Bad Boys of London: The Complete GYPSY HEROES Collection (17 page)

He looks up at me, a huge, stupid grin on his face. ‘She is, isn’t she.’

Suddenly I feel an overwhelming wave of love for my brother. All these years he never had anything for himself. To call his own. Always he was fighting all our battles. I blink back the tears.

His eyes narrow. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s just perfect.’

He nods. ‘Are you going back to London now?’

‘Yeah. The traffic won’t be so bad now.’

‘Why don’t you stay a bit longer and let Shane drive you back?’

I shake my head. ‘Then you’ll just have the hassle of sending my car back to me.’

He frowns. ‘It’s no trouble.’

I smile softly. ‘No, it is trouble for you. I’ll be back for the weekend.’

‘All right. Drive safely.’

‘I will.’

That’s the thing about Jake. Even at a time like this he is worrying about me. I hug him tightly and go down to the kitchen. My mother is putting together plastic containers of food into two carrier bags. The containers are labeled so I know exactly what’s in them. Dom is sitting at the table finishing off a massive bacon and sausage sandwich. 

‘Are you off?’ he asks me.

‘Yeah.’

‘Didn’t you have something else you had to do?’ He puts the last bit of the sandwich into his mouth and raises his eyebrows meaningfully.

I glance at my mother, but she is busy washing her hands.

‘I’m not doing it today. I’ll be back this weekend, I’ll do it then.’

My brother wipes his mouth and stands up. ‘I’m off then. See you at dinnertime, Ma.’ As he passes me he whispers, ‘I wouldn’t wait beyond the weekend if I were you.’

I watch my brother leave with a heavy heart.

‘Put this bag into the fridge and consume it today, tomorrow at the latest,’ my mother says. I turn back to her. ‘And the other bag, you can freeze it and eat on Thursday and Friday. You’ll be back here on Saturday, won’t you?’

‘Yeah. Thanks.’

‘Do you want to take some cake for Maddie too?’ my mother asks.

‘No, I’ll share what I’ve got with her.’

‘All right then,’ she says moving towards the fridge.

‘Ma,’ I say sinking into a chair.

‘What?’

‘Did you ever think we’d all turn out like this?’

She looks at me. ‘Never.’

‘What did you think we’d become?’

‘I didn’t know. I didn’t dare dream anything like this. I thought we’d always be struggling,’ she says softly.

‘You’re really proud of Jake, aren’t you?’

She is so choked up she can’t even speak. Just nods violently, her body clenched tight.

‘Me too,’ I say.

She comes outside with me, and waves as I drive away. I watch her become smaller in the mirror and I get a horrible cold feeling in my stomach. When I am far enough away, I pull over by the side of the road and call BJ.

‘What’s up?’ he asks immediately.

‘Oh, BJ. I don’t know how I can ever tell Jake about us.’ My voice is shaking.

There is a tense pause. ‘Where are you now?’ he asks urgently.

‘About a mile away from Jake’s house.’

‘Look, I can be at Silver Lee in about an hour. Do you want to go there and wait for me?’

With all the excitement about the baby, no one will notice my absence so I could even spend the night there and leave very early in the morning for London. ‘But what about Marcel?’

‘I’ll ask him to leave the French doors open for you.’

‘OK, I’ll see you there in about an hour,’ I say.

‘Layla.’

‘Yeah.’

‘We’ll figure it out, OK.’

‘OK.’

‘BJ.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Nothing. I’ll talk to you when I see you.’

I sever the connection and stare at my phone. It seems impossible that I once thought my relationship with BJ would diminish with time. That I had actually told Dom that it was just a sex thing. It’s far from just a sex thing. My feelings have grown and grown.

I know BJ likes me. Maybe a lot, but I also know that I can’t base my future on that alone. He owns clubs full of beautiful women who are constantly throwing themselves at him. When I am not with him, I sometimes worry. All kinds of thoughts plague me. We haven’t promised to be exclusive with each other. Our relationship is like a dirty secret. We never go any place where we could be recognized. No one in his life knows. Even Marcel has never seen me. At least in my life, Maddy and Dominic know. Now that Lily has given birth, I might even tell her and ask her advice.

