Ugley Business (19 page)

“Go on, then,” I said, “tell me what else he said.”

She grinned broadly. “He said he missed me. He said he wanted a photo—or else a live demonstration when I got back.”

“As I recall, in the film the wetsuit comes off after about five minutes.”

Angel blushed.

“Anyway,” she said, “he said you had a message to give me.”

Now it was my turn to blush. Maybe Angel went in for all that practising French kissing at boarding school stuff, but where I come from, girls who kissed each other were called dykes and never allowed to forget it.

“He, er, he, er,” I floundered. Should I just tell her about it? No, because Harvey really wanted her to know how much he liked her.

Oh, come on, Sophie. You’re not going to catch anything. No one will see.

So I lifted her chin, closed my eyes and kissed her.

And you know, it wasn’t bad. She had a lovely soft mouth, and it was cool and minty, like toothpaste. And I’d boldly gone where many men would love to go. I’d kissed IC Winter’s daughter.

Angel looked slightly stunned when I let her go. But she didn’t look half as stunned as Luke, who was standing there in the doorway, bag in hand, eyes glazed.

“There is a God,” he said, and I turned the colour of a strawberry.

“It’s not what it looks like,” I said desperately.

His bag thumped on the floor. “Are you sure? ‘Cos if you left me for another girl I’m not sure I mind as much. So long as you let me watch?”

“Luke, don’t you knock?” I said, standing up, flustered.

“No, and from now on I’m not going to.” He grinned. “Can I have an action replay?”

“No,” I said, and chanced a glance back at Angel.

“That was his message?” she whispered.

“Erm. Yes. He wanted a photo.”

“Can I get a copy?” Luke asked, taking out his picture phone. What is it with men and lesbians? You’d think it would be a turnoff, the ultimate rejection. I mean, I don’t get turned on by gay men. I think they’re sweet. I wouldn’t want to watch, though, and I sure as hell wouldn’t want to join in.

Suddenly Angel smiled. “He wanted to kiss me!”

“Who did?” Luke asked.

“Harvey.”

“I thought he—” He looked at Angel’s glowing face, and stopped. “Never mind.”

“You thought he what?” Angel asked.

“He’s staying at Sophie’s.”

She nodded. “He wanted to kiss me.” She threw her arms around me. “Sophie, you’re an absolute darling!”

I blushed even harder, and Luke took a picture. “Cut that out!”

“Just one more?” he said. “I’ll even send it to him myself. A gesture of friendship.”

Angel and I looked at each other. “If it would make Harvey happy…” she said hesitantly.

“Believe me, it’d make him very happy,” Luke assured us, and Angel stepped up on her toes and kissed me on the mouth. One kiss, and that’s all it took. Like in
Friends
, where the girls snog each other to get their apartment back. Men are so damn easy.

Luke tried to persuade us the picture hadn’t taken properly, but we ignored him, and five minutes later, Angel’s mobile bleeped with a text. She read it, and smiled.

“What does it say?”

“I couldn’t possibly tell you.” If she smiled any wider, the top of her head would fall off. “I have to go and retouch my lipstick.”

She wiggled off, and Luke stood there, shaking his head, looking far too happy for someone who’d just got out of a six-hour drive in a Vectra.

“Don’t get any ideas,” I warned.

“Too late. I am going to have
sweet
dreams tonight.”

“Tonight you have work to do.” I busied myself folding up my jeans for what was possibly the first time in my life.

“Since when did you get all bossy?”

Since you walked in and saw me kissing another woman.
God, I can’t believe I did that. Twice!

I am Twenty-first Century Woman. Look on me and tremble.

“Do you have a costume?” I asked, praying it’d be something really silly, but Luke winked and disappeared off in the direction of his own room, leaving me to run water over my wrists and press cold fingers against my flaming cheeks.

When he came back he was all in black: leather jeans and tight T-shirt, biker boots and a long leather coat. He’d slicked his hair back and there was a smudge of black nail varnish on his fingernails. On a lesser man, it might have looked gay. On Luke it looked flammable.

“And who’s that supposed to be?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady and failing quite spectacularly.

“You can’t guess?”

“You don’t look anything like him,” I lied.

“Like who?”

“Spike.”

Luke grinned and took a lazy step forward, softening his voice and hardening his accent. “William the Bloody,” he quantified, looking me over hotly. “Pet.”

