Charm. Flora Dain

a few minutes I glance back again. It’s still there.

      I frown at myself. Fort Worth’s the next town. Lots of people are going there.

      Plenty of cars follow other cars – for miles, sometimes. I do it all the time. Why am I so jumpy about this one?

      You might be in danger. Away from the seamless protection of his wealth and his lavish hotel suite Darnley’s words take on new meaning.

      I press my lips together and turn up the volume on the radio. Bobbie Gentry’s mournful lament about Billie Joe McAllister fills the car and brings tears to my eyes. Irritated I switch it off and change lanes twice, speed up for ten minutes, and then slow down and change lanes again.

      Other drivers lose patience and lean on the horn but to my relief the dark car has disappeared.

      Panic over. My heart still thumping, I switch on the radio again and start drumming my fingers on the steering wheel as some couple – sadly not Johnny Cash and June Carter but pretty good all the same – crow about getting married in Jackson but all of a sudden I’m not listening any more.

      That car has just reappeared in my mirror. It’s keeping a precise distance away from me, it’s travelling at exactly my speed and in the last twenty minutes it switched lanes each time I did.

      Sweating now, I infuriate my fellow drivers further by swerving right across the slow-moving traffic and take the first exit slipway I see. I’ll lose him in the suburbs.

       CHAPTER FIVE

      Funny how memories of your first boyfriend stay with you long after you know he won’t be your last. In the case of Ryan and me it was more a matter of convenience than anything else. I was shy around most boys – the speaking thing made me nervous – plus he turned up to all the dances I did and he seemed a nice guy. Correction, he seemed a carefree, brilliant kind of guy and he was not only a member of the teaching staff but a rising star in his faculty.

      I was young and fresh from the country – a small town in Maine’s not much prep for the cut-and-thrust of hard-hitting Boston, it seemed to me then – and romantic.

      So many fellow students, mostly females, told me how dishy he was and how lucky I was to go out with him that I overlooked the weak chin and the take-it-or-leave-it sex. And so many men on campus said how clever he was, I told myself he had his mind on higher things and forgave the missing rent money, the unexplained weekend trips and the late-night ‘seminars’ with female ‘students’ who looked nothing like any students I knew.

      But when I graduated and my new teaching job started to cover all the bills while his generous salary never seemed to help out, I began to smell a rat. He begged me to be patient. He was onto something big. Everything would come right, yada, yada. So our relationship was already pretty shaky that night I walked into the business gala hosted by Wolfe Security where he was planning to clinch some deal and saw him clinching his female boss instead.

      Or maybe that was the deal.

      The very next day, after my spectacular and unscripted one-night stand with Darnley, I packed my things, made some hasty phone calls and walked out on Ryan for good. That night I went back to my old room in Billy’s tiny apartment and stayed there.

      I’ve not seen Ryan since.

      Which is partly why I’m curious to see him now. Especially as Darnley’s version of him is so out of character. For all his faults Ryan’s no shy, driven backroom geek – he’s clever for sure but he’s also happy-go-lucky and charming and makes friends easily. I can’t see him as a big player.

      I think Darnley’s got him all wrong. And Darnley strikes me as a very big player indeed – he’s got all the charisma, the forceful energy and the sheer class to wipe the floor with a dozen Ryans. And I’m getting wet just thinking about it. All those qualities make him also very, very hot.

      But then he must know that. He’s way out of my league too.

      I glance in my rear-view mirror and feel a trace of relief. At last I’ve lost that car. But now it dawns on me that I’m lost too. I’m deep in the Dallas suburbs. This looks like some poor neighbourhood. I’m cruising past low-rise liquor stores, deserted parking lots and small businesses long boarded up. People going nowhere lean on fences daubed with graffiti. They look up as I drive past and follow me with their eyes.

      It seems not all Texans are in oil.

      I pull over and park across the street from a news kiosk. I’ll ask there, or at least buy a map.

      I get out and stride purposefully across the street. There’s not much traffic. On the sidewalk a small group of men in jeans and leather jackets appear from nowhere and bar my way. Up close they stop talking and stare at me. My stomach shrivels. The one standing directly in front of me makes no attempt to move out of the way.

      ‘Can I get to the counter?’ My voice sounds tinny and unreal, and I sense movement behind me as more of them gather round.

      ‘What counter, babe?’ He’s just spoken but his mouth hardly moved. And I sense the others closing in. Now I’m surrounded and all at once I’m scared.

      More men quietly join them, appearing from nowhere.

      I’m no local and I’m clearly lost. I must reek of fear.

      He shifts aside to show me the kiosk behind him is closed. It looks like it’s been closed a while – possibly months.

      I open my mouth to frame a question about directions to Fort Worth that won’t make me sound like a frightened rabbit asking how to get back in the hutch. All at once there’s a commotion in the road behind me – a screech of brakes, a blare of horns and the crash of car doors being flung open. The men around me all stare at something past my shoulder and I’m instantly forgotten. I spin round to see what’s happened and clap a hand to my mouth.

      A low black car has pulled up at a crazy angle across the street, blocking both carriageways. As I watch, men leap out and start walking purposefully towards us.

      The effect is terrifying. They look mean and professional and they move in formation. And at their head is Darnley, his jaw set, his blazing eyes locked on mine.

      The men around me have melted away. Now they’re watching from doorways, edging round corners. Darnley towers over me, his face like thunder.

      ‘Where is he?’

      I stare at him, my mind a blank. ‘Who?’

      The flash from his eyes could sear metal. ‘Don’t play games with me. I said to wait. We’d go together. Then you set off on your own. We tailed you. When you tried to shake us off I guessed you must know something we don’t. Mitchell’s here somewhere. You’re going to see him. So where is he? Which building?’

      Now I’m getting angry too, spiked by adrenalin. ‘You tailed me? Since when is Ryan your ex? This is my problem, not yours. I want to talk to him alone. Stay out of this. Your beef with him is just business. Mine’s personal. So let me do it my way.’

      ‘I repeat, where is he?’

      ‘I don’t know. I’m lost. I was trying to get back to the freeway –’

      I break off as he turns and signals to his men. As one they pause.

      The street immediately around us is free of traffic now. Cliff Face is waving it on. The kerb is also clear. Curious passers-by have shrunk out of range. Faces peer from windows. The men who confronted me have regrouped across the street. They think it’s a gang thing.

      They watch like cheated hyenas as a pack with a prior claim and better suits claims their prey. No one’s picking a fight but now they’re curious, hoping for drama.

      Darnley turns back to me, his expression veiled but his manner brisk. ‘OK, you’ll ride with me. One