Jessie Keane: Black Widow

‘No,’ she said, feeling unreasonably rattled by all this. ‘I can’t believe you were going to do that, just clear off out of it without a word.’

‘Well I can’t believe how upset you are about it, Mrs Carter.’ Constantine looked at her and then grimaced. ‘For fuck’s sake, I can’t have endeared myself to you by what I’ve done.’

‘And stop calling me that. Can’t you call me Annie, for God’s sake? Everyone calls me Annie, why don’t you? And what do you mean by that? You helped me get Layla back. Ain’t that what matters?’

Constantine looked down at the floor and back up at her face.

‘Mrs Carter-okay, Annie -you and I both know what my motivation was for helping you get Layla back. And you’d have every right to despise me for it. Christ knows I made my intentions plain enough.’

Annie was silent, staring at his face.

‘I want to ask you a question,’ he said, staring right back at her.

‘What?’

‘Have you ever wanted something so much that you tried to grab it and then you held it too hard and crushed it?’

Annie thought of Max and of her ruined relationship with Ruthie.

‘Yeah,’ she said slowly. ‘I suppose I have.’

Constantine heaved a sigh. ‘Look, I’m used to getting what I want,’ he said. ‘No one says no to me. Ever. So all right, hands up: I mishandled things. I got right to the wire, knowing what I wanted, but suddenly I couldn’t do it. You were in a corner. You’d lost your husband and you were in danger of losing your daughter too. I wanted you so much I thought I was willing to exploit that. Turned out I wasn’t. But I knew you’d hate my guts for what I put you through.’

Annie took a breath. So he hadn’t been turned off by her frigid behaviour. She thought back to the time when she’d wondered if she should appeal to his better nature. She’d decided that he didn’t have one. But she’d been wrong. He did.

‘I don’t hate your guts,’ said Annie, frowning. ‘But what was that note all about then? The one that said, Come Friday, early. I thought you meant…’ She faltered to a halt.

‘I meant I had the money waiting there for you, no strings attached,’ said Constantine. ‘What, you think I meant come and I’ll jump on your bones and then maybe I’ll hand over the money? You thought that? Not that I didn’t want to jump on your bones. I did. I still do. But if you thought that, if you thought I was still going down that path, trying to force you into things you didn’t want to do, for fuck’s sake-I was an idiot, I know it-then you really ought to hate my guts.’

‘So sue me. I don’t. You know what?’ Annie looked at him consideringly. ‘Underneath all that scary stuff, I think you could actually be a really nice man. Are you coming back?’

‘I’m coming back. And I’m not a nice man. If I was a nice man I’d have bought you roses and taken you out to dinner and given you the cash without a murmur: that’s what a nice man would do.’

‘Well,’ said Annie slowly, ‘there’s still time for all that.’

She looked at his face, looked into his eyes. She felt her heart lift and her stomach drop at one and the same moment. Elation and terror grabbed her and held on. Something very serious was happening here. She had let Max go, with huge regret and heartache-and now once again her heart was her own.

Only maybe it wasn’t.

She gazed at Constantine, and knew that this could have a future. What that future would be, she had no idea. But it might be exciting, finding out.

Constantine took her wrist and pulled her in close against him. His eyes played with hers. ‘So, now we’re clear that you don’t hate my guts and that you think I could be a nice man-a mistake, by the way, I’m not nice at all-are you going to kiss me, or what?’

Annie stood on tiptoe and kissed his lips. Constantine leaned into the kiss, put his arms around her, held her close against him. They stayed like that for several minutes, and then Annie pulled back.

‘How long?’ she asked.

‘Soon.’

Annie smiled into his eyes.

‘I wrote you a note,’ she said, slipping the piece of paper out of her pocket and into his hand. ‘Read it on the plane, okay?’

‘Okay. See you,’ he said, and kissed her again, very briefly, very lightly.

‘Soon,’ said Annie.

‘Yeah,’ said Constantine.

Somehow, Constantine had got under her guard, under her skin. She was sad to see him go, but she was thinking, He’ll be back.

‘Is Layla okay?’ he asked.

‘She’s wonderful.’

‘I’ll see you soon-Annie.’

‘See you, Constantine.’

Annie turned away. He watched her walk off across the bustling terminal, then he and his minder rejoined the small queue at passport control.

When he was through security and on board his jet, with the pilot running through the safety checks ready for take-off, he spread out her pizzino and looked at it. Caesar’s code, the one he always used. Very simple, very effective. He deciphered the numbers quickly, and smiled. The note said Call me. A.

‘Where to, Boss?’ Tony said, when Annie got back to the car.

Where to?

Annie wondered about that.

She thought of all she’d been through, of the deep, gut-wrenching sadness of losing Max. She’d loved him so much. And now there was Constantine. Would she always be drawn to these bad boys? But then, the two were very different. Max had been a rough diamond; Constantine was smooth, intriguing, fascinating.

Yeah, where to?

She had no idea what the future might hold, or if a suave American mafioso could be a part of it.

Who knew? For now she was going to look forward to seeing him again, and in the meantime she was going to get on with her life. She had her little girl back: that was what counted.

‘Back to Dolly’s, we’ll pick up Layla,’ she told Tone, and he gunned the Jag’s engine into life and pulled out into the traffic flow.

Yeah, she had lost Max.

But she had Layla back.

After that, everything else was a bonus.

To Louise Marley, great friend and problem fixer, Thea at Phoenix Web Designs, Conan McGale at the Charter Company, and Jane Harvey who always finds the way. Huge thanks to publishing legend Wayne Brookes, to my magnificent agent Judith Murdoch, and to Cliff, who has a lot to put up with.

Jessie Keane’s story is one of idyllic early years, and struggles against the odds from her teen years onwards. Family tragedy, bankruptcy and mixing with a bad crowd all filled her life.

Her first novel, Dirty Game , was published by HarperCollins in 2008. She lives in Southampton.