The Annie Carter Series Books 1–4. Jessie Keane

be daft. I’ve always thought you could be a very attractive woman, but you’re hiding behind all that sheepdog hair and half a ton of cheap make-up.’

      ‘Christ, this is a nightmare,’ said Dolly, but she trailed around for the rest of the day with Annie, moaning and groaning and throwing out curses like confetti. At the end of it, Annie was pleased to see that Dolly looked halfway decent. Job done.

      Annie was pleased to get back to the apartment. The chap on the door in his neat red uniform nodded politely to her as she entered. God, it was nice, coming back here. It was nice to be treated right, like a real lady. It was nice to leave that fucking po-faced Donny at the door too. She took the lift up and tossed her keys into the little dish on the hall table. Max’s keys were already in there. She kicked off her courts and coat, and wandered through into the drawing room. Max was sprawled out on the couch and she joined him there, curling into him.

      ‘Want a drink?’ he asked.

      ‘No, just a cuddle.’ Annie sighed. ‘I’m knackered. I’ve been out all day with Dolly. That Donny gives me the right hump, always watching me like he does.’

      ‘That’s what he’s paid to do.’ Max kissed the top of her head.

      ‘I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.’

      ‘You’ll have to.’

      ‘Jesus, you’re a hard taskmaster, Max Carter,’ said Annie, but she was smiling as she lifted her lips to his.

      ‘He comes in handy though, doesn’t he?’ Max asked against her mouth. ‘He said one of the Delaneys was bothering you the other day in Harrods.’

      Annie drew back in surprise. ‘No one was bothering me,’ she said. ‘That was Kieron. The painter? He just came up and hugged me. We’re friends, Max. It’s a bit off when a friend can’t come over and say hello.’

      Max smoothed down her dark hair. ‘Do you believe that old fanny? That men and women can just be “friends”?’ he asked seriously.

      ‘Of course I do.’ Annie was frowning at him. ‘Don’t you think they can?’

      Max laughed. ‘Not where I come from. D’you reckon any of my boys would just be “friends” with a woman? The only reason any of the men I know are nice to a woman is to get her on her back.’ Max frowned. ‘That fucker’s getting far too familiar with you, if you ask me.’

      Annie knew he had a point about his macho ‘boys’. Niceness was a weakness as far as they were concerned. Look at them the wrong way and they’d knock your head off. They wouldn’t understand a man like Kieron at all. They were hard men; Kieron was an artist.

      ‘He’s a different sort of man,’ said Annie.

      Now it was Max’s turn to frown. ‘How d’you mean, different? He’s got two legs and a cock, just like the rest of us.’

      ‘He isn’t like that.’

      ‘Darlin’, we’re all like that. So you’re telling me you were laid out in his studio stark naked and he never tried it on?’

      ‘Of course he didn’t.’

      ‘There was absolutely nothing between you?’

      ‘No!’ For God’s sake, she didn’t realize any of this had even entered Max’s head. He couldn’t really think that she and Kieron … could he?

      ‘But you like him. And he’s got a charming way about him, I hear. If he can charm the birds out of the trees, why wouldn’t he charm the knickers off you?’

      ‘I like him. That’s it. I like him, but I love you.’

      Max looked at her closely. Then he shrugged. He was supposed to say he loved her back, but he didn’t. Annie felt a bit disappointed, but she knew that a man like Max would never wear his heart on his sleeve.

      ‘I’ve never developed Jonjo’s knack of taking women lightly,’ said Max, slipping his hands around her neck, lifting her chin with his thumbs. His mouth came down and he kissed her, hard, bruising her lips against her teeth.

      ‘I know,’ she said when he drew back.

      ‘Fidelity’s very important to me.’

      But you’re cheating on your wife, she thought. But she knew what he meant – her fidelity to him. Her total faithfulness. Anything less would disgust him and cause him loss of face among the boys, she knew that. Anything less would be unacceptable. Perhaps punishable. But she didn’t want to think about that. She had no reason to stray, she was in love with this man, she always had been. If he couldn’t trust her, that was his problem.

      Maybe Kieron’s too, Annie wondered. But she brushed the thought aside.

      Dolly phoned again a few days later.

      ‘Fuck me, not again. What is it this time?’ asked Annie, exasperated.

      ‘Your sister pitched up this morning looking for you. Said it was urgent, that you were to phone her on this number.’ Dolly reeled it off. Annie grabbed a pen and wrote it down. It wasn’t her mum’s number, it must be the Surrey house.

      ‘Oh. Okay. Thanks. Dolly?’

      ‘What?’

      ‘You didn’t give her this number, I hope?’

      ‘You told me not to give it out to anyone.’

      ‘And you didn’t.’

      ‘Of course I fucking didn’t.’

      ‘Wind your neck in, I’m only asking. I’ll give her a call. Thanks, Dolly.’

      Ruthie must have been sitting right by the phone. She picked up immediately.

      ‘It’s me,’ said Annie.

      ‘Not before time. It’s like trying to reach the Queen.’

      ‘Well I’m here now,’ said Annie. ‘What’s up?’

      There had to be something going off. She had no illusions that Ruthie would have phoned her for a girly chat. This had to be some sort of emergency.

      ‘It’s Mum,’ said Ruthie.

      ‘What about her?’

      ‘She’s not well.’

      ‘What, she’s drunk again?’

      ‘No, it’s more serious than that. I phone her every day but a couple of days ago she didn’t answer. I asked Maureen to go round, and she found her in a ruddy coma.’

      ‘What do you mean, a coma? Is it the drink?’

      ‘Yeah, it’s the drink. They drained a load of fluid off her, they said her liver’s shot. Cirrhosis.’ Ruthie’s voice cracked. ‘I tried to get hold of Max, but he’s off doing business and I couldn’t speak to him.’

      Annie gulped. She hadn’t seen Max for a couple of days either. Again, the guilt took hold of her guts and screwed them into a tight knot. She took a breath to calm herself.

      ‘Is there anything they can do?’ she asked.

      ‘They say no.’

      ‘God, this is awful.’ It had been a long time coming. Annie had been expecting this call for years, and now the time had come. Finally, Connie’s love affair with the bottle was going to kill her stone-dead. The funny thing was, she felt almost relieved. At last, it would be over. All the torment, all the hate and love, would be gone.

      ‘Oh come on. You can’t pretend you’re broken hearted.’

      ‘It’s upsetting,’ said Annie. She didn’t want to fight with Ruthie.

      ‘Upsetting?’ Ruthie spat down the phone. ‘I’ll tell you what’s upsetting. That I couldn’t