With a sigh I put my phone back into my purse and start the car. I reach Silver Lee in about 40 minutes. The gates are wide open and I drive through. It is the beginning of spring and there are daffodils all along the road up to the house. It looks beautiful. And somehow that makes me feel sadder. Will I see them next year or the year after? I park my car and walk along the side of the house. One of the French doors is open and I slip in and lock it.

I know Marcel would have taken Jeremy and the house feels silent and totally empty without BJ. My heels are loud on the floor. I go to the kitchen and open the fridge and smile. Marcel made a jar of mojitos before he left. I pour myself a tumbler and go into the vast, open living room. I sit on the long lilac sofa and gaze out into the countryside.

 I’m surprised to hear BJ’s car roar up the driveway a few minutes later. I put my drink on a nearby table and go to the front door. He opens it as I get there. The moment is rare. I’ve never opened a door to him before. It’s nice. It makes me feel like we are a normal couple.

‘You got here fast,’ I say softly.

His eyes are dark and searching. ‘I drove fast.’

I take a step towards him. He pulls me hard into his arms and kisses me.

‘Come on. Marcel has made us mojitos,’ I say breathlessly.

He looks down at me and nods.

We go to the kitchen where I pour a glass for him and we walk out together to the sofa. We chink glasses.

‘Here’s to the new aunt,’ he says.

I smile. ‘And the new baby.’

‘And that,’ he adds.

We both take a sip. He eyes me over the rim of his glass. ‘My poor Layla,’ he says quietly.

‘I’m sorry I’m being such a baby, but I can’t bear the thought of disappointing them all, especially Jake.’

‘He has to know, Layla. Sooner or later. We can’t carry on like this.’

‘I know. I know. I will.’ I drop my face into my hands. ‘I just don’t want him to hate me.’

‘He’s not going to hate you. This is your life. Nothing would have stood in the way of him being with Lily. He has no right to stop you from seeing anyone you want to. You’re a grown woman.’

‘It’s just feels as if I have betrayed him.’

‘The longer you leave it, the worse the betrayal will be.’

‘‘Maybe I’ll tell him after Ella’s wedding. You’re going too, aren’t you?’

He grins. ‘Only to look at you.’

I blush. ‘Really?’

‘Abso-fucking-lutely.’

‘Anyway,’ I say, suddenly feeling all shy and awkward. ‘I’ll be staying over at my mother’s that night and I’ll break it to all of them at the same time.’

‘Do you want me to be there?’

‘No.’ I shiver at the thought. ‘Definitely not.’

‘OK.’ For a moment we are both silent. He takes a sip of his drink. ‘Have you heard the story of Layla and Majnun by Nizami?’

I shake my head.

‘It’s about a moon-princess who was married off by her father to someone other than the man who was desperately in love with her. It resulted in his madness.’

I bow my head. It would be all so different if he wasn’t a criminal.

TWENTY-THREE

BJ

‘I
know so little about you, BJ,’ Layla complains as she locks her arms around my waist and angles her head back to catch my eyes.

God, she’s so fucking sexy, I just want to fuck her every time she comes near me. She’s got about ten minutes before I fill that honey mouth of hers full of cock.

‘What’d you want to know, Princess?’

‘Tell me why you became a criminal?’ she asks.

I shrug carelessly. ‘Why does anyone?’

She gazes up at me, her beautiful blue eyes narrowed. ‘Is it for all the power and respect you command: men shaking in their boots, women worshiping at your feet?’

‘I followed in my father’s footsteps, Layla,’ I tell her. An early memory of my father floats into my mind. He is sitting on a barstool flexing and unflexing his bulging arm muscles just before a fight. There is loud music in the background and on the table in front of him, two pints of Guinness are lined up.

