be a distraction, y’know? Something to take my mind off things, but in the end I had to walk away from that because I just knew that he was harbouring some notion that maybe he was still in love with India too…’
‘Kenny’s still in love with India?’ Michael asked, looking at Layla through narrowed eyes.
‘Kenny’s always been in love with India. He’ll be in love with India forever, any idiot knows that.’
For once Michael felt as though he and Kenny finally had something in common. Because he was going to be in love with her forever too, whether he liked it or not.
‘I guess what I’m trying to say is…’
‘Why are you here, Layla? I mean, is there a reason?’
She kept hold of his hand and he made no attempt to let go. ‘I know you wanted her back, Michael. I know that, and I accepted that, and if you and Indiahad got back together I would have accepted that too. Really, I would have. But…’ She shrugged, ‘… then came Dominic MacDonald. He walked into her life – into both your lives – and she fell for him. Even after the shit hit the fan, Michael, she’s still with him. You have to face up to that. You’re too late.’
Michael looked into her eyes, saying nothing. He had nothing to say.
Layla rubbed his knuckles with her thumb. ‘I know you still love her, Michael.’ She looked up into his eyes. Blue, blue eyes that she could never fully trust, but she could handle that. ‘But, the thing is, I still love you. God help me… I still love you. And I want you back. You can’t have her, but you can have me. So, what do you say, Michael?’
***
‘I shouldn’t have gone to see him,’ Charley sighed, shoving a pile of freshly washed black towels into a cupboard. ‘I’ve made things worse, I know I have.’
Kenny watched as she ran around the large and spacious store cupboard of Charley’s @ The Amber Palace, trying to keep herself busy, but it was more than obvious that it wasn’t really working.
Charley stopped what she was doing for a second and looked at Kenny. ‘Well, aren’t you going to say “I told you so”?’
Kenny shrugged, his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his black jeans. ‘What would be the point in that? You’ve just said yourself, you shouldn’t have gone to see him. But I’m just as much to blame. I shouldn’t have let you talk me into finding out where he was.’
Charley sighed again, beginning to line up trade-sized bottles of shampoo that didn’t really need sorting. ‘Shit!’ She swung round and leant back against the shelf unit, pushing a hand through her long, dark, naturally curly hair, staring up at the ceiling. ‘What the fuck have I done?’
Kenny walked over to her. ‘What exactly did he say, Charley?’
She looked at him, scrunching up her eyes and nose as she tried to remember a meeting she’d rather put out of her mind forever. The stench of that seedy office still stuck in her nostrils, the sight of that evil man so close to her something she just couldn’t forget. ‘He said… he said something about hurting everyone else. I asked him how he could possibly hurt me any more than he already had done, and he said… he said something about hurting all the others… Kenny, I’m scared. After what happened with Terry… What does he mean, Kenny?’
Kenny had no idea. But they were dealing with Jimmy Cash here, so whatever he meant it wasn’t going to be good.
‘I don’t know,’ he replied, almost dismissively, because he was still finding it hard to believe they were in this mess all over again. ‘I really don’t know. But you need to talk to Vince, honey. You’ve got to let him know what you’ve done…’
‘No, Kenny, I can’t do that. He’ll go ballistic!’
‘Yeah, and with good right, don’t you think? He was dealing with it…’
‘Jesus, come on, Kenny! He was never going to be able to “deal” with a man like Jimmy Cash. Not even Vince can manage that.’
Kenny watched as she resumed her pointless tidying-up of a more than well-ordered store cupboard. If he was concerned about the situation they were fast getting into then she was ten times more nervous about it, and probably with good cause. Not a day went by when her name wasn’t in the press, when new and more damaging photographs of her weren’t being published,