Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
KIT
I rubbed my hand over my coat sleeve. Mehmet’s palm had been damp and warm.
I glanced at Alex as I struggled to keep pace with his long and increasingly fast stride.
He radiated so much anger he was almost glowing.
“For god’s sake, just slow down. My legs are at least a foot shorter than yours,” I snapped.
Alex puffed out a long, deep breath. He slowed down, exhaling away some of the tension that was gripping him.
“He was the last man I was expecting, or wanted to see. Look, we’re here.” He nodded to a small restaurant, tucked into the little side street in the heart of Hampstead.
I followed him in, my senses assailed by the rich and savoury aroma of olive oil and garlic.
Immediately my mouth began to water and it was almost enough to wipe away the odd encounter in the bar.
Almost, but not quite. I wanted to know why Alex had all but bared his teeth and growled like a feral dog as soon as Mehmet had shown up.
Once we were settled at our corner table, drinks and food ordered, I asked Alex straight out. “Does he own clubs and bars, too? Are you going into some kind of partnership with him? It’s what it sounded like.”
The shift in Alex’s face, which I could have lied to myself was just a trick of the light, made his expression hard and his eyes ice cold. A shiver ran over my flesh, and I wished to god I’d never asked.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I’ve no right to question you about your business.” Yet… If what was between us was more than casual, didn’t I have the right to know more about the man who sat opposite me?
Our drinks arrived, and the interruption from the smiley young waitress should have cut through the weird tension that had settled over us.
Instead, it only seemed to heighten it as Alex stared at me over the rim of his glass.
His eyes had lost their cold blankness, and instead it felt like he was weighing me up and in all honesty I didn’t know which was worse.
It would have been so easy to be intimidated, but instead a bubble of irritation burst in my chest.
“Forget I asked, okay? I really don’t care who your oily mate is.”
“Oily?” Alex snorted. “That’s one way of describing him. And I’m sorry.” His face softened. “I shouldn’t have taken Aksoy’s unwanted interruption out on you.”
No, you shouldn’t have.
“Am I forgiven?” Alex leant forward over the table and ran the tip of his tongue across his lower lip.
I followed the movement, forgetting all about the oily man with the sweaty palm as my head filled with dirty thoughts about what I’d like that tongue to do to me later.
Yes, I suppose I could agree he was forgiven.
“Sorry. What…?” Whatever Alex had said I’d not heard and I felt my face heat as he smirked at me. But his smirk was quickly replaced by a deep frown.
“There’s no reason why you shouldn’t ask. Mehmet Aksoy is also involved in the night time economy. He owns a couple of clubs, but his business interests are… more diverse than ours are.”
Diverse. That could mean anything, and for a split second I wondered if I really wanted to know, but with Alex’s gaze pinning me down, any questions I had withered and died on my tongue.
“He’s keen to work with us. With me and Kelvin. I don’t want anything to do with him because I don’t like him or trust him, and I’ve no interest in…” He paused, seeming to chase down the words, “in forming an alliance, of any kind. Kelvin, however, thinks differently.”
Ah… There was clearly friction between Alex and Kelvin, a difference in their view of their business and the direction it might take.
But there was more going on. Alex’s reaction to Aksoy had been almost primal, instinctive, something that came from the gut.
Even if Alex hadn’t said anything, I couldn’t see him and Aksoy being business bed fellows but as for Kelvin…
My experience of the man so far had been short and not at all sweet, yet I could imagine him being allied to Aksoy.
Our food arrived, the signal for the matter to be dropped.
We kept up a flow of chat, about what I had no idea, because only part of my brain was engaged.
The other part kept going over what had happened in the bar, Alex’s reaction, and what he’d said which, in truth, hadn’t been very much.
I couldn’t help wondering what these diverse interests were.
Perhaps Aksoy was involved in some shady stuff, which Alex wanted no part of.
It would certainly explain any tension between Alex and Kelvin.
“You’ve gone quiet.”
I jumped, not realising I’d retreated so far into my thoughts. Glancing down, there was a barely touched plate of tiramisu which had replaced the pasta dish I had no recollection of eating.
“You’re dwelling on what I said earlier.”
It was a statement, not a question. He could see through me and there was no point in pretending.
“He was slimy, and it’s hard to warm to a man with a damp handshake,” I said, in a feeble attempt to keep my tone light. “But your reaction to him seemed, I don’t know, visceral.” It sounded a bit over the top when I said it out loud.
“It’s a good way of describing it. He likes me as much as I like him, but liking somebody and forming a business relationship aren’t the same thing.
There are aspects to the man’s business I can’t reconcile myself to and never will.
Kel knows that. He can push and push, but there’s no way I would ever willingly partner up with Aksoy, and he knows it.
You going to eat that?” He nodded at my abandoned dessert, and I shook my head. “Then let’s go back to my place.”