The Make

A groan escaped her as he moved on top of her and parted her thighs, driving into her, unable to wait a moment longer.

Lorcan paused, panting, staring down at her with concern. ‘All right?’ he asked.

‘Fine,’ she managed, wrapping her legs around his waist, smoothing her hands into the hair on his chest, wondering what was happening, how she had stumbled back into this, and where it would take her.

But all that mattered was the here and now, and as he started to move inside her, the heat and heaviness and hardness of him seduced her completely.

It was bliss. It was so wonderful that she wondered now how she had stayed sane all these years without him. She held on to him. She knew his rhythm just as he knew hers. It was so right, so perfect. She could feel his skin growing damp and slick with the extremity of his passion, she could hear her own breath coming in urgent little gasps. Then he was hard, so very hard that she could barely stand it. Her head went back with abandon and she arched up against him. He was coming. He was coming inside her.

Gracie stiffened. Wasn’t this what they’d argued over so many times in the past? He wanted children; she wanted her career. She wasn’t on the pill – the damned thing made her feel sick. She’d become so carried away by the moment that she’d failed to even think about contraception.

She thought about it now. Thought about the possibility of having Lorcan’s child, and what that would mean. A fresh start together? Or more arguments, more heartache?

Lorcan was withdrawing from her, flopping back on to the bed, his breathing unsteady.

Gracie lay there, horrified at herself. What the hell could she have been thinking of?

Nothing. Only satisfying her lust; that was all. She thought of all those awful, painful rows they’d had. She couldn’t go there again. She just couldn’t.

Now he was turning back towards her, his hands reaching for her, starting to attend to her pleasure now that he had attended to his own.

‘No – don’t,’ said Gracie, and sat up, reaching for her dress. Her body, her treacherous body, was still humming with desire, wanting to continue. ‘Why not?’ asked Lorcan.

‘Because I . . .’ Gracie groped for the words and simply couldn’t find them. Instead she said: ‘I’ve got to get back to the flat. That’s why. I’m expecting someone.’

And before he could protest any further, she stood up, rewrapped her dress firmly around her, and said: ‘I’d better get a taxi.’

Lorcan gave her one long, exasperated look. Then he swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up. ‘No need. I’ll drive you. But trust me Gracie – one day soon we’re going to do this properly, and we are going to talk.’

An hour later they were back at the flat when the doorbell rang.

Gracie went to the intercom and told the woman who answered her to come on up.

A few minutes later, Gracie opened the door to two small pale women, one blonde and in her fifties, the other a brunette in her twenties with a lovely, heart-shaped face.

Mother and daughter, she thought instantly.

The heavy was standing right behind them. ‘You expecting these people?’ he asked Gracie in a flat Essex monotone.

‘Yeah. Thanks.’

He nodded and went back off down the stairs. The two women watched him go, their expressions nervous.

‘Jackie?’ asked Gracie, looking from one to the other of them.

‘I’m Jackie Sullivan,’ said the older woman, holding out a hand. ‘You’re Gracie, yes? Harry’s sister? Oh goodness . . . of course you are. You look so much like him.’

Gracie shook Jackie’s thin, cold hand.

‘This is Emma, my daughter.’ Gracie shook Emma’s hand too; her grip was stronger, warmer. ‘We’re both extremely worried about Harry,’ said Jackie, and her eyes filled with tears. Emma’s did too. They clung to each other like a couple of waifs and looked pleadingly at Gracie. ‘Do you know what’s happened to him?’ asked Jackie.

I wish, thought Gracie, and her mobile started ringing. She ushered Jackie and Emma into the flat as she picked up. ‘Hello?’

It was Suze, babbling and crying and making no sense at all.

‘Mum, slow down. What are you saying?’ urged Gracie, watching Lorcan introduce himself to their visitors as ‘Gracie’s husband’. Cheeky git. Then an image of what they had been doing, naked and locked together just a couple of hours ago, shot into her brain. She actually felt herself blush.

‘The hospital phoned,’ Suze managed to get out.

Gracie clutched at the phone. Oh fuck. She thought of that horrible moment when George’s heart had stopped. This was it. George was dead. George had gone and died on them. ‘Oh God,’ she managed to get out. ‘No. Oh Mum, I’m so sorry . . .’

Suze’s voice caught on a sobbing laugh. ‘No, you silly cow. He ain’t dead. They’re saying George is showing signs of coming round.’

Chapter 55

Jackie and Emma decided to go with Gracie and Lorcan to the hospital.

‘We won’t come up to intensive care with you,’ said Jackie. ‘We’ll wait downstairs in the cafe. But we have to talk to you about Harry. You do understand?’

Gracie said she did.

‘And I hope your brother’s getting better, I really do,’ said Jackie.

Lorcan drove them to the hospital. Halfway there, Emma said: ‘I don’t want to worry anyone, but that man, the one who came upstairs to the flat, I think he’s following us . . .’

‘He’s a friend,’ said Lorcan.

Gracie shot him a sour look. But inside the hospital, when they parted company with Emma and her mother, she was glad of his company. The place was thronging with people – as always – and Gracie found the crush of bodies, the bright lights and the sheer heat inside the building daunting, given her state of mind. She was afraid of what they were going to find waiting for them up in intensive care. Was George going to come out of this whole and well, or as a brain-damaged stranger?

Suze was waiting in the small room outside the intensive care unit. There was a crying young couple there, too, and a stocky middle-aged man who was reading a paper but who glanced up at Lorcan as he came in. Lorcan nodded to him, he nodded back.

The muscle on George’s door, thought Gracie, and felt even more overwhelmed as she thought of how George might emerge from this, and where Harry might be, and that someone was busy blitzing their way through the Doyle family like a howling shit-storm. Someone had tried to abduct her. Someone had tried to axe Suze’s front door with a chainsaw. Someone had attacked George. Did that same someone now have Harry in their clutches? Someone had sent those bags of hair. And what could they be doing to him? Maybe by now they had killed him, disposed of handsome, kind, laid-back Harry like a piece of rubbish? She wasn’t religious but now she found herself praying hard, praying to God or whoever might be listening to save Harry, to keep him safe.

‘You okay?’ asked Lorcan, grasping her arm as she lurched slightly at the door of the waiting room.

‘Fine,’ said Gracie, and went over to Suze.

Suze stood up and stared at Gracie. Gracie could see her own turbulent thoughts reflected in Suze’s eyes. The near-hysterical joy of Suze’s phone call was a dim memory. She, like Gracie, was frightened of what lay in wait for them all now. Gracie could see Suze’s fear; Suze’s hands were shaking and she was pale as milk.

‘I thought Vera’d come with you,’ said Gracie.

‘She dropped me off outside,’ said Suze. ‘Come on, we’d better get in there.’

Suze gave Gracie a trembling smile and reached out and grabbed her hand. Surprised and pleased, Gracie