Wicked Wives. Anna-Lou Weatherley

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      CHAPTER 4

      Driving through Sunset Strip in a shiny black Lamborghini Gallardo, Tom Black had the countenance of a man who’d lost a cent and found a dollar. It was a beautiful day; the sun shone high in a cloudless late May sky and the sidewalk was teeming with hot women, all dressed appropriately for the biting heat in Daisy Dukes and cute summer dresses that barely covered their tight little asses. It gave him a tangible buzz as they all looked up as he roared past, sound system up, soft top down, the Black Eyed Peas blasting out of the Bang & Olufsen stereo. Fuck, man, this was why he loved LA. The broad streets lined with palm trees, the cool bars and eternal sunshine where women strutted their stuff; fake tits and bikinis by the truckload. No one looked old here. It was like Peter fucking Pan’s playground and it was one of the main reasons he had decided to call it home. In reality however, LA couldn’t have been much more of a departure from the rough East London streets Tom had started out on. Back then, ‘home’ had been wherever his womanising drunk of a father’s heart – or dick – had been. Invariably this meant temporary accommodation at one of his many ‘auntie’s’ houses, as they were always referred to. Tom struggled to remember any of them; one was much like the other, a hazy blur of blonde hair, raucous laughter and lipstick. Until Charlene O’Connor that is. The O’Connors had changed everything …

      The Lamborghini purred loudly as Tom pulled up at a set of lights and he smiled as a particularly arresting blonde with enormous shop-bought tits teetered along the crossing, her denim mini skirt leaving little to the imagination. He revved the engine almost subconsciously as she strutted past and looked up, flashing him a megawatt white smile in recognition of his appreciation.

      ‘Cool whip, dude,’ she said in a high-pitched Californian drawl, eyeing the Lamborghini with approval. She couldn’t have been much older than twenty-three and Tom could tell from the glint in her violet blue eyes that she was just his type: up for anything. He rested his elbow on the side of the car, peering at her eagerly from beneath his mirrored Ray-Bans, giving her a peek at his arresting dark brown eyes. She was sure she had seen this dude somewhere before, in one of the magazines she’d read during one of her more prolonged stays in hospital, or on TV perhaps? She looked him over with caution, though this was largely for effect. The car alone was worth more than her apartment and yearly salary combined.

      The car, however, didn’t actually belong to Tom. It was on loan from a gambling pal he played poker with and he was damned sure he was going to make the most of it.

      ‘Wanna see what she can do?’

      ‘Sure,’ said the blonde after the briefest hesitation, ‘why not?’

      Tom grinned as he leaned over to open the passenger door, moving the Louis Vuitton holdall to one side. Just as he’d thought; up for anything.

      ‘What’s in the bag?’ she enquired, curious as she effortlessly slid into the passenger seat, her mini skirt riding high up her lean, tanned thighs.

      ‘Ask no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies,’ he replied, raising a provocative eyebrow as the lights turned to green and they roared off along the boulevard, the G-force of the powerful engine pulling her back into the cream leather seat. She squealed with delight. His accent told her he was British. And already she could tell this was going to be one hell of a ride.

      ‘Hey bud, your phone’s ringing.’ He saw the girl’s lips move as her platinum-blonde hair whipped about her face, sticking to her fruity lip gloss, but he hadn’t heard a word above Kanye West and the loud hum of the Lamborghini’s powerful engine. ‘Your phone,’ she mouthed in an exaggerated gesture, pointing to his Blackberry Bold which was buzzing angrily on the smart leather dashboard.

      ‘Well, answer it then,’ Tom replied, turning the stereo down a couple of notches. She shot him a quizzical look, but did as she was told.

      ‘Hi!’ she giggled into the receiver breathlessly.

      ‘Yeah, er … hello … who is this? Can I speak to Tom?’

      ‘Sure, I’ll just put him on,’ the girl purred in her best telephone voice. ‘Hey bud,’ she held out his cell. ‘Like, I think it might be for you.’

      Tom laughed. He liked her. She had a sense of humour. Rarer than rocking-horse shit in LA.

      ‘Tom Black,’ he pressed the loudspeaker button, careful to keep his hands on the wheel of the ridiculously expensive car that he didn’t own.

      ‘Don’t tell me,’ the voice said, deadpan, ‘you got yourself another new PA?’

      ‘I found her on the sidewalk,’ Tom winked playfully at the girl and she collapsed into more giggles. She sensed they were gonna have some fun together. And having just been sacked from yet another dead-end waitressing job, fun was just what she was looking for.

      ‘Yeah? Guess it’s her lucky day,’ the deadpan voice retorted, breaking into a violent coughing fit. It was Jack, Tom’s oldest friend and business partner.

      ‘Jesus my friend, you sound like shit.’

      ‘Have you taken that dough to the bank yet?’ Jack immediately shot back, letting Tom instantly know that this wasn’t going to be a friendly, chew-the-fat kind of conversation. ‘I want that money safe, Tom. We need to make sure we got our shit in order if we’re gonna win that goddamn auction …’

      ‘Auction?’

      ‘Christ Tom, I told you, don’t you listen to a goddamn word I say?’ The irritation in his voice was clearly audible now, ‘that fucker Constantini is refusing to do a deal so we’re gonna have to take it to bids like everyone else, so unless we’ve got the cold hard cash we can forget about it. The dream will be over before it’s even begun.’ Jack was already beginning to regret entrusting Tom with such a large sum of money. He’d been laid up in bed for five days with some evil Asian flu bug thing and had become seriously twitchy about having that much green lying around in his apartment, which was why he’d instructed his oldest friend to do him a favour and take it straight to the bank that morning, all three million dollars of it.

      ‘Whatever the fuck you do, Tom,’ a red-eyed Jack had said with real gravitas, handing his friend the heavy Louis Vuitton holdall, ‘don’t lose it; everything I got is in that bag. So I want you to go straight to the bank, OK? No diversions, no detour via a casino … you got me?’

      ‘I’m on my way boss,’ Tom replied with such jovial nonchalance that it had caused Jack to see red, prompting a further, more violent coughing fit this time.

      ‘I’m fucking serious, Tom!’ he struggled to breathe. ‘If anything should happen to it …’

      ‘I’m almost at the bank right now,’ Tom replied breezily. He put his foot down harder on the accelerator and the girl squealed again. He imagined she was probably a screamer in the sack too. He looked forward to finding out.

      ‘Yeah, well hear me loud and clear, bro,’ Jack’s hacking cough sounded like machine gunfire, ‘I need to know all’s cool your end of the deal, that you’ll bank the cash and get your share of the green – we fly out to London in three weeks.’

      Tom and Jack had been in the ‘entertainment’ business for the past fifteen years, with varying degrees of success. The story was usually the СКАЧАТЬ