I shuddered. I actually shuddered. Sod the Vanquish, Luke’s all the turn-on I needed.

“So tell me more about kissing Angel,” he said, and I snapped out of it.

“You should be so lucky.”

“I caught the live show. Now I want the commentary. Come on,” his eyes were dancing, “a step-by-step replay. Blow-by-blow account.”

I stepped away. Luke followed.

“Stop it,” I said.

“Stop what?” He looked smug, mocking, hot, his cheekbones so close I could have licked them. Not that I wanted to. Lick them, I mean.

Not much.

“This could qualify as sexual harassment.”

“Bit late for that, love.”

“Don’t call me love.”

“Just getting into character.”

“Yes, well, don’t.” I looked at my watch. “Look at that, I have to go and meet up with, erm, with, erm,” I snapped my fingers, “the coordinator…”

“Livvy?”

“Yes! Have to go and see her.” I pushed past him, using every ounce of strength to avoid shivering with pleasure when his leather brushed my bare arm, and crossed to my bag on the far side of the room, keeping the bed between us. Not that the bed was much of a barrier.

“Have you met her yet?” Luke asked, as I strapped on thigh holsters and tucked the Heckler Koch pistols into them.

“Livvy? Yes.”

“She’s kind of a handful.”

“You know her?”

“Yeah. Family friend.”

“Polo parties? Hunt meets?”

“Something like that.”

You know, when I was at school, kids went to the pub or underage clubs or places where ID wouldn’t get checked. I didn’t even know what polo was until I read Jilly Cooper. Talk about a different world.

“I saw the car out front,” Luke said into the silence.

“The Aston?”

“Yeah. How’s it drive?”

“Dreadful,” I said. “Wouldn’t recommend it. Even as a passenger.”

“Nice try.”

“Worth a shot.”

“Speaking of which.” Luke came over, and I thought he was going to goose me, but he took one of the guns out of its holster and looked it over. “Nice pair.”

I looked up at him. “You’d better be talking about the guns.”

He grinned. “Those too. You know how to fire these?”

I sniffed. “I’m not stupid.”

“Never said you were. Do you know how to fire them?”

I gave in. “No. Please educate me.”

His eyes flashed, and heat flared in me, and I had to shake myself.

“Disassembly,” he showed me the levers, “safety, holding open.” He flicked a catch and the magazine fell into his hand. “Fully loaded. The other one?”

I passed it over. It was fully loaded too.

“Twelve round box. The Yanks use them. Probably your friend Harvey knows his way around one of these.”

“I’ll bear that in mind.”

“Was there anything else with them?”

I frowned, wondering how he knew. When I’d emptied Docherty’s pockets, I’d found what I assumed was a silencer and another small module I didn’t recognise. I took them out of my bag and handed them over. Luke screwed on the silencer and looked over the other piece, before fitting it on the underside of the barrel, making the gun look kind of square.

“Laser aiming module,” he explained, aiming the gun at me, and a red spot appeared on my chest. “Damn helpful. It’s a .45, so it can do a lot of damage.”

“I know that,” I said, because I’d seen it before. Luke handed the gun back to me, with the safety firmly on, and I unscrewed the silencer and popped it back in the holster, laser module still attached, feeling very cool and not a little bit scared.

“Hey,” Luke said, as I put the silencer into my little backpack, with my Nokia and some lipstick. “Have you heard from the vet yet?”

Coldness ran through me.

I closed my eyes and turned my face away. I know it’s a huge cliché but I didn’t want him to see me cry. “Not yet,” I said, and the words came out all right. No trembling or anything.

“She’ll be okay,” Luke said quietly. “She’s like you. She’s not going to let a car crash slow her down.”

I smiled, slightly weakly, but I smiled.

There was a knock on the door and it was one of Livvy’s minions, in a suit, looking nervous.

“Miss Green?” I nodded. “Erm, we were wondering if you could maybe move your car, because we need to clear the lawn for the ‘copters…”

“When will they be arriving?”

“We just got a radio transmission, it should be about fifteen minutes.”

I nodded and picked up my keys.

“Can I drive?” Luke asked hopefully.

“You got the lesbian kiss,” I said, “you don’t get the Viagra on wheels.”

“Is that how Aston Martin are advertising it?”

