hey, I’ve dated. You know I have.’

‘Yeah. Grand total of
two,
as I recall.’

Annie pulled a face. ‘And your point is . . .?’

‘My point is bleedin’ obvious.’

‘No, come on. Spit it out.’

‘You won’t like it.’

‘Try me.’

‘They both looked a bit like him, didn’t they? Only they didn’t have his balls. Or his charisma.’

Annie opened her mouth. Then she thought about it and closed it with a snap.

‘And you reckon it’s over,’ said Dolly.

‘It
is.’

‘Then why’s he
still
so eaten up with jealousy over you and Alberto? Answer me that.’

‘Because he’s an idiot,’ snapped Annie, pushing her scone aside.

‘And why’s he come running the instant you got trouble, fighting your corner?’

‘He’s not fighting
my
corner, Doll. He’s fighting Layla’s.’

Dolly shrugged. ‘Same difference. Yours, Layla’s, you’re his family, both of you.’

‘I’m his ex-wife, Doll. I’m nothing to him any more.’

‘Oh sure. I believe
that.
Would he pick up the sexual side of things if you let him?’

Annie sat back as if Dolly had struck her, her eyes widening in outrage. Dolly gave a laugh.

‘Oh, come on. This is
me,
remember?’

Annie shifted uncomfortably in her chair, thinking of the way he’d held her. The heat of his body, so hard against her own. It had shocked her, him doing that.

‘Yeah, I think he would. But I’m not going there.’

‘Although you’d like to . . .?’

‘I
can’t
, Doll. I can’t go through all that again. He broke my fucking
heart
. . .’ Annie’s voice trailed off. She blinked, swallowed. ‘I don’t know,’ she said quietly, after a long pause, ‘I just can’t
think
how to convince him that there’s nothing between me and Alberto. That Alberto isn’t Constantine. That he never will be. It’s useless.’

‘This ain’t the Annie Carter I know, talking like this, like some
loser.
You got a problem, you find a way through it or around it.’

‘Easier said than done, in this case.’

Dolly sat sipping her tea, eyeing Annie assessingly.

‘You think you might want him back?’

‘No. No way!’ Annie shuddered at the memory of the fights, the bitterness, the accusations. Would she really want to put herself through that again?

‘Because I think you could have him. If you played your cards right.’

‘Doll, he wants to keep me in a box. And I can’t do that, I can’t live within limits that he sets.’

‘That’s not an option. He’s going to have to be made to see that.’

‘He’s a fucking dinosaur.’

‘But sexy as hell, yes?’ Dolly smiled.

‘Jesus. OK. Yes.’

‘Now
we’re getting somewhere!’

68

After meeting with Dolly, Annie went on to the Hart household, where the late and unlamented Dickon had his lodgings. The minute she stepped into Moira Hart’s abode, a shabby little Victorian terrace in a long row of identical houses, Annie knew the score straight away.

Girls scuttled on the stairs, looking her over. There was a grim-faced bruiser in shirtsleeves and braces sitting down the hall. Moira herself, a tall, bulky middle-aged brunette in a big-shouldered white silk blouse and a tight red skirt, eyed her with suspicion.

‘You say you’re a friend of Dickon’s?’ she asked, leading the way into an untidy sitting-room. Tony followed behind Annie, and Moira kept shooting him worried glances. ‘Well where
is
the little git? He owes me rent money.’

‘Dickon’s left the area. He owe much?’ demanded Annie.

Annie could see Moira thinking of the true figure, then doubling it. ‘A ton,’ she said.

The doorbell rang. There was movement in the hall, footsteps on the stairs, activity above their heads.

Oh yes, Annie knew this place. She knew it of old.