‘Your father?’ she says softly. ‘He must have been quite a character. Your mother showed me her wedding photograph and he looked very handsome. It was so sweet to hear her describe him as a “rakishly dreamy charmer”.’  

I remember Lenny Pilkington differently. The charm was long gone by the time I knew him, and my young self saw only a giant of a man, with a flattened, boxer’s nose, shrewd eyes, and a savage temper. My jaw stiffens unconsciously.

‘What’s wrong?’’ Layla frowns.

I block the thoughts immediately. ‘Nothing.’

Her eyes narrow suspiciously. ‘Did he force you to become a criminal, BJ?’ she demands.        

I let my facial muscles relax. ‘Of course not. I desperately wanted to follow in my father’s and my uncles’ footsteps. I guess I was impressed by their big, flashy cars and their jacked-up pick-up trucks.’

‘So how old were you when you joined them?’

‘Eleven.’

Her eyes become saucers. ‘Eleven? I was still playing with my dolls when I was eleven.’

Seems so long ago and yet the day I accompanied them on my first job is as vivid as if it happened yesterday.

‘You were just a kid. What did they make you do?’

I laugh at her belligerent expression. ‘Relax. All I had to do was stand casually outside the gates of an industrial site and hoot twice like an owl if anyone, especially the pigs happened along while my father and two of my uncles filled their truck with scrap metal.’

‘I still think you were far too young to be involved in something like that,’ she says, her voice full of disapproval. In her world fathers protected their sons.

Strange, even after all these years I still feel the burning need to defend my father. ‘The truth is, Layla, it felt fucking great. From that first time I was hooked on the mix of adrenaline and excitement that pumped through my body.’ 

‘What did you guys do with the scrap metal?’ 

‘Dropped it off at my uncle’s yard.’

‘And after?’

‘Afterwards, we drove to the local pub. It was a winter’s night and I sat in the beer garden and froze my ass off while my father went in and bought me my first pint of ale. It was fucking terrible, but I drank it all up. I can still remember putting my hands into my armpits and in a drunken haze soaking up their tall tales.

‘So the little gangster learned quickly?’ she says sadly, dropping her head.

I put my finger under her chin and lift it up. ‘Why so sad? My father and uncles prepared me well for a life in the underbelly of society. They taught me to see the world the way it really is. As a sort of jungle where the human race can be divided into three categories: gazelles, lions, and hyenas.’

She looks at me curiously.

‘The gazelle is the food of both the lions and hyenas. However, contrary to perceived wisdom, it is not the hyena that steals from the lion, but the lion that will snatch from the mouth of the hyena its hard-won kill. In every place where the lion dominates, the hyena must hunt in packs and use its cunning—or perish all together.

‘Am I a gazelle in your world, BJ?’

I shake my head slowly.

‘What am I then? Explain the inhabitants of your jungle to me, BJ.’

‘The lions are the captains of industry, the bankers, the politicians, the landowners. They wear the mask of nobility. Normal society is represented by the gazelle. They register their births, work all their lives to pay countless taxes, obey even the most idiotic laws, and exist purely to fatten the predator lions. But we Gypsies, you and me, are different. We are the hyenas. Meekness and slavery are not for us. We have, and always will, survive and prosper on our own terms, using our specific talents and wits. 

‘Now, you sound like Jake. He is always going on about greedy bankers and lying politicians too.’

‘
That’s because he sees through the illusion. And that’s why we, Gypsies, have travelled incessantly through the centuries never stopping long enough to put roots. We did it so no one could count us, corral us, educate us, tame us, or enslave us.

She frowns. ‘But your father sent you to school?’

‘My father was a very shrewd man. He understood the changing times meant we would soon be forced to play their game, anyway. He decided that I would be the first one of us who would have two educations, ours and theirs. So by the time
I left school I could read and write as well as the next boy, but my true specialty was numbers. I excelled at them. I didn’t even have to try. They just came naturally.’