He followed me down to the front of the house, and we both set the alarms off again. Luke rolled his eyes, ignored the panicking of the security people, and pulled me through the door.

“I saw Livvy arguing with her father in the dining room earlier,” he said. “The Earl didn’t want to take down all his guns and antique sword collection. Says the walls will look bare.”

“Well, he’s probably right.”

“Yeah. And security in this place is tighter than Livvy’s arse.”

I forbade to comment on that, or on how he knew to compare.

I unlocked the Aston and got in, beaming stupidly. Gorgeous car, gorgeous guy, twenty-four bullets to hand. This was what I signed up for.

“Are you sure I can’t drive?” Luke asked one last time as we got in.

“Sure,” I said firmly, turning the key. “And no comments about riding, either.”

“Well, now you’re just bringing back memories.”

I started the engine and tapped the throttle and watched the needle on the rev counter fly up to about eight thousand. Probably I shouldn’t have brought Luke, I thought, familiar feelings of lust sweeping over me. People were staring, and I fastened my seat belt. Bumpy ride ahead.

The minion had told me I could park the car anywhere in the village—which comprised about four cottages and a tearoom. She’d looked disappointed, and I was, too, because the car looked like the sort of ornamentation a house like Pela Orso should have, but I didn’t want a helicopter landing on top of it.

We growled our way down to the quay, where the car looked equally majestic, and stood outside, looking at it for a long while.

“Were you scared?” Luke asked.

“At first. A little bit. But I’ve been having a hell of a day.”

“I heard. Are you okay?”

Not by a long shot. It only took the smallest thing—sight of a whisker, hint of an Irish accent, the scent of Luke’s aftershave—to push me to the edge and leave me there, teetering. One more tiny flick and I’d be over, and there was no telling which way I’d fall.

“I’m okay,” I said, and Luke smiled.

“Liar.”

“We should go back.”

“Stay a while. Do you want to get held up at the door while everyone gets scanned?”

Of course I didn’t, but Luke in leather, plus the car, plus me feeling unstable, was not a good combination. But I stayed, leaning against the car’s warm flank, looking out at the quiet water of the bay.

“Hey, you didn’t happen to find a .22 on Docherty, did you?” Luke asked.

I shook my head. “Got a phone and the gun stuff. One of those scanner things like Macbeth has for getting codes off electric locks. Like your locks.”

“Remind me to have a word with him about that. Where is all this stuff?”

I popped open the Aston’s boot and showed him the carrier bag of stuff. “It wouldn’t all go in my bag,” I said, “and a Tesco bag looks so naff in this setting.”

Luke smiled. “I am woman, see me accessorise.”

“Damn straight.” I looked at my watch. “We really should be going up.”

Luke nodded. “There’s a back door we could sneak in through.”

“You don’t think Livvy will have set slavering rabid wolfhounds outside?”

“Oh, yeah, probably. Okay. Ready to brave the front door, Lara?”

“Ready, Spike.”

We set off back up the hill towards the house, where I could see the first helicopter landing. By the time we got there, it had spilled glittering guests all over the lawn: Marilyns and Henry VIIIs and Galadriels and Spidermen and Catwomen and Batmen, milling around excitedly.

“Spare me,” Luke muttered.

“You don’t like celebrity parties?”

“I usually end up staking out some fat guy’s room,” he replied. “Remember the Buckman Ball?”

“I’ve been trying to forget.”

I spotted a few certified A-listers and made a mental note to tell Evie, the biggest starfan in the known world. And then I remembered I couldn’t tell her, because I wasn’t even really supposed to be here.

Luke touched my arm and I looked up.

“I meant it,” he said.

“Meant what?” Still thinking about Evie, I wasn’t concentrating.

“What I said.” He shook his head. “What you heard.”

I felt something twist inside me. “Can we not talk about that?”

He gave a noncommittal shrug, his face carefully blank. His undercover face. “Sure. Let’s go in.”

We joined the crowd of people at the door, all of them speculating about where they were. The house was lit up but the air was dark, and you couldn’t really hear the sea above the noise of the people and the drone of the helicopters waiting to land. Macbeth was on the door and he waved us through a side gate without being scanned.

“Remind me why we’re here again?” Luke asked, scanning the crowd in the lobby.

“To make sure no one tries to snatch Angel. Janulevic in particular.”