Scarlet Women

Tony pushed the door wide open. Outside were six handy-looking hard men, all grouped around Constantine Barolli. He looked up and saw Annie standing there in the hall.

‘The gorgeous Annie,’ he said with a grin. ‘You at home to visitors?’

Chapter 36

‘I’ll clear it with Redmond Delaney,’ said Constantine, sitting in Dolly’s kitchen with Dolly, Rosie, Sharlene and Annie. ‘No worries.’

‘No worries?’ echoed Dolly angrily. She’d had a shock when Charlie Foster had come in and Annie had fired the gun, then an even bigger one when Constantine Barolli pitched up with half an army, but she was recovering fast. She always did. ‘How can you say that? I pay protection to the Delaneys, and there’s a Delaney man on the door—at least there was until this one,’ she indicated Annie with a tetchy twitch of the head, ‘took it into her head to throw him out in the street.’

‘I’ll sort it,’ repeated Constantine. ‘The Carter family and me, we got a mutual thing going; everyone knows that. The Delaneys won’t want to cross me up. It’ll be fine.’

Annie felt limp with the aftermath of fear. Even cocky Sharlene and laid-back little Rosie seemed shattered by the experience they’d just been through, too traumatized to even give a magnificent hunk like Constantine the glad eye.

Annie had half expected to die, or to see Mira perish in front of her. She couldn’t believe that they were all sitting here in one piece. Now Tony and Constantine’s men were bringing Mira down the stairs, and she was wailing and crying again.

Redmond wanted Mira, and I’ve thwarted him, she thought worriedly. Is he really going to let this go?

She thought of Layla, across town at Ruthie’s, both of them unprotected. And her cousin Kath and the kids. She went out into the hall. ‘Tone?’

Tony drew back from the crowd and looked at her.

‘Send some of the boys over to Kath’s, and to Ruthie’s in Richmond, right now.’

‘Sure, Boss,’ he said, and went out the front door.

Mira, her face haggard and streaked with blood, was stretching out a bony hand to Annie as they manhandled her carefully, wrapped in a clean blanket, down to the bottom of the stairs. Annie took the girl’s hand.

‘It’s okay, Mira,’ she said, squeezing her hand tightly. ‘These people are on our side. They’re not going to hurt you. You’re going to see a doctor, we’re going to get you well again.’

‘I don’t want him to get me…’ sobbed Mira.

‘Jeez, is she out of it or what?’ complained one of the men. ‘That’s all she keeps saying. I keep telling her, everything’s cool. But she keeps on saying that.’

Because she’s terrified for her life, thought Annie, her heart wrenching with pity.

‘Be careful with her,’ said Annie.

‘Hey, no problem.’ The young one who’d knocked at the door gave Annie a winning smile. ‘A friend of yours is a friend of ours, Mrs C. Don’t you worry about it.’

They took Mira out to the car. Annie went back along the hall and met Constantine coming towards her.

‘I’m going to phone Redmond,’ he said. ‘But until I do that, I’m leaving one of mine on this door, okay? Just until I straighten him out. You want one of mine with Layla?’

‘No, I’ve got that covered,’ said Annie, feeling suddenly awkward.

Well, she’d said it. She needed him. Now she knew that if she was honest with herself, she wanted him too. Not out of gratitude, and not on the rebound from a dead man.

She looked at him. Constantine stared back at her.

‘You got some time to spare?’ he asked her, eyes sparkling with challenge.

She didn’t waver. She nodded.

‘Then let’s go,’ he said.

This time was better—slower, more sensual. This time he set the pace, not allowing her to rush towards climax, holding her back on the edge until she was gasping, sweating, panting out his name. His name. Not Max’s.

‘Oh God, here I go again,’ said Annie out loud.

Constantine propped himself up on one arm and looked down at her. It was warm in his bedroom in the Holland Park mansion with the windows shut, and they’d certainly generated a fair bit of heat, rolling around naked in his huge bed.

‘That sounds like regret,’ he said, smoothing back a lock of dark hair from her shoulder, running his hand over her skin.

Annie shuddered deliciously. Oh fuck, she was in trouble here. He knew all the moves, this mobster. But she’d thought she was pretty safe. That no one could please her in bed the way Max had pleased her.

Welcome to the new world, she thought.

She felt high, like somebody had stuffed a fistful of amphetamines down her throat. She felt relaxed, and satisfied, and—oh shit—ready for more any time he was ready, which please God would be sometime soon.

Constantine understood the responses of the female body and knew exactly how to make those responses happen in spades. She shouldn’t be surprised by that: like Max, he was a man of formidable intelligence and considerable experience. Once in bed with him, any woman was putty in his hands. And of course he’d been married.

Annie thought about that.

Had Constantine been happy with his late wife? She couldn’t bring herself to ask. This whole situation was fraught with danger and difficulties and she didn’t want to think too much, not yet. She just wanted to sink into bliss and stay there.

But she knew she wouldn’t be able to do that for long. There was so much to consider, so much trouble in store. Why could she never resist the allure of bad, powerful men? First there had been Max, someone else’s property, and what a shit-storm that had caused. Now there was Constantine. Mafia. Enough baggage to sink a battleship. His family—all except Alberto—had made it plain that they were determined to set up barriers rather than welcome a new woman into his life.

She knew why.

If Constantine got seriously involved, if he remarried, then the pecking order would change. Annie would come first to him. Well, she was used to coming first. She didn’t do second fiddle, and that was a fact. And if things progressed, if they—oh fuck—if they had a baby together, then the fur was bound to fly. Lucco would throw a fit. Gina would disapprove. Cara would feel usurped. The whole balance of the clan would be upset.

And the boys—her boys. They wouldn’t swallow this. Not in a thousand years.

Oh shit, she thought, and sighed. But then—she had never yet, not once in her life, pulled back from a fight.

‘So do you regret this?’ he asked her.

Annie shook her head, cuddled in close. ‘No,’ she murmured against his chest, thinking that she really was up the creek this time, but that it was wonderful, that her veins were fizzing with happiness and desire, but that it was awful too because she had never faced such difficult choices. When they had made love, she had stifled the urge to say it, unwilling to give too much of herself away. But now she thought it, and knew that it was true: I’m in love with you.

She loved him. She knew it. All her fine intentions to cut this dead had come to nothing because that wasn’t what she wanted in her heart of hearts. Damn. She really was in trouble.