Читать книгу Playing Dead - Jessie Keane - Страница 22

Chapter 16

When Annie left the massive master suite with its sprawling ocean view, she walked straight into Cara.

Annie groaned inwardly. Her relationship with her step-daughter had never got off the ground. She had tried hard to befriend Cara, but she found her snobbish, vain and unlovable. She spoke to Annie hardly at all, and Annie thought that was just fine, if that was the way Cara wanted it.

But today, something about Cara seemed different. She looked . . . well, Annie wasn’t exactly sure how Cara looked. Usually, Constantine’s daughter exuded an icy poise that left no room for even an attempt at civility. But today, Cara looked shattered. She looked as though someone had just given her a scare that had rocked her world. She looked sick.

‘Cara?’ Annie caught her arm as Cara was about to pass right by her without a word. ‘Are you all right?’

Cara’s eyes met hers and in that instant before her guard went up, Annie saw something there; something bruised, something covert and uncertain. But then the shutters were in place again and Cara just stared at Annie coldly.

‘Like you care,’ she said, and looked pointedly at Annie’s hand resting on her arm.

Annie removed it. ‘I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.’

But Cara was right: Annie’s words were a lie. There was just something about Cara’s own personal fuck-you demeanour and the swanky pea-brained friends she hung around with that put Annie’s back up.

‘I told you. I’m fine.’

Yeah, and I’m the Queen of Sheba, thought Annie. But fuck it. Did she really want to know what petty concerns went on in the life of someone so vacuous, spiteful and vain?

Answer: no.

Cara hurried on by. Annie heard her go into the bathroom at the head of the stairs, slamming the door behind her – and then she heard retching.

Annie paused there on the stairs, frowning. Maybe Cara was pregnant? But Annie sort of doubted that. So maybe Rocco had upset her . . . but then, Rocco was so mild, so practically invisible as a personality, that Annie couldn’t imagine him upsetting anyone, far less his notoriously difficult wife.

In the downstairs hall, Annie found Nico sitting patiently on guard outside Constantine’s study.

‘Is he free?’ Annie asked him.

Nico rose to his feet and gave her a smiling half-bow. ‘For you, yeah – he’s free.’ He turned and tapped at the door.

‘Come!’ came from inside the study.

He looked up as she came in. She stood there leaning against the door. He pushed himself back from the desk and stared at her.

‘Mrs Barolli,’ he said, his eyes playing with hers.

‘Mr Barolli,’ Annie greeted him.

‘And to what do I owe this unexpected honour?’ Constantine made a ‘so come here’ gesture with his hand.

Annie went over to the desk.

‘Closer,’ said Constantine.

Annie stepped nearer.

‘Not close enough,’ said Constantine.

Annie went around the desk, sat in his lap and put her arms around his neck. ‘Close enough now?’ she asked.

‘Barely,’ he complained, nuzzling her neck with his lips. ‘Something bothering you?’

‘Not really.’ Annie thought briefly of Cara’s face, but then it was gone, forgotten.

‘The baby?’ said Constantine, anxiously. He glanced down, concerned, at the small neat bump beneath her light lilac shift dress.

‘I just wanted to see you.’

‘Mrs Barolli, I love you very much,’ he said, and kissed her, and Annie found herself remembering her first pregnancy, when she had been expecting Layla; and Max had been so delighted, just as Constantine was now.

A sharp pang of sadness and regret struck her heart as she hugged her second husband and whispered her love for him, because once there had been Max, owner of the East End streets around Bow in London; Max Carter, gang lord, lover – and her first husband, her first true romance. And she had loved him too. Oh, so much.

She shivered, and clung to Constantine.