The Make

Chapter 54

Christmas Eve

Lorcan’s casino was really something to see. There were seven American roulette tables, three tables given over to three-card poker, four for blackjack or vingt-et-un, and two for punto banco. The boulevard and the setting were nothing like hers. Gracie’s place was modern and had banks of slots lining the foyer before you got into the casino boulevard proper, to lure in the downmarket gamblers; but everything about Lorcan’s casino said classy Edwardian plush.

There were no slots, for a start. There was red and gold everywhere, lush fin-de- siecle paintings with gold-leaf frames, huge crimson drapes and gold-tasselled fastenings, deep blue tables, each with a mahogany surround polished and burnished to a dense, glossy dark red. The carpet under the punters’ feet was hand-woven, a swirling canvas of reds, golds and warm royal blues.

The place was packed.

‘Christmas Eve,’ said Lorcan, leading her down the boulevard, snaffling two glasses of champagne from a passing purple-waistcoated employee and handing one to Gracie.

‘Cheers,’ he said, clinking his glass against hers. ‘What shall we drink to, Gracie?’

‘George’s recovery,’ said Gracie, who was suddenly overwhelmed to be here among all these talking and laughing people, listening to the clatter of the ball ricocheting around the glittering roulette wheel. No wonder he’d wanted to show it off to her: it was magnificent.

‘Five black,’ said the croupier, and someone shouted excitedly as the winnings were scooped their way.

‘It’s fabulous,’ Gracie admitted, feeling sick with envy. Her place was a wreck right now, and it was up in the air whether or not she was going to be able to reopen anytime soon.

‘You look fabulous, Gracie,’ said Lorcan.

So do you.

She didn’t say it aloud. She felt weird and displaced. It was so strange, to be with him again. So strange, but it felt so right. Even when they were bickering, she enjoyed it.

‘Want to spin the wheel, Gracie? Take a chance?’ asked Lorcan.

Gracie’s eyes came up and met Lorcan’s blue gaze.

‘What, on the roulette table?’ she asked him.

‘No, I don’t mean that,’ said Lorcan. ‘You know I don’t. Let’s go up to the flat.’

The flat was modern, large, and very male. It was a bachelor pad, minimalist and pared to the bone. There was a big TV in the living room, a bank of huge chocolate-brown leather sofas, a table, a fireplace. Lorcan switched on the lights so that they were low and seductive, and flicked the remote at the fire. Gas-fired flames leapt up and Gracie laughed. There was a large fake Christmas tree beside the fireplace.

‘Look up,’ said Lorcan as he closed the door behind them, the remote still in his hand.

And of course there was a dense sprig of white-berried mistletoe hanging down from the ceiling.

‘I suppose you bring all your girlfriends up here and get them under the mistletoe?’

‘Girlfriends?’ Lorcan half smiled and slipped his arms around Gracie’s waist. ‘Gracie, I’m a married man, or had you forgotten that?’

‘A married man who now wants to become a divorced man,’ she pointed out. He was very close – close enough to be extremely disturbing. If he kissed her now . . . how would she react? She didn’t want to find out . . . did she?

‘Yeah, and how do you feel about that, Gracie?’ He pulled her in closer; the fronts of their bodies were touching, all the way down to their toes.

Well, how did she feel? She remembered opening the letter with the divorce papers inside. How deflated she’d felt, how sad all of a sudden. And then, when she’d first seen him again at the flat, that sense of undeniable excitement. Followed of course by irritation and anger, because he wanted rid of her.

Well come on, Gracie, don’t you want rid of him too?

And therein lay the trouble. She wasn’t sure she did.

‘I don’t know yet,’ said Gracie, twining her arms around his neck and arching her brows at him. ‘Maybe I need convincing . . .?’

‘What you need is your arse smacking,’ said Lorcan, his mouth moving down towards hers.

‘Ha! And you think you’re going to do it, do you?’ she teased.

‘I think you want me to.’ Now his mouth was so close to hers she could feel his warm breath, could smell the peppermint sweetness of it. She felt more than saw him aim the remote toward a discreetly placed sound system on the far wall, and music started to play. Soft, seductive music. Music she hadn’t listened to for five years, ever since they’d split for what had seemed to be the last time, because if she had, she would have broken down and cried. Michael McDonald was oozing his seductive gravelly voice through ‘Stop, Look, Listen (To Your Heart)’. It was their song.

‘Oh for God’s sake,’ said Gracie, half laughing but also more than a little inclined to sob like a child. ‘What a smooth bastard you are.’

‘Stop talking, Gracie, and start kissing.’

‘No. I can’t think straight when you kiss me.’

‘Good.’

Their lips met.

This was a memory, twining around her brain like the song. A memory of happy times, of laughter, of a passion that could rock her world – and frequently did, before the arguments, before the huge clash of wills that had eventually ripped their marriage wide open.

His tongue was in her mouth, teasing hers, taking her over.

She jerked her head back, looked into his eyes. He looked at her and smiled. ‘Go on, Gracie. Take the risk. Spin the wheel.’

It was frightening. She had no idea where this was going. It had taken her a long, long time to regain her equilibrium after the split. She’d been a wreck for months – crying, staying in bed all day, hitting the bottle more than she should; but now all bets were off. She’d loved him forever. She would love him forever, she realized that now. It was deeply, deeply scary.

But she wanted it.

She wanted him.

She pulled his head back down to hers and kissed him, really kissed him, and it was as if all those years of hurt had fallen away. All that mattered right now was that they were here, together.

‘Better,’ he murmured against her mouth.

‘Oh shut up, Lorcan,’ she mumbled. ‘Just shut up and take me to bed, will you?’

Lorcan bent and picked her up into his arms; they were still kissing as he crossed the room, kicked open a door, and laid her down on a huge bed. He drew back then, pulled at the waist tie on the black wrap dress she wore, spread it open. She was wearing nothing underneath.

Lorcan stared at her, then reached out, skimming one big hand over the hot white curve of her hip, tracing the indentation of her waist, then gliding on up to cup one full, magnificent breast.

‘You know, I’d forgotten how pale your skin was,’ he murmured, and then his lips were at her breast too, teasing the nipple into hardness.

Gracie leaned back, ecstatic, giving herself up to the moment, moaning softly, but then he was gone, moving away from her.

‘Oh Jesus, Lorcan,’ she groaned.

He was throwing off his clothes. A minute, and he was back with her, pushing the dress off her shoulders and scooping up her naked body so that it lay across his.

‘Fuck, I should have done this the minute we met again,’ he muttered against her neck, his teeth nibbling at her throat, his body so familiar and yet so deliciously strange. She remembered him now, remembered all of him, how gorgeous he was, how incredibly handsome. And how big . . .