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Alice submitted to Tilly’s well intended manhandling, allowing her to apply lip-gloss and mascara.
“There we go.” The secretary took a step back to admire her work. “Now you’re ready.”
Alice looked in the mirror Tilly pushed into her hand. She did look slightly better. Ensuring her hair was still in place in the bun she’d twisted at the nape of her neck, she mumbled her gratitude, braced herself, and took the elevator with Tilly to the executive boardroom on the ground floor.
Alice took her place between Johnny and Mandy at the table. She focused hard on not tapping her pen on the tabletop. She imagined him walking through the door at least a hundred times, practicing to keep her expression even. Ten minutes after three, she felt like exploding from tension. She hated that Ivan Kray still had this power over her. It had to stop, right now. She wasn’t a teenager, any longer.
Johnny checked his watch after five more minutes. “They’re late.”
“They always are,” Mandy offered.
To distract herself, Alice typed up the advertising roster on her laptop.
Thirty minutes later, Johnny walked to the corner. “I’m calling his agent.” After a hushed conversation, he faced the people around the table. “The meeting is off. Kate doesn’t know where he is.”
The accumulated tension left Alice’s body like the air from a punctured balloon, leaving her drained. All that stress for nothing. He couldn’t even grace them with his presence. Anger replaced her apprehension. Apparently, some things didn’t change.
Mandy’s face fell. “What now?”
Johnny pinched the bridge of his nose but didn’t reply.
This was a good thing. If it served one purpose, it was to demonstrate that Ivan was the same, selfish bastard from before who’d lied to get her in bed, used her, and then ignored her like she didn’t exist. It was exactly the kind of reminder she needed.
She got to her feet. “I’ll deal with it. We have a newspaper interview lined up for tomorrow, and I’ll be damned if he screws it up for me.”
Johnny frowned at her uncharacteristic outburst. “You all right, Alice?”
“Never better.” She nodded at the people around the table. “Excuse me. I’ve got work to do. There’s no point in wasting our time further, even if Mr. Kray seems to think our time isn’t valuable.”
She walked out of the room, feeling much better and, for some strange reason, much worse.
Shortly after dark, Ivan entered the pub off Kensington Street. He stopped in the doorway on the mat to shake the raindrops from his coat and hair. Damn rain. He’d forgotten how it always seemed to piss down here. With habitual tenseness, he scanned the gloomy interior. Colors radiated from the people, the usual spectrum but nothing out of the ordinary. He remained on the spot for another three seconds. When no one turned their heads in his direction, he advanced to the bar and took a seat, keeping his head low. He removed his wet trench coat and draped it over the empty stool next to him.
“What’ll it be?” the barman asked.
“Scotch, straight.”
“Hey, aren’t you—”
“Nobody.” Ivan lifted his face and fixed the bald man with a stare. “I’m nobody.”
The man took a double take. “Blimey. No one, of course.” He took a bottle of single malt from the shelf. “Glenmorangie? For you, only the best.” He stole another glance while he served the drink.
Ivan shot back the liquor and grimaced as the burn moved down his throat to his stomach, warming his insides. From nowhere, a whisper brushed against his ear. It was the same voice from earlier, this time accompanied by a chorus in the background. Faint, but unmistakably dead. A dead voice always had a slightly off-tune quality. The whisper came again, louder this time. He flinched and cupped a hand over his ear. His eardrum ached as if his cochlea had been blasted with a hundred and eighty decibels. His ear channel hummed as if he’d spent an evening in a nightclub with his ear pressed against a speaker.
Not ready to head to his hotel, he ordered another scotch. The sound of the rain sweeping the windows and the droned conversations around him were better than the television he only used for background noise. It damn well beat fighting these voices in his head.
It was a fine time for the voices to start. For years, he’d been preparing himself for this momentous day, for facing Alice Jones. His jaw tightened at the memory of the first night he’d spent in her pristine, white bedroom. They’d lost their virginity to each other. She’d been so responsive in his arms, sweet and innocent, and then her father had thrown him out—half-naked—like a lowlife into the street.
Sure, he understood her old man’s wrath. He’d act the same if he one day had a daughter, but not for the same reasons. As a dad, he’d be worried about every man’s dick, because every dick would be a potential threat to a protective father, but not because it happened to be a poor dick. The bitter pill to swallow was that Alice hadn’t stood up for him against her family. Not the day after. Never.
