just a polite way of disguising the very obvious. A wave of sickness washed over her.
Matteo Valenti had paid her for sex.
Operating on a dazed kind of autopilot, Keira made her way back to her newly liberated car, from where she slowly drove back to London. After dropping the car off at Luxury Limos, she made her way to Brixton, acutely aware of the huge wad of cash she was carrying. She’d thought of leaving it behind at Mary’s, but wouldn’t the kindly landlady have tried to return it and just made matters a whole lot worse? And how on earth would she have managed to explain what it was doing there? Yet it felt as if it were burning a massive hole in her pocket—haunting her with the bitter reminder of just what the Italian really thought of her.
The area of Brixton where she rented a tiny apartment had once been considered unfashionable but now, like much of London, the place was on the up. Two days before Christmas and the streets had a festive air which was bordering on the hysterical, despite the fact that the heavy snows hadn’t reached the capital. Bright lights glittered and she could see Christmas trees and scarlet-suited Santas everywhere she looked. On the corner, a Salvation Army band was playing ‘Silent Night’ and the poignancy of the familiar tune made her heart want to break. And stupidly, she found herself missing her mother like never before as she thought about all the Christmases they’d never got to share. Tears pricked at the backs of her eyes as she hugged her anorak around her shivering body, and never had she felt so completely alone.
But self-pity would get her nowhere. She was a survivor, wasn’t she? She would get through this as she had got through so much else. Dodging the crowds, she started to walk home, her journey taking her past one of the area’s many charity shops and as an idea came to her she impulsively pushed open the door of one. Inside, the place was full of people trying on clothes for Christmas parties and New Year—raiding feather boas and old-fashioned shimmery dresses from the crowded rails. The atmosphere was chaotic and happy but Keira was grim-faced as she made her way to the cash desk. Fumbling around in her pocket, she withdrew the wad of cash and slapped it down on the counter in front of the startled cashier.
‘Take this,’ Keira croaked. ‘And Happy Christmas.’
The woman held up a hand. ‘Whoa! Wait a minute! Where did you—?’
But Keira was already pushing her way out of the shop, the cold air hitting the tears which had begun streaming down her cheeks. Her vision blurred and she stumbled a little and might have fallen if a steady arm hadn’t caught her elbow.
‘Are you okay?’ a female voice was saying.
Was she okay? No, she most definitely was not. Keira nodded, looking up at a woman with platinum hair who was wearing a leopard-skin-print coat. ‘I’m fine. I just need to get home,’ she husked.
‘Not like that, you’re not. You’re not fit to go anywhere,’ said the woman firmly. ‘Let me buy you a drink. You look like you could use one.’
Still shaken, Keira allowed herself to be led into the bright interior of the Dog and Duck where music was playing and the smell of mulled wine filled her nostrils. The woman went up to the bar and returned minutes later with a glass of a brown mixture resembling medicine, which was pushed across the scratched surface of the table towards her.
‘What’s this?’ Keira mumbled, lifting the glass and recoiling from the fumes.
‘Brandy.’
‘I don’t like brandy.’
‘Drink it. You look like you’re in shock.’
That much was true. Keira took a large and fiery swallow and the weird thing was that she did feel better afterwards. Disorientated, yes—but better.
‘So where did you get the money from?’ the blonde was asking. ‘Did you rob a bank or something? I was in the charity shop when you came in and handed it over. Pretty dramatic gesture, but a lovely thing to do, I must say—especially at this time of the year.’
Afterwards Keira thought that if she hadn’t had the brandy then she might not have told the sympathetic blonde the whole story, but the words just started tumbling out of her mouth and they wouldn’t seem to stop. Just like the tears which had preceded them. It was only when the woman’s eyes widened when she came out with the punchline about how Matteo had left her a stack of money and done a runner that she became aware that something in the atmosphere had changed.
‘So he just disappeared? Without a word?’
‘Well, he left a note.’
‘May I see it?’
Keira put the brandy glass down with a thud. ‘No.’
There was a pause. ‘He must be very rich,’ observed the blonde. ‘To be able to be carrying around that kind of money.’
Keira shrugged. ‘Very.’
‘And good-looking, I suppose?’
Keira swallowed. ‘What does that have to do with anything?’
The blonde’s heavily made-up eyes narrowed. ‘Hunky Italian billionaires don’t usually have to pay women for sex.’
It was hearing someone else say it out loud which made it feel a million times worse—something Keira hadn’t actually thought possible. She rose unsteadily to her feet, terrified she was going to start gagging. ‘I... I’m going home now,’ she whispered. ‘Please forget I said anything. And...thanks for the drink.’
Somehow she managed to get home unscathed, where her cold, bare bedsit showed no signs of the impending holiday. She’d been so busy that she hadn’t even bought herself a little tree, but that now seemed like the least of her worries. She realised she hadn’t checked her phone messages since she’d got back and found a terse communication from her aunt, asking her what time she was planning on turning up on Christmas Day and hoping she hadn’t forgotten to buy the pudding.
The pudding! Now she would have to brave the wretched shops again. Keira closed her eyes as she pictured the grim holiday which lay ahead of her. How was she going to get through a whole Christmas, nursing the shameful secret of what she’d done?
Her phone began to ring, the small screen flashing an unknown number; in an effort to distract herself with the inevitable sales call, Keira accepted the call with a tentative hello. There was an infinitesimal pause before a male voice spoke.
‘Keira?’
It was a voice she hadn’t known until very recently but she thought that rich, Italian accent would be branded on her memory until the end of time. Dark and velvety, it whispered over her skin just as his fingers had done. Matteo! And despite everything—the wad of money and the blandly worded note and the fact that he’d left without even saying goodbye—wasn’t there a great lurch of hope inside her foolish heart? She pictured his ruffled hair and the dark eyes which had gleamed with passion when they’d looked at her. The way he’d crushed his lips hungrily down on hers, and that helpless moment of bliss when he’d first entered her.
‘Matteo?’
Another pause—and if a silence could ever be considered ominous, this one was. ‘So how much did she pay you?’ he questioned.
‘Pay me?’ Keira blinked in confusion, thinking that bringing up money wasn’t the best way to start a conversation, especially in view of what had happened. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’ve just had a phone call from a...a journalist.’ He spat out the word as if it were poison. ‘Asking me whether I make a habit of paying women for sex.’
Keira’s feeling of confusion intensified. ‘I don’t...’ And then she realised and hot colour flooded into her cheeks. ‘Was her name Hester?’
‘So you did speak to her?’ He sucked in an unsteady breath. ‘What was it, Keira—a quickly arranged interview to see what else you could squeeze out of me?’
‘I didn’t plan on talking to her—it just